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Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project

Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project

Witch Hunt

Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Witch Hunt, the leading podcast on the witch trials of the past and the continued witch hunts of today. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.

Josh Hutchinson: We're descendants of women accused of witchcraft.

Sarah Jack: And we're here to tell stories of people like them.

Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we're talking to Dr. Tricia Peone about witchcraft accusations in New Hampshire.

Sarah Jack: In 1648, Jane Walford became the first New Hampshire woman to be accused of witchcraft. Learn what happened to her and the others who followed.

Josh Hutchinson: As in other witch hunts, socioeconomic and religious factors played a significant role in spurring witchcraft accusations in New Hampshire.

Sarah Jack: Spectral evidence was still in [00:01:00] use in a case from the 1790s, a full century after the Salem Witch-Hunt.

Josh Hutchinson: Dr. Peone tells us all about Eunice Cole's case and its unique historical significance.

Sarah Jack: We also discuss recent efforts to exonerate Eunice Cole.

Josh Hutchinson: And close with various commemorative efforts and public interest in Hampton.

Sarah Jack: We are honored to welcome Dr. Tricia Peone. Dr. Peone holds a PhD in history from the University of New Hampshire, specializing in the study of witchcraft and witch trials with a particular focus on New England.

Josh Hutchinson:

Josh Hutchinson: And I am a historian. I specialize in the history of magic and witchcraft in the 17th and 18th centuries. And my job is I work at the Congregational Library and Archives, which is in Boston. And I manage a project called the New England's Hidden Histories Project, which is looking at Congregational Church [00:02:00] records throughout New England and digitizing them and making them accessible by publishing them online. So I've been in that job for about a year, a little over a year, but before that I've worked as a researcher, I've taught classes on the history of witchcraft and public history, and I did a PhD at the University of New Hampshire, and I was focusing on the history of magic and witchcraft in New England.

Tricia Peone: So it is truly my favorite thing in the world to study. And I'm very lucky that right now I have a job whereI get to think about Puritans all day, which not everyone would enjoy, but it can be fun. We get a lot of Cotton Mather jokes at work,and occasionally we do get to do some programming about witchcraft.

Josh Hutchinson: That's excellent. And what drew you into this, the field to study witchcraft?

Tricia Peone: I have a distinct memory of being in the library at the elementary school I [00:03:00] attended and finding a book on the Salem Witch Trials, and I kept returning to that book. It was a really fun book to read, and I figured out later, I tried to figure out what, what,children's books about witchcraft were available in the 1980s to figure out what book it was that I'd been reading. And I think it was Shirley Jackson's History of the Salem Witch Trials. So I think that was the first book that caught my interest at a very young age. When I was in college, I think I was an art major for a while, and then art history, and then I switched over to history, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do exactly, but I found out that you could, in fact, study the history of witchcraft and read some of the exciting books that had come out.

Tricia Peone: There was a huge flurry of publications in the 90s because of the anniversary of the Salem Witch Trials. So there's a lot of new research coming out about the history of witchcraft, and I, my interest was really piqued by that. And I did a master's in history, and I wrote about the Salem witch [00:04:00] trials, and then went on to do a PhD in history. It's not, like, maybe not the best career choice for anyone or for a historian to go into witchcraft studies, but it is probably the most interesting thing that you can study, in my opinion. You'll never be bored. There's talking cats, you got ghosts, you got haunted houses, what more could you want?

Sarah Jack: Today, we're going to talk about witch trials in New Hampshire. What background do we need to know about colonial New Hampshire?

Tricia Peone: New Hampshire is kind of an outlier in New England, although I think other New England states, I think Vermont and Maine and Rhode Island and Connecticut actually could also make that same case, but New Hampshire's a little bit different than what we think about when we think of New England, and you had a great episode with Emerson Baker a while back talking about the Devil of Great Island on his New Hampshire cases. Some of your listeners probably have heard from him how unique New Hampshire is, and it's kind of a weird place on the seacoast in that period, but there are at least four [00:05:00] cases where women face trial or some kind of court action for witchcraft in New Hampshire in the 17th century.

Tricia Peone: What I think is especially interesting about New Hampshire, though, is, particularly in this one case I want to tell you about, which is the case of Eunice Cole in Hampton, New Hampshire. She's charged with witchcraft a few times in the 17th century, but she has this, her story has this kind of a second life in the 20th century. Because this is the first time, it's in 1938, her community, Hampton, goes through basically the first community exoneration for someone accused of witchcraft.

Tricia Peone: And not a lot of people know that story, and it is really interesting. So that, I think that is one of New Hampshire's unique qualities, is that you have a community in the 1930s during the Depression that decides to revisit their past and think about what their responsibility is as a community to people who were accused of witchcraft.

Tricia Peone: So no one was executed in New Hampshire for witchcraft, but there are some formal court cases and there are[00:06:00] at least a dozen or so other pretty interesting accusations of witchcraft that happen. The last accusation that results in the community coming together to take some action is 100 years after Salem. It's in the 1790s. So it,New Hampshire also provides us with some clear evidence that witchcraft continued to be a concern for people, long after the Salem Witch Trials, even after the American Revolution.

Josh Hutchinson: That is a long history of witchcraft accusations. When was the first witchcraft case in New Hampshire?

Tricia Peone: Probably 1648. That's the first one we know of. And that's happening at the same time as the other early cases in New England, right? You've got 1647 and 1648 in Connecticut and Massachusetts with their first cases in court action. So 1648 in Portsmouth.

Sarah Jack: And what were primary factors that led to New Hampshire accusations?

Tricia Peone: The typical ones you'd expect, disagreements between [00:07:00] neighbors, old grudges. Jane Walford, who's the first woman accused of witchcraft in 1648, her neighbors accused her for several decades of being a witch. Someone said they'd overheard her husband call her an old witch, someone said they saw her turn into a cat, and, so those are the kinds of, typical accusations you might hear, but she was pretty interesting, because she took her accusers to court for slander, and she actually won, so that is one of the weird things about New Hampshire, is that at the same time as other New England coloniers are going through their sort of first attempts to formalize court actions against witches, you In Portsmouth, a woman accused of witchcraft is able to successfully defend her reputation. So there's a case where a physician from Boston calls her a witch, and he says he has proof and the court actually finds for her. So they order this physician to pay her five pounds for the damage to her reputation.

Josh Hutchinson: Wow.

Tricia Peone: Certainly [00:08:00] unusual.

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. You expect the slander cases to happen later. Owen Davies calls them the reverse witch trials. So yeah, that's interesting.

Tricia Peone: Yeah, the first, from the first case in 1648, her accusers ordered to publicly apologize to her.

Josh Hutchinson: Really that early?

Tricia Peone: Yep. But that doesn't stop her. The woman accuses her again later.

Josh Hutchinson: Doesn't learn a lesson.

Tricia Peone: Right.

Sarah Jack: Do you, so what would have a public apology been like there? Would have that happened at a church service?

Tricia Peone: I would imagine, typically, it would be at a church service, although Portsmouth is a little different in thatthere were Anglican and Congregational churches competing for a little bit for people's attention. And the court moved around, so quarterly courts moved around, so it's, I don't think it's clear where that public apology would have happened, but, yeah, probably either in a court or the meeting house.

Josh Hutchinson: And how did, [00:09:00] macro scale factors like social, economic, and religious elements, how did those factors play a role in spurring witchcraft accusations?

Tricia Peone: I think in New Hampshire, you can tell those are certainly important elements to accusations. Around 1679 and 1680, when New Hampshire is officially, becoming a royal colony and separating from Massachusetts, there's a little outbreak of witchcraft accusations that happens in Hampton, so you can possibly point to that as saying, there's some political uncertainty going on,they typically, they're these cases in New Hampshire are following similar trends in the 17th century.

Sarah Jack: In New Hampshire, what influenced the proceedings in those trials?

Tricia Peone: I think that the evidence in some of these cases shows that everyone believed in magic, that it's a pretty universal belief, and certainly that's true for 17th century New Hampshire. You get some interesting kind of [00:10:00] little glimpses of what people's magical beliefs were. Like you can tell in the case, The Devil of Great Island, Emerson Baker talks about practicing countermagic. They boil urine to try to break the curse. One of the cases in Hampton shows that this woman, Rachel Fuller, who's accused of witchcraft, it sounds like she, in 1680, she'd been trying to help a sick child, like she'd gone to visit their house. They said that she brought some herbs with her, that she was, like, rubbing her hands by the fire, she spread the herbs around, and she said, the child will be well, and then she told them they should plant sweet bay in front of their house to keep witches out, and then she's accused of witchcraft because the child dies.

Tricia Peone: So I think that it shows us that people certainly did believe in what we might call superstitions today, butyou can also see it as just part of their worldview. This is a way that people thought they could protect themselves, that you could plant some bay leaves by the door to keep witches out. That certain rituals and practices might help with illness. So I think the cases show both sides of that, [00:11:00] so they're accusing people of witchcraft when things go wrong, but if things went well, if that child had recovered, Rachel Fuller probably would not have been accused of witchcraft, if her alleged magic had worked.

Josh Hutchinson: It was just a part of daily life that magic could happen anywhere, anytime around you. And that continues to be the case for many people around the world today. So you've talked a bit about some of the notable cases. You had mentioned that Jane Walford, her accuser that she took to court in 1648, that accuser came back around again to complain about her?

Tricia Peone: Yeah, Jane Walford had, I think her reputation was tarnished in the community, she, I think she was a bit wealthier than her neighbors, but she was widowed. Some of the testimony against her is like[00:12:00] saying that they saw a cat.One woman testifies that her friend was being followed by a yellow cat, and they couldn't catch the cat. There's a lot of testimony about cats as being suspicious, and that's what some of this evidence against her is.

Tricia Peone: Her daughter was later accused of witchcraft, Hannah Jones, who was accused of witchcraft in that case with the Waltons at the Walton Tavern in Newcastle, so you do have that family connection, so I don't think Jane Walford's reputation ever was repaired, even though she was successful in court, which is interesting,even when the courts are reluctant to convict. in New Hampshire, we could maybe say was using a different standard of evidence than Massachusetts, but that still means there's still damage to the reputation and to the family'srole in the community, because her daughter was also accused of witchcraft, so even when she's wealthier, she has the power to take people to court, even taking a man to court for calling her a witch and winning, that's still not really winning in the community, right? That's not going to repair those relationships.

Sarah Jack:

Josh Hutchinson: I was wondering [00:13:00] what would the evidentiary standards have been in New Hampshire at that time.

Tricia Peone: They should have been following English law. They should have been using the same kinds of legal references and guidebooks as Massachusetts Bay would have been using. I have not seen any evidence from courts in New Hampshire of what they're referring to, other than referring to the law in England. So then hopefully what they want is, you always want the person to confess, that's usually the best evidence. If not, you want to have two people who could testify to seeing the same act of witchcraft, something that shows that they're involved in a pact with the devil, which I think is usually why they're talking about cats so much. One, because they're just suspicious of cats, but also if you can show that that cat is their animal familiar, if you can find the witch's mark on their body, which is something they do in the case of Eunice Cole, they do find a mark, then that's evidence of the pact with the [00:14:00] devil. So that's the kind of evidence they're looking for that's the best.

Josh Hutchinson: And who isn't suspicious of cats?

Tricia Peone: I love them, but who knows what they're really up to.

Josh Hutchinson: Exactly.

Tricia Peone: There's a lot of talking cats in the New Hampshire cases. You see it in Salem, too. There's a few, some of the people mentioned a cat talking to them. In one of the New Hampshire cases, a little girl testifies that this gray cat offered her fancy things if she would agree to become a witch. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Those fancy things also appeared at Salem in many of the descriptions of what the devil was offering people.

Tricia Peone: Yep. Yeah. You see cases like the devil offers to help you with your chores, to buy you a new dress, to buy, to give you fancy things. So these are humble requests I think of, to make of Satan.

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We had one in Connecticut where he was sweeping the hearth.

Tricia Peone: You would think maybe a waste of his time, but I guess [00:15:00] not.

Josh Hutchinson: I know, right?

Sarah Jack: Are there any connections between New Hampshire trials and the Salem witch hunt as far as people or families?

Tricia Peone: Oh yeah, quite a few. So Susanna Martin, who was executed during the Salem Witch Trial, she lived briefly in New Hampshire. She lived in Stratham for a while. And one of the first accusations against her that comes up is, so we don't have evidence of it in New Hampshire, but it comes up that this is like, it happened in New Hampshire when she was living there. She's accused of infanticide and fornication and witchcraft. And this is when she was young. I think she was a servant in a house in New Hampshire and then ended up back inwhat's Amesbury, Massachusetts now.

Josh Hutchinson: And there were a few New Hampshire residents who were named during the Salem Witch Trials.

Tricia Peone: Yeah. And there's definitely family connections. There are people who moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire afterwards.[00:16:00] So yeah, there's definitely quite a few New Hampshire connections.

Josh Hutchinson: What kind of spectral evidence comes up in the New Hampshire accusations?

Tricia Peone: There's actually spectral evidence in one of the later cases, the case in the 1790s that takes place in Campton, New Hampshire, which is up in the White Mountains. And it has some parallels to Salem. It's interesting because it's literally a hundred years after the Salem witch trials take place. And that's the case against a woman called Polly Wiley. And the only evidence we really have about her case is a letter. So it's just this one document. It's at the New Hampshire Historical Society. And it is written by the minister, Reverend Selden Church, and he's basically, he writes this letter, it's signed by a group of 14 other men in town.

Tricia Peone: So all we really have is this one document, I'm not entirely sure what [00:17:00] happens afterwards. So we just have this one document that shows us this one moment in time, and I haven't found any other evidence really about who she was, because there's a couple people in Campton and Thornton, a neighboring town, who might have been Polly Wiley , not 100 percent sure yet.

Tricia Peone: So all we really have, we take this document at face value. Basically it sounds like they're responding to an accusation of witchcraft that Polly Wiley makes against several other people in the community. The men who are writing the document and signing it are saying they're not really sure if she is bewitched, if she is possessed. They don't know if she has a medical illness, so they're not really sure what is happening, but what they describe is that she's got bite marks on her, she's seeing things, and from their perspective, these are the men, these are the propertied wealthy men in the town, and the minister, who's the arbiter of this dispute, and what their concern is, They say, it's not safe to be sure.

Tricia Peone: They're not sure if it's the devil or witchcraft or a medical illness, but their [00:18:00] concern is that people in town and people from other towns are starting to come to Polly Wiley to ask her to name the other witches in the neighborhood. Similar parallels to Salem, definitely. You have this, this, asking someone to name, name witches, people are coming to her and asking her, they're trying to test her, doing some of the traditional tests of witchcraft, to figure out what's going on, and so she's got these wounds and scratches all over her body, she is having these difficulties. She says she's seeing people that are invisible to everyone else in the room, but she can see them. So she's seeing these specters and people in town want her to say who they are. So that's all we know. That's all there is.

Tricia Peone: And then we have the 14 men who sign it and say, they're urging caution, basically. They're saying, let's not jump to conclusions, we're not entirely sure what's happening here. It's possible that this is witchcraft. It's possible that these are specters. And so we don't know what happened after that, but it's a weird little glimpse, a little window into what was [00:19:00] going on up in the White Mountains in the 1790s, so it's the period after the American Revolution, they're just founding this town, and there's clearly some kind of tension.

Tricia Peone: And clearly some kind of maybe unexplained illnesses, some other mysterious happenings, but you have a young woman who is essentially saying that she's seeing the specters of other witches and people want more information. But the town leaders are saying, let's try to maybe put a damper on this and take a breath and figure out what's happening. Sadly, we don't know what happens, but it is definitely a, an interesting case.

Josh Hutchinson: It's really telling that a hundred years after Salem, someone presenting the same symptoms as the afflicted of Salem they urge caution now in that new era.

Tricia Peone: And, so we can read it that way, and you're right, they're urging caution, which, but people at Salem urged caution, as well. They [00:20:00] just didn't follow it until it was too late. But we can also read it as this is a continuation of those beliefs, just because the formal trials and executions for witchcraft have stopped in New England by that point. It doesn't, it didn't necessarily stop people believing in witchcraft and believing that witches were responsible for their illness.

Sarah Jack: Yeah, it's interesting to me around that same time in Vermont, we have one secondary source reporting on a witch accusation, and we don't get that lens of the community saying, 'Hey, let's take caution,' but we do know that they, she went before a committee, that they wanted to test her. Was she a witch? They threw her in the river. So here you are, a hundred years later, this is two different states or colonies that it's coming up in the community and they're not exactly sure what to make of it still.

Tricia Peone: [00:21:00] It continues, and just because the courts aren't really interested doesn't mean people aren't interested in it, doesn't mean communities wouldn't take action in both these cases. And I don't know, in Vermont, I don't know if the church was involved or not in arbitrating that dispute, but they certainly were in Campton, in this case in the 1790s in New Hampshire. There's still this role that ministers are playing, because they are still ministers, Congregational ministers, anyway, still had to believe in witchcraft, and ghosts, part of the job.

Sarah Jack: Is there anything else about the Congregationalists really informative to witch trial history?

Tricia Peone: I think, when we think about the Puritans, a lot of the ideas we have about them are they're witch hunters, they'repuritanical, right? We still use that word today, but when we look at the history of witchcraft in New England, that there are people that were congregationalists, attending church regularly who believed in and sometimes practiced [00:22:00] magic.

Tricia Peone: And you see even ministers who are sometimes confused about exactly what's happening in their congregations. A lot of ministers, Cotton Mather, John Hale, they would write about they're parishioners using magic, using witchcraft to harm their neighbors. And they're not always positive what is the real cause when something unusual happens to you or happens in your community, someone's becomes unexpectedly ill, they're not always certain if it's the devil, if it's a medical illness, or if it's caused by witchcraft.

Tricia Peone: And so I think that uncertainty continues definitely in through the 18th century, even in the 19th century, and probably still today, right?

Josh Hutchinson: What are some of the primary sources or documents that have been crucial in your research?

Tricia Peone: Because New Hampshire was part of Massachusetts for much of the 17th century, a lot of the New Hampshire documents are in the Massachusetts State Archives.[00:23:00] So Eunice Cole, I think, is the case where we have the most documentation. They're the most records about her. Jane Walford, there's just a little bit and some of it secondhand, but Eunice Cole, I think we have the most.There's some of her indictments, the testimonies against her survive, and they're at the Mass State Archives. And then, of course, her case is,it's all over the newspapers in the 20th century, so there's a lot of really amazing illustrated newspapers and commentary about her case, where you have people in the 1930s looking back at what survived from the 17th century and reinterpreting the evidence, when they're trying to put forward this effort to exonerate her.

Sarah Jack: I was thinking about that community exoneration effort, and I believe they burned replicas of the court documents as a symbol of clearing her name, purifying what happened. How much additional lore has developed around her? Is she a figure of lore as well?

Tricia Peone: Yeah, so she definitely is. She's so [00:24:00] fascinating, because she was reviled by her community. They hated her in the 17th century. Three decades, she's being brought up on charges. She's kept in jail. They send her to jail in Boston. The town has to pay for her to be in jail. There's a lot of animosity towards this woman.

Tricia Peone: The evidence against her in her cases, which I think they start in her first witchcraft case, I , think is in 1656, but she had faced some other charges before then. She was accused ofslander. She was accused of stealing pigs. So she was known to the community to be somewhat disagreeable.

Tricia Peone: So her first formal kind of accusation of witchcraft is in 1656. Her neighbors offered a lot of testimony against her. She's brought again to court in 1673. And then the final one is in 1680. So you have these three, and evidence survives from these. So we can read the testimony and see what people were saying about her.

Tricia Peone: Her neighbors say things like, they saw her in church once with a mouse in her lap. All right. One of her, one of her neighbors says that she went to [00:25:00] visit a sick friend and Eunice Cole had been there the same day. She had just been there and then the friend comes over. And the man who is sick complains and says that he saw a gray cat near his bed and then he cried out, 'Lord, have mercy upon me. The cat hath killed me and broken my heart.' And it was implied that Eunice Cole was the cat. So she's causing illness. They did find some really great evidence against her, but the court continued to be hesitant to convict her, but they did send her to jail. So they said that, they were suspicious of her and that she should be in jail, but they were not ready to execute her. So they didn't.

Tricia Peone: But at one of her trials, she was sentenced to be whipped publicly and then sent to jail, which is, I think, interesting. And when she's whipped, they see that she has a witch's teat. So she has, they see a mark under her breast that looks like it's blue and they're not sure what it [00:26:00] is and they think that this is where her animal familiars, maybe the mouse, maybe the cats, are suckling from her in the night.

Tricia Peone: And then they go back to look at it again to examine the mark, and she's scratched it off. So she's accused of concealing some of this great evidence against her. She's accused of enchanting an oven. So there's a lot. People say that they heard voices coming out of her house when she was alone. So she's like allegedly having conversations with Satan. She was accused, a girl accused her, a young girl who's nine years old, Ann Smith, she said that she had tried to entice her, that Eunice Cole offered her plums to come and live with her, and the girl said no, and Eunice Cole pushed her and hit her with a rock. So Eunice Cole runs away, a cat appears in her place, this is when the cat offers the girl fine things if she will go and live with Eunice Cole, but she doesn't. There's tons, there's overwhelming evidence, but they found that she wasn't legally guilty, in spite of this testimony, but that there was just ground of vehement suspicion of [00:27:00] her for having had familiarity with the devil.

Tricia Peone: It's cyclical in the community. What's going on? Let's accuse Eunice Cole of witchcraft again. She's in and out of jail. She comes back to town. Her husband dies. She becomes a town charge.And when she dies, according to town legend, they found her in her shack, and they buried her body with a stake through her heart and then a horseshoe around the stake so that her spirit wouldn't be able to escape and haunt them.

Tricia Peone: However, the town folklore also says that her ghost still haunts and walks the streets of Hampton, and so people have said that they've seen her over the years, and to this day, allegedly, her ghost is unsettled and upset, and so that was part of the justification for exonerating her was to appease her ghost.

Tricia Peone: So her whole reputation goes through a rehabilitation, starting in the 19th century, because in the [00:28:00] 19th century you get more of the sort of romantic idea of Puritans and witchcraft. So she's in a John Greenleaf Whittier poem, he writes about her in a poem called "The Wreck of the Rivermouth." And in that poem she's kind of sympathetic. Like, yeah, she caused this shipwreck. But she felt bad about it, right? And it was because people were cruel to her. So in the 19th century, the stories you have about Eunice Cole are more that she wasmaybe a little rough around the edges, but that basically the community was mean to her and had wronged her.

Tricia Peone: It's such a fascinating case. So then what, by the time you get to the 20th century, the community decides, and I'm not totally sure where the motivation comes from in the community to do this rehabilitation and create this monument, but it comes up around the 300th anniversary of the town. So 1938 is the 300th anniversary of the English founding of Hampton. And so at town meeting that year, the citizens get together and they vote to exonerate her and they say they're going to create this memorial. It's not [00:29:00] totally clear like why they want to do this, but what they say, and take it with a grain of salt, is they say in a newspaper article from 1938, they say the reason for the exoneration was part of the current revolt against the Puritan tradition. So that's what some of the people involved were saying, that it's a rejection of the Puritan past, but why in 1938? That's one of the kind of unanswered questions. So they have town meeting in March of 1938. The residents vote on an article, and the article says, quote, 'We, the citizens of the town of Hampton, do hereby declare that we believe that Eunice Cole was unjustly accused of witchcraft and familiarity with the devil in the 17th century, and we do hereby restore her to her rightful place as a citizen of the town of Hampton.'

Tricia Peone: And then they resolved that they would celebrate her during the 300th anniversary that summer, that they would have these ceremonies, which, as you mentioned, it's when they decide to publicly burn the certified copies of the [00:30:00] documents from her various trials. And then they take the ashes from those documents, and they take some soil from where she had lived,some soil from the earth, and they mix them together and they put them in an urn, and then they said they were going to bury that on the town green, but it's actually in the Tuck Museum, so you can go see that and see some of these artifacts from her, from the case of Eunice Cole in Hampton.

Tricia Peone: But it sounds very ritualistic, right? Like they're doing, it sounds a little bit like sorcery to me, like burning these documents symbolically, mixing them with earth, burying them, but that's what they did. And then they declared August 25th of 1938 to be Goody Cole Day. They always call her Goody Cole like the Puritan address, Goodwife, so short for Goodwife, Goody Cole. They had a pageant, they reenacted some of her trials, okay, dramatizing the events, like someone wrote a play, and the town all comes and they listen to this reenactment of the events, there are speeches, [00:31:00] there's a big party, there's the Hampton Beach Bandstand, 3, 000 people attend the ceremony, it's covered in the national news. It got a fair amount of attention. Famous people were there, government officials, they created a commemorative coin and a doll that like, is supposed to look like Goody Cole. Again, slightly witchy, but yeah, and you can see those things also at the Tuck Museum. They have the urn, they have the doll, they have the coins. And there's pictures online if you want to see them. So this, these efforts are all being led by this group, and the group calls themselves the Society in Hampton for the Apprehension of those Falsely Accusing Goody Cole for Having Familiarity with the Devil, and they made membership cards to be in this society. Not like a catchy name, really, but that's what they went with. And so they're making the coin, they make the doll, they're rehabilitating her public image. And it's a moment in New Hampshire history where New Hampshire could have been the site of witchcraft tourism before Salem really [00:32:00] took that on. It could have been Hampton, New Hampshire, and apparently there was some witchcraft-based tourism in the 1930s and afterwards. People visitedone of the alleged sites where she had lived, and they come to see this huge event at the bandstand on the beach. Quite an amazing story. They promised to build a memorial in 1938. They actually didn't. They didn't leave anything permanent after that ceremony, but then in 1963, the town placed a boulder on the town green, and then they put the plaque there at the town's 375th anniversary, which was in 2013, so there is a marker on the town green that you can go and see, but compared to the other markers in New England, this one gets very little attention, right?

Tricia Peone: Literally hundreds of thousands of people will walk through the city of Salem and see the witchcraft memorials there, and very few people know about Eunice Cole or visit her marker.

Sarah Jack: And Eunice was not a confessor. She [00:33:00] didn't confess.

Tricia Peone: She did not confess, and she was not executed, and yet there is a marker, yeah.

Sarah Jack: And what about some of these other stories that we talked about today. Do they have markers or historical sites that are remembered today?

Tricia Peone: The only marker about witchcraft in New Hampshire is Eunice Cole's boulder on the town green in Hampton. There are other kind of, informal markers, there's Witch Creek, which runs through Portsmouth, and that appear that name appears on maps still, like USGS Maps today, and, it's most likely because of Jane Walford. That area where she lived is where the creek, runs through. So that's more informal, but yeah, the only monument to witchcraft in New Hampshire is Eunice Cole's boulder. Although, in the 1970s, there was a museum of witchcraft in New Hampshire, but that's a whole other story. It's not there anymore. It was only there for a few years. It was up at, up at Weir's Beach.[00:34:00]

Josh Hutchinson: And Goody Cole's memory has lived on, and there was an effort to exonerate her just last year.

Tricia Peone: Yeah, I didn't hear as much about the recent effort, but back before the pandemic, one of the state reps from Hampton, Renny Cushing,was, had started that effort. And I talked to him a little bit about it at the time, but then he's sadly, sadly died since then.

Tricia Peone: And I think the pandemic, too. So I hadn't, I actually haven't seen if what the state house actually decided to do in this case. So if you can, if you have an article you could send me, I'd actually love to read it. Cause I haven't seen if they, did they formally do anything? Cause it's a weird case because technically it was Massachusetts that convicted her.

Sarah Jack: It passed the House, but then in the Senate, it was voted down by party lines 14 to 10. And, yeah, but,there [00:35:00] is potential for legislation in Massachusetts that would clear her, so she's definitely not been forgotten.

Tricia Peone: I'll keep following it because it's, it's interesting to think about the fact that Hampton, before any other community, so before Massachusetts exonerated anyone or Connecticut, Hampton did it in 1938 and they did it through a town article. The town passed it. It wasn't the state, but they did it on a town level. Have you seen other towns that have taken action like that? Because I think it's mostly been on the state level, right?

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, Windsor, Connecticut has and Stratford, Connecticut did just last fall.

Tricia Peone: Interesting.

Sarah Jack: With Goody Bassett there. Yeah. I think these local community exonerations are so important to building that history at that local level. I think it's really important to see towns who have these connections to these [00:36:00] stories rehabilitating the reputations.

Tricia Peone: It is fascinating to me that New Hampshire did it first, right? It's bizarrethat's what happened. And the other, it was contentious, like not everyone in the community agreed in 1938 that's what they wanted to do. One of the descendants of someone who had accused Eunice Cole of witchcraft wrote to the town and was like, you can't overturn her conviction. You can't publicly say that she wasn't a witch because that disparages my ancestor. His ancestor had accused her of being a witch because she had cursed his cattle, he said, so he objected. And the town had to go through this PR process with him to get him to come to the ceremony. So he, this ancestor of one of her accusers did attend the ceremony, and agreed to like, not make a big fuss, but there were articles in the newspaper about it. Not everyone in the community agreed that they should exonerate someone accused multiple times by many people of witchcraft 300 years later.

Sarah Jack: But [00:37:00] isn't that such a great example of how, even though we fear, how does this hurt the accusers, their descendants or if we're looking at some kind of judgment from the state that just wasn't just, if we're going to make things right for the innocent, what are we, what is that saying about the authority? Or what does that do to the reputation of others? And I think that is an example in other communities that have come together through those questions that you can look at these hard histories, and everybody can come full circle and move forward with this acknowledgment of, hey, some things are not right here, but we want to make them right. And that's such a huge impact for others today.

Tricia Peone: Yeah, I think you're totally right, and I think that also shows the importance of [00:38:00] when a community or on the state level, local or state, like, when they're going through this process, to think about who all the stakeholders are, to think about, not just the descendants of the accused but the descendants of the accusers and having them be part of the process, cause I think, I think a lot of the people who have a genetic connection to the Salem Witch Trials might be on both sides, like you said, right? Josh, like you said, like you have both accusers and accused.

Josh Hutchinson: Right. I have accusers and accused, and I have ancestors who were obviously conflicted about the witch trials. My grandfather, Joseph Hutchinson, ninth great grandfather, he was one of the first accusers who signed the first complaint against Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne, but then later on, he signed the petition in defense of Rebecca Nurse, so he seems to have changed his [00:39:00] mind over the course of the trials, and I think there's a lot of stories like that, and, like you said, genetically, if you're related to one of the accused, because they're all it contributing to the same gene pool, the accused and the accuser families intermarried so much in the following generations that you're likely to have ancestors on both sides.

Sarah Jack: In Connecticut, there was an anonymous descendant who wanted to see exoneration for the accused who descended from accusers. So you have descendants of accusers who feel both ways. And you mentioned stakeholders. We are all stakeholders in this. I think that's why it keeps coming up, because we're the stakeholders of the dignity of humans.

Sarah Jack: And what do we know about it today? And what can we learn [00:40:00] from the bad things that happened in these courtrooms then? Let's look at them, let's look at these stories, the humanity there and have a different chapter ahead, not the same chapters, flipping through the stories that we're seeing on the news now that are too similar.

Tricia Peone: I would like to know more about your job. What can you tell us about New England's Hidden Histories?

Tricia Peone: So New England's Hidden Histories is a project that the Congregational Library and Archives has been working on for quite a while, and it's creating a digital archive to preserve and provide access to all early Congregational church records in New England. So if you go on the Congregational Library and Archives website, you can find New England's Hidden Histories, and currently there are records from more than a hundred churches, and as well as collections of personal papers, so we've got a lot of Cotton Mather's papers,and his father, some Increase Mather papers, as well.[00:41:00]

Tricia Peone: And the purpose is some of these records are, for one, they're really community records, right? Because, in Massachusetts, for example, the Congregational Church was the established church for a very long time. And sometimes a church record book, it's not just baptisms, marriages,it's not just the kind of genealogical information that's interesting for people looking for family members and their ancestry. It's also town meeting records. It's also tax records, like these, the church and state were very intertwined in the 17th and 18th century. And so these records tell a lot of really There are some fascinating stories. There are, you can find stories about, ministers who enslaved people. You can find about churches who purchased enslaved people to pay part of the salaries of their ministers. So there are stories of slavery.

Tricia Peone: There are stories of people confessing to all sorts of things. They would give public confessions in congregational churches, these relations of faith, to talk about their experiences. And you will often have people talking [00:42:00] about, whether it's like fornication or adultery, whatever sins they were committing. And those are some of the I think most interesting, from my perspective, records that you can read is these 18th century people confessing their sins to their entire community. But it also demonstrates again, like the things we see with the Salem Witch Trials of that importance of confession. So we, we talk about that for the Salem Witch Trials, that's what really what people wanted to hear. They wanted that confession of witchcraft and that it has not just this legal meaning, but also a social and a spiritual meaning. And so you can read people's confessions of all sorts of things, occasionally witchcraft, but other things, as well. So yeah, so it's a, it is a digital archive that is seeking to put together the records from congregational churches from all six New England states.

Josh Hutchinson: And what's the most recent date that is covered in that project?

Tricia Peone: We try to go up to about 1850, so we've got records from the 1620s, through about 1850.

Josh Hutchinson: Oh, That's excellent. [00:43:00] Yeah. Because my ancestors were all in the Congregational Church right down to my grandfather, who was a member of the First Congregational Church in Danvers.

Tricia Peone:

Tricia Peone: I think we have some Danvers and Salem church records.

Tricia Peone: It's really fun, it's always fun to see. It's not always a ton of information, but you might see oh, he was at this meeting and they elected him to be a church official or a deacon orjust seeing people's records of their marriage records. It's really, it's interesting to see it, to see the original, to see the actual 17th and 18th century hand of someone recording this information is always, I think it's always fun. It's a way of connecting with the past when you actually can look at these volumes.

Josh Hutchinson: Definitely. Yeah, I've seen the seating arrangements in those records before. Yeah, it gets pretty detailed about everything that went on in that community, especially around the church.

Tricia Peone: Yeah. [00:44:00] Congregationalists and New Englanders were amazing record keepers.

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, thankfully for us.

Tricia Peone: So what survives isis really interesting. It's fun to think too about what didn't survive, right? We know that there are more records of witchcraft that were destroyed, and still,still new things turn up every once in a while. You'll find new documents,so we might not even know of all the New England witchcraft cases yet.

Josh Hutchinson: It's very true. Is there anything else that you wanted to discuss today?

Tricia Peone: I told you about Eunice Cole. I think that's really the most interesting New Hampshire story, is Eunice Cole. And then, yeah, I think the Polly Wiley case, too, of this kind of 100 years after Salem. It's a similar case, but goes in a different direction. The other interesting thing about New Hampshire, I think, is that in the 1970s, there was this museum of witchcraft, again, another opportunity for Hampton to be a witchy tourist destination that just didn't happen. So that's [00:45:00] a much more modern story, so probably not as interesting, but I do think this, the case in Hampton with this,the sort of the reinterpretation and the cleansing of Eunice Cole's reputation and how she changes in public memory over time, from being the most hated woman in the community to being a tragic romantic figure to beingalmost a local legend hero status, someone who was very defiant of authority, she bit a constable, she was, disagreeable, but plucky, right?

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, she had moxie.

Tricia Peone: Exactly.

Josh Hutchinson: Spirit. Yeah. And,it did, when you were describing the 1938 ceremony, it sounded like a ritual of atonement and maybe appeasement. I was wondering, in the 1930s, that's the Great Depression era, were they literally trying to appease and atone for what they did, [00:46:00] who knows?

Tricia Peone: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I want to find some more, see if there are any more records. I've seen the newspaper accounts talking about it, and I, but I wonder if there are any other personal accounts to find still, that kind of are people talking about why they felt this need, because that's, it's an outlier.

Tricia Peone: You have, the 1990s where everyone revisits the Salem Witch Trials. You have the 1880s, I think, is when they first started putting up some of the monuments to to Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor. And that's coming from families who are doing that in the 1880s, 1890s, and then there's this gap and then it's 1938, this community gets together in New Hampshire. And I think, yeah, I think, they're trying to absolve the town of guilt through their efforts, but at the same time, they're trying to make a profit, right? They're like, they're saying like, come to Hampton, come to the beach, buy a doll, get a commemorative coin, come give us your tourism dollars. It's the depression. We, we need it. I think there's a couple of different angles

Tricia Peone: to

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's good, it's a [00:47:00] good marketing strategy, whether that was the intent or not.

Tricia Peone: I'm fascinated too that they're saying in the newspaper that they're trying to reject this Puritan past, 300 years after the settlement of the town. I think Puritans are always being reassessed.

Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.

Mary-Louise Bingham: Sarah Parker was accused of the capital crime for which her mother, Mary, hanged in 1692 at Salem, Massachusetts, British America, witchcraft. However, Sarah was not legally condemned. Still, Sarah suffered the same environment as those who stood trial. After her arrest, she lived at the Salem jail for 17 weeks where she experienced the suffering and sickness of her neighbors.

Mary-Louise Bingham: It was here that Sarah was told of her mother's death, leaving her to grieve in isolation and fear her own fate. She was eventually released from [00:48:00] jail. In 1710, Sarah's brothers added her jail fees into their accounts when they filed a petition for restitution for their mother. Only Mary's fees were reimbursed. In 1712, Sarah filed a petition on her own behalf. She was denied. Sarah's trauma in 1692 was due in large part by the actions of the government. Today, the state of Massachusetts owes Sarah Parker and the Parker family a sincere apology.

Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

Josh Hutchinson: Sarah has End Witch Hunts News.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501c3 organization, Weekly News Update. The Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project is a project of End Witch Hunts. This project continues its vital mission building on previous legislative successes that acknowledge the convictions of the Salem Witch Trials. Yet, a significant number of Individuals, [00:49:00] notably five executed in Boston and others accused, still lack formal recognition from the Massachusetts General Court for the injustices they endured.

Sarah Jack: The Massachusetts Witch Trials occurred between 1638 and 1693. During this period of 55 years, At least 254 individuals were accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts. 209 of these were complained of, implicated in court, questioned, arrested, and or imprisoned. The other 45 were defamed, named socially, but not complained of legally or have been linked to witchcraft accusations by incomplete evidence. 37 people were indicted apart from Salem and 81 were indicted during the Salem witch hunt of 1692 to 1693.

Sarah Jack: To learn more day by day history on the 1692- 1693 Salem Witch Trials follow our social media channels and tune into the live Salem Witch Hunt Daily Report hosted by [00:50:00] Josh. In addition to the 24 individuals executed by Hanging and the one pressed to death in 1692, at least six others arrested for witchcraft perished while in jail, including the infant sister of Dorothy Good.

Sarah Jack: Also to date the eight convicted in Boston have not been acknowledged. No official apology by the Massachusetts General Court has ever been issued for the witch trials or to the victims. This justice has been delayed for over 300 years. To quote Dr. King, 'justice delayed is justice denied.' Our goal is to secure legislative recognition for all prosecuted under various colonial governments in Massachusetts.

Sarah Jack: Suggesting an amendment to the 1957 resolve could be a viable approach. This amendment would honor victims like Tituba and the accused child witch Dorothy Good, among others, who endured significant trauma and injustice. As highlighted today by Mary Louise Bingham's observations, Massachusetts [00:51:00] victims such as Sarah Parker sought exoneration from the Massachusetts General Court, the very institution we approach today. This historical body once presided over witchcraft prosecutions in the 17th century, and it failed to exonerate Sarah. Now we stand as her representatives, appealing to the current Massachusetts General Court, today ruled by the House and the Senate. To rectify these past wrongs, we invite you to join the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project by signing our petition, volunteering, or making a donation. Your involvement, whether by sharing our content, discussing these issues in your networks, or urging leaders to act, is invaluable. Together, we can nurture values of compassion, understanding, and justice in our world. Support our mission by becoming a financial donor. Visit aboutwitchhunts.com/ to donate any amount you're comfortable with. Your generosity is the backbone of the podcast content you value. Let's commit to making a difference together.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Jack: You're welcome, [00:52:00] Josh.

Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: Please join us next week.

Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

Sarah Jack: Visit us at aboutwitchhunts.com/.

Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell all your friends.

Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

February 14, 2024

The Astrologer, the Witch, and the Poltergeist: Massachusetts Witch Trials 101 Part 3

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Show Notes

What happens when an astrologer, a witch, and a poltergeist walk into a barn in colonial Massachusetts? In this third installment of Massachusetts Witch Trials 101 on Witch Hunt, we delve into the intricate narratives of various Massachusetts witch trials that span from 1657 to 1687. Several significant cases are broken down such as those involving Elizabeth Morse, Mary Webster, and John Godfrey.These cases illustrate the trials of the period and their lasting impact. The hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack also touch on their ancestral connections to these trials and discuss their advocacy work to end present-day witch hunts through their organization.

List of those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts

Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England by John Putnam Demos

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England by Carol F Karlsen

Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638-1693 by David D. Hall

The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England by Richard Godbeer

End Witch Hunts

Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project

Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project

Witch Hunt

Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that investigates the mysteries of the witch trials. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. We are both descendants of persons accused of witchcraft in New England.

Josh Hutchinson: Heck, we're both descendants of people in this episode.

Sarah Jack: And we, in Mary Louise Bingham, are all cousins through our common ancestor, Mary Esty, who was executed for witchcraft in Salem in 1692.

Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we are discussing Massachusetts witch trials before the Salem witch hunt. These cases originated in towns spread across the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies, with witch trials held in places like Boston, Plymouth, [00:01:00] and York.

Sarah Jack: These cases are fascinating, so let's get right to it.

Josh Hutchinson: Do you want to kick things off, Sarah?

Sarah Jack: Sure, we're primarily covering witchcraft accusations made between 1657 and 1683.

Josh Hutchinson: But I want to point out that our first case actually overlaps with the timeline of the trials of Hugh and Mary Parsons of Springfield, which we covered in the previous edition of Massachusetts Witch Trials 101. But continues through the 1660s.

Sarah Jack: Jane James of Marblehead sued accusers for slander in 1650 and again in 1651 and 1667 for being called a witch. On one occasion, she was accused by Peter Pitford of cursing his garden. Another accuser claimed she had appeared at sea in the shape of a cat. Fortunately for Jane, she was never tried for witchcraft.

Josh Hutchinson: The next case involves my possible ancestor, William Browne of Gloucester, who in [00:02:00] 1657 was accused of bewitching Margaret Prince, whose child had been stillborn. Browne was not convicted of witchcraft. Instead, he was convicted of 'diverse miscarriages' and was ordered to spend one week in jail, pay a 20 mark fine, and pay Thomas Prince, husband of Margaret, unspecified costs.

Sarah Jack: Next, we have the long and allegedly magical career of John Godfrey of Essex County. John was in court on witchcraft related matters at least five times.

Josh Hutchinson: John came to New England as a teen in the 1630s and frequently moved around Essex County.

Sarah Jack: In March 1659, 11 people accused Godfrey of witchcraft. James Davis Sr., Jane and John Haseltine, Abraham Whitaker, Ephraim Davis, Benjamin Swett, Isabel Holdred, Job Tyler, Charles Brown, The Widow Ayers, and Goodman Proctor.

Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Hayne [00:03:00] testified about a spectral horse that scared Isabel Holdred. Nathan Gould testified about a spectral snake that scared Isabel Isabel Holdred herself testified about these shape shifting animals.

Sarah Jack: Goodwife and Charles Brown testified about John Godfrey talking about witches, saying they should be treated kindly, or there could be consequences. Charles also reported he once saw a teat under John Godfrey's tongue.

Josh Hutchinson: William Osgood testified that he once, back in 1640, accused Godfrey of making a deal with the devil, and that Godfrey admitted it.

Sarah Jack: On June 28, 1659, Godfrey won two pounds and twenty nine shillings in damages in a slander suit against William and Samuel Symonds.

Josh Hutchinson: Who happened to both be my ancestors. In a document dated March 25th, 1662, Thomas Chandler said that John Care had called [00:04:00] Godfrey a witching rogue.

Sarah Jack: In a document dated March 15, 1663, Essex County Court ordered Jonathan Singletary to appear at the next court, which would be held in Ipswich, to answer charges that he slandered Godfrey by calling him a witch, saying, 'is this witch on this side of Boston gallows yet?'

Josh Hutchinson: John Remington and Edward Youmans said that Jonathan Singletary had told them he'd been visited by spectral Godfrey while in jail. Singletary was ordered to make a public apology to Godfrey or pay 10 shillings. Jonathan Singletary testified that Godfrey indeed visited him in jail and Singletary tried to hit Godfrey with a stone, but Godfrey vanished.

Josh Hutchinson: On June 30th, 1663, the court found for the defendant in the Godfrey versus Singletary suit. Godfrey vowed to appeal.

Sarah Jack: On March 29th, 1664, the [00:05:00] court found for Godfrey and ordered Singletary to acknowledge wrongdoing or pay 10 shillings plus 2 pounds in court costs. In 1666, Job Tyler and John Remington complained about Godfrey.

Josh Hutchinson: On February 22nd, 1666, the court summonsed witnesses to testify about Godfrey's witchcraft. Matthias Button, Sarah Button, Edward Youmans, Goodwife Youmans, Abraham Whitaker, Elizabeth Whitaker, Robert Swan, Elizabeth Swan, Abigail Remington, John Remington Jr., Joseph Johnson, Goodwife Holdridge, Ephraim Davis, William Symonds, Samuel Symonds, my ancestors, Mary Neasse, Francis Dane, my ancestor, Nathan Parker.

Sarah Jack: March 5th, 1666, Francis Dane wrote that he was unable to attend court due to infirmity and rough weather.

Josh Hutchinson: Job, Mary Sr., Moses, and Mary Jr. Tyler [00:06:00] testified that one time when Godfrey came over, a bird appeared with him and then disappeared. Job asked Godfrey about the bird, and Godfrey said, 'it came to suck your wife,' meaning that Mary Tyler Sr. was a witch.

Sarah Jack: Nathan Parker claimed that John Godfrey had said to Job Tyler that he could afford to blow on Tyler and not leave him worth a groat, a coin of little value.

Josh Hutchinson: Joseph Johnson said that Godfrey said, 'if John Remington's son was a man as he was a boy, it had been worser for him.'

Sarah Jack: John Remington, Jr. said Godfrey said to John Remington, Sr. 'if he drive the cattle up the woods to winter, then my father should say and have cause to repent that he did drive them up.' That December, the young Remington was riding his horse when a mysterious crow appeared and harassed them. The horse fell. The bird pecked the dog. Remington got home but was laid up a while with an injured leg. [00:07:00] Then Godfrey came over and argued with the boy and his mother.

Josh Hutchinson: Abigail Remington repeated her son's testimony about what Godfrey said when he came over after the fall, saying Godfrey had bragged about unhorsing a boy the other day.

Sarah Jack: Matthias Button corroborated the Remington's testimony, as he had been there at the Remington house when Godfrey said those things he said.

Josh Hutchinson: Godfrey was found suspicious but not legally guilty on March 6, 1666.

Sarah Jack: John Godfrey passed away no later than 1675.

MarkerMarker

Josh Hutchinson: Elizabeth Bailey of York, now in Maine, made the mistake of letting a rando minister named John Thorp board in her house. Not only did he drink too much alcohol, he also used a ton of profanity, and Bailey wasn't having it. In fact, things got so bad that she ripped her boarder a new one, prompting him to move out. As far as Elizabeth was concerned, that settled that.[00:08:00]

Sarah Jack: Unfortunately, Thorp was a bitter man who couldn't let things go. In an apparent act of retaliation, he accused Bailey of witchcraft ,resulting in her trial by the county court. She must have been ecstatic when the verdict of not guilty was read.

Josh Hutchinson: At the same court that tried Elizabeth Bailey, the minister, John Thorp, was tried for abusive speech to a social superior, excessive drinking, scandalizing two ministers by saying they preached unsound doctrine, and for actually being the one preaching the unsound doctrine himself. He was convicted of all charges and ordered to pay fees.

Josh Hutchinson: In June 1659, Winifred Holman of Cambridge and her daughter Mary were accused of witchcraft by Rebecca Gibson Stearns, who had an affliction not unlike those suffered 33 years later in Salem. The Holmans were arrested. The Holmans were both indicted. Mary probably was tried and acquitted. Winifred may not have been tried [00:09:00] at all. And the Holmans sued John Gibson and Rebecca Stearns for defamation and slander in March, 1660.

Sarah Jack: Gibson had to pay a fine and apologize. Rebecca Stearns was let off the hook, because she was in an irrational state of mind when she made her accusations.

Sarah Jack: Which is interesting because if an accused person was in an irrational state of mind, the accusations had weight.

Josh Hutchinson: Yes, that's a good point, Sarah. Next up we have a rare case from Plymouth Colony. In 1661, William Holmes of Marshfield sued his neighbor, Dinah Silvester, for defaming his wife by publicly calling her a witch. In court, Silvester claimed she had seen Goodwife Holmes in the shape of a bear. The court did not find sufficient evidence that Holmes had contracted with Satan, so they sided with the plaintiff and ruled Silvester guilty of defamation. [00:10:00] She was sentenced to sign an admission of guilt.

Sarah Jack: In 1665, Goodwife Gleason of Cambridge was presented on witchcraft charges. Not much else is known about this case.

Josh Hutchinson: Edith Crawford, a resident of Salem, found herself embroiled in controversy when she was accused of employing witchcraft to burn a house from which she had been recently evicted due to a court decision. In a bold move to confront these allegations, Crawford took legal action in 1667, suing the individual who had leveled the accusations against her, the new homeowner of the property in question.

Sarah Jack: Susannah North Martin is a well-known victim of the Salem Witch Trials. A stretch of highway going through Amesbury commemorates her. She is less known for her 1669 witchcraft trial, which marked the beginning of a long career of notoriety as a witch.

Josh Hutchinson: Born in 1625 to [00:11:00] Richard North, Susannah lost her mother when she was a young girl. She migrated to New England with her father, stepmother, and two sisters in about 1639, when Richard North was one of the initial proprietors of Salisbury, Massachusetts. In 1646, Susannah married recently widowed George Martin, and the couple had nine children.

Sarah Jack: In April 1669, her husband, George Martin, posted a hundred pounds bond to keep Susannah out of jail while she awaited trial for witchcraft. The same day, George Martin filed a defamation suit against William Sargent for slandering Susannah.

Josh Hutchinson: At her first witchcraft trial, Susannah was accused of having her first son out of wedlock and attempting to kill him, and of having another son who wasn't human, but actually an imp. The court did convict William Sargent of slander for accusing Susannah of infanticide and fornication. However, the jury did not convict him for slandering [00:12:00] Susannah as a witch, and he was fined a mere eighth of a penny.

Sarah Jack: Records of Susannah's first trial do not survive, but she's presumably acquitted, as she was soon at liberty again.

Josh Hutchinson: Also in 1669, Robert Williams of Hadley was acquitted of witchcraft but convicted instead of lying.

Sarah Jack: Another witchcraft accusation in 1669 was when Goodmen Cross and Brabrook said that Thomas Wells said he could set spells and raise the devil. He offered himself to be an artist. No formal charges filed. Wells denied the accusation.

Josh Hutchinson: In 1671, an unknown woman of Groton was accused of witchcraft by Elizabeth Knapp, a supposedly possessed young woman serving in the household of minister Samuel Willard, who later earned fame for opposing the Salem Witch Trials. Willard did not trust the devilish voice coming from young Elizabeth, so he kept [00:13:00] secret the name of the woman Elizabeth accused of bewitching her.

Sarah Jack: Then in 1673, Anna Edmonds of Lynn was known as a doctor woman and was presented on charges of witchcraft.

Josh Hutchinson: Next we have the sole Plymouth Colony witchcraft trial, that of Mary Ingham of Scituate. Eagle-eared listeners may remember this case from our February 9th, 2023 episode titled 'Between God and Satan with Beth Caruso and Katherine Hermes.' Unfortunately, not much is available on this case.

Sarah Jack: We've previously covered the case of Alice Young, New England's first witch trial victim hanged in 1647. 30 years later, her daughter, Alice Jr., was accused of witchcraft in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1677,Her son sued the accuser for slander.

Josh Hutchinson: In an intriguing case in 1679 and 1680, my 10th great grandaunt, Elizabeth Morse of [00:14:00] Newbury, found herself accused of witchcraft, following a series of poltergeist like events in her home. The trouble began sometime after William and Elizabeth Morse took in their grandson, John Stiles. Much of this story will be familiar if you've listened to our episode on the Devil of Great Island.

Sarah Jack: First, William Morse said sticks and stones were thrown at his house. The Morses went outside to look and saw nobody, yet stones were still hurled at them, and they retreated inside and locked the door. Later that night, a hog appeared in the house, despite the door being locked.

Josh Hutchinson: The next day, some things hanging in the chimney crashed down into the fire, and an awl disappeared only to come down the chimney. William put the awl away in a cupboard and closed the door, but the awl kept coming down the chimney again and again, three or four times. Then the same thing happened with the basket.

Sarah Jack: Things just continued to disappear and then come [00:15:00] down the chimney.

Josh Hutchinson: Another hog appeared in the locked house.

Sarah Jack: More sticks and stones.

Josh Hutchinson: The pots hung over the fire danced and clanged against each other and had to be taken down.

Sarah Jack: William's ropemaking tools kept disappearing.

Josh Hutchinson: And the bedclothes flew off while Elizabeth was making the bed.

Sarah Jack: Caleb Powell, a seaman, visited often, and he said he would take the boy for a time and see what happened. He took the boy for a day, and nothing happened while the boy was away.

Josh Hutchinson: William Morse gave in a statement on December 3rd, 1679.

Sarah Jack: Thomas Rogers and George Hardy corroborated some of William Morse's testimony. John Richardson said a board flew against his chair.

Josh Hutchinson: William Morse's brother, and my ancestor, Anthony Morse, said he saw the board that hit Richardson while it was still tacked to the window.

Sarah Jack: John Dole said a pin, a stick, a stone, and a firebrand fell [00:16:00] down beside him.

Josh Hutchinson: John Tucker said that while these things were falling by John Dole, John Stiles was in a corner and didn't move.

Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Titcomb said Caleb Powell said if he had another scholar with him, he could find whoever was bewitching the Morse house.

Josh Hutchinson: Stephen Greenleaf and Edward Richardson affirmed seeing the strange motion.

Sarah Jack: John Tucker said Caleb Powell said John Stiles threw a shoe.

Josh Hutchinson: John Emerson said Caleb Powell had boasted about being trained in the black art by someone named Norwood.

Sarah Jack: William Morse also testified to a number of strange events on December 8th, 1679.

Josh Hutchinson: Bread turned over and struck him.

Sarah Jack: A chair bowed to him several times.

Josh Hutchinson: Door closed itself.

Sarah Jack: An iron wedge and a spade flew out of the chamber at Elizabeth without hitting her.

Josh Hutchinson: A drum rolled over.

Sarah Jack: The cellar door flew shut.[00:17:00]

Josh Hutchinson: Barn doors unpinned themselves, and the pin fell out of the sky.

Sarah Jack: Caleb Powell told the Morses that John Stiles had done the mysterious things around the house.

Josh Hutchinson: Powell claimed skill in astrology, astronomy, and the working of spirits.

Sarah Jack: The Morses loaned John styles to Powell. And nothing happened for a time.

Josh Hutchinson: When John Stiles returned to the home, a great noise was heard in the other room, but nothing was seen there.

Josh Hutchinson: And William Morse's cap almost came off his head.

Sarah Jack: There was a hit to William's head.

Sarah Jack: His chair was pulled back as if to topple him.

Josh Hutchinson: And a cat was thrown at his wife, Elizabeth.

Sarah Jack: The cat was thrown about several times.

Josh Hutchinson: Once the poor cat was thrown on the bed, wrapped in a red waistcoat.

Sarah Jack: The lamp tipped over and all the oil spilled out.

Josh Hutchinson: Another great noise, for a great while, described as being very dreadful.[00:18:00]

Sarah Jack: And a stone moved on its own.

Josh Hutchinson: Two spoons flew off the table and the table was knocked over.

Sarah Jack: The inkhorn was hidden, and the pen was taken.

Josh Hutchinson: William Morse's spectacles were thrown from the table.

Sarah Jack: And his account book thrown into the fire.

Josh Hutchinson: Boards came off a tub and stood upright.

Sarah Jack: John Badger said he was at Morse's house when Caleb Powell said he knew astrology and astronomy and could determine whether the diabolical means were used against the Morses.

Josh Hutchinson: Mary Tucker and Mary Richardson said Caleb Powell said he spied through the Morse's window and saw the boy play tricks.

Sarah Jack: Anthony Morse, brother of William Morse.

Josh Hutchinson: And Anthony being my ancestor and William my uncle.

Sarah Jack: Witnessed a brick disappear from his hands and fly down the chimney. Also, a hammer came down the chimney, and a piece of wood and a firebrand, which happened around November 28th. This [00:19:00] testimony was dated December 8th in 1679 by John Woodridge, the commissioner.

Josh Hutchinson: William Morse complained of Caleb Powell for working with the devil to disturb the Morses.

Sarah Jack: Caleb Powell appeared before John Woodridge on December 8th, and the magistrate agreed William Morse could prosecute the case at Ipswich County Court on the last Tuesday of March.

Josh Hutchinson: Sarah Hall and Joseph Mirick testified that John Moores, boatswain of the vessel where Caleb Powell was a mate, said that if there were any wizards, he was sure that Caleb Powell was a wizard. This testimony was dated February 27th, 1680.

Sarah Jack: The court dismissed the case, but declared Powell suspicious and ordered him to pay court costs.

Josh Hutchinson: Israel Webster said John Stiles said that he, John Stiles, was going to hell and could not read on Sundays because the devil didn't let him.

Sarah Jack: Thomas Titcomb said John Stiles, quote, 'used many foul words [00:20:00] on Sabbath day, and when asked if he was going to meeting, he said he was going to hell.'

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, this is so familiar with other afflicted children's stories. When they're asked to do work, suddenly they're afflicted and can't do it, or they're, they're held back by a witch or a devil and they can't do the things they're supposed to do, but they can do, strangely enough, the things that they want to do. Elizabeth Titcomb said there was a mysterious knocking at her door while she was sleeping. It knocked three times, but nobody responded when Elizabeth asked who was there. Lydia and Peniel Titcomb agreed.

Sarah Jack: Jonathan Woodman said seven years ago, he was going home when he saw a white cat, which did play at my legs. As he had no weapon, he only kicked the cat, which cried out and disappeared. He later learned that the Morses had called for a doctor that same night to tend Elizabeth's head.

Josh Hutchinson: Benjamin Richardson testified about something weird [00:21:00] happening at Morse's house.

Sarah Jack: David Wheeler talked about a heifer that came home with a chewed up back twice and got sick and started behaving strangely.

Josh Hutchinson: Joshua Richardson said he tried to stash his sheep in Morse's cow house one time when he was out working on getting the sheep across the river, but Elizabeth Morse chewed him out and he left. When he arrived at his destination, the sheep were all sick and foaming at the mouths.

Sarah Jack: Caleb Moody testified that he lost several livestock in an unusual manner over the 20 years he lived near the Morses.

Josh Hutchinson: And William Fanning described being attacked by a great white cat without a tail. Maybe just a lynx?

Sarah Jack: John Mighill testified that a calf's skin fell off, replaced by something red like a burn before the animal's eyes bulged out of his head, a cow pooped out of its side, and other animals met ill fates.

Josh Hutchinson: Robert Earle said that he visited Elizabeth Morse and heard a strange sucking [00:22:00] sound, like a whelp feeding.

Sarah Jack: On March 6th, 1680, the court ordered Constable Joseph Pike of Newbury to apprehend Elizabeth Morse and take her to the jail in Ipswich.

Josh Hutchinson: Esther Wilson testified that when her mother, Goodwife Chandler, was sick, she complained about Elizabeth Morse being a witch and nailed a horseshoe to the door to prevent witches from getting in. Morse would not come in while the horseshoe was on. Instead, she'd kneel by the door and talk with them from outside. William Moody came to the house of Goodwife Chandler and knocked the horseshoe off the door. Then Elizabeth Morse would come in until the horseshoe was nailed back up. Later, Moody knocked it off and took it away. Once again, Morse would enter the home. Goodwife Chandler began having visions of Elizabeth Morse and then experiencing fits. This testimony was dated May 17th, 1680 and read in court on [00:23:00] May 20th.

Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Titcomb said Susanna Tappan said Elizabeth Morse seized her by the wrist at court to ask what evidence Susanna would give in. That night, Susanna felt a cold, damp hand grab her wrist. She then became Ill, feeling itchiness and pricking throughout her body, her skin dry and scaly. Since then, she has not been out of her house.

Josh Hutchinson: And Elizabeth Titcomb said she told Goodwife Morse about the evidence against her and Morse was greatly affected and fell on weeping and said she was as innocent as herself or the child newborn, or as God in heaven.

Sarah Jack: Lydia Titcomb claimed she and her sibling saw an owl turn into a cat, then a dog. This mystery animal was sometimes completely black. At other times it had a white ring around its neck. Sometimes it had long ears. At other times it had virtually no ears at all. Sometimes it had an extremely long tail. At other [00:24:00] times it had virtually no tail at all.

Sarah Jack: This sounds like a riddle. The beast accompanied them home, scaring their socks off.

Josh Hutchinson: Susan Tappan did testify and said that Morse did indeed grab her by the wrist, but not in court. It was actually after a public meeting on a Sabbath day.

Sarah Jack: Thomas Knowlton said that when he was escorting her to jail, Elizabeth Morse said that she was as clear of the accusation as God in heaven.

Josh Hutchinson: John Chase, another possible relative of mine, said the day Caleb Powell had come to hear his testimony against Elizabeth Morse, he, John Chase, was taken with the bloody flux, which lingered until he spoke against Morse in court. Also, his wife had sore breasts that she have lost them both and one of them rotted away from her.

Sarah Jack: Jane Sewall said that William Morse told her a story about his wife not [00:25:00] being called for at first when Thomas Wells wife was in labor, due to some hesitancy by Thomas sister. The woman suffered a long labor until finally Morris was sent for, at which point the baby came.

Josh Hutchinson: John March said that sometime around 1674, he was awakened by several cats and rats at play together. He flung several things at them but could not strike them. The next morning, he heard Goodwife Wells call Elizabeth Morse a witch to her face. After Elizabeth left, Goodwife Wells told John March that Elizabeth had told her about the cats and rats, and Goodwife Wells wondered how Elizabeth could know they'd seen them, since nobody who saw them had left the house yet that morning.

Sarah Jack: According to John March, Goodwife Wells told him she'd often seen small creatures like mice or rats under Elizabeth Morse's coat. Daniel Thurston and Richard Woolsworth affirmed that they had also heard Goodwife Wells say such things.[00:26:00]

Josh Hutchinson: James Brown, another Josh ancestor, testified that Elizabeth Morse said George Wheeler's vessel would not return from its voyage and that she told him in the morning of his misdemeanors the previous night. He asked her how she knew what he had done, and she said everyone knew. He replied that everyone knew she was a witch. She said, 'our savior, Christ, was belied, and so is you and I.'

Sarah Jack: David Wheeler testified that he had seen Elizabeth Morse, his next door neighbor, do many strange things. And once, he was supposed to do an errand for her and neglected to do it for several days while he was busy hunting geese. He was unsuccessful at getting a bird. Then, Elizabeth Morse told him he wouldn't get any geese until after he finally performed the task. At last, he did what he had agreed to do, and then he was immediately successful hunting geese.

Josh Hutchinson: Margaret Mirick claimed that she had once concealed a private letter, and yet Elizabeth Morse came a few [00:27:00] days later and recited everything in the letter, though she'd most likely never seen it as it was in hiding.

Sarah Jack: A calf belonging to Zachariah Davis mysteriously danced and roared after Zachariah failed to bring Elizabeth Morse some wings.

Josh Hutchinson: Gotta bring those wings, man.

Sarah Jack: Elizabeth was tried in May 1680.

Josh Hutchinson: And indicted on May 20th.

Sarah Jack: On May 22nd, Secretary Edward Rawson wrote that the court decided it was okay to admit the testimony of a single witness to a single event, if at least one other witness brought in similar testimony about another event only they witnessed.

Josh Hutchinson: Governor Simon Bradstreet pronounced the death sentence for Elizabeth on May 27th.

Sarah Jack: However, the governor and assistants reprieved her on June 1st. On June 4th, her husband, William, petitioned for better treatment for her in jail, such as liberty to walk the yard during the day and [00:28:00] to sleep in the common jail rather than the dungeon.

Josh Hutchinson: On November 3rd, the deputies protested the court's decision not to execute Elizabeth.

Sarah Jack: According to John Hale, The governor and magistrates rejected the death sentence because they determined that seeing a specter of Elizabeth was not the same as actually seeing Elizabeth perform witchcraft.

Josh Hutchinson: They also determined that multiple witnesses to the same event were indeed necessary to admit the testimony as evidence.

Sarah Jack: In 1681, William wrote to the General Court on May 14th and again on May 18th, contesting the testimony against his wife and pleading her innocence. And we are writing to the same general court today, asking for these accused witches to receive an apology from the state.

Josh Hutchinson: William Morse won the release of Elizabeth into his custody, and she was placed under a sort of house arrest.

Josh Hutchinson:

Josh Hutchinson: In 1679, an unknown woman from Northampton, Massachusetts was accused of witchcraft. [00:29:00] Unfortunately, no other details are available in this case.

Josh Hutchinson: Moving forward, we get to the 1680 case of Margaret Gifford of Lynn, who frequently appeared in court as attorney for her husband and was accused of witchcraft in 1680. Her so-called unwomanly behavior in acting as attorney may have drawn suspicion.

Sarah Jack: Our next witchcraft suspect in 1680 is Bridget Oliver, better known as Bridget Bishop, the first execution victim of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. But that wasn't her first run in with the law on suspicion of witchcraft. In 1680, she was acquitted of witchcraft, a year after her husband, Thomas Oliver, died. We will have much more on Bridget in our upcoming Salem Witch Hunt 101 series.

Josh Hutchinson: In the 1987 book, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, author Carol Karlsen suggests that the Mary Hale who was accused of bewitching mariner Michael [00:30:00] Smith to death could be the mother of Winifred Benham of Wallingford, Connecticut, who was accused of witchcraft multiple times in the 1690s.

Sarah Jack: In 2007, authors Michael J. LeClerc and D. Brenton Simons used the most reliable sources to connect Mary Hale to Brothers and also to Winifred Benham in their article, The American Genealogist publication, 'Origin of Accused Witch Mary Williams King Hale of Boston and her brothers Hugh, John, and possibly Nathaniel Williams.'

Josh Hutchinson: The article establishes Mary's life since 1654 in Boston, highlighting her family ties and property dealings, and suggests she was married twice, with her first husband's surname possibly being King or Ling, and her second husband's surname being Hale. Established her connection to the Williams family with roots in London and Surrey, England.

Josh Hutchinson: Despite the serious witchcraft accusations in 1680 and 81, [00:31:00] Mary was acquitted. Her family, particularly her brothers Hugh and John Williams, were prominent figures in Boston and Block Island.

Sarah Jack: Her husbands have not been identified. The 1674 Boston tax list records her name as Widow Hale. Only one of her children has been identified, Winifred, but she's recognized as having multiple children.

Josh Hutchinson: She faced witchcraft accusations in February and March of 1680. Michael had lodged at her home and had courted the granddaughter, Joanna.

Sarah Jack: Mary was accused of supernaturally transporting him to a witch's sabbath in Dorchester.

Sarah Jack: During the trial, a form of evidence for witchcraft was presented, centering around a test with a bottle containing Michael Smith's urine. Observers noted that when the bottle was sealed, Mary began to pace restlessly, exhibiting an agitated behavior within her dwelling. Conversely, when the bottle was opened, her restless movement ceased entirely. This correlation between Mary's actions and the state of the [00:32:00] bottle was deemed to be indicative of witchcraft.

Josh Hutchinson: Accuser Margaret Ellis wanted to see Mary burned, which was never done to a witch in New England. But Mary was acquitted, and then no more is heard of her.

Sarah Jack: Mary Hale is my 10th great grandmother.

Sarah Jack: An unknown woman of Kittery was accused of witchcraft in 1682. Unfortunately, no further details are available for this case.

Josh Hutchinson: Mary Webster, wife of William Webster, was examined at county court on March 27, 1683, and the case was referred to the Court of Assistants in Boston.

Sarah Jack: Mary was indicted May 22nd, 1683 and acquitted June 1st, 1683.

Josh Hutchinson: According to witness testimony, she served the devil in the form of a black cat and suckled imps from teats in her secret parts.

Sarah Jack: According to Cotton Mather, Philip Smith was a saintly man who died at the hands of Mary Webster.

Josh Hutchinson: Smith became [00:33:00] unduly anxious about his health and had ischiatic pain in the lowest three bones of his pelvis.

Sarah Jack: Smith became delirious and loudly ranted in multiple languages, or so it was thought. Suffered sore pain from sharp pins pricking him.

Josh Hutchinson: He claimed to see Mary Webster and some others afflicting him.

Sarah Jack: He smelled a strange, musky scent.

Josh Hutchinson: Some of his attendants went and harassed poor Mary Webster, and he was well while they were at it.

Sarah Jack: A container of medicine emptied without spilling.

Josh Hutchinson: People heard a strange scratching sound.

Sarah Jack: There was a mysterious fire on the bed from time to time. It would quickly vanish. Something strange seemed to move in the bed away from Smith's body.

Josh Hutchinson: The night after he died, the bed moved on its own.

Sarah Jack: Two nights after he died, mysterious sounds like furniture being moved in the room where the corpse lay were heard.

Josh Hutchinson: And strange signs of [00:34:00] life in the body after Smith had presumably died.

Sarah Jack: According to lore, Mary Webster was brutally beaten in 1684 by a mob of zealous youth.

Josh Hutchinson: According to Thomas Hutchinson, who wrote much later, the people who went to harass Webster actually 'having dragged her out of her house, they hung her up until she was near dead, let her down, rolled her sometime in the snow, and at last buried her in it and there left her.'

Sarah Jack: In 1685, Mary Webster sued for slander.

Josh Hutchinson: The James Fuller case from Springfield is particularly interesting. Fuller was accused of seeking the devil's aid, a familiar charge.

Sarah Jack: Fuller's change of response to the accusations is especially notable. He initially admitted to the claims but then retracted, stating he had belied himself. This turn of events adds significant complexity, highlighting the [00:35:00] challenges in discerning guilt or innocence in these trials.

Josh Hutchinson: Fuller's case exemplifies the judicial severity of the period. Despite his retraction and claim of lying, the court sentenced him to whipping for wicked and pernicious, willful lying. Such harsh punitive measures were common and reflect the Puritan's strict approach to law and order.

Sarah Jack: The harsh sentence underscored the need for control and punishment of behaviors deemed deviant.

Josh Hutchinson: Cases such as Fuller's were instrumental in perpetuating the fear of witchcraft. Understanding these cases is crucial for comprehending the complexities and fears of early American society.

Sarah Jack: It's also telling that he, a man, was let off of the witchcraft charge and only punished for lying. We have seen this several times with men, but never with women.

Josh Hutchinson: It came up a few times in this episode. Must be a thing.

Josh Hutchinson: The period of 1657 to 1687 saw [00:36:00] no executions for witchcraft in Massachusetts and only one known conviction, that of Elizabeth Morse, who was placed under house arrest instead of being hanged.

Sarah Jack: In the next episode of Massachusetts Witch Trials 101, we will examine the 1688 case of Goody Glover of Boston and what may have led the judges to condemn her after more than 30 years without an execution.

Josh Hutchinson: And stay tuned after that episode for the beginning of our Salem Witch-Hunt 101 series.

Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary.

Mary-Louise Bingham: You may recall from last week's Minute with Mary that Female Gleason was indicted on the capital crime of witchcraft at Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, British America. This week, the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project is closing in on her identity. Project member and genealogist David Allen Lambert provided the team with marriage documentation for two women who married into the Gleason family. These two [00:37:00] women were alive and living in the area in the mid 1660s. I found evidence that a third woman married into the Gleason family, but her vital dates are unknown. Dr. Tricia Peone, another project member and researcher, provided a resource regarding the First Church of Cambridge records dating to the early 1660s. Diving into the list of members to locate the Gleason family has begun. We've also reached out to Beth Folsom of Cambridge History to help us locate Middlesex County court records for a possible court record regarding Female's indictment. Stay tuned, we are close to identifying Female Gleason's given name.

Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a non profit 501c3 organization, Weekly News Update. Remember, each case of sorcery accusation or witch-hunt represents real individuals, each with their own names, [00:38:00] families, dreams, and aspirations for peace. It's vital to actively oppose the targeting of vulnerable members within our communities.

Sarah Jack: Education and advocacy are key to ending witch hunts. This entails transforming perceptions regarding the equal worth of every individual, insisting on a moral code that upholds human dignity, and challenging mob behaviors through the enforcement of laws in place to protect victims. If you hold a position of influence, whether in your community, on social media, in educational settings, or within the government, it's your opportunity to advocate and to stand up for the vulnerable. Speak out, raise awareness, and help strengthen organizations fighting these harmful practices.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts firmly advocates for universal human dignity, echoing the United Nations Charter's commitment to human rights, equality, and dignity. We condemn harmful practices related to witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks [00:39:00] as grave violations against human dignity.

Sarah Jack: We urge states and individuals alike to defend and uphold human dignity, protecting everyone from torture, mistreatment, and discrimination. You can join us by amplifying the stories of victims of witch hunts past and present. Engage with advocacy groups, learn through our resources, and voice your concerns to authorities. Your involvement, whether by sharing our content, discussing these issues in your network, or urging leaders to act, is invaluable. Together, we can nurture values of compassion, understanding, and justice in our world.

Sarah Jack: Support our mission by becoming a financial donor. Visit aboutwitchhunts.com/ to donate any amount you're comfortable with. Your generosity is the backbone of the podcast content you value. Let's commit to making a difference together.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Jack: You're welcome.

Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: us next week when we learn about [00:40:00] the witch trials of several New Hampshire residents.

Josh Hutchinson: Visit aboutwitchhunts.com/ and sign up for our newsletter, Witch Hunt Wednesday.

Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

February 6, 2024

Service Magic with Tabitha Stanmore

Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic, by Dr. Tabitha Stanmore

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Show Notes

This new episode of “Witch Hunt” features Dr. Tabitha Stanmore, discussing her research on service magic in 14th to 17th century Great Britain with Salem witch trial descendants Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack. She explains the concept of service magic, its practices, and the difference between service magicians and witches. Dr. Stanmore also touches on the impact of religious changes and laws on magic practices. Various aspects of magic, including healing methods, divination techniques, and the use of magic in daily life are delved into. Additionally, she shares about her soon to release book, “Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic” and her collaboration on the Seven County Witch Hunt Project, which looks at the Matthew Hopkins witch trials of the 1640s. The discussion concludes with a reflection on the legacy of witch hunts and their impact on families and communities. Anyone can submit written testimony for MA Bill H.1803. Simply write a short letter stating why this bill is important to: Judiciary Committee at 24 Beacon Street, Room 136, Boston, MA 02133 or by e-mail to michael.musto@mahouse.gov. 

Recommended Reading

Seven County Witch Hunts Project Blog

United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 47/8. Elimination of harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks

Papua New Guinea Sorcery and Witchcraft Accusation-Related Violence National Action Plan

Pan African Parliament Guidelines for Addressing Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks

Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Study on the situation of the violations and abuses of human rights rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, as well as stigmatization

Websites of Note

Why Witch Hunts are not just a Dark Chapter from the Past

Film: Testimony of Ana

The International Network against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices

Grassroots organizations working with The International Network

Storymap explaining the dynamics of sorcery accusation related violence

Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that asks how and why we hunt witches and how we can stop. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.

Josh Hutchinson: I'm a descendant of several people accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: And I have grandmothers who were tried for witchcraft in Salem, Boston, and Hartford.

Josh Hutchinson: On Witch Hunt, we talk about the witch trials of old and the epidemic of witch hunts today.

Sarah Jack: Witch hunts have occurred in all parts of the world, and they've never stopped.

Josh Hutchinson: Today, witch hunts continue to occur in all corners of the globe, resulting in banishment, torture, and even death.

Sarah Jack: In this episode, we're focusing [00:01:00] on the witchcraft of the past.

Josh Hutchinson: Specifically we're dialed into the service magic of 14th to 17th century Great Britain.

Sarah Jack: Our guest, Dr. Tabitha Stanmore, tells us about her upcoming book, Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic.

Josh Hutchinson: She explains what service magic is and how it was used in the past.

Sarah Jack: Listen on for a great discussion about what types of service magic were practiced and who practiced them.

Josh Hutchinson: Dr. Stanmore even explains the methods used.

Sarah Jack: And we hear about what she is working on next.

Josh Hutchinson: So sit back and enjoy another mind-expanding episode of Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: We welcome Dr. Tabitha Stanmore, author and social historian of magic, witchcraft, and researcher at the University of Exeter, working with Professor Marion Gibson on the Seven County Witch Hunt Project.

Tabitha Stanmore: My name is Dr. Tabitha Stanmore, [00:02:00] and I am a research fellow at the University of Exeter, currently researching the Matthew Hopkins Witch Trials of the 1640s. But my PhD research was in service magic or practical magic in the late medieval, early modern period stretching from 1350 to 1650, which is what my first academic book was about and what the book that I have coming out this year is also about.

Sarah Jack: Does your new book have a title?

Tabitha Stanmore: Yes, it's Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic.

Josh Hutchinson: So looking forward to that. That comes out in May?

Tabitha Stanmore: It comes out in May, May 2nd in the UK and May 28th in the US. and yeah, it should be very exciting. I hope it's going to be very exciting. I've seen the book covers and I'm going to get the actual, physical copies in my hand at some point next week, which is, I just can't believe it's real, actually, it's great.

Josh Hutchinson: Excellent. Yeah. I've pre ordered a [00:03:00] copy, and I'm just waiting and waiting.

Tabitha Stanmore: Oh, that's so kind.

Tabitha Stanmore: Thank you.

Sarah Jack: What do we need to know about the time period and location of your service magic research?

Tabitha Stanmore: So my research focuses on the 14th through 17th century. So that's roughly 1350 when more records start becoming available, and so it's much easier to trace the line of magic in society from that point. And I finish up in 1650 because that is the period where the world really starts changing again in a dramatic way, and after the end of the 17th century, or even middle of the 17th century, society has changed so much that it's not a very useful comparative point anymore, especially in the location that I look at, which is England. And, obviously, 1650, that is the end of the English Civil Wars, which saw the beheading of Charles I, and the, the beginning of the Commonwealth, or, the [00:04:00] Commonwealth, the brief point where England didn't have a monarchy.

Tabitha Stanmore: So I decided it was a good point to stop because at that point we get a real, massive change in society and a massive change in the way that people were living their lives and approaching things and this kind of rise of, I suppose science isn't quite the right word, but skepticism in a new way, which means that the idea of magic changes at that point.

Tabitha Stanmore: But also, 300 years is enough to be getting on with, so 1350 1650, is a, it's a really formative period, I think, for English society, but also a really key point for magical practice in England, and where it starts, it really features very strongly in how people live their day to day lives and try to incorporate both the supernatural and religion and, I suppose, rational skepticism in their daily lives, as well.

Josh Hutchinson: What exactly is service magic?

Tabitha Stanmore: Service [00:05:00] magic is a term that has, I suppose it's relatively new. It's only about 10 years or so that we've been using the term service magic. And it's basically magic, practical magic, that was sold to people in exchange for a fee. So it's literally what it sounds like actually. It's something that you buy and sell. It's a commodity, but it's a supernatural commodity. Basically it's the kind of thing that you use in order to solve everyday problems.

Tabitha Stanmore: Let's say you've had your favorite horse stolen and you don't know who's taken it and you don't know where it's gone. You might go to a magician or somebody who has very strong sort of magical or supernatural skills and ask them to perform a spell to locate either the horse or the person who stole it, so that you can then confront the supposed thief and demand your horse back. Or maybe you'll even ask a magician to perform a spell to force the horse to return, by whatever magical means necessary.

Tabitha Stanmore: It sounds quite [00:06:00] fantastical, but it was something which was incredibly common for people in the medieval and early modern periods, becauseinsurance hadn't really been, hadn't become a widespread thing at that point. A lot of people were living in a very sort of subsisting kind of way, which meant that if you lost something that was valuable, you needed to get it back, and there weren't many other ways of doing it, and you couldn't afford to just lose something. Turning to magic and having people who had the skills to use magic in this way were very, very highly prized.

Sarah Jack: How does service magic differ from witchcraft?

Tabitha Stanmore: That's a great question. If you asked a modern magical practitioner how they differed, I would probably expect them to say that there isn't very much difference at all, because I think with terms like cunning folk or magician or witch, they're almost synonymous in most people's minds nowadays. They are people who are wise, they're people who have supernatural powers that most people don't have access to, [00:07:00] they're people who embrace the supernatural powers that other people fear.

Tabitha Stanmore: But in the 17th century, 16th century, 15th century, the service magicians and witches would have been seen as very, very different people. And the reason for that is because in the medieval or early modern mind, there was an idea that there are two sources or maybe three sources of power that you can tap into if you deal with the supernatural. The first one is religious or divine power. And that's the kind of thing that priests are using on a daily basis, because they have this incredibly powerful supernatural entity, which ultimately that's what God is. He is literally above nature, can break the laws of nature at will. And that's something that religious people, priests especially, can tap into and use in order to change the world. Cunning folk would often say that they used the same kind of power.

Tabitha Stanmore: They'd [00:08:00] say that their spells were prayers. They're calling on the divine, or they're calling on saints to make things happen. They might also say that they were using fairies or pixies or some other kind of pseudonatural, but also supernatural entity to help them do whatever they were doing, especially if that was something like finding stolen goods. Going and asking the fairies was a very common way of finding out where your stolen spoon or your stolen horse had gone.

Tabitha Stanmore: So they're using very benign practices in order to do useful things,these cunning folk, and also priests. Witches, on the other hand, were seen as people who were using dark forces to do bad, negative things. So a witch was seen as somebody who had probably sold their soul to the devil, or at least was using demonic forces, and they were using these demonic forces to do harm in some way, whether that was killing people, destroying crops, in one case making somebody's mill fall down on a completely [00:09:00] still day when it shouldn't have happened at all, and all of a sudden the mill just collapses right in front of the miller. How does that happen? There is no logical explanation. It must be demonic, and it must be somebody bearing a grudge and using their demonic power to cause this harm.

Tabitha Stanmore: So there was a very clear separation in people's minds most of the time between a beneficent cunning person and a malevolent witch. That does all get very muddied when you start looking at theologians and particularly zealous priests and especially when you get into the Puritan movement of the late 16th and 17th centuries, where priests andvery, very godly people would argue that there is no in-between.

Tabitha Stanmore: Basically, you can't have somebody who's using supernatural powers that clearly aren't being brought by God, unless they are using demons, and people like George Gifford, who was a Puritan preacher living in the late 16th century, argued very strongly that nobody who claims to be able [00:10:00] to just heal by, I don't know,just saying some words over somebody could possibly be using God's divine intervention. So they must be using demons. And therefore you do get this mixing of cunning folk and witchcraft, but for most people they would be very, very separate things.

Sarah Jack: Thank you so much.

Josh Hutchinson: I like the period that you cover, because it's so dynamic. There's so much change in it, referenced a little, the change in attitudes toward the source of magical power that a service magician might get. And, in addition to the attitudes, the laws changed. When the Acts Against Conjuration or Witchcraft came in, how did that impact the service magic industry?

Tabitha Stanmore: That's a great question, and it's super interesting, because in some ways, not very much. The Acts Against Conjuration and Witchcraft, and you've absolutely, you're right to use those terms, because they're often called the [00:11:00] Witchcraft Acts, and actually, witchcraft only gets mentioned in the second half of all of these acts, and the first part is very much about conjurations and practical service magic.

Tabitha Stanmore: So some of the things that service magicians would commonly be asked to do was healing, finding lost goods, treasure hunting, making people fall in love. And three out of those four things are mentioned in the Acts Against Conjuration. Treasure hunting was seen as a massive no no, partly because officially any gold or silver found in the ground belonged to the crown. So using magic to be able to dig this stuff up was actually stealing from the crown, which is one of the reasons I think it got mentioned in these acts. So that was very, very heavily penalized in the first act against conjurations, brought in under Henry VIII. It was actually punishable by death,as well as provoking people to unlawful love, and finding lost goods and receiving money for finding lost goods through magical meansis, name checked as very, very bad things that people shouldn't be doing.

Tabitha Stanmore: From my own [00:12:00] research, it doesn't look like anybody actually stopped doing any of these things as a result of this legislation, partly I think because some of the law, the first law against conjurations say under Henry VIII, was so harsh that even magistrates weren't particularly keen on prosecuting this because nobody wants to be sentenced to death for, digging up a field, but also because these services were just so useful.If people don't have any other way of finding their stolen horse, then prosecuting that and stamping out that kind of service just isn't going to last very long. So yeah, it didn't really stop anything from happening in that sense, but there is still a growing sense of concern about what sorts of powers cunning folk might have, because they are lumped together in the Witchcraft and Conjurations Act with witches. And then there's that question of, oh, if you can do this kind of magic, then can you also do this negative kind of magic? So that sort of brings a cultural shift. But in terms of [00:13:00] how often magic was practiced, it probably didn't change it very much.

Tabitha Stanmore: What I will say is that one of the other massive changes that happens in this period between 1350 and 1650 is the Reformation, so the change of the state religion from Catholicism to Protestantism or Anglicanism, as it later becomes. And that does spark a big change in magic, basically because orthodox or acceptable Catholic practices all of a sudden become seen as superstition.Appealing to saints, using prayers to heal, that kind of thing, they all start being seen as quite suspicious under Protestant, doctrine. at that point you start seeing priests potentially who were doing perfectly orthodox things five years ago suddenly being seen as potential magicians who are using their nefarious, popish knowledge to form spells and possibly being in league with the devil as a result of that, because obviously there's a very heavy idea among different Protestant sects that the [00:14:00] Catholics are actually in league with the devil. So that's a really interesting way that the kind of religion suddenly becomes sacrilege and therefore possibly magic, at least in the eyes of some people.

Josh Hutchinson: I'm wondering if that change influenced the number of service magician, magician service practitioners out there, because before the Reformation in the Catholic Church, you can go to the priest for certain things to have objects blessed and your home blessed. And now you can't go to the priest for that anymore. He's not going to do some of the Catholic rituals. So you have to go to somebody still. So I'm just wondering, did that have an influence maybe on increasing the number of lay practitioners?

Tabitha Stanmore: It's a really interesting question. there's some really interesting research by Francis Young, about what happened to monks After the on both before and after the Reformation, because the monasteries are dissolved. All [00:15:00] of a sudden you have a lot of very highly trained religious people who have an ability to read Latin, they understand things like exorcism rituals, they understandall the rituals that, around essentially conjuring and appeasing God. And they are released into society. Some of them obviously go to the continent andjoin monastic institutions in Catholic countries.

Tabitha Stanmore: Other ones stay in England, at which point, you know what, what does happen to them? And it's very possible that some of them did, yeah, end up going out to become magicians for hire, essentially. Whether that's how they saw themselves is debatable. I mean, probably not. But it does mean that, yeah, you do have an alternative option to this kind of like orthodox I'm sure you're all familiar with the idea of Protestant priests, that people obviously turn to for religious help, but also potentially magical help as well.

Tabitha Stanmore: And you do also see a very strong competition going on both before and after the Reformation between cunning folk and priests, with priests going, ' please [00:16:00] can my parishioners stop visiting all of these cunning folk?' They're taking away my business. Because obviously one thing that priests often did wasadminister to the spiritual needs of their community, and that includes the things like blessing fields, helping people to be fertile again, possibly by blessing water and letting people drink it, which kind of borders on superstition even for the Catholicism, but if people are going off to a cunning person instead to get this help or to get healing or spells or prayers, then it is actually taking away from both the income and the use of the church, which was dealt with in two ways.

Tabitha Stanmore: One way was priests complaining and saying, no, this shouldn't be done. We should be stopping this. We should be trying to stamp out this kind of magic. Or priests leaning into it and just selling spells themselves. Which I just, I love. I think it's really wonderful. It's got the adaptability of people and the kind of the grey area between religion and magic. But really clearly shouldn't come through in those kind of examples.

Sarah Jack: What are some [00:17:00] other primary uses of service magic?

Tabitha Stanmore: Healing is definitely the most common, by a long way. And again, before we started recording, we mentioned that everybody on this call currently has a cold, and they don't seem to be going anywhere. and that's, that's obviously true of all of history, right? There's always been sickness. There's always been annoying illnesses that can't be shifted or life-threatening diseases. And especially before the advent of things like antibiotics or vaccines, there is a sort of an endemic sickness, among the population.

Tabitha Stanmore: So a medicine isn't particularly effective a lot of the time. It's very good at treating symptoms. It's not necessarily very good at treating disease. So turning to magic again, kind of makes a lot of sense in that situation, especially when you're using prayer spells. So you're very much appealing to a higher power to say, St. Justinian, for example, please, cure my toothache.It might be the only thing that works, frankly. [00:18:00] So healing was incredibly common. That was one of the things that cunning folk were asked to do the most. Another one was protection, protection in battle, protection for sailors when they are out at sea, to protect them from storms.And I think the most touching one is the amount that magic was used in love spell in. in situations about spells used for love, whether that's making people fall in love with each other or actually breaking people up, potentially, because you're so in love with somebody and they've gone and married somebody else. What are you going to do about that? It's probably a spell that you can use to break that couple up so that you can get that person. And, yeah, again, that's a very, very common use, which was very likely prosecuted a lot of the time, because a lot of the time love magic, it's about community cohesion. It's about keeping people together, especially the number of spells that are often, directed at making a husband and wife get along better, whether that's making the husband less cantankerous or making the wife fall in love with her husband again.[00:19:00] Those kinds of things, they were often available and very simple spells a lot of the time, which kind of, again, I think shows quite how common they must have been.

Tabitha Stanmore: There's one woman in the 15th century who apparently used to wash her husband's shirts in holy water because apparently that made him meek and pliable for the rest of the week. And she must have heard that spell from somewhere. She was also sharing it with her neighbors and passing on that knowledge, which I guess isn't so much service magic. But it is a very obvious use of magic that people needed, and I don't know how many people took up her advice, but she certainly seemed to think it would work, and had been doing it for years by the time she finally got reported to the authorities as potentially not using holy water in the way it was intended.

Josh Hutchinson: One of the uses you talk about is divination. What are some of the key methods used to divine?

Tabitha Stanmore: There are so many, and again, it's fascinating to see how much things [00:20:00] evolve and get adapted according to people's needs, and clearlythey're in trial and error with these spells. One of my favorite forms of divination, which sounds deeply impractical but I love, is the bread and knives method, and that's basically where you take a loaf of bread, and you stick two knives into the sides of the loaf in a cross shape, and then you put a peg in the top of the loaf, and then you, I think you turn it upside down, and then you hold the peg between your hands, and you ask a yes or no question, and basically the bread will spin one way for no and one way for yes. I've only found two instances of it being used. And I think, again, it's because it's so impractical. I did try it once to see if it would work. And you need some really stale bread, you need some very sharp knives, you need a very short hand, so you don't just drop it on your foot. But it's really interesting, because it's a method that is [00:21:00] replicated with different tools, but they all sort of work on the same principle, which is, you ask a binary question, as I say, a yes or no, or is my child going to be a boy or a girl, so one way for boy, one way for girl, or, I don't know. Am I going to get married soon? Yes or no? That kind of thing. And the cross shape I think is quite important, because it's again, it's drawing on that higher power and in this case, probably Jesus. And it's something which is simple, but only certain people, again, could possibly practice it, because you do need somebody who's got that sort of power within them, much like anybody could buy a pack of tarot cards today, but only some people are very good at reading them and have an affinity with them. You get the same kind of thing going on with divination methods. So as I say,the loaf and knives method fell out of popularity probably quite quickly. It appears in the 14th century, doesn't really appear in any other centuries, and mostly around the London area, as well, and doesn't seem to have spread very far after that.

Tabitha Stanmore: More common versions of the same [00:22:00] basic principle are the Sieve and Shears, which is, again, lots of different methods, but basically you take a pair of kind of sheep shearing shears or large scissors and put a sieve on top of those and then ask questions once the sieve is balanced on the top. And again, the sieve will tilt one way for yes, one way for no, and this is much more practical. You're not going to destroy a loaf of bread every time you attempt it. And you're also going to be able to, pretty much anybody will be able to use this method because everybody would probably own a pair of shears and everybody would own a sieve.

Tabitha Stanmore: The fancier version of this divination method is the book and key, and that is one that pretty much only priests used or people who had a very high level of education, because it would use either a Psalter or a Bible, and you'd place a big heavy key inside of the book. And you'd hold the book in between your two bald fists, and then you would ask your [00:23:00] question. And often if it was finding stolen goods that you were trying to find out with this method, then you would start by saying something like, 'by St. Peter and St. Paul, Tony's stolen my horse.' And if the key fell out, then that would be the right answer.But yeah, as I say, this is something that only some people will be able to do, because not everybody had access to printed works and especially not something as sacred as a Bible. And that's by St. Peter and St. Paul, you're definitely summoning divine intervention to make this work. Again, condemned by the church. Still used by the church . And again, a simpler method of that, is just taking a Bible and just opening it at a random page. And the first line from the gospel that you see is the answer to your question, which,some will call that just basic religion or just guesswork, but people would definitely see it as a very reliable form of divination, depending on the answer. So these are some of my favourite ones. I could go on about this forever as you can probably [00:24:00] tell, so let me know if you want any more.

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I'm so glad you explained the Sieve and Shears and the Book and Key. Those actually turn up in New England in the Salem Witch Trials. Both of those methods are said to be used.

Tabitha Stanmore: Yeah, it's definitely an import, that.

Josh Hutchinson: And what are some key methods of healing?

Tabitha Stanmore: One of my favourite methods, which probably wouldn't have worked very well at all, comes from the 14th century, and it's probably quite a lot older than that. And it's basically, again, very strongly religious, it involved saying a short phrase in Latin, something similar to, 'as Mary sufferedin the birth of Jesus, may this person's suffering end,' essentially, or something like that. And while saying that, you would put your fingers into the wound that somebody had sustained, and [00:25:00] make the sign of a cross. Which, given that a lot of these spells do actually have a very strong logic behind them, this one makes no sense to me, because you're just going to be opening up that wound. But I suppose the idea is that you are also inserting some sort of um, ,cleansing in it, because of the, the mercy that Christ showed, to humanity, and the idea of the cleansing of sins and that kind of thing. You might be trying to cleanse the wound by putting the power of the cross inside it.

Tabitha Stanmore: More effective methods, potentially, were ones that involved writing spells onto food, pieces of food, sometimes things like communion wafers, sometimes bread, sometimes cheese, and giving that to the sick person to eat.

Tabitha Stanmore: And I say it would be more effective partly because we all recognise that the placebo effect exists, and so that kind of, that knowledge that you are being cared for and that sort of hope that will be attached to that spell, might well be exactly what you [00:26:00] need, basically, to kind of power you through and overcome your illness.

Tabitha Stanmore: Again, it is something that not everybody could do, sometimes you need to know the right words, and some people just had a better understanding of healing and whether or not this was a lost cause, and often, spells would be combined with other healing methods as well. And that's something that you see with magical drinks, which were also given as a method of healing. Again, they would normally come with some kind of chant that you would do over the the potion.

Tabitha Stanmore: But the things that went into the potions were often things which would be very helpful for curing the disease in the first place. So things like honey, things like garlic, aqua vitae, which is a catch all term for all sorts of different sort of medical concoctions that involve a lot of different herbs. And and often these herbs would have either anesthetic effects or antibacterial effects, as well. So they could genuinely do good, even without the kind of the placebo effect or without the magic that's been [00:27:00] mixed into them.

Tabitha Stanmore: Often healing spells do combine belief, that kind of, the idea of divine power or some other kind of higher power, as well as very strong experience that the cunning person would possess and use as part of their healing. And again, you see that combination in diagnostic services. A lot of cunning healers would try to diagnose somebody's illness, especially if it was something which had come on very suddenly or was just not going away and there wasn't an obvious cause for it. They'd try to diagnose whether or not somebody had been touched by a fairy or whether they'd been bewitched by a malevolent witch. And they do this by taking the patient's belt or girdle and measuring it. And they basically measure it between their extended thumb and their elbow and see, they actually never explain exactly what they see when they're measuring this girdle.[00:28:00]

Tabitha Stanmore: But what I'm guessing is that they're seeing how much weight the person has lost,and if it has been a dramatic weight loss over a very short period of time, then often they would come to the conclusion that this person had been touched by a fairy and they had some kind of terrible wasting sickness. And in that case the cure would be to try to appease the fairies, it would be to try to drive out the curse that somebody had put on the person or try to somehow otherwise fortify the person so they could get through the illness, but they'd use this diagnostic tool to say what the illness is in the first place and also whether the person had any hope of survival.

Tabitha Stanmore: And cunning folk would choose their cases accordingly. If they didn't think this person had any chance of surviving, they would be honest about that. They'd say, 'look, I'm sorry, this person's too far gone, the fairies have got him, there's nothing I can do.' But if there was some hope that they, a person could be saved, and they suspected that it was [00:29:00] witchcraft especially, then one of the things that they would start by doing is potentially performing counter witchcraft.

Tabitha Stanmore: So a very common method for that would be to take a flask of the patient's urine, and this is from the 17th century onwards, it's not particularly common in the 16th century, but it's a continental European import into England. But yeah, you take a flask of the person's urine, you'd put pins and a piece of red fabric or potentially something in the shape of a heart into that flask and then you would stopper it up and you would boil it in the fire or bury it somewhere, and the idea is that that would cause so much pain to the person who would cast the spell in the first place that it would basically rebound and then the witch would be obliged to lift the curse, or at least you'd be able to identify who the witch was and then force them to lift the curse, either by scratching and drawing blood, because that removes some of their power, or by just [00:30:00] intimidating them until they lifted the curse.

Tabitha Stanmore: So there's lots and lots of different tools in a cunning person's arsenal.

Sarah Jack: Would somebody inquire for the services of a magic practitioner to do a curse or harm their neighbor or family or spouse?

Tabitha Stanmore: Yes, although it very much depends on the intention behind it, whether your community would condemn you as somebody who is trying to use witchcraft or not. Again, going back to the stolen goods example, it would be relatively common to say, 'oh, my horse has been stolen, I am going to go to a cunning person and get that cunning person to curse the thief until the horse comes back.' And that wasn't seen as witchcraft, because it's more like restoring justice than doing harm for no reason. And that's quite an important distinction in people's minds. Because again, if you're doing something, if you're causing harm for the right reason, then you [00:31:00] can potentially ask for God's intervention in that, you can potentially ask fairies or whatever. You don't need to be using devilish or malevolent powers to be able to do that.

Tabitha Stanmore: So yeah, so if you're using a cunning person to, even if you're causing, you want them to cause real serious harm or pain, so long as it's for a good reason, it's okay. If you're just doing it because you're just filled with spite, that's when it tips into witchcraft, which does take a little bit of moral arithmetic, but it kind of works.

Josh Hutchinson: I'm not gonna lie, when I started this research, I did not expect it to go in the direction it did. And I, it's really changed my perspective on, on the early modern period, on the witch trials, on witchcraft and people's belief systems and everything else, because it's so different to what I expected.

Tabitha Stanmore: And I didn't realize quite how much magic there was going on, until I started this.

Josh Hutchinson:

Josh Hutchinson: You talked earlier about some [00:32:00] of the healing. They would write things down on food or paper and swallow it. And what were some of the other ways that Christian scripture and teachings were used in magic?

Tabitha Stanmore: I suppose one of the most famous ways, when you think about it, is exorcism rituals, because one of the things that ritual magicians in particular, so very learned magicians who had knowledge of Latin and other sort of sacred languages, one of the things that they could do with their knowledge was repurpose Orthodox Christian knowledge,and, as I say, rituals.Exorcisms obviously are intended to conjure a demon out of a person or an item, but the same method and more or less exactly the same words can be used to conjure a demon into something, whether that is a person, [00:33:00] which doesn't happen too often, thank goodness, but much more commonly into a magic circle, for example.

Tabitha Stanmore: So, that use of scripture, again, often by priests or people who trained as priests and then left their training early so they didn't actually have to take orders or monks would use this power, in order to summon demons and bend them to their will. And the things that they use the demons for vary from incredibly noble to hilarious. For example, on the noble end there is the ability to understand the secrets of the universe and understand the nature of God. So think Dr. Faustus style. He's reached the end of human knowledge, now he wants to understand the secrets of the universe, so he summons a demon, makes a deal, and, well, he thinks that he's forced a demon to tell him all these things. And ritual magicians who were careful about their work [00:34:00] definitely thought that they hadsubjugated a demon to their will, in order to answer their questions aboutthe higher powers.

Tabitha Stanmore: On the funnier end of the spectrum was summoning a demon, or even an angel, in order to learn Latin really fast so that you could get out of your lessons quicker, or summon a demon into a magic ring to make you better at gambling. Or even, potentially, summon a demon, make them look like an incredibly beautiful woman so that you can sleep with them. Real spectrum of human interests there, all of which come down to using Christian scripture in ways that it probably wasn't designed for, but the point of this is that scripture, especially when it was written in Latin, was seen to have power in its own right.

Tabitha Stanmore: It's not almost not even just the divine power. It's the fact that these sounds, these syllables, this conjunction of words in itself is enough. You don't really need to understand it to be able to [00:35:00] use it, which actually is why in some medieval, late medieval, medical texts from the 13th and 14th centuries, you have instructions from the author saying, 'do not share this particular healing charm,' which is sometimes written down in a medical text. 'Don't share this with the wider population because they'll misuse it, because you don't have to understand it in order to make it work.' Bit gatekeepery, but in some cases you can understand why.

Josh Hutchinson: That reminds me of Harry Potter, you still have that, that Latin as magical language kind of thing in our society today. There's these magical words, abracadabra or avaracadabra, if you're a Harry Potter fan.

Josh Hutchinson: Absolutely. And I actually, that's something that always bothered me about the Harry Potter books. Like at no point do they actually learn the theory of magic. And I feel like that's a massive oversight, Yeah, they don't know how it works. They're just. They're cooking the [00:36:00] meal with the ingredients, but they don't know how it all comes together.

Tabitha Stanmore: Exactly. Yeah. It's rote learning and it's lazy, frankly.

Sarah Jack: Right now, I believe you're working on the Seven County Witch Hunt Project. Is that right?

Tabitha Stanmore: Yes, yeah it is. Yeah, so it's a three year, Leverhulme-funded research project with Professor Marion Gibson. I think it's really exciting. So we're looking at what we're calling England's mass witch hunt. So it was the largest witch hunt in England, as far as we know, and it took place during the English Civil War in the 1640s. And it's estimated that about 300 people were accused across seven counties, and of that, over 100 were executed. The thing that this project is trying to pin down is all of the details within that. We don't know exactly how many people were prosecuted, we don't know how many people were executed, we don't know the names of some of those people, and we certainly [00:37:00] don't know the backgrounds of those people either, or what kind of roles they played in their communities, or the kinds of psychological scars that the communities possibly ended up with as a result of these hunts.

Tabitha Stanmore: There's been an over focus, I think, on Matthew Hopkins, the so-called Witchfinder General, and his, co-searcher, John Stearne. And yeah, this project is trying to reorient our knowledge and our focus to look at the accused themselves and their families. So one thing I'm looking at within that, and I'd love to come back onto your podcast at some point and talk about this because I'm very excited about it, is, the children of suspected witches. Because as far as I know, we haven't, nobody's really looked into that in any detail. We do tend to look at the children of witches if they subsequently get accused of witchcraft. But, for example, we have 300 people who were accused, and almost all of those had children. [00:38:00] And we don't know the fates of those, what, did they stay within their communities? Did they end up going to prison alongside their parents? Did they carry a taint for the rest of their lives of being the children of witches? Or were they able to reinvent themselves? We just don't know. And I think that's a massive oversight and one that could tell us quite a lot about early modern witchcraft and the early modern capacity to forgive and forget, which at the moment is just a massive question mark,in our knowledge of the past.

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We definitely want you to come back and talk to us about that and anything else you want to talk to us about. We looked a little into children of the Connecticut witch trial victims. It's very fascinating what ends up happening with the families, like Sarah and I have ancestors who were accused. And so we know a little bit about what happened with our ancestors' families. And it's like you said, that trauma [00:39:00] is there no matter what the result of the accusation is. There's an impact.

Tabitha Stanmore: Absolutely. Yeah. Sorry. I definitely should have been a bit clearer about that. Within England, we don't know very much about the fates, but yeah, it's really exciting to see how much we actually do know about some of the legacies. in, in the U. S. for sure. Yeah, it's absolutely fascinating and well done for being alive now.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you. Yeah. Some of my ancestors and Sarah's, were acquitted and released and managed to recover and raise their families and everything. Others weren't as fortunate, but their children lived on and carried their names on.

Tabitha Stanmore: Honestly, the more I look into the early modern period, the more amazed I am that anybody survived it, really. um,

Josh Hutchinson: Just surviving to get born in the first place was so harrowing. Yeah.

Tabitha Stanmore: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. it's absolutely amazing. it's real testament to [00:40:00] human, I don't know, resourcefulness, hope, I'm not sure, but yeah, it's really amazing.

Sarah Jack:

Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary.

Mary-Louise Bingham: There was a woman living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, British America, indicted for the capital crime of witchcraft in 1665. She is only known to us today as Female Gleason. The reason we know of her existence at all is because her surname is mentioned in the book, Entertaining Satan, authored by John Putnam Demos.

Mary-Louise Bingham: I am sad that I have not yet found a court document stating her given name. I am also sad that her given name was not passed down through the generations. Her very being was almost erased from history. Today, I can assure you that the members of the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project are conducting the necessary research to discover Female Gleason's given name. It will be with great joy to speak her full name [00:41:00] when she is cleared for the crimes she did not commit.

Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunt, a non profit 501c3 organization. Weekly News Update What impact can the United Nations Human Rights Council have? The United Nations Human Rights Council is an intergovernmental body within the United Nations system that strengthens the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe.

Sarah Jack: The work of the United Nations Human Rights Council includes promotion and protection of human rights, addressing violations and setting standards, encouraging compliance, and standards, promoting prevention, and continuing global dialogue. The preamble of the United Nations Charter states, 'We the peoples of the United Nations are determined to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women, and [00:42:00] of nations large and small.'

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts staunchly stands for the right of human dignity for all. We believe that this right, inerrant to every person, underpins all rights and freedoms. Harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks is a violation against human dignity. End Witch Hunts implores states and individuals to uphold and protect human dignity. We all must work to safeguard individuals from torture, degrading treatment, and discrimination. We are dedicated to these principles and advocate for their universal adoption and implementation.

Sarah Jack: Witch hunts are a harmful reality that persists, and as a part of our podcast community, you play a crucial role in the collective advocacy. Thank you for tuning in, sharing our episodes, continuing the conversation with your sphere of influence, and asking leaders to take action. We must continue to cultivate the societal values of compassion, understanding, and [00:43:00] justice. It is our collective responsibility as a world community to unite against the inhumane treatment of every individual anywhere in the world, including anyone accused of causing witchcraft harm. Spread awareness. Share this information with your friends, family, and on social media. Use your voice to let others know about the urgency of combating witchcraft accusations and persecution. Support advocacy groups. You can learn all about them on our website and in our advocacy podcast episodes. Contact authorities. Raise your voice by reaching out to relevant authorities and leadership. Urge them to take swift and decisive action to ensure justice for victims and accountability for all involved.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts actively supports exoneration and memorial efforts that aim to honor victims and raise witch hunt awareness. Sign our petition at change.org/witchtrials to urge the state of Massachusetts to amend legislation [00:44:00] acknowledging all Salem Witch Trial victims. Bill H 1803, an act to exonerate all individuals accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials, is currently being reviewed by the Joint Committee on the Judiciary in the Massachusetts General Court. They must choose to pass the bill onto the House by February 7th. Please consider submitting written testimony now as to why you support acknowledging all those who suffered in the Salem Witch Trials. This bill transcends the realm of mere legislation. It holds profound significance in the pursuit of human rights. Beyond the previously exonerated victims of the Salem Witch Trials, this bill sheds light on the vast scale of mass suffering that occurred. It represents a significant step toward rectifying this injustice and delivering more comprehensive justice. This legislation holds the power to provide more long overdue formal acknowledgement to overlooked victims.

Sarah Jack: Join the Massachusetts Witch Trial Justice Project and House [00:45:00] Representative Andres Vargas in advocating for this crucial piece of legislation. Anyone can submit written testimony. Simply write a short letter stating why this bill's important to this address, which will also be in the show notes: Judiciary Committee at 24 Beacon Street, room 1 36, Boston, Massachusetts 0 2 1 3 3 or by email to michael.musto@mahouse.gov. That's M I C H A E L dot M U S T O @ M A H O U S E dot G O V. Let's persist in elevating the voices of both historical and contemporary victims of witch hunts.

Sarah Jack: Our monthly donors are our super listeners. As a super listener, your monthly contributions make a significant impact. Visit aboutwitchhunts.com/ and easily sign up for any donation amount that suits you. Your generosity fuels the content you love.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, [00:46:00] Sarah.

Sarah Jack: You're welcome.

Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: Visit us at aboutwitchhunts.com/.

Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell your friends about the show.

Sarah Jack: Support our effort to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

January 31, 2024

Witchcraft Accusations and Caste in India with Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni

IK Ero On Next Steps For Ending Witch Hunts TINAAWAHP

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Show Notes

Witch Hunt presents an eye-opening discussion with human rights lawyer Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni regarding her research and work in the field of law and caste-based discrimination in India. Exploring human experience realities like social untouchability, caste-based discrimination in education, the plight of manual scavengers, and the witchcraft accusation atrocities committed against multitudes of vulnerable women with inferior status.

This thoughtful exchange regarding the struggle for equality in India provides a clear lens for understanding the human rights violations of the caste system, the experience of “untouchables” in India, and the urgent need for effective societal transformation and accountability to extinguish these entrenched harmful practices.

Recommended Viewing

Sanguma: Everybody’s Business

National Action Plan

I Am Not a Witch

Saving Africa’s Witch Children

Websites of Note

Petition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
End Witch Hunts

The International Network against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices

Grassroots organizations working with The International Network

Storymap explaining the dynamics of sorcery accusation related violence

Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that seeks to understand witch hunts and find ways to end them. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. My ancestors Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, Mary Hale, and Winifred Benham were victims of witch trials in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Josh Hutchinson: And my ancestors, including Mary Esty, were involved in the Salem Witch Trials. My 10th great grandfather, Joseph Hutchinson, provided the land where the Salem Village Meeting House stood and later played a role in the trials, first as an accuser, but later as a defender of Rebecca Nurse.

Sarah Jack: Our family heritage started us on our quest to understand witch hunts.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for joining us on our journey.

Sarah Jack: Witch hunting dates back to ancient times.

Josh Hutchinson: And deadly witch hunts continue to occur in all corners of the globe today.

Sarah Jack: As historian Wolfgang [00:01:00] Behringer has stated, there have never been so many witch hunts as we see in today's world.

Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni, who discusses how India's caste system interacts with supernatural belief to trigger witchcraft allegations and violence against the country's most vulnerable people, the Dalits, or Untouchables.

Sarah Jack: Be aware, there are references to violence against women, including sexual violence.

Josh Hutchinson: While the journey through such topics is tough, it leads us to greater empathy and action. By confronting these issues, we can work towards meaningful change.

Sarah Jack: We welcome Dr. Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni, lecturer in law at University of Lincoln in the UK. Her expertise includes international human rights law, Indian constitutional law, and anti-discrimination laws.

Sarah Jack: What should we know about your professional background and work?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: [00:02:00] I'm currently working as a lecturer in law at University of Lincoln in England, and I have done my PhD from Lancaster University pretty recently. My thesis was on untouchability with studies on manual scavenging and caste-based discrimination in higher educational institutions in India.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And I've done my, LLM from University of Reading, also in the UK, and my B.A.LL.B. Honours, and I'm a gold medalist from National Law School of India University, Bangalore, which is, like really top university in India, a law university in India. And I've been working in this area of caste and untouchability for quite a few years now, particularly because it was a focus of my PhD thesis.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And even when I was a student at National Law School of India, University of Bangalore, I did have an opportunity to, work with, some of the constitutional bodies in India, like the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, [00:03:00] which has been established to look after and protect the rights of the marginalized communities such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, or what we call as Dalits and Adivasis in common parlance.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: When I was working there, I did an internship. I worked on the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989, and I did propose amendments to the Act, as to how to make the Act more stringent and enforceable, so that it protects the rights of the most vulnerable and marginalized sections of the Indian population.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And I did publish a lot on this area, as well. I'm a human rights lawyer. So most of my publications are in this area. And of course, here and there are a few about international law, and humanitarian law as well. And, one of the book chapters, which I wrote in 2020, it's about international health regulations. I co-authored the book chapter with Professor Susan Rowe, who was a dean at the University of [00:04:00] Victoria in Canada. It was on, as I said, international health regulations. That was one of the first books on COVID-19 law and policy context in Asia. It was published by Oxford University Press, New York.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And that chapter has been listed by the WHO in, in their research database. And I've also presented joint oral statements before the United Nations. And several of my written statements have been, published in the United Nations website and my work has also been cited by the UN Committee on CRC Rights of the Children.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Yeah, that's, that's pretty much about me.

Josh Hutchinson: Congratulations on all your successes. Many more to come, I'm sure. You mentioned the Dalits and the Adivasi, can you tell us who they are?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: It actually goes back centuries. So in order to understand what they are, we need to understand [00:05:00] the institution of caste, which is one of the most exclusive features of the Indian society and particularly the Hindu social order. And it's perhaps one of the longest surviving social hierarchies in the whole world, and this hierarchy reflects complexity and stratification as it situates people in a very complex hierarchical order.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So I would like to take the definition of caste, which is given by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, who is the father of the Indian constitution, the chief architect of the Indian constitution and the first law minister of independent India. He defines caste in India as an artificial chopping off of the population into fixed and definite units, each one prevented from fusing into another through the custom of endogamy, that is marriage from within the community. So the conclusion is inevitable that endogamy is the only characteristic that is peculiar to caste. This is what he says. And he says that if [00:06:00] one succeeds in showing how endogamy is maintained, one can practically prove the genesis and mechanism of caste.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: In ancient times, with the Hindu social order, how it was, we had four varnas called the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. You have to go through the ancient texts like the Vedas to understand where this is stemming from. One of the earliest revolutions of this, you can find it in the Vedas of the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda, which is one of the ancient Hindu texts. Basically it divides the society into four categories and these four categories are never to be equal socially or with regard to their rights and privileges. They must always be based on a graded scale.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: The graded inequality was the essence, very essence of it. So there must be a division of occupation according to it. And right to education was available only to the top three varnas. The Shudra, the fourth varna, and women of all varnas were denied education. So the varna system was [00:07:00] set in stone by the Brahmans, who are the priestly class, who were on top of the varna system without any cracks or loopholes. Inequality exists in every society, but the inequality preached and practiced by Brahmins, the priestly class, is an official doctrine of Brahmanism.It was opposed to the very concept of equality, and its soul lays in graded inequality.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Until untouchability came into being, the Shudras were the lowest of all. They were the lowest in terms of the Hindu social order. This was until untouchability came into being. But with the intermixture of varnas, so over time there has been, there have been very many sexual relations or intermarriages, even though it's prohibited in text, these things did happen, and these intermixtures gave rise to new castes, and castes such as Chandalas came to be known as untouchables, and they were the lowest of all. They were considered the lowest of all. Now, they were the outcastes. [00:08:00] They lived and suffered at the bottom of the Hindu caste hierarchy for centuries. They were segregated, discriminated against, and humiliated in the name of God and religion. The untouchables were forced to live in degrading environment. They were denied a life with dignity. Their values, culture, and traditions were suppressed. Having a decent education was a distant dream to these communities. They were economically deprived, socially excluded, and politically marginalized, and they were forced to live a life of surrender to the dominant caste. The untouchable women were forced to become prostitutes for dominant caste patrons and village priests as devadasis. So sexual abuse and other forms of violence against women were often used by landlords and police to crush any type of dissent.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: This untouchability you can see throughout the dark pages of Indian history, and it's been there through every [00:09:00] king's regime. And one of the harshest times were seen in the 18th century during the Peshwa regime. The Peshwas were called the Chitpavan Brahmins, the priestly class. During that time, untouchables were not allowed to use public streets lest a Hindu was coming along so that his shadow would pollute the Hindus.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: The untouchables had to identify themselves by wearing a black thread, either on their wrist or around their neck as a prevention so that Hindus do not get themselves polluted by touching them by mistake. So they had to also carry strung from their waist a broom to sweep away behind themselves the dust they trod on, lest a Hindu walking on the same dust should be polluted. So they were also required to carry an earthen pot hung around their neck wherever they went for holding their spit, lest the spit falling on the earth should pollute a Hindu who might unknowingly happen to tread on it. Such a system continued to exist [00:10:00] despite the change in the regime, and you can see how barbaric this is.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the untouchables later came to be called as Scheduled Castes under the Indian Constitution and Dalits in common parlance, and the tribal population came to be called as Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution and Adivasis in common parlance.

Sarah Jack: Thank you. You mentioned the Constitution and also your work on the law. What protections did the 1950 Constitution give them?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So there have been a lot of protections for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution. One of the important provisions which our Constitution proposes is the Doctrine of Equality, where it treats everybody as equal before the law. This is particularly important, because the Indian society has accepted inequality and discrimination as an accepted value.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the constitution was very radical in the sense [00:11:00] where it treated everybody as equal under the law. Because the Hindu system, Hindu religious texts, gave punishments to different people based on the caste they belong to. So for the same offense, punishment differed from person to person based on the caste he belonged to. But the constitution, in that sense, equalizes, saying that everybody is equal under law.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And our constitution also provides for affirmative action, which I'm sure is present in some of the other constitutions such as the U. S. and South Africa, as well, where special provisions have been made for people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes in terms of education and employment. And now there has been a new addition, as well for economic weaker sections who are actually people belonging to none of these communities, which means they are forward castes, but they're economically poor. There have been special provisions which have been made for their protection and betterment.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And one of the [00:12:00] important provisions with regard to Indian constitution is abolition of untouchability. So what I mentioned earlier is the practice of untouchability, which has been prevalent in India for centuries. The constitution said that untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of untouchability shall be an offense punishable in accordance with law.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the principles of equality and non-discrimination are woven through the very fabric of our Indian constitution and also many other international human rights conventions, as well, which basically prohibit discrimination based on birth, descent, and social origin, to which India is also a party to.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: The laws have been there, even the conventions have been there, but the problem is how it is enforced. The enforcement is totally discriminatory. That's why there is prevalence of discrimination. That's why there is prevalence of untouchability in various forms, which is still manifesting [00:13:00] in indifferency. In the past,untouchability was mostly confined to physically touching people or physically restricting the movement of the untouchables. Say, untouchables were not allowed inside the village, or they had to remove their shoes while walking inside the village, things like that. But now it's not so prevalent in the urban milieu. Of course, it is still there in some parts in some rural areas in India.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: But in urban India, types and forms of untouchability has changed with the changing times. So now it exists mostly in the minds of the people where people say for example, one of the areas where I've researched on was caste discrimination in higher educational institutions. So this happens in universities, in higher educational institutions, where students from these marginalized communities go to study and get access to education. Instead of welcoming these students who have [00:14:00] come from these really poor backgrounds and marginalized sections, these first generation learners, instead of welcoming them, these vested interests who are mostly dominant caste people, they build hurdles to these students accessing education and in such a way, and some of the cases are so brutal that the kind of mental torture and pressure which are put on these students are so immense that they even take drastic steps like quitting institutions and even in some cases student suicides, particularly of Dalit students committing suicides in India has been very, it has beenon a rising level in the past decades or so.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the forms of discrimination has changed over time, but yet it remains one of the most brutal forms of untouchability, which is still prevalent in independent India.

Josh Hutchinson: And how does someone get recognized as being a Dalit?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Ah, that's a very interesting [00:15:00] question, because it's not, caste is, caste is a state of mind. It's not like race, which is apparent. So there are different ways. One of the most obvious ways is surnames. So people do keep surnames of particular castes. There are surnames which denote the caste of a person. So if a person keeps that surname, it's very obvious that person belongs to a particular caste.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And otherwise, it's not so uncommon in India to ask a caste of a person, so if you meet somebody and they ask, okay, first you exchange pleasantries and everything, and then you become friends and, in a school or a college setup, I'm saying, you go out and have fun, and then it ultimately comes down to that point where they ask, 'okay, which caste do you belong to?' And when it comes to that, it's very hard for somebody to hide it. So at most times, people do say that, 'okay, I belong to [00:16:00] such and such caste, which is considered as a scheduled caste.' And that's the point where the attitude of the other person changes.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So caste is that complex phenomenon where the attitude of one person changes based on the caste of the other. So when, say, A says, I belong to this caste, B thinks, okay, where do I situate him? Is he above me or is he below me? So based on that, B gives respect to A. So it's always. It's, it's relatable, it's okay, how much respect should I give him? Is he above me or is he below me? So that kind of concept, and it's very difficult to hide somebody's caste, and when we fill applications and for jobs and foreducation, everything, we have to fill details as to which religion we belong to, which caste we belong to, and things like that. It's not so difficult to find out which caste a person belongs to.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And then in the villages it's very, and that's the [00:17:00] city part which I told you about. In the villages, it's very apparent because Dalit households are on the outskirts of the villages, always in the outside periphery of the villages, and everybody in villages, everybody knows which caste the other person belongs to. They know, okay, should we touch them or should we not? Should we use their water or not? Should they remove their shoes and come in their particular way or not? So everything is, it's sort of predetermined, everyone has to follow these set norms.

Sarah Jack: And how does the population compare between the castes? How many Dalits are there?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: 250 million. 250 million, that's 25 percent of the Indian population, so that's a huge, huge number of population. Yeah. 250 million, I'm sure it's, I don't know, it's, it might be even the size of some of the smaller countries, so it's a huge number of population, but it's a very, [00:18:00] very silent and marginalized population, which doesn't have much voice, because the provision of the constitution came, as you said, in 1950 and from then, the people started getting access to education. So it's the first generation or first or second generation learners are coming from the Dalit communities now.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So it's a huge disparity, and we have to fight against centuries of oppression. You can see how difficult it is. And now we are able to articulate our views and our thoughts, but it has not been like this before now, like in the 21st century.

Josh Hutchinson: 250 million, I think the US has a population of 330 million. So that would be almost the entire country. So just to put that in a little perspective for [00:19:00] us over here, it's a really huge, yeah, a huge number of people to be suffering this kind of abuse and discrimination. You mentioned that there's affirmative action, there's some new opportunities, but what kind of work do the Dalit perform generally?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Historically, traditionally, as per the Hindu religious texts, the Dalits are supposed to perform the so-called menial and polluting tasks, such as cleaning dry latrines, open and closed sewers, gutters, carrying human corpses, carrying dead animals, tanning leather, things like that. Butover time, Dalits have tried to come out of these occupations, but it's not so easy.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: One of the classic examples which I always give is about manual scavengers who are almost Dalits, [00:20:00] always. Manual scavenging is a, is a most visible and surviving symbols of untouchability. So manual scavenging is Dalit women and men are manually cleaning dry latrines. So they are forced to carry out human excreta with bare hands, take them into a different location away from the scavenged toilets. So this has traditionally and historically been assigned to Dalits, this task.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: There have been laws which ban manual scavenging. There is a 93 act, and there's a new act in 2013, which also banned manual scavenging. But the example which I give is, say, a manual scavenging woman, she says that she wants to give up this task. There are provisions in the Act which help people to give up this thing. So there is a one time cash assistance of 40,000 rupees. That's about it. They give 40,000 rupees and they say you have to leave this job, which is not that easy to give up a job just for 40,000 rupees. And there is a scheme of [00:21:00] loan and some scholarship for the children of the manual scavengers and things like that in the Act. And say the woman, she says that I want to leave manual scavenging and I want to open a tea stall, and she puts up a tea stall. But how many people are going to buy tea from her? It's as simple as that. She puts a tea stall. How many are going to buy tea from her? First, she's a Dalit woman. And secondly, that too, she's a manual scavenger, so she will be crumbled and crushed under the shoes of our society. It's not that easy to give up these tasks.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: I'm not propagating it in any way. It has, they have to give it up. But what I'm saying is, there has to be means, in such a way that they give it up for good. It shouldn't be that they give it up for some time, and then they go back because they can't handle the pressures which come from the society. So the government has to evolve schemes in such a way that this is a banned occupation we are talking [00:22:00] about. It shouldn't be carried out at all in the first place. So stringent punishment should be given to those people who are employing these manual scavengers.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And many manual scavengers who have gone down the drains have never come out alive. Few compensations have been paid, in few cases here and there. Butit's nothing huge, and a lot of cases have happened where these people who have gone down the drains have never come out alive, and nobody has been punished. No, these are human lives we are talking about. There's no punishment at all for, and people enjoy impunity. It's really sad and very disturbing. But that's the reality that's present at the moment, unfortunately.

Josh Hutchinson: How many manual scavengers are there estimated to be?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the socioeconomic caste census of 2011 discloses that more than 180,657 households are being engaged in manual scavenging for their livelihood. And the [00:23:00] 2011 Census of India shows 794,000 cases of manual scavenging in India. And this number doesn't include septic tanks, sewers, and railway tracks, which are also cleaned by manual scavengers, which means the actual number is a lot higher than this.

Josh Hutchinson: And the Dalit, there are other abuses, including witch hunts, is that right?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Yeah, that's right. Yes, witch hunting is one of the very important ways in which Dalit women have been hunted down in the past so many centuries. While both Dalit men and women are subjected to various kinds of hardships and handicaps, Dalit women face a triple threat of caste, class, and gender. They are molested and raped by dominant caste men who, as I said, enjoy impunity. And witch hunting or witchcraft, because of these accusations of witchcraft, Dalit women are abused and humiliated and even murdered because of [00:24:00] this accusation. Now, witch hunting, as you know, is a very violent form of witchcraft belief. And women, Dalit women in particular, are hunted down onthe accusations of witchcraft. Now, the victims, they suffer physically, psychologically, and economically.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Now, globally, when we speak about witchcraft or witch hunting, we say the patriarchal mindset is as one of the chief reasons for witch hunting. But in India, with patriarchy, there's a combination of caste and class, with caste often emerging as a dominant reason for the practice of witchcraft and witch hunting of Dalit women, and I have heard the activists claim that the accusations of witchcraft against Dalit women are often used as a common ways to kill them.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And most of the victims of witchcraft have been old widows and single women. And common reasons for accusing a woman of witchcraft range from personal disputes [00:25:00] or enmities, even sexual desire and coveting properties. And historically, the bodies of Dalit women have always been used as a tool for suppression by the privileged caste.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Our Indian history has witnessed how Dalit women had to pay tax to cover their breasts, which was often not affordable to them. So such was the cruel and inhuman treatment of Dalit women, which has very, very few parallels in Indian history. And coming to witchcraft, the women accused of witchcraft are often blamed for calamities, epidemics, and other misfortunes which befall the societies. And victims suffer mental and physical brutality in very shocking forms like lynching, parading naked, social ostracization, and even being burnt alive by mobs. And activists often claim that accusations of witchcraft have been made [00:26:00] only on Dalit women, and privileged caste women have not been victims of, such practice.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And also vast majority of Dalit women in rural India, as I said earlier, they are poor and landless and they are daily wage laborers, and they lack access to basic amenities and entitlements. So they are subjected to patriarchal structures, both in the general community and within their own families. And, these women, they face multiple challenges, including lack of access to resources, lack of educational opportunities, land, essential services, and even justice. So in rural areas, a Dalit woman lives in terror and fear, because she knows that dominant caste people can target her anytime to seek revenge or just assert authority or just simply to suppress.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: There is an intersection of several factors here. There is caste, there is [00:27:00] class, there is gender, and there are also other issues like superstition, which we shouldn't overlook, because superstition and witchcraft goes hand in hand. And there are other things like illiteracy and poverty as well, and so these are all like these vicious factors. you know, it makes a vicious circle around Dalit women, and they are hunted down and they have been killed and so many hundreds of unreported incidents have happened, in every state in India, and, after being declared a witch, the woman is, they are tortured, harassed, they're ostracized and physically tortured, they're banished from the village, and even in some cases, they're forced to consume human excreta, and they're also subject to gang rape as a punishment for witchcraft. There are very few punishments for all this kind of crimes, which are, they are literally crimes, isn't it? There is gang [00:28:00] rape, there is murder, andjust discriminating against Dalits. It attracts so many provisions of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, but they are not seen as such. And because the whole structure is such that the perpetrators, they enjoy impunity.

Josh Hutchinson: A Dalit woman who's aging and has lost her husband is extraordinarily vulnerable then to witchcraft allegations.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: She is, she most certainly is. And, as I said, historically, it has been seen as, the bodies of Dalit women have been seen as a tool for oppression. So if, see, there is this famous quote which a Dalit woman said, who is called as a devadasi. Devadasi is a girl who's dedicated to the temple to serve the god, and she gets exploited by the priests and the other village men, and she's basically a temple prostitute.[00:29:00]

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So one of the devadasis famously said that Dalit men are not be touched, but Dalit women could be raped. So untouchability is where you do not touch Dalits, but the women could be raped. Such is the barbaric practice we are talking about, and Dalit women are very vulnerable, extremely vulnerable because it's very hard to, the kinds of struggle they have to fight is multifaceted. It's not just against caste or it's not just against class. There's so many struggles which she has to face and she's very vulnerable because A, she doesn't have education, B, she doesn't have anybody to support her. So it's somebody who has lost her husband or children, and if she has property in her hand, then it's very likely that somebody will accuse her of being a witch. Maybe somebody dies in the village and then the allegation directly goes to this Dalit woman who doesn't have a husband or a child and she's living alone, old [00:30:00] widow. The allegation is directly thrown to her saying that she is the reason why somebody has died in the village or some child is ill, things like that, and that she has casted an evil eye on the family, and she'll be banished from the village, even burnt alive and things like that.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: It's, it's very hard. And no matter how much we try to deny these things, these practices and these mindsets, the mindsets of the people are still rooted in these traditional beliefs. That people, even now in the cities also, people, it's easier to say that, okay, everyone's educated in the city. People do not believe in all these.These practices are confined to the villages, but people still go tie threads to the trees. They tie threads around their hands. They tie threads around their ankles as a protection from evil spirits. And who are these evil spirits we are talking about? These are the same people who are the vulnerable masses [00:31:00] whom the mainstream, the main civil, so-called civil society has targeted to be witches. These are the people, and they're the innocent, the segregated, the humiliated, the banished. These are the people against whom the so-called civil society is guarding.

Sarah Jack: Thinking about your example with the woman who would leave the scavenging and hope to sell tea, and I was thinking about the students that you mentioned. They go and there's these obstacles so much that they may not want to go on living, even with their education. So when a Dalit gets an opportunity that looks like, yes, there can be some mobility. I can get some education. I can have a choice here. What's it going to take to keep those doors open for them? Is there [00:32:00] somebody that has found a place to stand and get mobility that others can look to for hope?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Yeah, there is one and the most important success stories to use the word which you used, and that is Babasaheb Ambedkar, who is the father of the Indian constitution, the chief architect of the Indian constitution. He comes from an untouchable background. He was born as an untouchable, and he braved on against all these odds and he was discriminated, heavily, during his childhood. He suffered those kinds of discrimination, which are very difficult for us to talk about now. And he suffered all of that.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And with the help of the then kings of his state, he is from the present state of Maharashtra, so with the help of the kings who gave him scholarship, he was able to go to U. S. and U. K. a hundred [00:33:00] years ago. And he studied law, economics, political science, and a lot of other disciplines. And he came back to India, and he championed the cause of Dalits, the untouchables then, and he became a very strong voice of the untouchables in the British government, and then in the Indian government, as well. And in the 1930s, when the Roundtable Conference took place in the UK in London, he was invited as a representative of the depressed classes, and he went to London, and he spoke for the depressed classes, and he advocated strongly for affirmative action and provisions equality and non-discrimination.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So what we find in the Indian constitution, because he was the chief architect, he was the chairman of the drafting committee of the Indian constitution, because he was there, we can see his socio-political thoughts being converted into constitutional provisions which are binding on all [00:34:00] citizens today. So the abolition of untouchability, for example. So it's a huge milestone because Indian constitution has a very egalitarian spirit. And this is a constitution which was born in a soil which is essentially undemocratic. So this spirit comes from him. And of course, I have to give credits to the rest of the members of the Indian constitution, constituent assembly, who also agreed to what Babasaheb Ambedkar was propounding, and there werehuge debates which took place in the Constituent Assembly on various provisions of the Indian Constitution, particularly on these provisions of affirmative action and just basically trying to bring the marginalized sections into mainstream.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So he is the beacon of light and beacon of hope for the untouchables, for the Dalits, and for the Adavasis, for the oppressed communities in India and across the world. His life and his message is, his life itself is a message. So [00:35:00] that, that's one of the huge success stories I would say.

Josh Hutchinson: The thing with untouchability in the practice of this inherited forms of discrimination is Babasaheb Ambedkar himself remarked that when a Hindu migrates outside India, Indian caste system and the problem of untouchability will acquire a global dimension. So it has already happened. Now the Hindus from India have migrated to various countries, and there also we find problems of untouchability. And recently in California, and in another state, they have passed anti-caste laws, which makes caste a prohibited marker, or what we call is a protected marker, against discrimination on par with race, so that if you discriminate somebody based on caste, that is an offense.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Similarly, in England also, in the UK, there has been a longstanding debate and a fight to include caste as one of the protected markers alongside race in the Equality Act of 2010. It has not happened [00:36:00] yet, but there has been a longstanding demand to do so. And there has been obviously objection for this from the vested interests and dominant castes, saying it shouldn't be incorporated. I don't see why it shouldn't be incorporated. If it's incorporated, it is for victims of this discrimination to challenge it before the court. It is a protection for the victims. So what's the problem in incorporating a provision which protects the victims of discrimination? If you don't discriminate, well and good, but it's for those people who suffer discrimination, isn't it?

Josh Hutchinson: What else can the government do?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: I think the basic thing we're talking about is ensuring the most basic right to life with dignity to all, and this is a cardinal principle of the Indian Constitution, and it's a cardinal principle of all these progressive human rights conventions which we're talking about. Discrimination against anyone based on birth, [00:37:00] descent, social origin, it's prohibited. And yet, we see it in India and in some other countries as well. And I think, to root it out, firstly,there are stringent laws. I'm not saying that there aren't, but the enforcement has to be made effective. One is that. Another is to mold the minds of the children right from the beginning, right from school, incorporate it into the curriculum that everybody is equal.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: A child grows up both with the conditioning at home as well as the school. At home, the child gets the conditioning from the parents, and if, it depends again from the family backgrounds, if they are belonging to a dominant caste, they get that conditioning. If they're belonging to a lower caste, they get that conditioning.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: But the school is, should be seen as an equalizer where students can be molded, into thinking that everybody is equal and putting that [00:38:00] principle of equality and non-discrimination into their heads right from the school time. And to do that, teachers first should be trained properly.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And again, with the teachers, judges, lawyers, police officers, law enforcement officers, and all people in the government should be sensitized to the realities of Indian society, because caste is a reality in Indian society. It's not something which is in abstract. It's there, it's visible every day. It's present in every walk of life. They have to be sensitized adequately so that when, say, a case comes before, an issue of a Dalit atrocity comes before an upper caste judge, he's able to understand where it is coming from. And not just acquitting people just because of lack of evidence. They have to probe into why there is a lack of evidence. You have to see where these people are coming from, how difficult it is for them to actually get hold of evidence.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And, because I'm saying this [00:39:00] particularly because the 93 act against manual scavenging, it saw zero convictions. Absolutely no convictions in that. It's an act against manual scavenging, and there have been no convictions at all, none to this daybecause there are laws, but then there is no enforcement. So most of them go because of lack of evidence and things like that. So I think judges have to be sensitized adequately to handle cases of this. It's a different magnitude, and I think people with sufficient depth will be able to understand where these cases are coming from, why these things are happening in the first place.

Sarah Jack: If convictions started occurring, would they, would it be like a mass conviction? Would it be like these individual cases?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: No, I don't think it's going to be a mass conviction because it has not happened at all, and the atrocities against Dalits, be it rapes, murders, molestations, manual [00:40:00] scavenging are things which you find on a day to day basis on the streets, but rapes, gang rapes, and these are horrific crimes, which shock the collective conscience of this society. Even in those cases, there have been no convictions in a lot of cases. Here and there you will find one or two cases.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And I'll give you an example where, where a dominant caste girl was gang raped, which is wrong, any rape is wrong for that matter. She died and then, against the rape, there was a huge protest,throughout the country. There were candlelight vigils and things like that. It became a huge issue in the country. Similarly, a Dalit girl was also gang raped and she also died. Even her body was not given to her family to conduct a dignified burial. Forget about candlelight vigils and no protest, nothing. If there are protests also, it's only by Dalit organizations who are protesting. But other people, the so called civil [00:41:00] society, it doesn't disturb them because it's seen as a normal thing. That is what I'm saying, because even when it comes to crimes such as gang rape and murders, which are, it is so intense and gruesome, even when it comes to crimes such as that, people still see the caste of the victim. If it is a dominant caste girl who is a victim, then it is fine, okay, let's go protest against this. But if it's a Dalit girl who is a victim, oh, she's a Dalit, so okay, maybe we shouldn't.

Josh Hutchinson: Wow.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: That's a selective kind of, fighting for justice.

Sarah Jack: And I have a question about all of this in light of when you speak of molding the children's minds and their understanding. Now, children are being raised within cultural traditions and religious traditions and then you have all of this embedded through that. What do you do with that?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: It's so difficult, isn't it? That's what I'm saying. To have a parallel system of education, which is impartial, which is [00:42:00] secular, which gives that upbringing to the child, which is based on egalitarian values. There will be a conflict in the child's mind, which is very, very evident. It will be happening. And I think the child has to grow up with that conflict and then decide which one, which path to take, because if both the values are ingrained in its mind very clearly, then I think the child will be able to pick up the right one.

Josh Hutchinson: Do the Dalit children, do they have equal access to school?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: They do. Because of our constitution, they do have equal access to education. They, we have free education until the age of 14 in government schools. So government schools are always in vernacular languages, depending on which state. In, for example, in my state of Karnataka, it's Kannada. In a neighboring state of Kerala, it is Malayalam. So in North Indian states, it is Hindi. It's vernacular, but again, Indian school system is very,I'm [00:43:00] assuming it's a subject for another time. It's a very complicated system. We have the state schools, then we have private schools. In private schools, we have mediums, English medium, and Hindi medium, Kannada medium, and things like that. Then we have these Cambridge syllabus, international schools, Oxford syllabus and things like that, ICSE and CBSE, central schools and there is a vast difference in the school system. And I feel the discrimination starts right from that time. So by the time this child comes to the higher educational institution, university, the child has already had a lot of baggage, because a child coming from a vernacular school will not be able to compete with a child coming from an international syllabus school. And then the race for the university entrance exam is the same. So there is no different exam for a child coming from vernacular school or a child coming from international [00:44:00] syllabus. It's the same thing. So who do you think will get into universities, top universities?

Josh Hutchinson: These, the four metropolitan cities, and there are top schools in these metropolitan cities. Students from those schools only end up in big universities in India.

Josh Hutchinson: Has there been enforcement of any laws against witchcraft accusations?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Internationally, there is UDHR, ICCPR, ICHS, GAN, ICRD, which speak about, roughly, about witch hunting, because they basically ban practices which are degrading human dignity. In India, at the national level, we have the Constitution of India and the Indian Penal Code, the Drugs and Magic Remedies Objectionable Advertisement Act of 1954, and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989 and the Protection of Human Rights Act of 1993. And these all can be associated with witch-hunting [00:45:00] atrocities. Now while some states have specific local acts on preventing witch hunting and some other states are in the process of criminalizing the offense, one of the western states in India called the Maharashtra, it passed India's first anti-superstition law called the Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act of 2013. It actually saw a huge protest against this act because it was criminalizing some of the superstitions which people believed were not superstitions and things like that, but the prevention of witch hunting bill 2016 was framed, but it has still not become the law of the country, so there is nothing specifically on witchcraft which is binding on all the states.

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So there are some states which have criminalized witchcraft and witch hunting as offenses. But again, [00:46:00] enforcement in those states also are huge issues. I think, if I'm not wrong, one of the northeastern states of Jharkhand has criminalized witchcraft, and I think the punishment for murder of, killing of a witch is something like three months, which is ridiculous to be honest, because it's a murder, and why is it not seen as a murder under the Indian Penal Code? It should be punished on equal grounds as 302, section 302 of IPC, which should be this exact same punishment, which should be awarded for somebody who kills a woman claiming her to be a witch. But no, it's just completely, I mean, three months, it's just absolutely ridiculous.

Sarah Jack: Does the constitution or any other doctrines state what would be humane treatment of women? What would be dignified treatment and equality?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: I don't think human dignity is defined under the Indian Constitution, only it says that right to life [00:47:00] with dignity is a fundamental right which is non negotiable under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. It is like a basic structure of the Constitution. Fundamental rights are the basic structure of the Constitution. You can't negotiate them. They are ultimate. They are fundamental. It is inviolable. People can't take it out. Government can't take it away from people. So non-negotiable rights. I don't think anywhere it is defined as what human dignity means, but it is generally taken to understand how dignity is defined normally in common values.

Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything else that you want to be sure to share with us today?

Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Thank you very much for having me. It was a lovely conversation, and, in terms of, witch hunting, because your podcast is primarily dealing with witch-hunting, I think it can be said that witch hunting is one of the most heinous forms of violence Dalit women are subjected to in India. And it has been [00:48:00] going on for centuries. But the media, civil society, legislature, and even judiciary have been mute spectators to this gross violation of human rights of a section of the most marginalized silent populace of the country. And unless and until stringent laws are enacted which show no mercy to the perpetrators of this harmful practice, which while it's a most basic right to life with dignity of Dalit women, unfortunately, I think this practice will continue to exist in modern industrialized India.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for learning with us. We must be aware of the oppression happening around us. We must no longer turn our backs.

Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.

Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe in your choice of podcast app.

Sarah Jack: Visit us at aboutwitchhunts.com/.

Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell your friends and family all about Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to [00:49:00] end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

January 23, 2024

Marion Gibson on Witchcraft a History in 13 Trials

Buy the book Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials by Marion Gibson

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Show Notes

Dr. Marion Gibson, highly esteemed historian returns to talk about her new book, ‘Witchcraft, A History in Thirteen Trials’. The importance of the book in bridging the gap between historical witchcraft trials and the concept of witch hunts existing today is emphasized. Learn how the stories of real victims presented in her book explore aspects of witchcraft from a 700-year period, touching on the evolution from being considered a magical crime to being a societal metaphor. Dr. Gibson also delves into the sexism inherent in witch trials, the impact of demonology on witch hunting, the impact of individual testimonies from witch trials and the enduring potency of witchcraft accusations in today’s society. Marion shares a glimpse of her future work around the Witchfinder General trials during the English Civil War.

Buy the book The Witches of St. Osyth by Marion Gibson

Seven County Witch Hunts Project Blog

United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 47/8. Elimination of harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks

Papua New Guinea Sorcery and Witchcraft Accusation-Related Violence National Action Plan

Pan African Parliament Guidelines for Addressing Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks

Marion Gibson Website

The International Network against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices

Why Witch Hunts are not just a Dark Chapter from the Past

Grassroots organizations working with The International Network

Storymap explaining the dynamics of sorcery accusation related violence

Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that explores the past, present, and future of witch hunting. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Join us as we explore fascinating tales of witch hunts from the ancient to the modern day, delving into the societal, religious, and psychological factors that fueled them.

Josh Hutchinson: Our podcast features expert interviews, in depth analysis, and compelling storytelling that bring to life the complex narratives surrounding these trials.

Sarah Jack: In this episode, we will be covering both historic and contemporary witch trials.

Josh Hutchinson: That's right. Today, we have the privilege of being joined by scholar Marion Gibson to discuss her captivating new book, Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials.

Sarah Jack: Over the next hour, Gibson will be providing us with a fascinating overview of the evolution of witch hunting and persecution over 700 years, from the [00:01:00] earliest European witch trials in the late 15th century to contemporary cases today.

Josh Hutchinson: By closely examining 13 pivotal witchcraft trials throughout history, Gibson reveals how notions of magic and the stereotypical idea of the witch have been adapted to serve as a convenient enemy and outlet for broader societal fears and prejudices.

Sarah Jack: Gibson will explain how women who were seen as overly outspoken, sexually deviant, or simply unconventional were especially vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft across eras.

Josh Hutchinson: We'll learn how profoundly misogynistic witch hunting manuals helped spread dangerous ideas that enabled the targeting of women.

Sarah Jack: Our discussion will also cover how the myth of the witch disturbingly endures today, with continued cases of witchcraft-related violence globally, as well as powerful figures co-opting the term witch hunt for their own political motives.

Josh Hutchinson: You won't want to miss Gibson's insightful [00:02:00] commentary on the gendered and political dimensions of historic witch hunts and the unsettling parallels that can be drawn with present times. So get ready to journey through 700 years of fascinating witchcraft history.

Sarah Jack: Welcome to Witch Hunt, Marion Gibson, author and historical consultant on witchcraft and magic.

Josh Hutchinson: First of all, I just want to say thank you for writing this wonderful book, Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials. It fills a need that Sarah and I have talked about for something that bridges the gap between the historic witchcraft trials and the witch hunts going on today. So, thank you for doing that.

Marion Gibson: Oh, thank you. That's what I thought needed doing, really. I think you need to, when you've seen the horror of witch trials in the past, and you've read all the history books that you can read about those, it seems to me that it's time to consider how relevant this idea still is today. And one of the things we talked about when we [00:03:00] met last time time was actually, it's very relevant. People keep using the term witch hunts and we know that people are still literally being accused of witchcraft around the world today. So there seemed a need to me to bring the story of the historic witch trial right up to date.

Josh Hutchinson: And the cases you chose are just, they're so good at illustrating, not just individual cases, but the trends and grand themes that connect all of the history and the present together.

Marion Gibson: I'm glad that worked, yeah. Every now and again I find myself still in the process of selecting, if you know what I mean, because I took so long over it and agonized so much over, is this the right one? Is that the right one? Will this really fit? Will this carry the themes through the book? Is this too complicated for the reader because there are some twisty turny moments in the book where the definition of witchcraft shifts? So where it moves, for example, from being a [00:04:00] magical crime to being a crime imagined as one of fraud. And then again, in contemporary times, to being kind of metaphor for a whole bunch of other kinds of things that the society of the time deemed to be unacceptable. So I'm really glad. I'm really glad that I do seem to have pulled that off because it was one of the things that bothered me most writing the book.

Sarah Jack: You have pulled it off and it's going to expand minds and inform and so thank you and great job.

Marion Gibson: Good. Thank you. Oh, that's great. I just come here for validation, basically.

Sarah Jack: Good, good, good.

Josh Hutchinson: You sent the book to the right people.

Sarah Jack: Can you give us a brief overview of what Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials is?

Marion Gibson: Yeah, it is what it says on the tin, but that doesn't quite cover the scope of it, I think. It covers a 700 year period, which again was one of the things that I agonized and worried about writing the book, because [00:05:00] that's a very long period of time. Our first witch trial is in 1485. And our final witch trial is effectively still going on. It's the ongoing legal battle between Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels and the many adversaries who were embroiled in that legal battle. So that is our last witch trial. And it tries to tell the story of the idea of the witch and the ways that the idea of the witch has been put on trial, both in formal courts and more informally in society, over the course of those 700 years, to give people a sense of what witchcraft meant in the past, the era of the witch trials, if you like, but then how the idea of the witch is still current today and the era of the witch trials really hasn't finished. So it tries to bring everything up to date and get people to think about what witch means now, and what a witch trial means now.

Josh Hutchinson: I want to get to what a witch is, but you point out in the introduction, [00:06:00] you first need to understand what magic is. So can you explain how would you define magic?

Marion Gibson: It's even harder than defining witches, isn't it? I think magic is a force which cannot be explained by other factors such as science, rationality, observable, physical, or material changes of that kind. But it's more than that, really. It's what people choose to define as magic. So in some cases, some of the phenomena that people have thought were magical in the past or think to be magical today can actually be explained in other ways. But people choose not to because they want to see those things as being magical. And of course, magic can be a positive or a negative thing. So if you accuse your neighbor of being a witch and doing magic, obviously that's a terribly negative thing. But you might also see magic as a positive thing. And one of the ways the witch turns up in contemporary culture is a kind of positive magician, [00:07:00] somebody who's sparkly and glamorous and exciting and maybe even a role model. Magic accompanies the idea of the witch throughout history, really.

Sarah Jack: And what does that lead the witch to be? What is the witch?

Marion Gibson: The witch is a very movable thing, but often defined as an enemy. So one of the places that the witch fits into society, even over such a long historical period, is that they are a very useful enemy. And if they, if you don't think they exist already, you need to invent them because they fill that gap in society where scapegoats and those who challenge authority, people who are subversive, people who are seen to be problematic, certain racial, religious, cultural others. Those people fit. So The witch is is useful when you want to say, I do believe the world is full of magic. It's full of spirits. It's a highly religious world. And I think that because God has his good people on one [00:08:00] side, therefore, Satan must have his bad people on the other side. And those people must be witches and they must be able to do real magic.

Marion Gibson: So the witch is useful more than anything else, useful throughout history.

Josh Hutchinson: One of the things I love about this book is that you're telling the individual stories of victims of persecution. What is the impact? How does that impact our perception of the events to learn the individual stories?

Marion Gibson: I think it's really important. I think it would be quite easy to write a long history of witchcraft where you said all the things that I say about how it's still relevant, et cetera, and how it's now a metaphor for other things. You could say all of that without the individual stories, butI don't think it would really land with people in the same way. And I don't think it would be nearly as engrossing. I find those personal stories the most engrossing and interesting part of writing a history. And I think if you don't feel [00:09:00] history, we talked about this a little bit with my last book, The Witches of St. Osyth, when I came on to talk about that. If you don't feel history, then you don't learn from history. You don't get the sense that, you know what, persecution is a bad thing. We might want to try to do less of it and work towards a world which is more equitable and just and so on. So it's really an attempt to engage people in the story as much as possible by showing individual people who were victimized as witches or who continue to be, and getting people to think but that could have been me, that could have been me in that position, or my neighbor who I care about, or my partner who I care about. I want people to have that sense of emotional investment, and I want as far as possible to give a voice back to the people who were persecuted in the past, and who perhaps were not at the time able to speak for themselves or certainly can't now.

Marion Gibson: I want people to feel those stories and feel like they're on the side of the persecuted [00:10:00] people, and they want to do something to make their stories better known and hopefully stop those kind of stories recurring again. So it's quite a big aim really, but I think the personal is really important.

Sarah Jack: The stories are so engrossing. I really felt the vulnerability of many of the characters. And Tituba has been on my mind a lot lately and how people view her. And I really felt her vulnerability when reading about her. Why are some of these people vulnerable? Why are they easy marks?

Marion Gibson: A lot of it is to do with gender. So about 75 percent of the people who we know were accused of witchcraft across all the jurisdictions that historians have studied were women. So that's a really important thing that seems to make people vulnerable to the accusation of witchcraft. But in her case, there's also the racial factor to be considered, so she's a Native American woman, and she's [00:11:00] positioned as the enemy of the colonists, the people living around her. So there's that. There's also her position within society, so she's an enslaved person and a servant, somewhere on the continuum between those positions, this very disempowered woman sits, depending on whose jurisdiction she's having to live within and how she's being treated by the community around her. All of those things matter. And she's positioned in that way because she's been translocated from one place to another. So sometimes factors like migration matter. Sometimes it's a forced migration, as in her case. In other cases, it's somebody who's perceived to be out of place in some way. And obviously these are all things that we see in today's society as making people more likely to be persecuted and scapegoated.

Josh Hutchinson: In the book, you talk a lot about demonology. What is that? And how did that shape witch hunting?

Marion Gibson: It's really the theory of witch hunting. And it's not [00:12:00] just a theory. It's a practical manual, if you like, for the finding of witches. So theory and practice, and it's stated, and this is where the first chapter of the book kicks off, really. It's stated that witches were the devil's people and they should be hunted down in society. They were more likely to be women than men, some of the first demonologists asserted.

Marion Gibson: And we start off with Heinrich Kramer, or Kramer, one of the first demonologists, somebody who people might have heard of because he wrote the witch hunting manual, Malleus Maleficarum, The Hammer of Witches, which has become notorious since the 1480s when he wrote it for being not only Yeah, a manual for hatred and for hunting people, but particularly a very misogynistic manual.

Marion Gibson: So demonology didn't really have to go those ways. It didn't have to be as misogynistic as it was, but it seems inevitable in the context of a broadly patriarchal society that it would have gone that way. And people like [00:13:00] Heinrich Kramer make sure that it does. And the first witch trial in the book is his attempt to put into practice his demonology.

Marion Gibson: So he's thinking through these ideas, and he's presumably thinking about writing a manual for witch hunting, but he decides to put this into practice. And one of the trials that I talk about in chapter one is his attempt to do that. He finds a group of women and decides he's going to persecute them.

Marion Gibson: But demonology is really important. It underpins so many of the stories, particularly in part one of the book, which goes from the 1480s to the 1730s, really the period of the witch trials as people tend to think of it. And if it wasn't for demonology, those witch trials wouldn't be possible. So first of all, you need the theory and it's a conspiracy theory. It's about Satan's people in the world and how we must find them out. And here are the ways you identify them. And this is what you need to do to them. If it wasn't for that theory, the witch trials wouldn't have happened in quite the way that they did.

Sarah Jack: What do you attribute to [00:14:00] the level of misogyny that he was directed by writing that book?

Marion Gibson: It's hideous, isn't it? And it's really upsetting to contemplate just how misogynistic he was. It's partly perhaps to do with his position in society. He's a Dominican monk, so he's a celibate individual living in a basically patriarchal, closed, masculine community. But that didn't mean that he had to be misogynistic.Lots of people managed to live in those communities without being as misogynistic as he was. It makes you wonder about factors in his biography, which we don't know about, sadly. We know where he comes from, and we know some of his previous life.

Marion Gibson: He seems to be a deeply unpleasant individual. He was accused throughout his life of all sorts of nastiness, whether that was attacking academic colleagues, embezzlement, and his job was not a particularly attractive one. So he was responsible in part for the selling of indulgences, which is a way that rich people could [00:15:00] basically buy a piece of paper which bought them out of some time in purgatory, burning off their sins, as the theology of the time said that they would.

Marion Gibson: He just seems to have been a really quite unpleasant person, who was haunted by the idea that women were out to get men, and perhaps to get him specifically. But most certainly that he thought that they were ignorant, they were lustful, they were prone to believing the wrong things about God and Satan. They were malevolent and petty and strove to take out their frustrations on other people, primarily men. He identifies them as enemies in a whole variety of ways and it is inexplicable. You can always look at factors in people's life to say, 'that's why they hate that group or that's why they're just so unpleasant to everybody,' but at the end of the day, there is no real clue to why he was who he was. [00:16:00]

Marion Gibson: What is depressing is that a lot of people listened to him and credited what he was saying and thought of him as an expert. Some people questioned it, some people stood up against it, and I think one of the interesting things about that first chapter is that we look at the people who stood up against it, which include the people on trial, the women on trial, and things don't go quite the way that he might have hoped that they would have done, which I think is good because it gives the reader a nice surprise, a starting point for the book, which is not maybe quite what they'd expected.

Marion Gibson: But whilst people challenged him, a lot of people went along with what he said. And of course, that was one of the reasons why the witch trials take off. Sometimes all you need is one quite powerful individual to want to punch down on others. And unfortunately, the human imagination often goes along with that.

Marion Gibson: It was a book that made me think twice about whether I really thought people were at bottom good or bad. And the prevalence of that kind of hatred and the [00:17:00] way that it recurs throughout human history is a really depressing thing. And I think it's something that we really ought to think more about. There are always Heinrich Kramers.

Josh Hutchinson: And to your point that you needed demonology to have witch hunting, you had to have the science of how to do witch hunting, so you needed these books in order to do that. But specifically with the Malleus Maleficarum, if that book had never been written, do you think the European Witch Trials would have played out the same way?

Marion Gibson: That's a really interesting one. Scholars have argued a lot about whether that book is a really key one or not. I think it is. It's very difficult to get a clear sense of how books circulated in this period. We know that they did. And we know they circulated in manuscript and people translated them and passed them around.

Marion Gibson: And if you were a member of an academic community or a monastic community, you might make copies [00:18:00] of books, you might give them to your friends, you might give them as a gift to somebody, you might send them abroad to friends that you'd made through letter writing and things like that. So you can see the kind of network of circulation, but actually tracing the progress of an individual book is quite hard.

Marion Gibson: So scholars have said other demonologies are probably more important, particularly the less misogynistic, less radical ones, if you like. But nevertheless, the progress of the witch hunt suggests to me that all demonologies were important and that a very misogynistic demonology most certainly had a place in the spread of those ideas.

Marion Gibson: Look what the outcome was! Oh look, 75 percent of those who are accused are women. This cannot be really a coincidence. So I do think it was quite an important book and certainly the way it was rediscovered in the 20th century and translated into English for the first time, for example, makes me think that although it's long [00:19:00] pre history of publication and circulation, it's difficult to see the fact that people in the 20th century identified it as a key one and translated it and then talked about it a lot makes me think that actually it probably always was a key text and that we should pay quite a lot of attention to it. It's quite tempting to dismiss it as an outlier, but I'm not really sure that it was.

Josh Hutchinson: It's translated by one of your subjects in here, Montague Summers. Is his translation considered reliable? Is there any other academic translation of it?

Marion Gibson: Yeah, there is. His translation is not considered particularly reliable. He had his own biases and one of the reasons that he turns up in book is that he is fascinated by the idea of witchcraft and Satanism, and to some extent he's quite like Heinrich Kramer. He too is a Roman Catholic clergyman, or at least he presents himself as such. It's not entirely clear [00:20:00] exactly how he was ordained or how he went on that path. He regards himself as somebody who's quite a superior intellect and somebody who might know something about the spiritual world and might have some theories about things like ghosts and vampires and demons and so on.

Marion Gibson: I think he and Heinrich Kramer would have had some things to talk about had they met, but he's also very different, because he's gay and he's quite openly gay, which is a surprising thing for a clergyman and indeed any man in the England of his period. So he's really interesting. He sits on both sides of being, being a scapegoated witch, because he's accused of Satanism during the course of his life. Wow.

Marion Gibson: But on the other hand, being somebody who's very interested in persecuting other people and thus translating Kramer's book. So yeah, it's not a particularly reliable translation because of his own very complicated personal history and his own deep interest in these subjects, which I think [00:21:00] sometimes led him to over read or to propose a controversial interpretation of something Kramer had said.

Marion Gibson: If people want to look at Malleus Maleficarum, the best literal translation, that's one I talk about in the footnotes of the book, and it's by Christopher S. Mackay, and people should look for that one. He's also written a great book on Heinrich Kramer and the witch trial that I talk about in the first chapter. So if you want to know more about that and you feel like you want to read Malleus Maleficarum in a translation that gives you the best possible access to what Heinrich Kramer had to say, then I think it would probably be Mackay's book that I'd point you to.

Josh Hutchinson: Excellent. Yeah, I'm going to pick that up. I know it's going to be an infuriating experience.

Marion Gibson: It really is. Yeah. I get my students to look at it when I teach my module about witchcraft in history and literature, and every year, I go into the first class, it's the first class and I look at their faces and they're just like, what? [00:22:00] What? And sometimes people say to me, 'is this, you know, is this real? Did people really write?' Yeah, yeah, they really wrote this. Yes, they wrote it. They published it. This is what they had to say about the women of their period.

Marion Gibson: And their jaws really drop, especially students who quite often think, oh, well, you know, we've progressed such a long way since this time, I'm not really sure that we still need to be banging on about feminism and talking about the position of women in society. It is always quite satisfying to see those students think,' oh, wait, hang on a minute. No, people can say these kinds of things. And this kind of thing is still said in contemporary society from time to time. And shouldn't we talk about this in our classes?' So I always enjoy presenting it to people. And it will probably be quite a disturbing experience. Yeah. And it sort of should be, but no, I'm not recommending, I'm not recommending you get a mug of cocoa and sit down with your bedtime reading, because you won't enjoy it.[00:23:00]

Sarah Jack: Reading her trial and then thinking about him going on to write that, it really struck me. She couldn't pick up a pen and write her story and push it out into the world. And so here we are in 2023 fighting that story. The power of your pen, your writing is powerful. And it's going to be combating this mentality. So I feel excited about the era we are in, because women can write and express now, but then their words, what they were able to say, the limited power they had, and they got in trouble for it.

Marion Gibson: It's a powerful thing that, isn't it? Yeah. And again, it's quite deeply felt because particularly if you are a woman, you think about how you might have fared in that society. So Heinrich Kraemer, the [00:24:00] woman who is at the center of this Witch Trial in 1485 is a woman called Helena Scheuberin, and she's quite a wealthy woman probably, in a number of ways. She's a merchant's wife. She's had some education. She has some ideas about religion of her own, which is one of the reasons why she's able to stand up and fight back a bit against her persecutors, and she and her husband have access to sufficient money to, spoiler alert, hire a lawyer during the course of her trial.

Marion Gibson: So she's a really important prefigure, it seems to me, of the position of women in contemporary society. And I did find it powerful. And I did find myself thinking, 'you have to write this. You have to write this as a woman. You have to answer back. It may be too late for many of these people, but at least I can say something from my perspective and the perspective of other women. This wasn't right. You shouldn't have done this. This is what I think of you.' And I found that quite powerful. Looking back at my own female ancestors, I've been [00:25:00] going through some of the family records recently for other reasons. My great grandmother couldn't write. She couldn't write her own name. And that's incredibly recent. That's really very recent. And it makes you think about how important it is that women do have that voice and how important it is that we should try and use it to make sure that this kind of institutional misogyny that we see in the world around us doesn't continue to flourish.

Marion Gibson: So yeah, it felt like a powerful thing. It felt like an important book to write and it felt like I had to write it. It was important to try to set the record straight, even though, in many cases, it's many centuries too late. At least something was done, I guess.

Josh Hutchinson: It's definitely important to highlight that these were and still are male-dominated societies and who are they targeting with their witch trials, not usually men.

Marion Gibson: Not usually, [00:26:00] no. And when you look towards the end of the book, you see,in the African communities that I talk about, in the North American communities that I talk about at the end of the book, very often those who are accused are womenAnd they're persecuted, at least in part, for being women under the heading of being witches. So I think this is an argument that we absolutely still have not won. And we still do need feminism. We still do need women writers and male writers who are willing to tell those stories to keep telling them and to keep telling the story of the witch trial as a story of persecution of women specifically, as well as some men as well.

Josh Hutchinson: One thing I like to point out to people is that, in New England, at least 78 percent or so of the accused were women. And that you look at that and see, 22%, that's still a reasonable representation. There's [00:27:00] some men. Half of them were directly connected to a female suspect and they were accused after she was. It's even more misogynistic than when you first look at the 78%, I think.

Marion Gibson: Yes, I think so. That's very nicely put that the men who are drawn into the witch trials are very often drawn in because they're the husband or the son or an acquaintance in some way of a woman who is the primary accused. So yes, they are drawn in. Yes, it's a terrible fate for them, too. But one of the reasons that they are accused is because they're seen to be an associate and affiliates, somebody perhaps who is defending a woman who's been accused first.

Marion Gibson: I do think that is a really important point.

Josh Hutchinson: And then I was just thinking in there, A lot of the representations, the males, even though they're much more rare as suspects, they're given authority over the female witches.

Marion Gibson: Yes, they often [00:28:00] are, which is fascinating to see, isn't it? So even in the course of the accusations, you find that the essentially patriarchal assumptions of those who are doing the persecuting are replicated. It is quite fascinating, isn't it? Once you start to unpick and you look at the kind of qualitative experience behind the quantitative statistics, you find that it is even worse than it looks when you simply look at a table of figures. Absolutely.

Marion Gibson: That's why the individual stories are so important, I think, because you want to think about the experience of those people and why they were put in the positions that they were, and the stories that were told about them, and the stories that they managed to tell about themselves. So that it's not just the kind of hard data, if you like, of history that we're talking about. It's the lived experience of history, which often determines the outcome of events as we know.

Josh Hutchinson: We've talked about a little about why women are accused, but specifically you talk about how[00:29:00] women witches are seen as being unwomanly.

Marion Gibson: Yes, often they are. So women of all ages and classes get accused during the course of the book. So we have very poor women, who barely have enough to support themselves and their families. And we have relatively wealthy women, people like Helena, who we were talking about just now,and we even have noble women. So chapter two is about a Scottish witch trial. One of those who is accused and unfortunately ultimately condemned to death is a noble woman. So we've got all kinds of women, but one of the things that holds all those women's stories together is that they are thought of as insufficiently submissive or insufficiently modest or overly lustful or overly mouthy and difficult, women who fall out with people in their communities, women who are bad mothers or are thought to [00:30:00] be attacking other people's children and just are generally women who are, as you say, sufficiently unwomanly to have attracted the attention of their community. And that does come about in a whole variety of different ways. Maybe they are accused of having an affair with somebody else's husband, or maybe they have an illegitimate child, or maybe they've fallen out with a neighbor in a dispute over, it can be anything really, anything from child rearing to business practices. Maybe they're also notable in other ways.

Marion Gibson: So some of the women, there's a woman in one of the chapters about the English Civil War, who is a disabled woman, a woman who actually only has one leg. So maybe in her case, there's not only concern about her illegitimate child, she has a young daughter outside of marriage, but maybe also they're thinking about her appearance and the way that it's not a traditionally beautiful, attractive womanly appearance that is desirable to men. And therefore they [00:31:00] single her out for those reasons, as well.

Marion Gibson: So there's a whole variety of different ways that women can be thought by others to be unwomanly. And when you look at that again, you just see the unfairness of that stereotyping and the confinements of the image of the woman within these incredibly narrow boundaries to which they must conform or else they're going to find themselves in trouble.

Marion Gibson: And of course they could get into trouble in all sorts of different ways in the societies in which they live. But being accused of witchcraft seems to be quite a powerful tool alongside all the other accusations that might be made against them.

Sarah Jack: Women in leadership roles are labeled as witches by men.

Marion Gibson: Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Yeah. So again, that sort of sense that if you stick your head above the parapet, somebody's going to come along and want to knock it off then. That applies very much across the course of many of these stories. But again, we've got women who are incredibly [00:32:00] disempowered and women who are seen as leaders or who are seen as notable in their society in some way. So all of those kinds of people get accused. And because women are more likely to be leaders in modern society, really that idea has strengthened over time that a woman leader is fair game, can be accused of witchcraft. You know, that can be something as, it's as simple as drawing a cartoon of her or making a crass comment on social media, or it can be people literally believing that woman is a witch and deciding to attack her for those reasons.

Marion Gibson: Again, it's the idea that a woman is a witch is a very malleable kind of idea. You can twist it around any way you want to and make it apply to almost any woman. But if a woman stands out in society in some way, so much so that people consider her to be unwomanly, according to the definitions of their stereotype, then that does make her more likely to be accused.

Sarah Jack: Yeah. She's out of place [00:33:00] and it's because she's evil.

Marion Gibson: Yes, see, that must be it, mustn't it? There we go. There, that's all sorted now. Yeah, that's why women become eminent in their societies, isn't it? Because they're evil, obviously. And yes, it's funny, isn't it? Yeah, we find it laughable, but at the same time, we can see how all around us, that is unfortunately a really serious thing that many people think.

Marion Gibson: And really, I would so much rather that the book contributed to people questioning that. Every time a reader picks up a book, I do want them to think, 'hang on a minute, this actually is still the case, isn't it? I need to notice those instances a little bit more. I need to push back a little bit more against those and think a bit more about why that's that.'

Marion Gibson: Essentially fairly humorous thing might still be possible to be said. Why can we still make that joke? Why can we still make jokes about witches, which we should do because the idea of the witch is inherently laughable, but why can we still do it? And that's, [00:34:00] we can still do it because it still works in society. It still works in culture. We still know people do sometimes think these things.

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, and now we see that powerful women get labeled as witches, powerful men take on the label of witch in that they're the victims of the witch hunt.

Marion Gibson: They do. This was a real gift, I have to say. But it was also one of the things that prompted me to shape the book the way I did. If you'd said to me in the early years of the 21st century, or the 1990s, when I first got interested in witches, if you said to me, people will be claiming in the society around you that they are the victims of a witch hunt, and they won't be the people that you expect. They will be powerful men in charge of the societies that they essentially run. I wouldn't have believed you. I would have thought that's nonsense, isn't it? Of course, they're not going to be doing that, but the fact that they are, this is something that's happened in Britain with Boris Johnson [00:35:00] claiming to be the victim of a witch hunt, just the same as with Donald Trump in the United States.

Marion Gibson: So this travels across cultures, it's not a uniquely American thing. We see this happening quite regularly now, and it was an absolute gift for structuring the book because it gave me the opportunity to demonstrate very, very clearly just how relevant the idea of the witch is, and to talk about that curious reversal whereby it's the wealthy, white male, powerful individuals who are doing the claiming to be the victims of a witch hunt, whereas in fact it's the people who stand against them who are much more likely to fit the traditional stereotype of the witch.

Sarah Jack: You talked about the malleability of the witch. How do we recognize and interrupt a witch hunt in progress?

Marion Gibson: I think I end the book with this, and I've put a checklist, really, at the end of the book so that people can think about this. I think if you are being [00:36:00] asked to persecute and scapegoat somebody and identify them as an enemy of society, and they are female, maybe of a different race to the majority of people in a particular society, maybe they're poorer than the majority of people in a particular society, maybe they stand out in some way and are regarded as being inherently subversive in some way, maybe they're disabled or set apart by their physicality in some way. You might want to consider whether what you're being asked to participate in is in fact a witch hunt.

Josh Hutchinson: So I think if you can look for some of those signs, they might be signs that actually that old human stereotype is reasserting itself.And you're involved with The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices. What's important about being involved in that?

Marion Gibson: I think it's really important for historians to try and find ways that their work is relevant [00:37:00] today. That's the first thing and secondly, that network is important in trying to stop witchcraft accusations happening today. And there are of course other harmful practices that are involved as well. So for example, people being murdered in order to be used, their body parts, for example, to be used in magical processes. So really the network is about putting together not just a group of experts on witch trials, but also a group of experts on that earlier thing we talked about, magic and human belief in magic, which, there is nothing wrong with at all, but when it leads to harming other people to the extent of killing them even, then clearly that's something that we need to be challenging. So yeah, I'd recommend people have a look at the, the network and some of the people involved in it. People like Leo Igwe, for example, who is an activist against witchcraft persecution and the harmful practices associated with it and has personal experience of being scapegoated [00:38:00] in this way and trying to help people who have today been accused literally of witchcraft, of bewitching their neighbors and worshipping the devil and so on. So if people feel like they want to know more about the notion of witchcraft in contemporary society, want to try and do something about it, then I'd recommend looking at the Network and some of the people involved in it to find out more about that.

Sarah Jack: And you mentioned that Leo and others that are doing work like him are sometimes persecuted. They're misunderstood as being supporters of witchcraft, even. How does fear cloud perspectives on efforts to educate about witch hunting?

Marion Gibson: It's very easy, isn't it, to turn the word witch against somebody, which is one of the points of the book, really. Like I say, it can be used against more or less anybody. Of course, standing up for somebody who is accused of witchcraft can lead to you being accused of witchcraft too. And that's certainly something that we see in the [00:39:00] past, and it's something we see today with people like Leo.

Marion Gibson: And there are other examples that I talk about in the book, too. For example, two female professors who organized a conference at one of the campuses of the University of Nigeria were themselves accused of witchcraft, not ultimately to the extent of being tried, which is great. But they were still accused of witchcraft. And the academic conference about witchcraft persecution was represented by some of the religious spokespeople in the area as being a meeting of witches, a kind of witch's Sabbath, which made things very difficult for them. So that kind of misunderstanding and the harassment that arises from it is one of the things that the network is really keen to combat.

Josh Hutchinson: And we've also seen, in addition, you had that conference in Nigeria that was affected by this belief. We've seen in America, school classes, college courses be cancelled because they [00:40:00] had to do with witch trial history but were represented as teaching occult practices. And I've seen articles about there's a new course being offered by one of the universities in the UK, and they're coming under a little bit of fire, it seems like, for teaching witchcraft and occultism.

Marion Gibson: They are. That would be the university that I actually work at. Yes. The University of Exeter. That's absolutely right. and one of my colleagues has brought together this fascinating master of arts in Magic and Occult Science, I think something like that. And it's pretty obvious really, as soon as you look at the course description, this is about history. This is about the history of magic and she's also based within the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies. So it's specifically about Eastern Occultism and the way that many of the kind of discussions of magic and the [00:41:00] occult in early Eastern societies led to the sort of Western esotericism that people see now and some people practice, but other people just find a fascinating cultural phenomenon. So yeah, absolutely. There's been quite a lot of pushback about the advertisements for this course in some quarters, as if it were an attempt to, to teach people how to do magic and witchcraft, which of course, as academics, it is not our business to do.

Marion Gibson: So yeah, absolutely. These are still very live terms, aren't they? And we do see all the time challenges to particular books in libraries or challenges to courses which examine the history of witchcraft and magic, because people don't always understand that this is, it's just about history.

Marion Gibson: So it's, exactly the same as examining, I don't know, the history of the industrial revolution or the history of 17th century Puritanism or whatever, you can look at anything through the historical lens and find something valuable in it, but people don't always see that.

Sarah Jack: Yeah, it [00:42:00] really speaks to how powerful and dangerous witchcraft is perceived by some who fear it, that even a look at the history is dangerous.

Marion Gibson: Yes. It's almost as if it's going to contaminate you, isn't it? The very word witch or the idea of witchcraft or magic is going to harm you just by your association with it, or by having noticed it. That's a theme that comes up over and over again in the book, actually, the idea that, that witchcraft spreads like a virus the second you engage with it. It will draw you in and either you yourself will become a witch, which is a terrible thing, or you will be the victim of witchcraft, which is also a terrible thing. So there is this sense that it is, it's like a bacteria or a virus or a germ or something like that. And once set loose in society, it can't be put back into the box, if you like.

Sarah Jack: Well, this [00:43:00] is out of the box now too, and it's going to spread. I'm really excited.

Marion Gibson: I'm glad you've enjoyed it so much. I loved writing the book. It was very hard because, hey, it's a 700 year history of some really complicated stuff. And I found it really, really difficult. But I also thought that it was something that needed doing. We need this big history of the idea of witchcraft, because it's something that just hasn't gone away, and to that extent, I suppose it's more relevant in some ways than some of the other histories I've talked about. They too have this long legacy, but we've seen the vitality of the idea of witchcraft. And it's something that surprised me that it's come back into culture with such force and that so many people are interested in it from so many different perspectives.

Marion Gibson: And people are still using the word witch as a weapon, by the self assertion or attack on other people. So I think when you've got something that appears to be part of history, that's just medieval superstition [00:44:00] unites the past, don't worry about that, but you realize that it's actually still very powerful within your society, then that's something that particularly needs the attention of historians, it seems to me. So that's what the book tries to do, show people where it's still relevant and get people to pay attention to it where they see it arise.

Josh Hutchinson: It reminds me of something Wolfgang Berenger said in a documentary video released this summer, Why Witch Hunts Are Not Just a Dark Chapter of the Past. He said, 'there have never been so many witch hunts as there are today.' And people just don't realize that, so I thank you for raising the awareness of that.

Marion Gibson: Yeah, I think that's very true, what he says, particularly if you look at places like Southern Africa, if you look at Indonesia, if you look at Papua New Guinea, some of the places where witch hunting has become most endemic, you can see that actually witch [00:45:00] hunting is more popular than it's ever been. And that's partly because of the spread of different kinds of media.

Marion Gibson: We talked about demonology spreading through textbooks in the middle ages right through to the sort of 18th century or so, but of course now today it's the internet, it's social media, it's podcasts, it's videos, it's in some ways ancient technologies now like video cassettes and audio cassettes and CDs and people think of witchcraft also spreading through cell phones, through private conversations as if it could run through the air and infect people.

Marion Gibson: So all the new technologies, which some people would have thought would have put an end to the idea of witchcraft belief, have in fact just been incorporated into it. And so witchcraft belief and witchcraft trials spread now through new media, just as once they spread through the printed word when that was a new media phenomenon.

Marion Gibson: So yeah, it's, there are more witch trials than there have ever been. He's absolutely right about [00:46:00] that.

Sarah Jack: And that demonology theory is just right there, propelling the fear through modern technologies.

Marion Gibson: Yes, it is. It hasn't really changed that much. It's one of the great human ideas, in this case, a very bad one, that really hasn't changed that much over time. And it's still just as powerful, even though we might've tried to tell ourselves that it really wasn't, and that this was part of history and part of the past, and we'd moved on now, surely, hadn't we, but we hadn't and we need to think about why that is.

Josh Hutchinson: How do things change?

Marion Gibson: How do things change? How do things get better? That's a really difficult question. And I thought about it throughout the course of the book and I, maybe it's just because I'm old and tired, I don't know, but it struck me that they wouldn't. And that seems to me to be a horrifying insight, really, I've always lived as quite a positive person and thought, ah, things are getting better, but I think one of the things we've seen in the [00:47:00] past 10 years, say, is things slipping backwards?

Marion Gibson: So maybe over time things will get better. Maybe we will move on from witchcraft belief. Maybe society will become more just and equal and all the things that we want it to be. But I'm beginning to think that we have to push harder to make that happen because I think we had got quite complacent, or I had anyway, and thought that naturally things were getting better, right? There would be progress. Everything wasn't perfect, everything could get better, but we were broadly moving in the right direction in society. And then a whole slew of things happened that made me think, actually, this wasn't the case. So I'm not sure that it will get better, but I think we have to try.

Marion Gibson: And it takes every person's effort and everybody can do something. Yes, I think so. I think the fact that the stories I tell are individual ones shows [00:48:00] that because sometimes a witch trial can turn on the intervention of a single individual, perhaps somebody you wouldn't even expect. And that can make a huge difference for good or ill. So if we can, yeah, if we can try to be that person, if we can try to be one of those people, then perhaps there is some hope that things will get better and that people will stop being persecuted as witches, both in reality and in metaphor. It would be so nice if we could move on, wouldn't it? I, as much as anybody else, I value the idea of the witch in popular culture and I enjoy consuming fictions about witches, but if only it could be confined to the fictional realm, wouldn't that be a marvelous thing?

Sarah Jack: Absolutely.

Josh Hutchinson: Witchcraft: a History in Thirteen Trials, when is it out in the States and how can people get it?

Marion Gibson: It will be out mid January, so it's out in the UK at the moment, but there will be a lovely American edition with a fabulous cover with a little fiery red cat on it, which I hope people very much enjoy [00:49:00] when they see it. And it's coming out with Scribner, so it should be available in all good bookshops, as they say.

Sarah Jack: What is next for you?

Marion Gibson: Oh, I do know already, which is good. And guess what? It's about witches. I'm going to write a book about the Witchfinder General trials of the English Civil War, which you've probably talked about. Matthew Hopkins, John Stearne, a group of, a merry band of witch hunters, unfortunately, once again, persecuting people from about 1645 to 1647, mostly in eastern England, but a trial that, although it's confined to quite a small locality, is as big as the Salem trial and involves 200 to 300 suspects, possibly as many as 200 people executed, which is absolutely astonishing.

Marion Gibson: I don't think we talk about it enough. People will probably know some of those names. They might know the name Witchfinder General. But for the first time, because of digitization of records, we're able to [00:50:00] explore the whole series of the trials. And they move across seven counties. They are across two years and increasingly records are turning up, which casts new light on some of the people involved.

Marion Gibson: So what I'm going to try and do is tell the stories of some of those individuals, just as I've done in this book, and try to give them back their histories, their voices, and also just talk about, really talk about the national context, and to some extent, the international context, the way that trials like the Witchfinder General trials influence trials in North America, so Salem in particular.

Marion Gibson: But also the way it makes us reflect on, what we think Englishness is, what we think Britishness is, what we think those kinds of identities that subsequently traveled all around the world were. Because it's so easy, I think, for us to present ourselves as this wonderful, enlightened people who value fairness and justice and all the rest of it. But again, recent events have suggested actually we might have a slightly darker history, and it might be quite [00:51:00] important to talk about that. So it will be a book about the biggest English witch hunts and its repercussions all around the world. And that's the Witchfinder General Trials of the 1640s.

Sarah Jack: Fantastic.

Josh Hutchinson: You do give people a taste of that in Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials. once you, everybody out there, once you've read Witchcraft: a History in Thirteen Trials, I know you'll just be salivating waiting for the next book to come out.

Marion Gibson: I can't wait to write it. Yeah. There's one of the chapters deals with parthenogenesis of that hunt and a particular individual who's accused. So yeah, if I can do for many of the other suspects what I've done for her, I should be very happy. Again, it's a very big project and it will take a little while, but I cannot wait to do this. I've already started on the research. In fact, I'm off to Essex, our Essex County here in England, next week to do some more work on it.

Sarah Jack: Wonderful.[00:52:00]

Josh Hutchinson: I want to recommend that everybody follow the project. You're on X as the Seven Counties Witch Project, right? Witch Trial Project.

Marion Gibson: That's right. Yeah. It's @witches7hunt, I think our address is.

Josh Hutchinson: And we'll have that link for everybody in the show description.

Marion Gibson: Please follow along. We do a regular blog, which explores our adventures in different archives.

Sarah Jack: And now, for a minute with Mary.

Mary-Louise Bingham: How do we know what we know? Historian Margo Burns has challenged her audiences many times with that question as part of her public presentations regarding the colonial New England witch trials. As I prepared to tell the story of the evening of the second arrest of Mary Esty for a past episode on this podcast, I contacted Margo. We spent two hours trying to figure out the route George Herrick rode the night of May 20th, [00:53:00] 1692, to apprehend Mary and bring her to Salem for her second examination. We pulled all the information from the best primary source, Records of the Salem Witch Hunt, of which Margo was the project manager with a top notch team who compiled and translated these documents over a 12 year period.

Mary-Louise Bingham: I would like to thank Margo for her time and expertise, and for challenging us lay historians to look to the primary sources so that our ancestor stories will be told with authority. Thank you.

Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)3, Weekly News Update. This podcast is a project of our nonprofit called End Witch Hunts. It is dedicated to the global collaboration to end witch hunting in all forms. We collaborate on and create projects that build awareness, [00:54:00] education, exoneration, justice, memorialization, and research of the phenomenon of witch hunting behavior. End Witch Hunts employs a three pronged approach to the problem, focusing on knowledge, memory, and advocacy through our various projects. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn about the projects.

Sarah Jack: Martin Luther King Jr. said, "whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth."

Sarah Jack: Our mission is to actively enlighten the public on historical and contemporary dimensions of all witch trials. Today the issue of witch hunts represents a significant human rights crisis recognized by the United Nations Human Rights Council. This global concern calls upon nations and leaders to intensify their efforts in addressing harmful practices associated with witchcraft accusations. The United States can intensify their efforts, too. There are still witch trial victims here that need a formal apology and exoneration. [00:55:00]

Sarah Jack: Massachusetts Bill H 1803, an Act to Exonerate All Individuals Accused of Witchcraft During the Salem Witch Trials, is currently being reviewed by the Joint Committee on Judiciary in the Massachusetts General Court. They must choose to pass the bill onto the House by February 7th. Please consider submitting written testimony now as to why you support acknowledging all those who suffered in the Salem Witch Trials. This bill transcends the realm of mere legislation. It holds profound significance in the pursuit of human rights. Beyond the previously exonerated victims of the Salem Witch Trials, this bill sheds light on the vast scale of mass suffering that occurred. It represents a significant step towards rectifying this injustice and delivering more comprehensive justice. This legislation holds the power to provide more long-overdue formal acknowledgment to overlooked victims. It symbolizes a collective commitment to dismantling the historical and contemporary shackles of injustice and to find the way to a just and [00:56:00] humane world for all.

Sarah Jack: Join the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project and House Representative Andres Vargas in advocating for this crucial piece of legislation. Anyone can submit written testimony. Simply write a short letter stating why this bill is important. You can send it to this address, which will also be in the show notes.

Sarah Jack: Send to judiciary committee at 24 Beacon Street, room 136, Boston, Massachusetts 0 2 1 3 3 or by email to michael.musto@mahouse.gov. That's m i c h a e l dot m u s t o at m a h o u s e dot g o v.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Jack: You're welcome.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.

Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts

Sarah Jack: Visit us at aboutwitchhunts.com/.

Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell your friends and family about the show.[00:57:00]

Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

January 17, 2024

Ikponwosa Ero on Ending Witch Hunts

IK Ero On Next Steps For Ending Witch Hunts TINAAWAHP

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Show Notes

In this profound interview, Ikponwosa Ero unpacks her work advocating for human rights of victims of witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks. As a lawyer and a former United Nations Independent Expert on the Rights of Persons with Albinism, she shares her professional journey and personal experience as an advocate with albinism. Through the interview, she provides extensive data on the nature and scale of the problem, explaining the global presence of harmful practices beyond Africa, in North and South America and Europe. She talks about her contribution at the United Nations, emphasizing the importance of human rights framework in combating these harmful practices. The conversation also covers the need for grassroots collaborations, the collection of reliable data, the importance of cross-movement partnerships, and the role of climate change in these harmful practices.

Recommended Viewing

Sanguma: Everybody’s Business

National Action Plan

I Am Not a Witch

Saving Africa’s Witch Children

Websites of Note

The International Network against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices

Grassroots organizations working with The International Network

Storymap explaining the dynamics of sorcery accusation related violence

Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that delves deep into the haunting world of historical and contemporary witch hunts. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: I'm Sarah Jack, And today we bring you a profoundly eye opening episode that ventures beyond the usual narratives.

Josh Hutchinson: Witch hunting dates back thousands of years.

Sarah Jack: And Witch Hunts have never stopped.

Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we will learn about Harmful Practices Related to Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks, which covers both witch hunting and violent assaults on persons with albinism.

Sarah Jack: We will be joined by Ikponwosa 'IK' Ero, former United Nations independent expert on the rights of persons with albinism,[00:01:00] who has been instrumental in elevating international advocacy against harmful practices.

Josh Hutchinson: IK's story is not just a narrative, it's a testament to resilience, advocacy, and the relentless pursuit of justice.

Sarah Jack: IK will walk us through the basics of the situation and share what has been accomplished so far.

Josh Hutchinson: We'll learn why she is optimistic about the future of anti-witch-hunt advocacy.

Sarah Jack: She will outline the next steps we can all take to further advance the issue and bring it towards resolution.

Josh Hutchinson: Stay tuned to learn how you can get involved.

Sarah Jack: We welcome IK ero, a legal professional who served as the inaugural United Nations Independent Expert on the Human Rights of Individuals with Albinism from 2015 to 2021. With over a decade of experience in international human rights research policy and practice, she has actively collaborated with various global organizations and governments. Her contributions include influencing over 20 resolutions at [00:02:00] both the African Union and the United Nations, addressing the human rights of individuals with albinism and combating harmful practices. Notably, IK played a pivotal role in shaping significant international initiatives, such as the African Union Plan of Action on Albinism in Africa and the Pan African Parliament's Guidelines on Eliminating Harmful Practices Related to Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks.

IK Ero: My name IK Ero. My full name is Ikponwosa Ero, which is a Nigerian name, and most people struggle to say it, so they can say IK, which are the first two letters of this very long name. I am Nigerian by birth origin. I grew up there, immigrated to Canada as a teenager with my family, and have basically spent the rest of my life based in Canada while traveling around the world in various capacities.

IK Ero: I am a lawyer by training. I have spent the last 15 years or so doing human rights law and advocacy around [00:03:00] the situation of people impacted by albinism, and that's how I came across the issue of witchcraft accusation and ritual attacks, all of which collectively are known as harmful practices.

Sarah Jack: What is the nature and scale of the problem of harmful practices relating to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks?

IK Ero: We believe we're talking about tens of thousands of people impacted, and that's based on the data we have. We spent nearly five years gathering data from around the world, not just the continent of Africa but also South America and, to a lot of people's surprise, North America and Europe. Why these are important is that countries where practices, harmful practices like these are rampant, have immigrated and taken the problem with them, because ritual attacks and harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft is a mentality, it's an issue of a [00:04:00] mentality and a system of belief. So that can easily be transported with a person. So across all these countries and even in the Pacific, Papua New Guinea, and the small island states in the same region, we were able to gather tens of thousands of data. It's monumental, because this is data that we pulled together using a small team and just looking through media-reported cases alone. That's the tip of the iceberg, we think.

Josh Hutchinson: Would you be able to tell us about your experiences with the United Nations?

IK Ero: Sure. In 2015, the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is the United Nations main office in Geneva, Switzerland, looked into the issue of attacks against people with albinism. So people with albinism or albinos, as they have been called in the past, are people who have a genetic condition that results in little or no coloring in their hair, skin, and eyes.

IK Ero: I [00:05:00] myself, I'm a Nigerian, so I'm an African woman, but I have albinism. So I have African features, but I have white skin, blonde hair, blue eyes. This type of appearance has been the subject of harmful practices. The United Nations was aware mostly of the situation in Africa, which definitely was the most egregious reported as of that time. So by 2015, there were well close to 200 cases of ritual attacks against people with albinism. These are people who were hunted down and they stand out in their colors, it's hard to hide. And being a rare condition, everyone knows where you live. I remember everyone knowing, oh, hey, that girl with albinism lives down there.

IK Ero: And so these people were easily hunted, easily found, and their body parts were hacked off, limbs, hair, and fingers. Many times the attacks were done by machetes, because there was the belief in witchcraft that if you take it from a live person, the witchcraft potions you make out of [00:06:00] those body parts will be more potent.

IK Ero: So this belief system led to several scores of people, mostly children, because they're easy to attack and hard for them to fend off several perpetrators, which most of those cases involved more than one attacker, and many of them bled to death from these attacks, known as ritual attacks. And sadly, a lot of the perpetrators were known to the victims, so there was a bit of grooming, or sometimes family members such as stepdads, uncles, were involved in some of these cases, all predicated on the beliefs that these are not human beings.

IK Ero: So in 2015, the United Nations, the Red Cross had described the situation as a small-scale genocide, and this is where the machinery of human rights kicked in, because human rights doesn't only look at large scale groups. It also looks at minorities, quantitatively speaking. So in 2015, they appointed somebody, they appointed a mandate to look into the issue and try to put a stop to it, or at [00:07:00] least try to bring the cases to light. And I was the first mandate-holder in that position in 2015. I served my two full terms until 2021, and it was in the capacity as a mandate holder for people with albinism that I worked on their rights as people with disabilities, on their rights as human beings, and then, of course, on their rights as people who should not be subject. No one, essentially, should be subject to harmful practices. So that was the first time that witchcraft as a harmful practice came to the fore.

IK Ero: Until this mandate, most people were scared to talk about it at the UN, because they were afraid of, yeah, of many things, right? How dare you talk about something that are some people's religion? Or how do you define this as witchcraft when it's just a crime? Or how can you talk about this when you're, like, from Europe, and so this is a colonial approach? So I came with several hats on. I came as an African, I came as also someone who understands the Western world as a naturalized citizen of Canada. I came as a woman, someone who'd experienced witchcraft in practice. I'd witnessed [00:08:00] it, who had experienced discrimination on the basis of harmful practices, and so when I brought it up, nobody, there was very little challenge anyone could bring back against me as to why I was bringing it up, because I seem to fit the mold of the kind of person who could bring it up.

IK Ero: And so I did, and I'm glad today that several resolutions have been passed. I'm glad today to see the first ever guidelines on this issue in, on the African continent, which I hope other continents will emulate. So we've come a long way and above all, we define the issue. We could define the issue in a way that everyone was happy with.

Josh Hutchinson: The United Nations passed a resolution in 2021, and then the Pan African Parliament issued guidelines. What is the significance of those two events?

IK Ero: The first significant aspect of those two initiatives was the conceptualization of the issue, right?Your podcast has a witch in it. So now what does that mean to someone who sees that? It conjures a lot of images, [00:09:00] right? So the first thing we had to do was if we're going to take this bull by the horns in a way that mattered across several countries, we had to come up with a concept that everyone could accept. So the major victory of those initiatives was a working definition. The first victory was a working definition. And the definition we came up with was not to define witchcraft, because this is where we're getting hung up.

IK Ero: We had several events at the UN and there would be arguments and counter arguments as to what witchcraft was. Some people were like, this is something that was a colonial label for something that was a cultural practice. Some people said, what you're calling witchcraft is actually criminal activity and shouldn't be confused. Some called it a religion. Some said it's a Eurocentric word that doesn't translate into other people's culture.

IK Ero: Then finally we said, 'look. One thing we all agree with is that no one should be harmed in the name of witchcraft. Whether you are a practitioner of witchcraft today as a religion, a culture, or you're an academic who thinks it's a Eurocentric [00:10:00] word or what have you, we all agree that nobody's body part should be cut off. Nobody should be subject to torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and punishment in the name of anything. And sinceharmful practices have been linked to witchcraft, we all know that it's condemnable.' So we agreed on that. Okay.

IK Ero: The second thing we agreed on was what exactly is harmful practice? Let's make sure we know what that is. Like, if I discipline my child and say, 'go to your room,' is that a harmful practice? Versus someone who cuts off someone's hair to go use it in a practice of witchcraft for good luck. What is condemnable under human rights law, under criminal law?

IK Ero: So in the end, what we were fortunate about is the UN already had the definition of harmful practice because of female genital mutilation, early child marriages. These are practices that are very well known around the world, because they've been classified as harmful practice, because the United Nations had come up with a criteria for [00:11:00] determining harmful what, what exactly falls under this phrase, harmful practice that is condemnable and could be criminal. So they included criteria such as their practices and customs that are seen intractable or unchangeable in society and because several types of degradation or affront to human dignity. So it's very well laid out what this criteria was.

IK Ero: So what we did was we took that already established term and linked it to this not so established term, witchcraft, which has been appropriated in these crimes. So we said, harmful practices related to witchcraft. And instead of saying, let's have resolutions on witchcraft, we had, let's have resolutions and a guideline on harmful practices related to witchcraft. And then we expounded on the same harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft. And then I fought to have and ritual attacks included, because ritual attacks is not necessarily witchcraft [00:12:00] practice, but in many cultures in Africa, it is linked. It is linked, because it's all about this supernatural use of power to allegedly cause harm to someone. So I fought to put ritual attacks under the umbrella, and that was the biggest accomplishment we have. Because once we got over this consensus of what we're talking about, then everything else was faster, even though it wasn't smooth sailing. So our biggest accomplishment was understanding what we're talking about, agreeing to condemn what we needed to condemn.

IK Ero: And then now we have guidelines that show on the African continent, as you said, the Pan-African Parliament developed this guidelines with my support, saying, 'okay, this is what governments can do to bring an end to the beliefs that enable these attacks, and this harmful practices.' And at the resolution level, there was more of a recognition at the United Nations of putting these harmful practices under the catalogue of the umbrella term of harmful practices. So now it's not only [00:13:00] female genital mutilation and early childhood marriage, it's now also accusation of witchcraft and ritual attacks.

Josh Hutchinson: In your talk recently for The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices, you had spoken about applying a human rights framework to the concept of harmful practices. What is the significance of the human rights framework in this context?

IK Ero: The significance of using a human rights framework is that human rights, first of all, centers on the human, right? That's why they're called human rights. And human dignity is paramount, it's priority. For instance, I'll give you an example. So I've had arguments with, good arguments with colleagues who work in the scientific aspect of albinism research, and trying to work with them to understand the human rights frame, and to see if they could interface that in their work.

IK Ero: Because if you're [00:14:00] studying the genetics of albinism, the human being becomes an object of your study, doesn't matter what your study is doing to them, doesn't matter what impact your study will have on them. Of course, there's ethics and all that, but what I mean is, usually people have complained to me that, 'oh, this researcher came, interviewed us, and we had no idea what the research is being used for.' Now, the researcher is following his own research ethics, but he hasn't involved or engaged a person as a human. There's no centering of the person, so the person is an object of study, whereas in the human rights framework, you are obligated to do more than just research ethics. You have to consult the people who are the objects or subjects of your research, you have to help them to participate in it in a meaningful way, have to consult them in a meaningful way, and try to report back in a meaningful way. All of this in our understanding that their human dignity is equal to yours. And just because you are working at this level doesn't make them any more or less then you in dignity or more or less deserving of the information that you're working [00:15:00] with. So that's one of the important parts of bringing the human rights frame into this work.

IK Ero: But even more profound, I think, or even profound in another way, is the need to consider all the rights of people involved. So if I say this is witchcraft practice, yes and no. In many cases, you have to really tease it out. So for instance, I was in Tanzania, visiting as the independent expert on an official country mission. And I had a meeting with so called practitioners of witchcraft, and they said, look, we're actually practitioners of traditional medicine. Some of our members go off to do questionable things, and that's what you could call witchcraft. But we are not witches, we don't practice witchcraft, but we understand there's an overlap between what we do and what some of these other people do.

IK Ero: And so there's a lot of confusion. So the human rights approach allows you to say, okay, these are traditional medicine practitioners, we need to respect their rights. Or [00:16:00] these are witchcraft believers, they don't have any ritual practices that are harmful. They just like Wiccans or, neo pagans. They just have a religious belief. So we need to respect their rights to religious freedom. And then, classified next group, okay, these people practice these cultural things, like they kill a goat and use the blood on some of the children in the village, which I actually participated in as a child with my grandfather. Is that witchcraft? Some people would say yes, like some of the nowadays Christians would say yes, then some people say no. But I have a right, my grandfather had a freedom of religion, which is protected by his human rights. So the importance of this frame is to protect everyone in the discourse and the discussion, and to make sure that in trying to solve one issue, we're not creating another one, which tends to happen, right?

IK Ero: So human rights mitigates this risk. And that's why I believe that frame is important if we're going to ensure that when we're trying to resolve these issues, we are at the very least protecting other people's rights or acknowledging them. Because they [00:17:00] already exist, right? So this is why it's crucial to bring in this framework, even in other perspectives.

Sarah Jack: I heard you say earlier that human rights has started to protect not only grand scale groups. And sometimes these misunderstood and vulnerable people may fall into these less noticed categories. So this is very significant.

IK Ero: Exactly. And again, that's a good point, because this is also why the human rights framework is very useful, because it has a way of treating people who are minorities. All minorities according to the declaration on minorities, which has classification of what that means. People who belong to a peculiar ethnic group or peculiar culture, peculiar religious, or heritage. So there's that type of minority, and there's also the minority by numbers. Either way, they are protected under the law. And [00:18:00] bringing in the human rights framework gives you an added advantage because there are established standards on how to ensure that just because there are few doesn't mean they should be ignored.

IK Ero: I had to confront that all the time when I was on the mandate because I would visit a country and they would look at me like, okay, your colleague came last year, and she came to deal with violence against women, or she came to deal with women in law, and you're talking about nearly half the population, and then I show up, and I'm like, let's talk about people with albinism who are maybe less than 0.01 percent, like in a country like Tanzania, there could be like 30, 000 people with albinism out of like 55 million people. So in terms of government planning and budgeting processes, or like macro system, you're talking very little, but I had to show them that, well, that's exactly why you should do it, because it only takes one year of your focus or five years of your focus to transform their lives, because they're not many.

IK Ero: So I flipped it back for them, or I would remind them of their obligations to do more, because this [00:19:00] UN Sustainable Development Goals, which replace the Millennium Development Goals, has a pledge, a central pledge. That is 'leave no one behind, especially those furthest left behind.' So you as a country have made this pledge, according to the United Nations publications you have to make an effort, because the MDGs helped everyone in an aggregate, but the ones who were not reached, again, the smaller groups, minorities, those on the margins, so the SDGs is trying to correct that. So I brought up all these arguments through the human rights framework to make sure that faith and harmful practices were acknowledged and at least some responses put in place.

Josh Hutchinson: You spoke about human dignity. Is there a definition for that in international law?

IK Ero: That's a good question, Josh. I believe I saw something explaining what that was. I don't have the exact wording in my memory, but I can paraphrase that it said something about the worth [00:20:00] of it, of each person that was inherent to them by the nature of them being humans. So essentially it means once you are human, you have this inherent worth that nobody had a right to take away from you, and you have no right to take it away from anybody else. So, that's the simplest way I can put it, from memory.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you. It came up yesterday. what dignity every human is worthy of. We needed a definition to help understand what every human should expect as a minimum in regards to how they're treated.

Josh Hutchinson: There were a couple of things that you spoke of in the video about the human rights framework and harmful practices concept. You said, 'culture and tradition can never be an excuse for practices that are harmful' and 'freedom of religion or belief does not extend to actions that inflict harm on others.'

Josh Hutchinson:

IK Ero: On the first [00:21:00] point about culture and customs do not justify any harmful practice. This is a principle of human rights. One of the principles of human rights is the universality of human rights, which means it transcends local contextual factors. Human rights is very much linked to human dignity and gives expression to human dignity. You are worth this, because you're a human being and everyone has the same worth in that regard.

IK Ero: And so now this right is going to express how you live out your dignity, and it's going to express how others live out their dignity. And you have a right to move, to be mobile. You have a right not to be discriminated against. All of these are linked back to your human dignity as to what the minimum, as you said, or there's minimum expectation from other people to have a life that is free, fulfilling, and without unnecessary hindrance. So essentially, the universality of human rights [00:22:00] explains what I just said, but also takes it further to ensure that when people object and say, this is how we've always done it, or this is what we've always believed, or this is our culture, human rights says that's all well and good, but the human dignity of the person you're harming takes precedent.

IK Ero: It takes precedent. So even though we respect your culture and you actually have a right to it, this person's life and their flourishing and their protection and their right to peace takes precedence, and that's why, even though there's always a controversy about a hierarchy of rights in human rights discourse, the truth is there is some degree, there's just no way, after all, the rights of life cannot be compared totally with your right to practice your faith or your right to life cannot be compared to say,the right to health, let's say, even though they are very much linked, right? So you can think about rights in that sense, that there is a hierarchy, and sometimes you have to struggle to make sure someone has [00:23:00] the right to life. They have to be protected, because without the right to life, they can't talk about right to employment. You wouldn't have, you wouldn't be alive, you wouldn't be alive to work. Because of that, even though people have a right to their culture, and their set of beliefs, they and most people do recognize that at the end of the day, making sure that you are not cutting off people's body parts takes precedent over those.

IK Ero: So that's one, one thing. And then the other thing you had said about, of religion and beliefs, that those are rights that do not extend to harm? Yes. So this is another tricky area. And thankfully, the UN has hashed this out, that they have a committee on civil and political rights that have written very useful comments on this. And what they said very clearly was everyone has a right to religion or belief or lack thereof, but in holding those beliefs or lack thereof, you have to be aware that those will stop the moment you start to create harm on other people, now, especially [00:24:00] harmful practices.

IK Ero: So this is why harmful practices also have to be defined, because what do you say if, somebody goes to, like a Pentecostal Christian goes to their pastor and says, 'my husband and I think he's possessed, right? Can you exorcise him?' And they start to exorcise in Pentecostal style. He falls on the floor, his head is being lambasted, and he looks like in a very bad state. Does that become a harmful practice? So this is why harmful practice was already defined, because in this situation, it may not, you may be able to argue that it's not.

IK Ero: And so, however, if you, someone else brings their child, and these are all based on real life stories, someone else brings their child who is autistic, and they don't understand it's and say, this child is bewitched, he doesn't speak, but when he does speak, what he says is unnaturally correct. Now the pastor says, oh, I got the spiritual vision that this is a supernatural child who's a witch. Now let's like put a nail through his head. [00:25:00] Or some really abhorrent act. Is that a harmful practice? Probably. So I think that religious practices, people are free to believe what they want, but they have to stop where it causes harm, and a lot of that is the use of their common sense, respect of their criminal law to know where harmful practices begin and also to follow like human rights criteria as to what is harmful practice. Not always easy, but this is the working definition and how to respect other people's human rights or balanced rights so that in a way everyone is protected while doing what they want to do.

Josh Hutchinson: We have this saying in the States that my right to swing my arm stops where your nose begins. And it sounds like applying the same thing to religious and spiritual practices, that it's great that you're practicing what you believe in up to the point where you start to harm someone else.

IK Ero: That's a good summary of the whole extrapolation I [00:26:00] made. But one thing I should say is that, that it remains challenging is what if the, because we know there are some conditions that tend to lead more to these types of harmful practices than others. So what if the condition is somebody's belief is in witchcraft? They don't necessarily do it, but they believe in it. For instance, someone might believe that a person with albinism's body parts can bring good luck in witchcraft potions, right? They haven't done it, but they hold the belief, right? There are some arguments. Some people think that when we try to mitigate this problem, we should go after these beliefs and, tell them it's not okay to hold it, even if they have a right to hold it.

IK Ero: Whereas there's another school of thought that says it doesn't matter, as long as they don't act on it, they can think whatever they want. But the former school of thought is like, if you let those thoughts flourish, one day it's going to burst out. So there's a lot of schools of thought as to how to react to these things without harming people's human rights.

IK Ero: There's some complications that we will sort out in practice going forward.[00:27:00]

Sarah Jack: Thank you for all your work. And in your recent keynote, you were able to express optimism about the efforts that you accomplished, what milestones they were. What good outcomes can we look for?

IK Ero: I believe that we now have a small movement, whereas before there really was not. There were reports of these harms in a scattered and ad hoc way. However, we now have a group of academics and advocates who have come together to do more in a strategic way to build on the work of the resolutions and of the guidelines.

IK Ero: I think we started off at minus five, and now we are on ground zero, or at least a few points ahead of that. Now that the foundation is made, I don't think we could ever go back to where we were, where we couldn't name these issues, and where we couldn't call on any types of concepts to protect people as easily.

IK Ero: So I am [00:28:00] optimistic, because now what seems to remain is good strategic work going forward, taking what has been done and making a buffet out of it, so that the changes become real to the people we're trying to protect. All we need now is not so much fighting about concepts, which is really huge and draining, but more about strategic movement building and making it into reality, things that already exists.

IK Ero: I'm afraid though that the movement is not like a well-funded, oily machine, but I do believe that those who are at the helm of it have the necessary passion, knowledge, and skill to do a lot with what they have. So this is where my optimism is coming from.

Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And you have outlined several next steps. One that you outlined was the ongoing popularization of the UN resolution. How important is that and how can that be done?

IK Ero: It's very important that people understand what has been achieved in [00:29:00] terms of the understanding of how the issue is, right? Now you still mention witchcraft practices to people and they're still thinking the lady on the broom with the Halloween hat. We've gone past that into the postmodern forms of witchcraft.

IK Ero: The same way as there's a huge literature on modern-day slavery, we need to get these issues about so-called accusation of witchcraft and ritual attacks into the modern parlance. People need to be aware that there's a modern form of what they think is more medieval, so we need to do some catch up.

IK Ero: And this can happen through a lot of social media engagement. Even small videos with little animated cartoons, or, AI, like feeding information into AI, since we're relying on that more. And then also you're having campaigns with campaign organizations like AVAS or AVAS, I don't know how to pronounce them. Were really interested in this issue at some point. And as we're negotiating with them, the resolution passed and it went moot because they were going to help us have a campaign to get the [00:30:00] resolution adopted. But I think it's worth revisiting, going back to them or Amnesty International, some kind of campaign organization or organizations working on elderly people, because this is a rising issue as the world slowly ages.

IK Ero: The issue of the elderly is gonna be more front and center, and organizations taking that on, such as Human Rights Watch, need to be brought into the fore to get them to have campaign messages in which we can insert things about accusation of witchcraft, ritual attacks, trying to get people to see it as part of the catalog of harmful practices.

IK Ero: So that even those doing early child marriages, female genital mutilation, can add that to their catalogue. This is all very much related, especially since women tend to be the majority of the victims of all of these harmful practices. So these are some of the ways we can carry out the campaign and to popularize the resolution and the guidelines.

Sarah Jack: You talked about replicating the Pan African Parliament guidelines in other locations. Could you explain the need for that and [00:31:00] how that might work?

IK Ero: So Africa is one that we focused on for several reasons, including the type of mandate I had. But when we had a few workshops, we realized that some other regions also had similar harmful practices, especially like in Papua New Guinea, which is like in the Pacific region, some parts of South America. So we believe, and even some parts of Europe who have taken in immigrants, right?

IK Ero: So we believe that some other continents, many of which have their own continent wide parliament, like the Pan African Parliament, because many of them have similar mandates to issue guidelines, could also have this as part of their work, their mandate, either to do it as a standalone or a part of a directive on immigration and how to deal withthe protection of minors or protection of people in vulnerable situations, who come in through immigration.

IK Ero: So we are hoping that if Africa did it, as they say, what's good for Africa is good for everywhere else, because Africa is uniquely, has [00:32:00] diversity in everything. And it's one thing people don't realize, like they talk about Africa as a monolith, but the most diverse of everything is there. If we're able to overcome those differences to agree on this, we believe that the foundation has been laid again.

IK Ero: And it's just a matter of taking those guidelines and adapting them to regions after consulting with the local activists, there's several activists at local level trying to prevent these crimes, working with them, consulting with them. And even if parliaments at the continental level cannot do it, then they have continent wide national human rights institutes that work continentally to drive practices in human rights and those can have issue guidelines like nothing is stopping them from issuing guidelines and it was a lot of work to get this work off the ground because we're conceptualizing as we're drafting. We've done all the hard work for them so there really is no reason for them to not have one at this point so we're hoping that it will get replicated and adapted to their own context.

Sarah Jack: In what [00:33:00] ways does continuing to gather data propel things forward?

IK Ero: Data is one of the things people cannot argue with, although nowadays that's changing a little bit with artificial intelligence and the incredible technology driven ability to alter data. However, for the most part, data can still be useful if it is something that comes, that is traceable, has traceability.

IK Ero: For instance, when I recorded cases of people attacked, people with albinism. I used to work at, I work at an organization called Under the Same Sun, where we have over a decade of attack data, each case is traceable, at least 90 percent of them, because we have down to the villages, and I learned that strategy from the international criminal court, because I worked there at a time.

IK Ero: And so as long as data is that good, they're real, they're traceable, they're protected, what available. People always believe it's hard to fight against [00:34:00] people who have data. And we try to replicate that with the witchcraft related data that we gathered with this new movement. And so I believe that convincing people, persuading them, as they say, when it comes to the C suite or the high levels of decision making bodies or authorities. At that point, communication, persuasiveness become very useful skills. And the only thing that can make that better is data. And I saw that happen with albinism, was one of the reasons we were able to get as far as we did, both on my mandate and even on this issue in particular, was to say, look, this is what's happening, this is the data, what are you going to, you can't argue with data, you really cannot. At the end of the day, it's an objective signal of what needs to be done, and I cannot underscore how important, how, it's, some places outside of Africa have very few data available because many people are not collecting them. I would say aside from data being necessary in general, some regions are behind in getting the data that we know exists. We just need more hands on deck, more researchers to [00:35:00] pull out more data from regions outside Africa as well to show that it's more of a global issue.

Josh Hutchinson: And you've spoken of the need to engage grassroots organizations in their efforts. What are the benefits of working with grassroots organizations?

IK Ero: Yeah, so this ties into the data issue, as well. If someone from Papua New Guinea is able to find data and report that data to, say, an authority at the UN, it's very powerful because she's on the ground, the official is not, and she can trace the case. And many times at the UN when cases are reported there, the person reporting them even gets the consent by signature of the victim or their family members if the victim is unable or deceased to sign the consent. So it's so raw. Like I got some forms where I could see the signature of a victim who was still in hospital saying, 'this is what happened to me.' So it's very important that people who are really on the ground be involved because they not only help with data, they also bring [00:36:00] some level of authenticity that cannot be replicated by just doing research on the computer and also bringing them into the forays of this.

IK Ero: So bringing grassroots people into the processes at the UN of how to report to this expert, how to report to this mandate or the Human Rights Council, this process is how to do it, then that really gives them a power that maybe they don't think they have. It also puts accountability on the government.

IK Ero: Because imagine Mrs. A reporting to the UN about a case in Papua New Guinea, now the government will be embarrassed at the UN and want to do something. So it's a way of getting accountability much quicker, bringing authenticity, bringing data, empowering the local activists, with other ways of getting things done.

Sarah Jack: So you spoke about bringing a test case before the United Nations. How would that work and what would be the benefit of doing that?

IK Ero: Essentially, the UN has some quasi-judicial bodies, [00:37:00] called committees, who function under what are often known as optional protocols to conventions. So there are conventions, and then optional protocol to that convention, which allows complaints to be brought before the committee.

IK Ero: So as an example, there's a committee on the rights of people with disabilities called the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, the CRPD. It's an international law that sets standards on how people with disabilities ought to be treated within human rights. So CRPD has a committee that checks compliance, yeah, so there's a committee of the CRPD. Now they have now an optional protocol to the CRPD, by which the committee assesses cases brought by individuals.

IK Ero: So now, what we had done as part of our advocacy strategy, working on the rights of people with albinism some years back, was we brought a test case before the committee governing the optional protocol. There was a woman who had been attacked, they cut off both of her arms, she bled so much they had to amputate both of them,so now she went from [00:38:00] a woman with albinism to someone who had now multiple disabilities, albinism being only one of them at this point, cannot feed her son who was less than 10 years old, her other kid, like completely caused havoc in her life, to put it lightly. So we took her case, among others that we actually combined all three of them. We got the support of a human rights clinic at a university in Africa called the University of Pretoria in South Africa. So this is another strategy. Lots of universities have this human rights clinics at faculty of laws where the students are just buzzing with energy to do something to make a difference. And this is an excellent opportunity for them to put their work into practice while benefiting those who were survivors or victims of these atrocities. So what we did with this case, cases, we combined the three of them, this woman being one of them, and we brought them before the optional protocol.

IK Ero: It took two years, because that's how long it takes. They don't have all the resources in the world to work faster. And, but at the end, the decision was so strong in favor of the victims, [00:39:00] like requested the country to bring remedies, legal remedies, social remedies, economic remedies, I mean, you can't compensate people like that, but you can do as much as you can to like provide some remedies.

IK Ero: So they asked the government to provide those remedies, and now we as advocates at that point, what we had to do was follow up with that. First, we went to the press and did like a press release and made a whole buffet of this thing. And we're like, the government has to do all this things to remediate.

IK Ero: We brought in the survivors to speak on their own behalf. They expressed contentment. Like their cases never went through the local courts, but it went through the optional protocol. In a way they got justice, so even if the government fails to provide remedies, they know that they were vindicated, even though evidently they were victims, but nonetheless, this is the power of those cases, is that you can make a huge buffet out of it and put fire under the feet of the government, and even though they only supported, to some extent, those remedies, or provided, what they did was the next time they were called to the UN to give accounts for their implementing other [00:40:00] human rights obligations, because almost every country has a report under each convention that they ratified how they were implementing it, they felt obligated always to provide an update. Oh, and the situation with people with albinism we're doing XYZ, because this case against them was public, was published, and there's a level of embarrassment. There's a lot of benefits that could come out of a test case. So if we bring a case of someone who, say, was burnt to death because of an accusation, whereas they were like 70 year old woman having early stages of dementia. That's an excellent case, I mean terrible. What an excellent opportunity to make those countries realize that we are watching you, we are watching you and we know this is happening in your country, you better do something about it. So so far I don't think there's been that type of case, from what I know, and so I think it could be really useful to try to do that.

Sarah Jack: How will partnerships with international organizations that are working on related issues be a key strategy?

IK Ero: It's a key strategy because [00:41:00] people are overwhelmed, eh, in activism. I'm sure you have an awareness of that there's a lot of issues in this world. At some point when I was going to places to give talks or presentations, you could see in people's faces, especially in people working in human rights and development, they're just like, 'okay, what else, what other craziness is happening in this world that I should add to my agenda? Or what other craziness is happening in this world that I really cannot take on because I'm up to here, right?'

IK Ero: So it is a strategy really to be realistic that the people who are working in the field of human rights are human as well. And there's only so much a human being can take. And if you want to help them to help you, you have to show how your work fits into their existing work, right?

IK Ero: So for instance, if you're working on, Sarah, you're working on climate change, right? And then I show up to your office and I start talking about attacks, ritual attacks against people with albinism. You might just be like, okay, that's sad, but I can't help you because I'm going to COP in Dubai, [00:42:00] and I'm like up to here in work. But if I come to you and then suddenly I only raise another aspect that overlaps with yours, then for instance, I could say,Sarah, there's a lot of people with albinism who are dying because of climate change. UV rays are rising in many countries. And because of that, many of them are not able to work outdoors or they're dying more rapidly from skin cancer. All of this is true, by the way. Suddenly you're like, 'oh, I could actually say that. I could put a line in my report or I could mention that'. So I'm just saying that if we want to help people who are working in this space who are mostly overwhelmed, we have to find a way to make it easier for them. And one of the ways to do that is to show them, hey, you, Josh, you're working on the issue of children, stuck in armed conflict. How about you also mention next time you're presenting to the big guns, children who are accused of witchcraft? Because in some of these camps where the refugees are staying, you have received reports of witchcraft accusations and harm has been done. And then Josh can include it without us driving him [00:43:00] crazy with adding more issues to his plate, right? So it's really a strategy I think that is more humane, more respectful of the reality of what our world is and of the stress levels that are rising among development workers.

Josh Hutchinson: Why is it important to participate in dialogue on climate change and climate justice?

IK Ero: Good. So this is related to the issue, one aspect about so-called witchcraft practices or accusations of witchcraft is that they tend to go up when there's like economic, socioeconomic pressures. So the literature is rife with data showing that when there was a drought, or a famine, or some kind of economic collapse, accusations of witchcraft went up, especially in rural areas. And this is not only Africa, we get some of the reports from the Pacific. So it's very important that when these socioeconomic shocks happen, there has to be a strategy to mitigate people suddenly finding their causes of this pandemics or disasters, right? Cause usually it's 'oh wait, let's go see the [00:44:00] witch doctor. Why do we suddenly have a famine? Why did all the crops die?' And then suddenly they're like, 'oh, is that old lady who lives alone down the street? It's just her and 10 cats. She doesn't even remember her name. She must be a witch, cause sometimes she gets up at night to dance alone or whatever.' And everyone goes there and then they do whatever to the poor woman.

IK Ero: So climate change is a source of a lot of disasters that impact people, not only in terms of their farming, but all their socioeconomic activities as a whole, because we know there's an ecosystem. So when something goes wrong, prices go up, something else goes down elsewhere. The idea is to try to bring in the issue of accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks as harmful practices. People speaking about climate change should be aware that groups at risk, because they have a list of groups at risk in climate change, such as small island states who often have natural disasters. We need to add our indigenous communities. We need to [00:45:00] have in that list of groups at risk, where it says bringing maybe women, bringing people with disabilities, then it's up to us to go advocate to say, especially those who are vulnerable to being accused of witchcraft or vulnerable to ritual attacks, so people are aware in their work on climate change and groups at risk already that there could be this cultural issues popping up and it gives a certain level of awareness to say like a somebody manning a refugee camp in a drought -impacted country to be on the lookout and to do some sensitization like when they talk to people about hygiene. Then adding just a paragraph about, 'okay, if you have a belief system that somebody has done something wrong to you, you cannot harm them, you must come to me and report it,' so that there's a kind of, management of the situation.

IK Ero: So those are just tweaksthat could really make a huge difference in protecting vulnerable people. My point of bringing up climate change was just to advocate to those doing that work already, to bring their awareness that this could go up, these harmful [00:46:00] practices could go up with the pressures brought about by climate change.

Sarah Jack: The mutual realization of human rights goals can come from strategic cross movement approaches. Can you tell us about that?

IK Ero: It's related to what I said about how to bring the issue to people already working on other thematic areas. It's related to that. But I, this one maybe is even deeper and be more strategic is for instance, we saw in our data a very high number of women victims. There's a lot of men as well, but the women and children are more striking. So it could be beneficial to go work with the huge movement, feminist movement. They're huge, they're powerful, and they're representing half the world. So they have a huge platform. It could be beneficial to go into those spaces.

IK Ero: So when they have the large conferences on women, which they do in New York every April, or other similar events that bring in women from around the world. It could be [00:47:00] beneficial to join another organization to have a panel to talk about, let's say, another big issue like women, elderly women, right? Because to talk about a very small issue is very hard in such a big space,

IK Ero: For instance, we can go to the conference on women in New York in April and have an event, like it's what they call the side events, so these are the events around the main event, which many people attend, the side event with another prominent organization and say let's have an event on elderly women, this will interest everyone. Almost everyone will become an elderly woman who is already a woman. Have this event, and then say you, maybe Human Rights Watch, you already have a portfolio in the elderly, could you be one of the speakers and speak about your work? Then I will come and speak about women who have been accused of witchcraft and their vulnerability with economic shocks going on right now, generally, and with climate change, this event will attract people working in the area of women, elderly people, and they have such huge access, not only to resources, but also to the change making [00:48:00] halls, right? So imagine them listening to you talk about harmful practice, accusation of witchcraft, just adding one line of those things into their reports.

IK Ero: People don't realize, they think, oh, it's just writing. It makes a huge difference. We've had people receive protection in United States courts because of one line in a UN report, 'cause it gives credibility to a situation so it's less anecdotal and hearsay, and it also gives lawmakers and policies the grounding upon which to allocate resources to respond to these issues.

IK Ero: Doing that for women, for instance, and then doing the same on children. I got major inroads working with the Secretary General's Envoy on Violence Against Children. So I work with her a lot in respect of bringing the issue of accusation of witchcraft and ritual attacks on children into her mandate, because it's violence against children, and she has many important reports where she mentioned the issue now.

IK Ero: So this is another strategy, but I was asked, I was calling for a more ongoing one, where if they have a network of, feminist organization or women based organization that we can find a seat [00:49:00] on as a movement fighting these harmful types of harmful practices so that the issue is constant and becomes more normalized.

Josh Hutchinson: I do look forward to a time when we will also have a day, like an international day. I believe it's been celebrated informally, which is a good start already sometime in August. I hope that day becomes formal, or at least be more celebrated by people who are the grassroots level anyway, before it becomes concretized in a formal way, as a way of aggregating our solidarity and bringing more awareness to the issue, because one spark really can be the source of protection to someone in the future from these harmful practices.

Josh Hutchinson: And now for an End Witch Hunts special report. End Witch Hunts is a 501(c)3 dedicated to raising awareness of harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks. Mary, Sarah, and I are on the board along with Beth Caruso [00:50:00] and Jen Stevenson. Mary and Sarah join me now to discuss what we've just heard from IK and what it means for us as hosts and listeners. Now that we've heard what can be done, we can do it.

Josh Hutchinson: What are your general impressions from the interview?

Sarah Jack: One of the first things I took away from it was that purposeful action from the right person at the right place can make a huge difference. The work has begun. I think that we can be excited and have confidence that this train has left the station and it has a destination.

Mary-Louise Bingham: And I like how she says that the goal is not to achieve the end result quickly but carefully and methodically as part of a team effort through education, relying on data and human experience.

Josh Hutchinson: She brought up how in [00:51:00] addressing one problem, you can't create other problems. You have to respect everyone's human rights throughout the process. And how she talks about the absoluteness of human rights. They're not relative to traditions and cultures.

Sarah Jack: I think there's a takeaway here with teaching all ages about human rights and human dignity, but especially the young generations, despite the variance in religion, cultures, this absolute value of the dignity of humans is something that means no matter the environment or the curriculum or the framework of education, this can be there. It's a fundamental that needs to be [00:52:00] prioritized with children.

Sarah Jack: Sometimes we look at this young generation and we talk about how they don't see all the things, all the negative things that humans judge later in life. So if children are really starting out just seeing another child and then we educate them about human dignity, that's a really strong starting point.

Josh Hutchinson: Human dignity should basically be the foundation and guiding light for every decision that we make and everything we do interacting with other people should be in support of their dignity and our own dignity.

Josh Hutchinson: Use your voice and your platform, whatever that is, to raise awareness about the crisis. Read and share UN Resolution 47 8, Elimination of Harmful Practices Related to Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks. The link is in the show notes.

Josh Hutchinson: If you have a [00:53:00] show, if you do a radio show, a TV show, if you make documentary films, if you're a journalist, if you have a podcast or a blog, or any way of spreading, communicating, maybe write a column for the newspaper or, something like that, Any way that you can spread the word, please reach out to us and we can put you in touch with these advocates, and you can share what the advocates say, the people who are on the ground doing this work, intervening, as has been said, to save lives.

Josh Hutchinson: If you work with a human rights organization, whatever the primary cause that you're devoted to, consider if there is overlap with harmful practices, and consider how you can include these practices in your messaging. Violence against witches is violence against [00:54:00] primarily women, children, senior citizens, persons with albinism, persons with disabilities, indigenous persons, persons of a lower caste or class status, and members of other disadvantaged and vulnerable communities. For example, if you're working against gender based violence, know that women are the primary targets of harmful practices.

Sarah Jack: Absolutely. And if there is this component in your writing, your social media, your speaking. If you're looking for a human rights effort to support, this is the one because it does have this intersection with violence against women and children.

Josh Hutchinson: Violence against other vulnerable people, people with albinism.

Mary-Louise Bingham: Elder abuse or people that have Alzheimer's disease or [00:55:00] anybody like, in the aged community, because we know now from our other friend and advocate, Dr. Leo Igwe, that those people are vulnerable and have been accused of, quote unquote, witchcraft, because their communities don't understand what is medically happening to them.

Josh Hutchinson: I encourage you to read the documents that we're talking about today, the United Nations resolution. There's a United Nations report that came out in March of 2023 that is very good on breaking down the current situation and what's happened over the last decade or so. And, I encourage everyone to read that, also to read the Pan African Parliament Guidelines and the Papua New Guinea Sorcery Accusation Related Violence National [00:56:00] Action Plan. Those will get you informed on what's being done and what kind of activities are needed in a little bit more detail. Use your voice and your platform to share the documents. Encourage the leaders of your nation and regional human rights apparatuses to adopt similar guidelines. Links to all of these documents are in the show notes.

Josh Hutchinson: And find a grassroots organization in your area that's working to prevent harmful practices, get involved that way. Links to those are in the show notes. We have links on endwitchhunts.org to other organizations that are involved.

Josh Hutchinson: So you can work on the ground where you are with local advocates, or you can work virtually the way that we do from afar. Wherever you are in the world, you can help. And wherever you are in the [00:57:00] world, you might start noticing harmful practices in your own area now that you're aware of what they are. So report on those and share those and tell us about those.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.

Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

Sarah Jack: Visit aboutwitchhunts.com/.

Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.

Sarah Jack: Join our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

January 10, 2024

The Astrologer and the Witch Trial with Danny Buck

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Show Notes

Join us this week as Dr. Danny Buck explores astrology and the witchcraft trial of Mark Prynne, a tenant farmer accused of witchcraft in the 17th century by Great Yarmouth town clerk Miles Corbett. The discussion considers the perception of astrology during the golden age of astrology and how it influenced the outcomes of witchcraft accusations in Great Yarmouth during the English Civil War. Learn about the intriguing behaviors of local figures like Miles Corbett, John Taylor and Matthew Brooks during the Great Yarmouth witch trials of 1645 and 1646 and other notable historical men like astrologer William Lilly and infamous Witch Finder Matthew Hopkins. The episode addresses the peak and decline of the fear of witchcraft beliefs, reflecting a notable shift in societal attitudes at the end of the trial.

www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

Why Witch Hunts are not just a Dark Chapter from the Past, Documentary

Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: Hello, and welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that explores historic witchcraft trials and modern witch hunts in search of an end to witch hunting in all forms. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.

Josh Hutchinson: We're descendants of people accused of witchcraft.

Sarah Jack: And we're here to tell stories of people like them.

Josh Hutchinson: We cover the past, present, and future of witch hunting.

Sarah Jack: Witch hunting dates back thousands of years.

Josh Hutchinson: The practice occurred all across the ancient world.

Sarah Jack: And continued through the classical era and the medieval period.

Josh Hutchinson: In Europe, witch trials ramped up in the early modern period and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands.

Sarah Jack: But witch hunts also have occurred in other parts of the world, and they've [00:01:00] never stopped anywhere.

Josh Hutchinson: Witch hunts, now mostly unsanctioned, occur in all corners of the globe today, killing thousands per year.

Sarah Jack: As historian Wolfgang Behringer has stated, 'there have never been so many witch hunts as we see in today's world.'

Josh Hutchinson: Today's guest is Danny Buck, who introduces us to the witch trials of astrologer Mark Prynne of Great Yarmouth, England.

Sarah Jack: Along the way, we'll meet an interesting cast of characters and learn about astrology's role in 17th century England.

Josh Hutchinson: Danny tells us about the golden age of astrology and the great astrologers of England in the 17th century.

Sarah Jack: He shares the different perspectives on astrology, including the impact of Puritan beliefs on the perception of astrology.

Josh Hutchinson: We'll learn what astrological products exist and what their uses are.

Sarah Jack: Today, we focus on the intriguing figure of Mark Prynne, who was an amateur astrologer who was [00:02:00] involved in locating lost goods and helping his neighbors determine the future.

Josh Hutchinson: We'll also learn about the antagonist to Mark Prynne, a MP named Miles Corbett. We'll learn about his leading role in the witch hunts and the accusations specifically against Mark Prynne. We'll also learn how he was satirized by poet John Taylor, who wrote a book called A Brief Relation of the Idiotisms and Absurdities of Miles Corbett, Esquire, Counselor at Law, Recorder, and Burgess for Great Yarmouth.

Sarah Jack: This is the podcast's second visit to the witch hunt of 1645 in Great Yarmouth. Dr. Buck is going to give us an overview of the witch hunt where Mark Prynne faced allegations of practicing sorcery and using witchcraft. We will also hear about a second round of accusations in the spring of 1646.

Josh Hutchinson: And we'll conclude [00:03:00] by learning the aftermath of the witch hunt, including the fates of both Mark Prynne and Miles Corbett.

Sarah Jack: Welcome, the first guest of Witch Hunt, returning favorite, Dr. Danny Buck, a Norfolk research historian specializing in the connection between witch hunting, politics, and religious division. In his previous appearance, he kicked off Episode 6 with a discussion on witch hunting during the English Civil War in Great Yarmouth, the place where William and Joanna Towne began their family relocating to the New World and settling in Salem Village. Make sure to revisit that fantastic episode. In this discussion, Dr. Buck delves further into the religious and political conflicts that shape the Great Yarmouth witch trial of amateur astrologer Mark Prynne.

Josh Hutchinson: How was astrology perceived in early modern Great Yarmouth? And why was it important?

Danny Buck: There's the three elements which I find very interesting about how astrology was perceived. At one level, it's something that seems very [00:04:00] useful to ordinary people. We've got records going back as far as the 16th century of a man called William Wicherly, who admitted he did conjure in a great circle with a sword and ring consecrated, and Thomas Owldring of Yarmouth, who was a conjurer and had good books of conjuring, who people were going to visit.

Danny Buck: They were seeking to understand the future. And also search for lost property. For others it was actually a way of looking for their, using predictions, to look at their medical health. So find a diagnosis and seek medical treatment. As we're going to look at, for some people this element of astrology cutting into conjuring, the act of charms and raising spirits for advice is cutting into witchcraft, that you're not just looking to do a predictable science, understanding God's plan for the universe with the stars, but in fact actually asking the dead for [00:05:00] advice, or even devils. Finally, there were some people rather cynical about this, even by the middle of the 17th century. People who were thinking that astrology is nothing but a con trick, a way for illiterate peasants or gullible guests to seek lost things from someone who could tell them what they wanted to hear, probably closer to our idea of cold reading,someone who can speak the names of the constellations enough to seem educated or have some secret knowledge over the rest of them.

Sarah Jack: What was the golden age of astrology?

Danny Buck: This is a difficult question. Obviously, astrology has been something that we can go all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia, if not earlier. People have always looked to the stars and tried to seek meaning in them. We think of things like Halley's Comet being seen just before the Battle of Hastings as an ill omen for the Saxons. But the 17th century introduced a couple of elements that made astrology more accurate, or at least to [00:06:00] those who believed in it. Accurate clocks meant that birth dates would not be a vague day, but be put down right to the hour. Increasingly accurate telescopes and astronomical, as opposed to astrological, equipment was being invented that meant that stars could be understood in ever greater clarity and purpose.

Danny Buck: Think it was Bernard Capp who said that the last of the astrologers were the first of the astronomers. I think a very famous astrologer for the court in Poland, Copernicus, started off as the court astrologer. This meant that you could ask for a birth chart from an astrologer and you could put it down to the minute and therefore get what would seem to be an increasingly accurate diagnosis.

Danny Buck: But also, because of the printing press, astrology became ever more accessible to the ordinary person. The astrologer I want to talk about today, Mark Prynne, started his career with basically like a dummy's first guide [00:07:00] of how to look at the stars. Something, a brief of Moulsons Almanac. So again, as opposed to the full book, it's a brief, so it's been shortened and made more accessible for the ordinary reader, as opposed to the larger original, I think it's originally a 15th century French almanac.

Josh Hutchinson: What other products did astrologers create?

Danny Buck: The most obvious one is the element of prediction, which is by casting a chart. This isn't a particularly visual medium, but you can often see them survive in this period, often with a square with a circle inside, or some pattern of that, which is then used to reflect the houses of the stars and their positions and how that therefore interacts with the balance of the humours and health, as well as a person's personality. Again, today art forms tend to be a bit more circular, but they still are used by people. You also have the almanac itself. So the almanac is an interesting [00:08:00] product. Obviously, we still produce almanacs for people. Some of them are not astrological, just to tell us what's happened in a year.Cricketing almanacs, etc. But for the 17th century almanacs, these are being produced annually, often being used to record dates which are important for people to know and how far we are from the creation of the world or the birth of Christ, etc. But they're also used to look at conjunctions. What are the weird

Danny Buck: astronomical phenomena that are going to occur?

Danny Buck: And actually these take on quite a political element. I was just catching up today in preparation for this, and there's a wonderful piece by Imogen Peck called 'A Chronology of Some Memorable Accidents, the Representation of the Recent Past in English Almanacs,' which looks at how in the aftermath of the Civil War,people were still looking and looking at the past through almanacs in a way that reflected their own political biases.

Danny Buck: However, this was a lot more [00:09:00] complex during the Civil War itself, when there were a variety of rival almanacs. In particular, William Lilly is famous because he produced an almanac that showed how the stars were showing that Parliament's victory was imminent, but he did have a Royalist rival producing his own, believing evidence of Royalist victory, which unsurprisingly he fell into obscurity while Lilly, with a somewhat more accurate prognosis, continued to thrive.

Danny Buck: These, weren't, particularly expensive objects. They're almost mass produced, what we refer to often as ephemera. So relatively cheap paper, but were being produced through the stationers companies. They'd often rely on family names, families of astrologers, so in particular in Great Yarmouth we haveGeoffrey La Neve, starting in 1604. On his death in 1613, his nephew Jeffrey, with a J, continued the almanacs until he was dismissed for being a bit dodgy in the local corporation. And his cousin John Neve took over, continuing the almanac from [00:10:00] 1626 until 61. So these reliable names meant that people could trust them. And again, it's something that continues until at least the 18th century. I think Franklin got, Benjamin Franklin of the American Revolutionary fame got his start faking an almanac, claiming the original author had died and he was replacing him in his usual, slightly trollish way. And then on top of this we get some bigger publications. So we've mentioned, Lilly's Christian Astrology, but also these different guides how to, and evolvement.

Danny Buck: It's quite interesting because again, some of these do bring up witchcraft and the ways that astrology can be used against them. Finally, we've got that medical product that this ability to accurately understand people's maladies was quite important. In particular, I find it quite interesting a reference in the Great Yarmouth corporation book to Mark Prynne helping a distracted man in the town's bridewell. So this is the poor relief, the precursor to the workhouse. And again, [00:11:00] distracted, it's a very vague term, but suggests some kind of mental illness. That somehow this astrological conjunction, and again, it fits into our sort of later idea of things like lunacy and that connection between the stars and mental health that still remains current into the 19th century.

Danny Buck: Finally, there's this element of what they could do for you. Well, they can find the things you've lost. So in particular, we know that Mark Prynne found a variety of objects, and it's been satirised by poets afterwards that he could find anything from a calf to a windmill or a millstone, but certainly there's evidence of finding things like a particular, a man called John Sparke, a sailor nearby who had a lost hat, a cushion, and I think a gold ring, so these are an interesting variety of small items that could be easily lost. Again we don't know how much this is cold reading, that he somehow being able to talk to them, is able to deduce what's going on. Or, again, if he's being consulted, he's not necessarily successful.

Josh Hutchinson: It's interesting, you mentioned William [00:12:00] Lilly, and I just want to point out that one of his books showed up in Connecticut in a witch trial of Katherine Harrison and was used as evidence against her.

Danny Buck: That is fascinating. I find that astrologers are still, they are the more acceptable side of magic. At least, your official names, your Lillies,and they've got a high status. They're protected by, they've got connections. William Lilley, he claimed that he'd spoken to King Charles and advised him to not try and escape Carisbuck Castle. it's easy to say after the event, but he also advised parliamentarian generals. And again, there doesn't need to be anything therefore incompatible for some people with astrology.

Danny Buck: But there was also a fear. William Lilly, as well, mentioned there was fear he was accused of being a juggling wizard and imposter. There's a fear about them being compared to necromancers, so being able to somehow predict [00:13:00] using the dead. And again, there's an earlier generation there responding to men like John Dee and John Lamb, who were certainly in this box of people who are engaging in dark magic and dark practice that was unacceptable. Judith Bonzol, in her guide to William Lilly's life, mentioned that he is someone who is afraid of this line, and in particular he offers anti-witchcraft medical treatments, which actually is quite interesting because it's very much linked to the kind of witch bottles, which obviously we've looked at before, where he mentions the need to boil the patient's urine together with pins, nail parings, and the hair of the victim as a remedy against witchcraft.

Danny Buck: But he gave the example that's a relatively scientific explanation. These are natural experiments and work by sympathy, in order to torment the witch and draw her out of hiding, which then, in theory, brought relief to the victim.

Danny Buck: Of course, the most recent volume of Lilly's publications came out in the 1680s, so in time to be influencing the [00:14:00] beliefs of people in Salem.

Sarah Jack: Who was Mark Prynne?

Danny Buck: I've mentioned him a couple of times now. I've found him a wonderful figure. He's one of these people that just jumps out of the records in a really interesting way. Again, I'm very grateful to Peter Elmer, the excellent historian of witchcraft, who's certainly retired now, and getting a chance to speak to him when I was at UEA. And he brought this to attention. He, again, in his index to his wonderful Politics and Witchcraft, he brought up a lot of the details I'm going to rely on. We are always able to see so far because we're standing on the shoulders of giants.

Danny Buck: But he is a fascinating figure. He's definitely an amateur astrologer. Unlike La Neve, unlike Lilly, it isn't his full time job. He's mostly a tenant farmer. In the town, he's renting land from the local ministry at one point and using that. So this is almost like a sideline, as the Americans say a side hustle, to provide a little bit of extra income. So we don't know much about his family, where [00:15:00] he's come from. We do know he's educated, because he's noted as having a very large collection of books for the time, of theological, historical, and philosophical books. Again, he particularly mentions Moulsons Almanac, who we've described as a brief of the famed Shepherds. And we know he's being employed by local residents. So we've got hats, pillows, are definitely being searched for. John Taylor claims a lost cow, calf, horse or cart, silver spoon or bodkin, knife or ring, millstone, windmill, cork. But I think he, again, is being a little bit ridiculous. We know he's being paid 30 shillings, which is quite a lot of money, for curing one Tills, the distracted man who I mentioned earlier.

Danny Buck: And we know that this medical treatment is already current with people like La Neve. This all suggests he is in demand, he is someone who's being employed quite regularly, even if this isn't his full time career.

Josh Hutchinson: What do we need to know about his landlord, the minister?

Danny Buck: We're very lucky that there's an interesting connection here.[00:16:00] Prynne is renting land from Matthew Brooks. Matthew Brooks, as we mentioned a little bit last time, was a veryLaudian minister in a town that was very Puritan, so they did not get on well. So he arrives at the town in 1630 in the middle of a crisis, where they're trying to handle the presence of the town's Puritan minister, who's being pushed to one side by the Dean and Chapter of Norwich, the more Laudian authorities. And he starts making a splash pretty early. By December 1631, he marches into the church and reads the 1627 injunctions against the Puritan minister, which means he's then arrested by the town's corporation. So in particular, Henry Davy, Thomas Green, Ezekiel Harris, and a man who we're definitely going to come back to later, Miles Corbett.

Danny Buck: Because of this, he sends a petition to the king. He's supported to the hilt and in response those people [00:17:00] arrested him were arrested in turn for a while. The king sides with Brooks, he gets authority from it. Brooks works very closely with the bishop of Norwich, Wren, from 1645 onwards, and he carries out a campaign that's really aggressively anti-Puritan. He makes the church look nice. He brings in stained glass windows, he gets rid of the raised seating used by the Puritan authorities so they could look down on the folk of Yarmouth and keep an eye on them, make sure they're behaving properly in church. And this feud between Brooks and Corbett deepens in 1637, when Corbett is accused of harbouring two émigré nonconformist ministers, so some real religious radicals, who'd come over to Great Yarmouth, smuggled in a lot of anti-Laudian books and hidden, pretending to be soldiers who'd been fighting in the Netherlands, and they take dinner in Miles Corbett's house, allegedly.

Danny Buck: Brooks is very diligent about investigating it, like a [00:18:00] little detective. This gets worse from 1640 as Wren, his bishop protégé, has moved on to Ely and, obviously with the collapse of the royal government and the collapse of the episcopate, the Church of England, there's a lot of tension for locals. And we are helped by what for me is a lovely document, a very fascinating document from the Parliamentary Archives, as he writes a petition to the House of Lords saying, 'can you stop them bullying me?' It's not great stuff for, Brooks. Brooks, sadly, I think at one point he mentioned he's being threatened by the wife of the alderman that she's going to throw lime and blind him, lime in his eyes, along with sand. His assistant, Thomas Cheshire, who we're going to come back to, is being, when he's walked through the very narrow streets in Great Yarmouth, which are called rows that go up and down to allow easy fishing in [00:19:00] the town, he's jostled, he's got people slamming their elbows into his back, and he's forced to leave in 1638.

Danny Buck: The saddest example, if you'll forgive my tangent, because this is such a rich colour, that while Brooks has gone to London to defend himself about attempts to try and remove him, there's a large group of angry, drunken locals get together. They have a big bonfire outside his house. They go to Ezekiel Harris, who obviously holds this grudge against Brooks, and they get roaring drunk. He provides them with massive beer. They then turn up to this bonfire. There's supposedly three of them in disguise as the three most important people in the kingdom. Considering this is 1640, I think it's likely you've got the Archbishop Canterbury, William Laud, because it gets mentioned later, the King, and probably Black Tom Strafford, the Earl of Wentworth. They're having this massive party. They, obviously Brooks isn't there. Instead it's just his housemate and his poor, [00:20:00] heavily pregnant wife and their eight children, terrified. And these mass mob comes out knocking on the door, demanding entry in the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury, presumably the man in costume. So again, there's a real tension already, this desire to purge the town of people they see as dangerous and too lenient and not Puritan enough. And it's this crowd that Prynne is hanging out with, so again it's one of the things that's going to be a black spot against him with the Puritan authorities.

Josh Hutchinson: You mentioned Miles Corbett. Can you introduce us to him?

Danny Buck: Miles is a fascinating figure in his own right. So he's the second son of Sir John Corbett, a baronet from Sprowston. That probably means very little to you. Hopefully, there's a Sprowston somewhere in America amongst the other many English renamed settlements, but this one is a slightly unimpressive outskirts of Norwich today, but again, it's [00:21:00] not an unpleasant place.

Danny Buck: He's a well-educated man. He goes to Christ's College, Cambridge in 1612. He attends Lincoln Inn. He's training as a lawyer before being called to the bar in 1623. In 1625, he becomes the town recorder for Great Yarmouth, so that's a role which encompasses both your town's legal expert, lawyer, but also having a role acting as a judge in court cases.

Danny Buck: Obviously it's very important we're coming back to the witch hunt. His brother was the MP for the town and was arrested by King Charles, as well, the five members who resisted his call for a loan to try and sponsor the war against Spain and France,and sadly dies in prison, which again, likely one of the reasons why Corbett is so anti-government and so angry with the Church of England there, as well as his time in Cambridge.

Danny Buck: He also undertook the role for King's Lynn and Aldeburgh recorder, which again is quite interesting, because both of those towns are towns that are touched by the [00:22:00] witch hunt. And again, one of the things I've always wanted to do is to really get into depth and look at some of these communities, because also Southwold is well connected to Corbett.

Danny Buck: Is he someone who's helping to persuade Matthew Hopkins to come along the East Anglian coast, that all these towns are towns which he's connected to? This is something thathopefully Marion will find the answer for that. I'm looking forward to that as part of her wonderful Seven Counties project, but he's definitely someone to keep an eye on for that.

Danny Buck: His allies might say he's a very rigorous man, legally trained, has a very important role to play in the Long Parliament, and he remains as MP up until 1660, so obviously proves himself loyal. He's involved in Ireland, as well, during the Commonwealth, trying to sort out land there. But for his enemies, Taylor describes him as a stiff cathedral hater, a utopian of no religion, and whose [00:23:00] fired zeal led him to be cruel to toothless aged ministers. Even crueler, newspapers in the 1650s were comparing him to the devil, saying he was very dark, which again, I always wonder again, he's someone from Sprowston. Is he quite swarthy? We don't know. There's a couple of lovely prints of him, where he looks he's doing all right for himself in the 1650s, he looks quite prosperous.

Danny Buck: And one of the lovely things we've got in the Norfolk archives is this little paper, it's like a two pieces of A5 folded together to form a little booklet. Which is rather touching, because it notes the date when he was married, and it notes the exact date to the hour his children were born. And obviously this is something he kept with him, which I find very sweet. He's a very human figure despite all this. So his role in the witch hunt? Obviously then we've said that he's the recorder. He's the one gathering the evidence. He's also, in his role as town clark, he's keeping an eye on the papers, and he's likely the person who sent the [00:24:00] invitation to Hopkins to come to Great Yarmouth in the first place. So he's deeply enmeshed.As we look, there's accusations he took a much deeper personal interest in the case against Mark Prynne.

Sarah Jack: What kind of charges were brought against Mark Prynne?

Danny Buck: So in 1638 he's first accused of using charms to locate the lost goods of one John Sparke, a sailor. But in 1645, he faced the much more serious allegations of practicing sorcery, so using witchcraft to locate lost goods belong to Anne Can and John Ringer, who's a mason. He's also indicted for using witchcraft on John Howlett, a goldsmith, and his son also named John, conveniently, who were both sick at the time of the trial.

Josh Hutchinson: Since it's been a while since we spoke about the 1645 witch hunt, can you refresh our memories with a brief overview of that?

Danny Buck: So it starts in the 22nd of April in [00:25:00] 1645, with Howlett and his son John being some of the first people to make their accusations of witchcraft. This leads to eventually ten people being accused, six convicted, of which five are hanged for the crime. There's also a second round of accusations in the spring of 1646, six are made, but all six of them are found not guilty.

Sarah Jack: And how did the community respond to the allegations against Prynne?

Danny Buck: As far as we can tell, early on there seems to be this support, the growing support after this, that there's increasing numbers of accusations that follow this. So we have a few more people, as we noted accusers being brought, not just Howlett and his son. But the trial itself, we have an account of Thomas Cheshire, so the man who'd been the assistant to Brooks, arriving and giving testimony, defending,it's the kind of defense where this man isn't a witch, [00:26:00] he's just a con man, but it's still better than being hanged. So there does seem to be some people willing to rally in his support, and obviously he's found not guilty, so obviously the jury are convinced that he isn't someone who's engaged in witchcraft.

Josh Hutchinson: What kind of evidence would they have presented against him?

Danny Buck: So from the collection, from the account we've got, obviously we have the trial records, and we know people are speaking in evidence for and against. But in particular, we have an account, a hostile account to Miles Corbett that mentions that the evidence being brought in front of the jury included Prynne's collection of astrological books.

Danny Buck: So we've mentioned Molson's Almanac, we've also got a book of merry fortune telling with the forms of dice and stars. Also, something which is referred to as a book of circles, so again, presumably these are different forms of charts being used. I've spoken to some people upon this, and they suggest possibly the [00:27:00] Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon or something called the Picatrix, which are being brought in front of them as official texts. The allegation is that the names of constellations and the names of the astrological forms sound quite demonic. Col Quintinta, Asaf Petita, Zazara Phila, and the allegation is that Miles Corbett is so ill educated he believes them bitter, stinking, and poxy devils, rather than obviously the form of the stars. He names Alabazama, Copernicus, Rombolax, and Mestopheles. So Copernicus the astrologer being treated as a demonic figure.

Josh Hutchinson: How did Puritan beliefs influence the witch hunt and the perception of astrology?

Danny Buck: Certainly there's an element of Puritan beliefs being used to interpret astrological evidence. Obviously, we've talked about William Lilly. William Lilly [00:28:00] had to directly write a book called Christian Astrology, trying to seek to show this connection between astrological formations as a way to determine the future, as opposed to other forms. It's a very strict and narrow vision of what astrology could be.

Danny Buck: Previous people involved in this, obviously, we've mentioned at the start those two controversial 16th century figures. So they've mentioned the sword and ring consecrated as magical elements that could use to foretell the future. Similar to Debora Moretti when she was talking about the carafe that you could look into the crystal, you could look into the glass, you could see images, which is slightly more dangerous as opposed to just looking plainly at the stars. Again, compare that to our classic image of the fortune teller with the crystal ball, that these things are more dodgy. Similarly, I think John Dee allegedly had an obsidian mirror [00:29:00] taken from the Aztecs that he could use to communicate with angels. This is where it crossed over the line. So there is the possibility of that.

Danny Buck: The contemporary astrologer John Gadbury blamed pretenders for critics connecting astrology to magicians and necromancers.You have the astrologer's club, the educated types who could be reliable, and you have those slipping on the other side into magic, so being magicians and necromancers.

Danny Buck: Also, William Lilly himself sought to reject the dark sentence of oracles. So again, you're not seeking to commune with the dead or commune with devils to tell the future. You are just doing a nice scientific analysis of the stars, certainly in the context of the very favored imagination of the 1640s, where omens seem to be everywhere, and the devil's influence everywhere, looking instead of the heavens to more otherworldly and demonic forces. What's the risk? And as we saw that, John Taylor's [00:30:00] account there with that fear of constellations and devils, the two seeming interchangeable for those who don't know quite what's going on there. Then that astrology witchcraft could seem quite similar or close enough, despite the protestations by those people who wanted to prove it otherwise.

Sarah Jack: With Miles Corbett, he was a Puritan.

Sarah Jack: I'm thinking about the war that's happening, this antagonism that's between Brooks and Corbett, and then you've got this amateur astrologist, the devil in the community, I'm used to hearing how the Puritan ministers are seeing the devil in their people, butthey're seeing the devil from the other side right now in this situation?

Danny Buck: So Miles Corbett is a fascinating figure for that. So we said he's a Puritan, but he's not a Presbyterian Puritan. He's not someone who's seeking to build a new Church of England that's going to be Puritan. [00:31:00] He's instead closer in opinion to the kind of American congregational churches. He becomes a leading member of Great Yarmouth's Congregational Church, and that is a source of tension within the town. He writes letters to the corporation saying, 'why are you trying to exclude the Congregational Church from being part of our Puritan community?' Again, this split in the godly is something that's causing increasing tension. One of the fears of the devil is that he appears as angels in raiments of light, and there we have also groups of Anabaptists in Great Yarmouth at the same time.

Danny Buck: How much conformity can you have? In some ways, seeking someone who is obviously outside the pale you can unite around is something important, but this is something that goes way back. The first accusations are in 1638. While Corbett already has, we'd say, congregational leanings, he's communicating with congregationalists, people looking to build a new church the New England way, that divide is only [00:32:00] caused when there's an actual congregational church there. In this way, his role in promoting the witch hunt, in trying to seek to remove the devil, it provides a mirror to how ministers are, as well, I feel. The ministers in Great Yarmouth are involved in other accusations, particularly against Elizabeth Bradwell, a poor woman. We can see Corbett's crusade here as something that feels very personal, but again, we have reasons for thinking so, because of the way it's being treated as such, that it's used as something to ridicule Corbett later, for his superstition, his foolishness to get involved. But I feel, from the fact that he's so intertwined with these accusations, that it's something he takes seriously.

Danny Buck: And this man, who's been sitting there connected to the old regime and all its corruption provides a useful [00:33:00] vehicle to try and engage in this process of reformation and to reunite these two different kinds of godly people to make them move in the right direction. But again, it's one of those tragedies that, despite all this death that he's willing to engage in, it doesn't work really in the long term.

Sarah Jack: What is the outcome of criticism of this astrology being used by a farmer? As we know, Miles becomes a joke to some about this. What other outcomes were there?

Danny Buck: So this is particularly interesting for me. This is what brings it to life, is that this is used as part of a campaign. There's a wonderful poet, who I think we can describe in detail, John Taylor, who is in London during the 1630s. He's originally a waterboatman. He basically just travels across the river in his little [00:34:00] boat, creates ditties and witticisms, and is a very sharp wit. And now he feels a loyalty to the crown, but he also has a particular enmity against Miles Corbett and Corbett's role in London. The Civil War radicalizes him, so he starts producing political squibs in support of the king and against Parliament. But Taylor was arrested by Corbett and the Lord Mayor of London for seditious words against the five members, the people who the King tried to arrest in 1642, precipitating the Civil War. So Corbett becomes a particularly good example for him of someone he can satirize. He sees him as the classic example of the Parliamentarian elite. These people are officious, they're cynical, they are untrustworthy, and as the wonderfully titled poem, [00:35:00] A Brief Relation of the Idiotisms and Absurdities of Miles Corbett, Esquire, Council at Law, Recorder and Burgess for Great Yarmouth, they're idiots. He creates a wonderful 18 page pamphlet poem which lists 11 idiotisms in total.

Sarah Jack: And you're going to recite the 18 pages.

Danny Buck: Sadly, the last couple of pages have been damaged, but I will have to bring up some wonderful passages on the Corbett trial. This isn't the first time he attacks, Corbett. He does create a satirical parliamentary speech, which is allegedly by Corbett, which again shows his gullibility and his cruelty. And there's another one, 1641, which brings up the witchcraft case again, allegedly about the sort of things that Corbett's done in the year 1641. In the Idiotisms, we have, supposedly, allegedly Corbett presents a dog to the sessions for the crime of stealing some meat and accuses a man of stealing his own goods, even sort of him [00:36:00] getting drunk in the sand dunes outside the town. In particular, by Corbett's credulousness, his ill education, that means he sees Prynne as such a threat. It is a really good way to show the recorder's supposed injustice, credulity, and ignorance. So again, he can ridicule the recorder, he can ridicule puritism.

Danny Buck: Again, it's something that we can come back to because it's a theme that develops later, particularly after the Restoration, and about how people view witch hunting in general, which is part of the sort of end of that. But in this case, it's particularly useful, because he spends so much local detail trying to explain this case and explain why Corbett is useless.

Danny Buck: But he also does it in a way that feels quite modern, that what he ridicules isn't that somehow Prynne is a particularly skilled astrologer. He's just a con man. And it's part of the [00:37:00] expression of the idiotism of Corbett, is that he falls for this common man and sees him as a real danger, so just this sort of part time crook.

Danny Buck: 'There was a juggling, cunning man of fame, a nickname conjurer, Mark Prynne by name, whose skill was in astrology so great, that by that art he many folks did cheat. This Mark, pray mark me now that what here I write, could many fiends and planets recite, and more strange magic words from him would drop, there are in an apothecary shop.'

Danny Buck: Lovely bit where he describes where Thomas Cheshire has proven that Prynne is innocent. 'The substance of the book did straight explain to be as far from Master Corbett's talk as oatmeal is from eggs or cheese from chalk. And by that book's virtue we dare both to swear that no man can ever be a conjurer. They therefore, prayed the jury to conceive [00:38:00] the law cannot this man of life bereave. By their verdict, Prynne not guilty found and escaped a Popham check twixt sky and ground, and there the learned recoverer gained much credit, as some said, if they did not lie that said it.'

Danny Buck: So yeah, it's stirring stuff you could imagine around a pub after a few drinks.

Josh Hutchinson: What ultimately happens with Mark Prynne?

Danny Buck: This is the thing that, again, intrigues me with so much of this, that ultimately I don't know. He's found not guilty, he disappears from the record. Obviously we know that La Neve's almanacs continue into 1661. But we don't really hear much more about Prynne. Doesn't help that I've seen about four or five different spellings of his last name, anywhere from Pryne to Prince. And I know that Marion Gibson's new book is going to go from the ground up. I'm sure she has some tasty titbits for us about his life and career, but sadly this is where his story [00:39:00] ends, obviously a court case triumph for him, but sadly no further details on that.

Sarah Jack: Which I mean, we find that over and over, we hear, we have these court cases, they're intriguing, there's some details, we find, we get a look into a life and then that's the last word.

Danny Buck: Just lucky to have this much snapshots of him and Elizabeth Bradwell that mean we can build the sort of picture of their life and their beliefs, and again how these beliefs are changing, which I think is the most fascinating thing. I think one of the interesting elements in England is how this represents the peak of witchcraft beliefs and how already some of the themes of cynicism and rejection of witchcraft are starting to drop in. Obviously, there's still people like Joseph Glanville talking about witchcraft into the [00:40:00] 1680s. But by 1660s, we have Hudibras, the great epic poem about the life of the Restoration, but also looking back at what has happened in England during the Civil Wars and Commonwealth. And again, one of the first mentions we get of Hopkins and his reputation, along with the myth that he himself was hanged as a witch.

Danny Buck: So certainly that spirit of seeing the Puritan enthusiasm as being falling for fraudsters or an overenthusiasm about this is already coming out of Taylor's work in the middle of the 1640s, that these themes of how puritism is seen as an overreaction, it's interesting how this story is having much wider resonances.

Josh Hutchinson: What happened to Corbett with the Restoration?

Danny Buck: [00:41:00] He's elected to Parliament, and then people remember he's one of the regicides. He's the last person to sign the king's death warrant. So there's a general pardon, apart from the regicide, so he escapes to the Netherlands. So he's there with a group of regicides, and he's eventually caught in a daring raid by George Downing. If you want to know some of this detail, Charles Spencer's Kiss the King has a very vivid account of this. He's brought back. He has a rather touching last meal with his wife. We talked about he's obviously kept a record of her life alongside his, and is then executed for treason. So hanged, drawn, quartered, as you'd expect. So rather a grim end.

Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything else you wanted to touch on today?

Danny Buck: I also would recommend Bernard Capp. Bernard Capp is a really excellent writer in general on Stuart culture, but in particular in this account. He's [00:42:00] written.a very good biography of John Taylor and his fascinating life but also on astrologymore generally, definitely worth a check if you want to find out more of this stuff.

Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary.

Mary-Louise Bingham: November 23, 2023 was the last time that I visited Salem for at least one year. It was a special visit, because I went to Proctor's Ledge, not only to pay my respects to the 19 men and women who were hanged there in 1692, I also memorialized 19 men and women who were wrongfully accused and murdered for practicing sorcery and black magic as recent as October of 2023. These innocent women and men named came from countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, India, and the United States of America. I also tell the listener when that person died and the [00:43:00] circumstances of their brutal deaths. I urge you to watch this video on YouTube titled 'End Witch Hunts at Proctor's Ledge.' The link to the video will be in the show notes. Thank you.

Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

Josh Hutchinson: Sarah has End Witch Hunts News.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunt News, a non profit organization, Weekly News Update. Thank you for joining us again this new year in unraveling obscure yet familiar witch hunt stories, true stories that persistently unfold in violence and the death of vulnerable and innocent society members today. We anticipate engaging with you each week as we navigate diverse and nuanced perspectives on magic, witchcraft, and the spiritual and supernatural across time, governments, cultures, and religions.

Sarah Jack: We must all respond to the destructive role of witchcraft fear driven actions. Exploring the intricacies of both historical witch trials and the ongoing [00:44:00] crisis of witch hunting alongside experts provides us with the necessary insights to take meaningful action. Witch hunts are a disturbing reality that persist, and as part of our podcast community, you play a crucial role in the collective advocacy. Thank you for tuning in, sharing our episodes, continuing the conversation with your sphere of influence, and asking leaders to take action.

Sarah Jack: Very recently in Malawi, there has been a heartbreaking incident of an elderly woman nearly buried alive after being accused of witchcraft. Recent podcast guest and Malawi advocate, Wonderful Mkhutche, reported that the sister of the accused witch passed away suddenly after a headache. The accusers then spread rumors attributing the death to magical harm caused by the accused. The victim was rescued just in time by the police, but all the perpetrators must be brought to justice.

Sarah Jack: A statement from Advocacy for Alleged Witches reads, 'we urge the Government of Malawi to take all necessary measures to [00:45:00] combat witchcraft accusations and witch persecution. Authorities should ensure that alleged witches are protected and witchcraft accusers, including those who aid and abet witch hunting in the communities, are punished.'

Sarah Jack: But this isn't isolated to Africa. There were individuals burned and killed just a few weeks before the end of 2023 in India, as well. In one incident, in Assam's Sonitpur district, a 30-year-old woman was brutally assaulted and set ablaze by a neighbor and accomplices. The motive behind the tragic attack was reportedly rooted in accusations of witchcraft harm against the accuser.

Sarah Jack: While attacks are still happening, there are advocates and organizations working to intervene. Please learn about these efforts and support them in any way you are able to. Take the action that you can. We must continue to cultivate societal values of compassion, understanding, and justice. It is our collective responsibility as a world community to unite against the inhumane treatment [00:46:00] of every innocent individual anywhere in the world, such as these women falsely accused of causing harm with witchcraft. Spread awareness. Share this information with your friends, family, and on social media. Use your voice to let others know about the urgency of combating witchcraft accusations and persecution.

Sarah Jack: Support advocacy groups. Organizations like the Advocacy for Alleged Witches are on the front line, fighting against such atrocities. Consider supporting them and similar groups dedicated to ending witch hunting. Contact authorities. Raise your voice by reaching out to relevant authorities and leadership. Urge them to take swift and decisive action to ensure justice for victims and accountability for all involved.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts actively supports exoneration and memorial efforts that aim to honor victims and raise witch hunt awareness. Take a stand for justice. Sign our petition at change.org/witchtrials to urge the state of Massachusetts to amend legislation, ensuring the inclusion of [00:47:00] all those wrongfully executed for witchcraft in the Massachusetts colony. Five women faced unjust executions for witchcraft in 17th century Boston, and it's time to clear their names. Let's persist in elevating the voices of both historical and contemporary victims of witch hunts.

Sarah Jack: Unlock the power of supporting our podcast by becoming a monthly donor. Our monthly donors are our Super Listeners. As a Super Listener, your monthly contributions make a significant impact. Visit our website and easily sign up for any donation amount that suits you. Your generosity fuels the content you love.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Jack: You're welcome.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to the first episode of Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: Witch Hunt can't wait to meet with you next week.

Josh Hutchinson: So subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Sarah Jack: Be sure to visit at our new website, aboutwitchhunts.com/.

Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell all your friends, families, and anybody you meet on the street all about Witch [00:48:00] Hunt, your favorite podcast.

Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

January 3, 2024

The Witch Trial of Widow Krieger with Jamie Franklin

AP Article: Group seeks to clear names of all accused, convicted or executed for witchcraft in MA”

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Show Notes

This week Jamie Franklin, Director of Collections and Exhibitions at Bennington Museum in Vermont recounts the life and experiences of the accused witch Margaret Krieger. Jamie details what is known of her life and her 1785 trial. Learn about the broader context of the time period, the unique colonial history of the Southern Vermont region and the relevance of this topic even today. Integral to the discussion is Joyce Held’s research on Margaret’s life, the Pownal Historical Society’s role in erecting a historic marker, and the public dedication ceremony for the marker, aiming to honor Margaret Krieger’s memory. This lesser known accused witch in the American colonies underscores the significance of understanding the past and its influence on our global present.

Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

Pownal Historical Society on Facebook

Bennington Museum Special Exhibits

Saving Africa’s Witch Children Documentary

Why Witch Hunts are not just a Dark Chapter from the Past, Documentary

Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. About two months ago, a group dedicated a memorial marker in Pownal, Vermont to Margaret Krieger, reportedly the defendant in a 1785 witch trial. We discuss the case in this episode.

Josh Hutchinson: Along the way, we learn about the history of Southwestern Vermont.

Sarah Jack: As part of that, we'll learn about the early German and English settlers of the area.

Josh Hutchinson: Learn the role the area played in the American Revolution.

Sarah Jack: And all about the Krieger family.

Josh Hutchinson: We'll also hear the full account of the witch trial.

Sarah Jack: Find out methods considered to test if Margaret Krieger was a witch.

Josh Hutchinson: And learn the outcome of the [00:01:00] trial.

Sarah Jack: Hear all about the memorable dedication of the marker for Margaret Krieger.

Josh Hutchinson: And learn about the Bennington Museum.

Sarah Jack: This fascinating history of Margaret Krieger is told to us by Jamie Franklin, the curator of the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont.

Jamie Franklin: My name is Jamie Franklin, and I am informally, I'm just the curator. My formal title is Director of Collections and Exhibitions. And so I'm in charge of, as the title would imply, our collections. We have a large collection of archives, photographs, works of art, really, a really diverse collection that kind of tells the history of our region, Bennington, Southern Vermont, Vermont at large, and the immediately surrounding region in upstate New York, western Massachusetts, really from basically from colonial contact up to the present day.

Jamie Franklin: We have worked a little bit with the [00:02:00] indigenous peoples, and we're doing that more and more but largely from the colonial period up to the present day. And I'm in charge of our collections, making acquisitions, organizing most of our major exhibitions, those sorts of things.

Josh Hutchinson: Great. And what would you like us to know about Southern Vermont?

Jamie Franklin: We're right down here in the corner, Bennington, and even more particularly Pownal, where the Krieger Witch Trial actually occurred, is literally, Pownal is the furthest southwest in the state of Vermont, so we're right, border right up against the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts and upstate New York. Troy is just about a 45 minute drive west of us. And Vermont's history is unique in relationship to all of the other New England colonies. We were settled much later than all the other New England colonies. It really wasn't until the mid 18th century that there were permanent colonial settlements being established here in Vermont, and particularly it [00:03:00] started really here in southwestern Vermont.

Jamie Franklin: Bennington is often referred to as the earliest kind of permanent colonial settlement in Vermont, though Pownal has its own unique story, which we will dive into a little bit deeper. Yeah, nowe're right down here in the corner of the state next to New York and Massachusetts, and we have a little bit of a different story than a lot of the rest of New England.

Sarah Jack: What was the pattern of settlement or the communities in the area like at that point in time?

Jamie Franklin: Using Bennington as an example, the first kind of permanent colonial settlement that was established here in Bennington wasn't until 1761. It's a complicated story, because Vermont was the 14th state to join the Union, but it wasn't until 1791, after the Revolution, and the reason for that was because New Hampshire and New York were basically fighting over the land that would become Vermont, and the [00:04:00] original settlers that came up to Bennington started in central Massachusetts, Westfield as well as, Eastern Connecticut, the Norwich, Connecticut area, so the first kind of groups of settlers to arrive in Bennington were coming up from those regions, and they by and large were what were known as religious separatists, so the Congregational Church reigned supreme in New England in the 18th century, and the earliest settlers here in Bennington were basically escaping what they felt was a religious establishment that they no longer agreed with.

Jamie Franklin: They believed that you needed to confess publicly your faith in Christ. And the established congregational churches started to loosen up, and if your grandparents had confessed, then you were automatically inducted into the church, and so these separatists felt that was getting a little too loosey goosey for them, and so they were starting to establish their own churches, but their towns were taxing them to support the [00:05:00] established church. And so they were trying to establish their own churches. Some of those were able to do those within the community, but again, their tax money was going towards the establishment church. And so a lot of them were seeking to get away from that and establish their own churches in places that hadn't already been settled.

Jamie Franklin: And Bennington was one of those places those groups came to, because there really was no colonial settlement here in Bennington at that point. And Pownal was a little bit different. Pownal and the story of the Kriegers was that actually there was Germanic New York settlers who were arriving in what would have been the kind of far eastern reaches of the Rensselaerwick manor, which was basically an area of New York settlement attached to Troy and Albany, New York.

Jamie Franklin: And so there were what were referred to as Dutch settlers, they were actually Germanic settlers that had arrived in Pownal by about the 1740s. But they were basically under the assumption that area was controlled and owned by [00:06:00] New York. But when the English settlers, so the settlers who arrived in Bennington in the 1760s, they were basing their claims to the land on New Hampshire land grants through the English colonies, whereas the Dutch settlers ran into the assumption that it was owned by New York.

Jamie Franklin: When Pownal was formerly chartered by the English in 1760, there were already what were known as Dutch squatters there in Pownal, including the Krieger family and because Johann Juri Krieger, so Widow Krieger or Margaret Krieger's husband, had already established a gristmill there in Pownal along the Hoosic River. They made an exception for him. Most of the what they referred to as the Dutch squatters were kicked out by the English settlers. But they let Juri Krieger stay, because he had established and improved his land. And basically, they needed a mill, and he had already built one. And so they granted him an exception and gave him a plot of [00:07:00] land there next to his mill, where he and his wife, Margaret, and their family lived up until the time of the trial after Juri Krieger passed away in 1785.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you. That was all so very interesting to me. Vermont kind of gets overlooked when you're thinking about colonial history. Think about the 13 colonies and don't realize what the struggle was going on for control of Vermont.

Jamie Franklin: mean, Vermont was actually an independent republic. So from 1777 until 1791 Vermont operated independently of the other United States and had its own Republican government. But it was wanting to be a state, but because of the dispute between New Hampshire and New York, they were operating independently for that period of time and in the period prior to the Revolution, there was a lot up in the air. That's the period of the Green Mountain Boys, which a lot of people, if they know anything about early Vermont history, that's what they [00:08:00] know, and a lot of that was centered right here in Bennington, because we fall right on what became the New York-Vermont border. And that was the disputed area between New Hampshire and Vermont. And that's the larger kind of political context of what was happening here in Vermont during that period.

Josh Hutchinson: I've been there to the Bennington Memorial.

Jamie Franklin: Yeah, the Bennington Monument. Yeah, that was, that was the whole history of the museum and the history of Bennington is connected in deep ways to the Bennington Monument.

Josh Hutchinson: And in the late 18th century, what would life have been like for someone like a Widow Krieger?

Jamie Franklin: Widow Krieger, Margaret Krieger, and her husband, Johann Juri, as I mentioned earlier, they were granted land there by the English proprietors in 1760, and they would have been pretty much out on their own. It wasn't a very thickly established area.

Jamie Franklin: Bennington over the course of the 1760s and into the 1770s, and what we now know as [00:09:00] Old Bennington, which is right here behind the museum. So it's starting to become what you would understand as a community of settlement. There were houses, there were general stores and other stores along the main street. The Kriegers living there next to their mill along the Hoosic River wouldn't have had a whole lot of neighbors. There were a couple of people settled there sporadically beginning in the 1760s under the English grants that were being awarded at that time.

Jamie Franklin: They ran a mill. They had three sons who were born in the period after they settled in Pownal. So actually Margaret and Juri were married in 1745 and probably settled in Pownal shortly thereafter. For Margaret, it would have been, raising the boys, helping Johann with the mill and around the family, probably helping out with livestock. They probably would have raised a lot of their own food, they probably would have had gardens. It would be pure conjecture to think about what their social life, or even what their relationship with the larger community would've been, other than the fact [00:10:00] that we know that they would've been seen as somewhat of outsiders from the beginning, because they were part of the Dutch squatters group, which had largely been eradicated and sent away by the English grantees in the 1760s.

Josh Hutchinson: Sounds like they could have been the only German family there, and that must have been culturally, a big culture shock initially.

Jamie Franklin: Yeah, no, and they were very much a part of that culture. They were married at the Albany Dutch Reformed Church, so they were more connected there, though Margaret herself had actually been born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, which is just south of Pownal. She was born there in 1725. Her parents were Germanic. I don't know that larger context. Williamstown was largely a fort and military outpost in the 18th century, so I'm sure that there was some intermingling between sort of the English settlers connected to the fort and some of the kind of Dutch settlers that were on the kind [00:11:00] of far edge of the New York German settlements there, but they lived within the community seemingly working well with their neighbors.

Jamie Franklin: A lot of it is conjecture because we only know the real basic facts about her life. We know when she was born, we know her parents, we know her children, we know when she was married. We know those sorts of basic biographical facts, but everything else, beyond the fact that this was very much on the edge of settlement during this period. A lot of it would be up to conjecture.

Sarah Jack: So they had a long marriage before he passed away. And then what happened?

Jamie Franklin: Johann Juri, or John Gregor as it was anglicized, after establishing himself in Pownal amongst the English, they referred to him as John Gregor Krieger. He passed away in 1785, and so the story of the Krieger Witch Trial as we know it really is only passed down to [00:12:00] us from one a mid 19th century account. And T. E. Brownell was a well respected Pownal citizen. He was a lawyer and he wrote a early history of Pownal in the 1860s. It was actually published as part of Anne Marie Hemenway's compilation of Vermont histories. She edited a multi volume suit of town histories that composed the entire early history of Vermont, and so Brownell wrote this early history of Pownal, and within that early history of Pownal, which was published in the 1860s, as I said earlier, was a one paragraph account, which is really all we have to base our knowledge of the trial itself on. Again a fairly reliable source but coming some 80 years after the events that it purports to tell, and we don't have an exact date for when the trial itself occurred.

Jamie Franklin: However, we can I think, fairly know that it probably happened not [00:13:00] long after Johann Krieger passed away in 1785. Her sons, or those who were still living, at least, actually two of her sons passed away prior to her husband, had established a mill down in Williamstown, where their mother had come from. And they had been down there since the 1760s. So when her husband passed away in 1785, she would have been a widow living on her own on property with a mill that would have been highly desirous to her neighbors, who may not have liked them in the first place or the fact that they were granted land in the first place some 25 years earlier.

Jamie Franklin: And based on our knowledge of the history, the story as Brownell told it, we can assume that she was probably accused of witchcraft shortly after he passed away in 1785.

Jamie Franklin: Their name is Krieger. It's spelled a million different ways, depending on where you look. Brownell actually refers to them as the Gregors, G R E G O R. We generally refer to them [00:14:00] today as the Kriegers. K R I E G E R. Though on their gravestones it's Kriger. K R I G E R. I just used that to preface this because he begins the story with Gregor.

Jamie Franklin: 'Gregor settled a little north of the Rock, which bears his name,' and I'll say Krieger Rocks is still a well known landmark there in Pownal, above the river. 'A very good story, the Truth of which we do not vouch, is told of his wife. This of course brought upon her the envy and suspicion of the good people. And in after years, when witchcraft prevailed and her husband had gone to his long rest, she was accused of being a witch and brought before a committee appointed to judge and dispense justice in such cases.

Jamie Franklin: After reviewing of the grounds of accusation and consulting the evidence of the case, they deferred a direct decision and required that she be subjugated to two tests in order that they might determine the points of witchery. First, that she should climb a tree, and if upon cutting it she was not [00:15:00] killed, she was a witch, otherwise not. Second, that a hole be cut in the ice sufficient to let her body through, and if upon trial she sunk to the bottom, an acquittal should be granted, but if she floated, the penalty of the law should be visited upon her.

Jamie Franklin: After some deliberation, they adopted the latter test, and the poor woman was obliged to undergo the process of sinking, which of course she did. With much effort, she was saved from drowning and allowed to go free, with the wise conclusion of the judge, that if she had been a witch, the powers infernal would have supported her.'

Jamie Franklin: That's the entire account of the Krieger Witch Trial as it's been passed down to us. Everything else just basically has to be inferred through the little that we can determine about her life, which thanks to Joyce Held , who I've collaborated with very closely on this project. Joyce Held is a member of the Pownal Historical Society and has done extensive research to help unearth Margaret Krieger and give her name [00:16:00] back as part of this larger research project.

Josh Hutchinson: There's so much there that I want to touch on. The story of a widow owning property that's coveted by neighbors is very familiar in witch trial history and not having her sons in town to defend her or take, or I assume they didn't take control of their father's property after he died and it went to her. We've seen that several times.

Jamie Franklin: Yeah, no, and again it's supposition, but I think based on the historic record of what we do know as you said, this was a fairly common scenario where she technically legally I, I think wasn't. As you said legally speaking, the land should have passed from her husband to her one living son, but he was already well established with his own mill in Williamstown, south of Pownal. We can [00:17:00] probably assume fairly accurately that the son wasn't going to take over the mill. Her neighbors probably understood the basics of that story and accusing her of being extraordinary, whatever that means. That was basically the only thing she was being accused of, as far as Brownell is telling the story. That's the only real basis that we have of her being accused, but I think the larger context of them having been granted that land somewhat outside of the normal context, because they had established that mill.

Jamie Franklin: 1785, you're still early on. It may have been, I'm not 100 percent sure on this, it probably was still the only mill there in North Pownal in the immediately surrounding area, and mills were very much needed during this period. They would have to grind wheat and corn. They were used for all sorts of reasons. I know when Bennington was being set up, one of the very first things that was ordered was that they put out a call amongst all of the early settlers and said, 'the first person to build a [00:18:00] mill will be granted the land upon which it is built.'

Jamie Franklin: And so these sorts of things were really critical infrastructure in these towns during the 18th century. And having a woman being the only kind of heir to a property that's highly coveted within the community and having the family already been somewhat outsiders, I think we can safely assume that the accusation was largely based on the desire to take that land.

Sarah Jack: And according to the account, it looks like they were using the current legal system to try to uproot her or to proceed. What legal code were they operating under?

Jamie Franklin: They say committee. What exactly that means is a little unclear. Vermont was an independent republic at this time. There probably would have been some committees would have probably been centered around more populated areas, so Bennington would have had some sort of judicial apparatus in effect, but the use of the word [00:19:00] committee, and actually I've also seen it referred to as a safety committee. That term isn't used in Brownell's account, so it's a conjecture, but there were series of committees, one of which were known as safety committees, that were set up during the period of the Revolutionary War.

Jamie Franklin: And because Bennington was an epicenter of the war, we had the battle here in 1777, there was quite a bit of activity, and there was very active safety committees that were going on here in the mid 1770s. Now, by the mid 1780s, I don't know exactly what the relationship between those kind of pre Vermont Constitution committees and the Constitution would have been, but I think it's safe to say that there might have been informal, local kind of safety committees, what would have essentially served as the judicial apparatus of that local community at the time, which would have been composed of her neighbors who coveted her land. That's probably the best guess [00:20:00] that we can make, but I'm guessing that it was something along the lines of what we understand to be a safety committee like those that were operating during the Revolution, probably composed of her neighbors who are the same people who are accusing her of witchcraft.

Josh Hutchinson: Now, you said two of her sons had passed before their father?

Jamie Franklin: One of them passed away. They were granted land and built a mill, as I mentioned earlier in Williamstown. I think that was in 1767. And then four years later, so I guess that would've been 1771, one of her sons passed. And then another one of her sons actually died in the Battle of Bennington in 1777. Yeah, her sons were definitely intimately involved in kind of communities relatively nearby, involved in the Battle of Bennington so they were definitely, they weren't ostracized from their communities in any way.

Jamie Franklin: And then her son would have died a war hero. And it seems a little odd to me [00:21:00] that they go after her after her son's given his life for the new country. But there were other reasons driving them to target her. The irony and I think the kind of contradictions of the Revolution are myriad. We've been doing a lot of research into the role of kind of the black presence during the Revolutionary War and the Battle of Bennington. Sipp Ives is a figure who's only in recent years come to attention, and he was actually a black man who fought for the Green Mountain Boys and lost his life during the Revolution, and the irony of a black man fighting for freedom for his country when he wasn't going to be granted that same freedom that he was fighting for his neighbors. So those sort of ironies, I think abound when you think about the revolution and kind of the quote unquote 'ideals' that were being fought for.

Sarah Jack: Is there anything interesting that happened to her after her trial?

Jamie Franklin: We don't know a lot about what happened to her [00:22:00] after her trial except for the fact that she moved back to Williamstown, where she was born and where her one surviving son lived and had a mill. And I think it makes perfect sense. You're accused of witchcraft, you're dunked in the icy river, luckily you survive, you're saved, you're acquitted. You probably don't want to live there anymore, and it may very well be that she was essentially pushed out, because the same people who accused her of witchcraft and wanted to grab her land may have made life, despite being acquitted of witchcraft, relatively unbearable.

Jamie Franklin: Again, all conjecture but we do know she moved back to Pownal and lived out the last few years of her life there in Pownal with her son and her grandchildren, and which is where she's buried, she's buried there in the West Lawn Cemetery in Pownal, alongside her husband and her sons and grandchildren.

Josh Hutchinson: I find the idea of a tree test very interesting. I haven't encountered that [00:23:00] before in any other witch trial.

Jamie Franklin: The water test is iconic. You see the image of it that was published in the 17th century. Sometimes you see them hanging on chairs with a a seesaw apparatus where they dunk them. Sometimes they're bound.

Jamie Franklin: The idea of climbing a tree. There is at least one other version of the story, which is basically a retelling of Brownell's account. Grace Greylock Niles was another kind of town historian. She was a bit of an eccentric. She wrote a number of books. Her account of the Krieger trial largely parallels Brownell's, but she confuses things and attributes the widow to one of the sons, which made no sense, because the son didn't have a widow, so she gets her facts wrong, but the tree idea is something that just comes up, and in some cases, it seems like she was given an option between the two. In Brownell's telling, it's more like they're going to test her with both, but then in deliberation, they decide that the [00:24:00] water test is the better. If I were given a choice between the two, I'd choose the icy water myself, because there's not a lot of chance you're going to survive, or at least be in very good condition if you're, depending on how high they expect you to climb and how far you fall, that doesn't seem like a very good option.

Jamie Franklin: That's another one I haven't heard of, but it comes up in Brownell's and in Grace Greylock's accounts of the Krieger Witch Trial but apparently it was vetoed. And the water trial is what they ended up going with.

Sarah Jack: My first thought is maybe they were thinking, oh, we're not going to be able to cut through the ice, and she has to be tested. But then they're like how high can she climb? How, maybe she was, strong and sturdy, she was extraordinary, but maybe it was going to be too problematic to do the tree. But man, plunging into icy water. Do we know what month this happened in?

Jamie Franklin: Don't know what time it is, but they mention ice in Brownell's account very clearly, so one can assume, and cutting a hole in the ice. The idea of cutting a [00:25:00] hole in the ice, the river, it's a flowing body of water. Imagine it. Images of this where they're bound and tied and so that there would have been a rope attached to her, so it's not like they just dropped her in, she sank, because then you would have floated down the river, and how do you pull her back up out of the ice when she's out of there?

Jamie Franklin: So I'm guessing they had a rope attached to her that allowed them to pull her back in, but that wouldn't have been pleasant regardless. The tree would have been bad enough, but the ice wasn't a great way to go either.

Sarah Jack: And she could have, she could be the last woman to undergo a water test like that in the colonies.

Jamie Franklin: It's interesting one of the fun little bits that I was able to dig up as, as I was just doing research about this and trying to understand the larger context and, we think of witch trials and, me as somebody who's interested in history and has a basic knowledge, the Salem Witch Trials in the late 17th century, but 1785 is really late.

Jamie Franklin: And [00:26:00] so I was just trying to do a little bit of digging and figuring out what were they talking, what sort of things were they saying about witches, witchcraft, here in southwestern Vermont in the late 18th century. And in fact, I did stumble across a couple of newspaper articles from the Vermont Gazette, which would have been the local, Bennington-based newspaper, one was from the 1780s, around the time of Krieger's trial, and it was more like an oratorical kind of exercise where you see this occasionally where people will write essays to show off their kind of reasoning and debate skills. And this is a letter that was published in the Vermont Gazette, I think it was 1788, where he's basically giving all the reasons why witchcraft is not real.

Jamie Franklin: But then even more interestingly was a wonderful article that was published in the Vermont Gazette in 1801. And it's unsigned, but he refers to the last 35 years, so presumably [00:27:00] he's 35 years old or around that, or maybe 35 years from his, what he refers to as his childhood, and he says that witchcraft has been on the decrease over the last 35 years. So that would have dated back to the 1760s, 1770s, depending on exactly what he meant by 35 years ago and, it's a, it's another wonderfully written article.

Jamie Franklin: The title of the article is Witchcraft, and it starts, 'when I was a boy, I well remember that scarcely a week passed without hearing some notable tale of recent witchcraft. But at this day, we hardly hear such a tale once a month. Then there were at least four able-bodied witches to a town, but now scarcely one can be mustered. Now I know of several whose towns with not a single witch in them. Then, if a teamster had his sled or wheels upset, the nearest witch was sure to bear the blame of it. But now he is forced to lay it off upon a rock, a stump, or a snowdrift. In those days, if a man was taken out of his warm bed and [00:28:00] ridden a hundred miles through the air, it was certainly some old witch who did it. Now it is turned off upon a dream, a disturbed imagination, or at best, the Nightmare.'

Jamie Franklin: And then he goes on about this and then towards the end he goes on to surmise why witchcraft has been on the wane. So he says, they actually talk about the revolution being one of the reasons why witchcraft might have been on the wane, which of course doesn't explain why there was a witch trial in 1785, right on the tail end of the Revolutionary War, but he goes 'no, I hereby declare it is my opinion that this decrease is owing to another cause.' Quote, 'every generation grows wiser and wiser, I will add, better and better, and not a word more.' And that's how the article ends. So that's an article published here in Bennington in 1801, giving some sort of context for the idea that witchcraft and witches were something that somebody growing up in the 1760s and 70s around this area would have found relatively [00:29:00] commonplace.

Jamie Franklin: However, Krieger's is the only known witch trial. Of course, it's a vague record, and there may have been other cases, but we don't know of them. It's the only known witch trial, and it is quite a late date, as you note, 1785. I don't know of any trials anywhere in New England after that date. It's the only one ever recorded in Vermont, to the best of our knowledge.

Josh Hutchinson: The latest that we know of before that would have been a 1697 trials of Sarah's ancestor in Connecticut, Winifred Benham, and her daughter, Winifred Benham Jr. That's the last formal one that we have court records for. But I do want to point out that we've spoken with a witch trial historian, Owen Davies, who wrote a book called America Bewitched. And in there, he says that due to extrajudicial, people taking the law [00:30:00] into their own hands to deal with witches, more people actually died as witches after Salem than were killed by the authorities.

Jamie Franklin: Yeah. And it's tough because there's really no hard documentation to go by here, because Vermont was very much in limbo, literally and certainly figuratively, too, caught between New York and New Hampshire, an independent republic, there's very little kind of formal legal paperwork that survives, and Pownal as a town and a community was extremely small at this period, and I know that Joyce has also gone over to Albany and Troy to try and see if there are any records there, and she hasn't been able to track any down, and we don't have any documentation of it, but that doesn't mean that other examples of this might have happened during the period. Because it seems like the idea of witches and witchcraft, according to that 1801 account, were not something that would have been surprising.

Josh Hutchinson: There were [00:31:00] definitely rumors of witchcraft and off the record accusations going on that are reported in some newspapers through the 18th century and even the 19th century and up to today, you see this occasionally. So yeah, witchcraft belief is very persistent.

Jamie Franklin: And that's actually one of the reasons why I really was excited to be able to do this project and to erect the marker to commemorate the trial, because accusations of witch hunts are something we're hearing a lot about these days, and so I think these issues of false accusations and lack of following the judicial process, those are things that are happening to this day. It's different contexts, but it's still very much something that I think is relevant to us today.

Sarah Jack: I think this historical marker project is really a big deal. I'd love to hear how you got involved, how you and Joyce Held [00:32:00] connected and moved forward.

Jamie Franklin: The Krieger Witch Trial Marker Project was an outgrowth of actually an exhibition that I curated, which is here at the Bennington Museum right now, and it runs through the end of the year. I don't know if anybody's going to hear this before the end of the year, but so the project grew out of that, and actually I reached out to Pownal and the folks at the Pownal Historical Society a year and a half ago now. I don't remember the exact timing, I think it was spring of 2022, and I was working on this project. I wanted to learn what they knew about the Krieger Witch Trial, and Joyce had really been already working on this for a decade or so, trying to dig up information on who Widow Krieger was, what her name was, all of the information that she ultimately discovered.

Jamie Franklin: And I met with them about that, and then around the same time in the summer of last year, 2022, the Manchester Historical Society, which is just north of us here in Bennington, Sean Harrington is the curator of the Manchester Historical [00:33:00] Society, and he partnered with the Vermont Folklife Center, which is the state sponsor of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, and the Pomeroy Foundation has a historic marker program called Legends and Lore, and the Pomeroy Foundation is probably better known for funding all of the New York State historic markers. The historic markers that are erected now in the late 20th and now in the 21st century are not actually funded by the state of New York. They're funded by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation and so they have this Legends and Lore marker project. Sean Harrington at the Manchester Historical Society worked with Andy Kolovos who is at the Vermont Folklife Center and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation to create a marker to what's known as the Manchester Vampire or the Demon Vampire of Manchester. And so this is a whole other wonderful story, which kind of provides context into kind of late 18th century belief systems here in southwestern Vermont. In [00:34:00] very brief, the story of the Manchester Vampire. The only surviving account is a handwritten manuscript, which is part of a largerearly history of Manchester, which was written by a Pettibone, a well respected member of the Manchester community, believed to be written around the 1860s, and it recalls the story of Rachel Burton. So Rachel Burton was married to Isaac Burton, Captain Isaac Burton, who had actually fought in the Revolution, and she died what we now know as tuberculosis, back then it was consumption in 1791. Captain Burton, her widow husband, remarried, and about a year after he remarried, his second wife also died of consumption, and I hear that story and I go of course, if you're going to accuse somebody of vampirism, it's gotta be the husband, Isaac Burton, but no, it was the first wife, Rachel Burton, that was accused of being a vampire.

Jamie Franklin: You look at it, and you think the reality of it [00:35:00] is Isaac Burton was probably an asymptomatic carrier of consumption, and both of his wives caught it from him, but this was a case where Pettibone tells the story that his friends and family became kind of inflamed with this idea that they needed to dig up Rachel Burton's body, and they actually, the story goes that they burnt her remaining organs in a public spectacle there in Manchester around 1793.

Jamie Franklin: And so they erected this marker to the vampire story there in Manchester last year, and so I connected with Sean Harrington, who I know, I work with closely. He's on a number of committees here at the Bennington Museum, and he connected me with the Vermont Folklife Center and the Pomeroy Foundation, and we decided as part of this larger exhibition project, Haunted Vermont, we wanted to create a historic marker through the Pomeroy Foundation grant program to commemorate the Krieger Witch Trial.

Josh Hutchinson: What can you tell us about the [00:36:00] dedication ceremony?

Jamie Franklin: I worked closely with the Pownal Historical Society through all of this. The museum was the kind of non profit of note that applied for the grant. We applied to the Pomeroy Foundation through the museum. We were awarded the grant. And then I worked closely with the Pownal Historical Society.

Jamie Franklin: We had our own Krieger Witch Trial subcommittee. So we helped plan the dedication ceremony that happened back in September. And they really wanted to make it a kind of family friendly, basically honoring Margaret Krieger's memory and recognizing the ordeal that she went through, and so we actually started the dedication ceremony with a witches walk. So we invited people to come dressed up as witches, whatever that meant to them. There were a lot of kind of stereotypical popular American culture type witches wearing pointy black hats, black cats, brooms, but I think somewhere around two to three dozen people showed up wearing witch [00:37:00] costumes, and so we had a little parade that was led by a couple of musicians across the bridge, which crosses the Hoosic River, which is right there adjacent to where we put the sign. So the sign is in what's known as Strobridge Park, right there in North Pownal. It's off of Route 346 as you're driving through North Pownal on Dean Road. A bridge crosses the river right there.

Jamie Franklin: So they paraded across the river towards where the historic marker is, and then we had a brief kind of ceremony where I gave some remarks. I talked a little bit. I mentioned the 1801 newspaper article and talking about the idea of becoming better and acknowledging that this is still an issue, people are still being accused unjustly of a lot of things due to various belief systems. And this is something that we need to keep in our kind of collective community memory.

Jamie Franklin: Joyce Held then told the story of Margaret Krieger basically for the first time. She wanted to keep a lot of the information that she had been doing, researching, close to her chest until it was finally made public, and she told that story there[00:38:00] at the dedication ceremony. Sean Harrington was also there as a representative of the Vermont Folklife Center.

Jamie Franklin: And then we revealed and pulled the the cloth off of the marker. And so it was a really fun time. We had live music. We had treats for the kids. There were a lot of young people there. It was really fun, but there were also older people who are very deeply interested in early American, early Vermont history, reenactor types that we're interested in those sorts of things. So it was really wonderful. I think we had something like 100 to 150 people show up for the dedication ceremony there. So it was really wonderful to be able to go through this process of research, of getting the grant, and then finally putting the sign up and seeing that it's a story that really resonated with people today in 2023.

Josh Hutchinson: A great turnout. I'm so glad everybody got to hear the story and why it's relevant today.

Sarah Jack: Is there anything else you would like to share about the museum or [00:39:00] Margaret or anything else you'd like to put out there?

Jamie Franklin: Haunted Vermont was a really fun exhibit. I was able to do research on the Krieger Witch Trial, on the Manchester Vampire. Another kind of integral part of that exhibition is an archive of materials that we recently were gifted by Shirley Jackson's eldest son, Lawrence Hyman. So Shirley Jackson, for those who aren't familiar, was a mid 20th century writer. I call her the queen of Gothic fiction. She's probably best known for her short story, 'The Lottery,' but she also wrote a number of novels, including The Haunting of Hill House, which has received quite a bit of attention in the last couple of years. There was a Netflix very roughly based on The Haunting of Hill House recently. And she actually wrote a book for school aged children ages 8 to 12, on the Salem Witch Trials in 1956 or 57. You think about when that was published and the idea that children should be learning about the Salem Witch Trials was right at the height of the Red Scare and McCarthyism, [00:40:00] and so I say all of this only because we'll continue to have a selection of material from Shirley Jackson's archives out and on permanent display for years to come. It doesn't necessarily tell the Krieger Witch Trial story, but for those who are interested in those sorts of things and in Shirley Jackson's work, her work will continue to be on view here at the Bennington Museum.

Jamie Franklin: We tell the history and story of Southern Vermont, and anybody interested in that material, we're open to the public. We close for a couple of months in the early winter, January, February, and March, but we reopen on April 1st, and we're open through the rest of the year, and we're usually open, depending on what time of year it is. Our schedule sometimes shifts, but during the height of our exhibition cycle, from like June through October, we're open seven days a week from ten to four, usually.

Jamie Franklin: But just check our website. It's www.benningtonmuseum.org. That will have the latest up to date hours and days that we're open. And I encourage people to come and learn not just about Widow Krieger, but about Vermont history at large.[00:41:00]

Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.

Mary-Louise Bingham: Gary Foxcroft began his advocacy when he and his wife, Naomi, began to enroll children deprived of an education in a primary school they built with the support of family and friends at Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria. Many of these children were believed by their families to be practicing sorcery and were thrown to live on the streets. These children were now at risk of being exploited and suffered brutal deaths. Gary and Naomi connected with other advocates to provide shelters for these children and consulted with UN agencies. Gary was the subject of a documentary linked in the show notes, titled Saving Africa's Witch Children. Safe Child Africa is an organization that is based in the UK which was cofounded by Gary and Naomi. After 15 years of advocacy, Gary is now focusing on other [00:42:00] endeavors. Thank you, Gary Foxcroft, for the children that still live.

Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a non profit 501(c)3 organization, Weekly News Update.

Sarah Jack: We would like to acknowledge the positive progress made by the global community against witch hunts in the past year. At End Witch Hunts, we remain steadfast in our support for and recognition of advocates and organizations driving positive social change in communities worldwide grappling with witch hunts and violence from witchcraft accusations. Numerous initiatives and collaborations are actively addressing this issue. Anti-witch-hunt advocates encompass a diverse array of individuals, including victims, their families, descendants, academics, professors, authors, activists, lawyers, politicians, ambassadors, journalists, podcasters, artists, museum directors, writers, playwrights, [00:43:00] policemen, teachers, genealogists, historians, students, senior adults, middle aged adults, young adults, teenagers, and children. Anyone contributing to the mission to end witch hunts by expanding the reach of impact through their unique talents, skills, and knowledge, be it through education, legal interventions, or courageous conversations, is a powerful voice for the innocent. Whether you've delved into an informative book, participated in an online education or advocacy event, tuned in to a podcast episode addressing human rights, or engaged in the conversation to end witch hunts in any capacity, you too are an advocate for the innocent. We thank you for being a part of this growing movement to stop hunting witches.

Sarah Jack: As we close out 2023, we want to illuminate the remarkable efforts of our dedicated volunteers, creators, and guests, who have been instrumental in shaping our podcast and contributing to the success of all End Witch Hunts education, memorial, and justice initiatives. [00:44:00] These champions are committed to combating the age-old scourge of witch hunts, advocating for change, education, tolerance, and justice on a local and global scale. In a world where fear and disregard for the dignity of all mankind lead to the harm and persecution of vulnerable and innocent individuals, End Witch Hunts aims to be an organization of action.

Sarah Jack: In May of 2023, collaborative efforts to pass state legislation absolving those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut culminated in the adoption of House Joint Resolution 34. This landmark resolution offered an apology and cleared the names of 34 witch trial victims. Our exoneration and memorial efforts aim to honor victims, raise awareness, develop purposeful conversations, and foster understanding about accepting all vulnerable members of a community.

Sarah Jack: Take a stand for justice. Sign our petition at change.org/witchtrials to urge the state of Massachusetts to amend legislation, ensuring the inclusion of all those wrongfully [00:45:00] executed for witchcraft in the Massachusetts colony. Five women faced unjust executions for witchcraft in 17th-century Boston, and it's time to clear their names.

Sarah Jack: Additionally, support the crucial work of memorials for all witch trial victims in Connecticut by visiting connecticutwitchtrials.org. Engage with witch trial memorials. Amplify their stories on your social media and play a vital role in raising awareness. The future safety of potential witch hunt victims relies on this collective effort.

Sarah Jack: Be a part of the movement for witch hunt justice. As we leap into 2024, let's persist in elevating the voices of both historical and contemporary victims of witch hunts. Together, we can demand a future where each individual is accorded the dignity, safety, and respect they rightfully deserve.

Sarah Jack: When the dawn of 2024 breaks on January 1st, we'll have transformed the podcast to its new name, Witch Hunt. We appreciate your ongoing support and can't wait to continue this journey. Work with us in 2024 by discussing why we hunt witches, [00:46:00] how we hunt witches, who we hunt as witches, and how we stop hunting witches. Your voice is part of the work. Visit aboutwitchhunts.com/ starting January 1st, 2024.

Sarah Jack: Unlock the power of supporting our podcast by becoming a monthly donor. Our monthly donors are Super Listeners. As a Super Listener, your monthly contributions make a significant impact. Visit our website and easily sign up for any donation amount that suits you. Your generosity fuels the content you love.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Jack: You're welcome.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.

Sarah Jack: Join us next Wednesday for the inaugural episode of Witch Hunt.

Josh Hutchinson: That's right, subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts and the next episode will be in your inbox on Witch Hunt Wednesday.

Sarah Jack: To visit us, now go to aboutwitchhunts.com/.[00:47:00]

Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell all your friends about this show.

Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more about our organization.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

December 28, 2023

The Devil of Great Island with Emerson Baker

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Show Notes

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast. Here is a special surprise episode featuring Professor Emerson Baker and his book, “The Devil of Great Island.” Discover the wild world of supernatural attacks and witchcraft accusations on an island where everyone’s a suspect. Get ready for a captivating discussion with Professor Baker as he unravels the clues and weaves the threads together. From the historical intrigue to serious discussions on witchcraft accusations, this episode wraps up with a call to exonerate all accused witches and end modern witch-hunts. Don’t miss this festive episode, and consider gifting a copy of the book from our bookshop—link in the show notes.

Enjoy this special holiday bonus as Dr. Emerson W. Baker, Salem State University history professor, returns as our esteemed guest!

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Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas and happy holidays. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: Merry Christmas and happy holidays. I'm Sarah Jack, and we have a present for you.

Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to a special Christmas edition of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. We're talking to Professor Emerson Baker about his book, The Devil of Great Island.

Sarah Jack: This is a wild case of supernatural attack and witchcraft accusations.

Josh Hutchinson: Grab a big cup of cocoa and settle in with a warm blanket. Join us for an interesting talk.

Sarah Jack: Lithobolia is not something you add to your eggnog.

Sarah Jack:

Josh Hutchinson: Lithiobolia is actually a stone throwing demon.

Sarah Jack: That sounds like a poltergeist.

Josh Hutchinson: It's basically the same thing, just [00:01:00] at one point in history, people believed that this stone throwing was caused by demonic activity, And now we attribute it to ghosts, just a change in our superstitious perspectives.

Sarah Jack: But what or who was really behind the attacks?

Josh Hutchinson: On an island where everyone is a suspect, we have to sort through all the clues.

Sarah Jack: Professor Baker is our lead detective.

Josh Hutchinson: He reviews the suspects and the evidence.

Sarah Jack: And expertly weaves all the threads together.

Josh Hutchinson: While this episode includes a fun story, it also features serious discussion of the mechanics behind witchcraft accusations.

Sarah Jack: And we close with a note on how to end the ceaseless stream of witch hunts that continue to flow unchecked today.

Josh Hutchinson: You're gonna get a lot out of this show, and you're gonna really love this wonderful story, [00:02:00] and then you'll love reading The Devil of Great Island.

Sarah Jack: Use that gift card you just got to buy a copy from our bookshop. The link is in the show notes.

Josh Hutchinson: And why not buy one for a friend while you're at it?

Sarah Jack: It's a special holiday gift to welcome back Dr. Emerson W. Baker, professor of history at Salem State University and author of an unofficial trilogy. He was coauthor to The New England Knight: Sir William Phipps, author of A Storm of Witchcraft: the Salem Trials and the American Experience, and The Devil of Great Island: Witchcraft and Conflict in Early New England.

Emerson Baker: Ah, I'm looking forward to it. Always a pleasure.

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We're really looking forward to getting into this book. The Devil of Great Island hasn't been covered a lot on other podcasts. So a lot of our listeners will be hearing of this for the first time.

Emerson Baker: It's somewhat obscure. It's written, it was one of my earlier books. And but I think it's, I think it's a great, an [00:03:00] amazing story even. I don't, I'm not sure if, I'm not sure how good the book is, but I think the story is pretty amazing.

Sarah Jack: Both are fantastic. It was a really fun research for me to do, and we've really enjoyed talking about it before getting to talk to you about it. I'm really excited for this conversation.

Emerson Baker: I realized in hindsight that I'd written a trilogy, the first book being the biography of William Phipps with John Reid, and that kind of, there's a chapter in there on the Salem Witch Trials, it's my first kind of attempt at it, and it's the chapter that I took lead authorship on, and it nearly took over the whole book, or it could have, right? And it'sour first take on the frontier interpretation of the Salem Witch Trials. But the important book on that was it gave me that imperial context and that broader picture of Massachusetts in the late 17th century.

Emerson Baker: And then I stumbled across this bizarre case of stone throwing demons and thought it made a really cool micro history. And I think the thing is, when people study the Salem Witch Trials. A bad place to start, because Salem is so atypical, so off the [00:04:00] scale, so different in so many ways, that I thought it'd be before studying Salem, even though I was teaching at Salem at the time, I wanted to know what witch trials were like and what witchcraft accusations were like before 1692.

Emerson Baker: As I used to say is, I'm doing something no Salem historian has done before. I'm writing a book about witchcraft that really doesn't have much to do with Salem. It's in that sense it was, it's different, but it, but ultimately, as I say, is that it in many ways it has everything to do with Salem, 'cause it shows you what witchcraft was like in 1692. But I guess the other thing I would say is that it really is, I didn't write it as a witchcraft book. I really wrote it to talk about what I call the other New England, to talk about Northern New England in the 17th century, which is now famous as that sort of those incidents that led to the outbreak of the fighting in 1689, and then influenced the Salem Witch Trials.

Emerson Baker: But to me, it's a very different type of place, and it's a place where I live. Even though I teach at Salem State, I live in [00:05:00] Maine. And It's a place that is a very unpuritan place in the 17th century, but it's a place you don't hear about.

Emerson Baker: It's really about what I call the other New England, right? The Devil of Great Island. It's about, so if you imagine a story that is set in a debauched Quaker tavern in New Hampshire that's supernaturally assaulted by flying stones throughout the summer of 1682, and the logical response is to accuse your aged Anglican widowed neighbor of being a witch.

Emerson Baker: And I'm saying where in the history of books do you hear about anything like this when you talk about early New England, right? And also too if you think about the difference between, say, the Salem Witch Trials. Where's the ground zero for the Salem Witch Trials? Parris parsonage in Salem Village, the most holy, devout place in the community, the minister's home, and his children are afflicted. And how are they afflicted? Screaming, writhing on the floor. And this has become our sort of typical witch trials for us, because everyone knows Salem, right?

Emerson Baker: But contrast that to, again, a [00:06:00] debauched Quaker tavern that is supernaturally assaulted with flying stones, but it's every bit as much as witchcraft as the Salem trials, and in fact, probably more typical of what a witch could do and what sort of harms people feared from witches in the 17th century than the spectral affliction that happened in Salem, which is, as you folks know, was outside of Salem is really not that common in the 17th century in New England, right? So I, in essence, I guess I wrote the book a bit to broaden the picture of really New England history and to talk about that place that actually did have cases of witchcraft and things like that, but didn't get all the attention of Massachusetts and Connecticut, right?

Josh Hutchinson: Indeed, cases in Portsmouth and in Hampton.

Emerson Baker: And those cases are, Hampton and Portsmouth are all very interesting because really... In 1656, we know at the same time that we have the first accusations of, actually of Jane Walford and Eunice Cole down in Hampton. And they actually only lived a few miles apart [00:07:00] there were several other people who cried out upon that point. So actually in 1656 there's really a bit of a a witch panic going on in New Hampshire, but it, again, it fizzles out and so it doesn't get the attention of some of thelater outbreaks, even though John Demos does talk quite a bit about Eunice Cole, which is a really fascinating case, because she's accused of witchcraft like three times between like the 1650s and the 1680s.

Josh Hutchinson: On the subject of the stone throwing, can you tell us what happened on Great Island on the night of June 11th, 1682?

Emerson Baker: George Walton is getting ready to head home and finds that he and his house are being, his tavern on Great Island, which is now the town of Newcastle, New Hampshire, but at the time was part of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, it's supernaturally assaulted with flying stones for hours on end, almost on cue. And they, the members of the house, they retreat in the inner recesses of the house, because there's stones coming through the windows. And then they, the [00:08:00] stones almost seem to be going, leaving from the house out the windows, and things are disappearing. And it really, until the middle of the night, two or three hours, the house is under assault.

Emerson Baker: They claim they can say, no visible agents present. No one can really tell what's going on, where the stones are coming from, and it's stopped by the next morning, but then the next night it starts again, and it just pretty much every night that summer, literally almost like clockwork at eight o'clock at night, the house and its inhabitants are assaulted with what they come to believe is the work of a stone throwing demon, because no one can see anyone doing this, so it clearly must be an act of a demon, and to me, that's really important because, again judging on what happens in Salem, we tend to think of teenage girls writhing on the floor, screaming in pain from invisible specters, but no, witches had the powers to do, as we know, to all kinds of things, right? To cause ships to be sunk at sea, to destroy crops, to lightning strikes, to [00:09:00] making animals and livestock sick, to doing what we would today call really more of a haunted house, right? Or a poltergeist, again depending on if you believe in any of these sorts of things. These were all powers that witches got from Satan people believed in the 17th century.

Emerson Baker: This assault continues for literally four months, and the family has to cope with it on a regular basis. And, of course, eventually it'll lead to charges of witchcraft, as these things always tend to do.

Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it goes from a demon to witchcraft.

Sarah Jack: Who were the people at the center of the incident?

Emerson Baker: Yeah, George and Alice Walton are the tavern keepers, and they are fascinating folk. George is one of the original antinomian followers of Anne Hutchinson and John Wheelwright, and in 1638, when they are all basically thrown out of Massachusetts, George follows Wheelwright north and is one of the first settlers of Exeter, New Hampshire. They go over the line to New Hampshire to establish a new settlement. [00:10:00] And hangs around in that neck of the woods between Exeter and Dover, New Hampshire. And at some point meets Alice. We think she's a local girl, might even be a daughter of the Hilton family, who were like the first settlers of New Hampshire. Can't prove that. But the interesting thing is, by the late 1650s, early 1660s George and Alice are amongst the leaders, apparently, they're at one point they're called like by some sort of the most devout people in the area, leaders of a growing group of Quakers in the Piscataqua region, both on the New Hampshire side and on the Maine side.

Emerson Baker: And in this sense, again, this is something you don't really hear about. If you hear about Quakers in New England, it's usually like maybe down in Rhode Island or something, but there were quite a few. In New Hampshire and Maine, and George and Alice are very successful tavern keepers and also Quakers, but that very quickly runs them afoul of the law, because Quakers are not your, let's put it this way, Massachusetts does not like Quakers, and in fact, as early as the late 1650s, Massachusetts makes it [00:11:00] illegal for people, for Quakers to proselytize, and as you probably know, between 1659 and, and 1661, Massachusetts actually executes four Quakers, essentially for entering the colony and daring to proselytize. And if you go to the state house, right by Boston Common, there's a statue to Mary Dyer, who was one of those four Quakers who was executed, and it basically is a statue today for religious freedom, right? Because really she was a religious martyr to her cause. That's the way Massachusetts treated Quakers. They were sort of persona non grata. And when New Hampshire had been taken over by Massachusetts, that meant that Massachusetts had a real problem with Quakers. But after the 1660s, it almost becomes a bit of a, don't ask, don't tell policy, so your neighbors might be Quakers, but as long as they showed up at the meeting house for the Sabbath worship fairly regularly, as long as they paid their tithes to the church and didn't cause any problems, there was a degree of religious toleration that was allowed. And this is particularly true in, New Hampshire and Maine, [00:12:00] where Massachusetts takes over both colonies, New Hampshire in the 1640s, Maine in the 1650s, and specifically, with the implicit understanding that they're not gonna try to enforce pure Puritan orthodoxy in those colonies.

Emerson Baker: George and Alice are not entirely unusual in the region. They are a bit unusual in the fact that they are running this tavern, and taverns were considered very dangerous spots by Puritans. And to have a sort of a Quaker tavern that's visited by all kinds of strange people I'm happy to talk about. So it's not just a couple of Quakers who are the odd characters in the story, but all this odd mix of people who inhabit and visit the tavern.

Josh Hutchinson: What was that odd mix like?

Emerson Baker: One of my favorites, of course, is Mary Agawam. It's a Native American woman who is apparently a servant. We can't tell if she was probably not enslaved, probably a paid servant, we think. But she has the misfortune of committing fornication with some itinerant sailor on the Sabbath in the tavern and gives birth to a son, William, who then [00:13:00] becomes a servant in the tavern, as well. So there you have living proof of how these Quakers defiled and their tavern defiled the Sabbath.

Emerson Baker: You have other folks like their Irish serving man, Dermot O'Shaw or O'Shea. And so you have all of these really interesting characters. You have the next door neighbor, again, the woman they accuse of witchcraft eventually, Hannah Jones, who's a good Anglican, and then you have another neighbor, Walter Barefoot, who had actually been the man, the hero down in Hampton when several Quakers from Dover, New Hampshire, had been tried. They tried to whip them out of the colony, and it's what's called the Horse and Cart Act, where they would literally tie Quakers to the tail of a wagon, of a cart, and literally beat them outta the colony. They would whip them at every town, and then they'd have to walk. And you had these poor Quaker women in, I think it's February or early March, who stripped to the waist and are whipped starting in Dover. And by the time they get down to Hampton, [00:14:00] Barefoot, who's the local doctor at the time down in Hampton, stop puts a stop to it, 'cause they said they're gonna kill the women. Again, these are not like your standard Puritan colony.

Emerson Baker: And then even the the other one of the other neighbors who I really love to, to talk about is John the Greek Amazine who is otherwise known as John the Italian Amazine. So he's apparently some sailor from the Mediterranean, probably ethnically Greek, but from one of the Greek enclaves in Southern Italy or Sicily, who, as sailors tend to do, arrived in Portsmouth and clearly fell in love, local girl fell in love, and he married and settled down. And there are still Amazines, over 300 years later in Newcastle on Great Island. And around here people just tend to think it's just, it's an unusual Yankee name, right? Because they've been here forever.

Emerson Baker: So you have this very international cast of characters. You have some Puritans around, you have some Quakers, you members of the Church of England, and you even have, in 1682, when this incident took place, it turns out right across the river, [00:15:00] literally, not more than a stone's throw across the Piscataqua, in Kittery Point, New Hampshire, you have a group forming a Baptist church.

Emerson Baker: And at the time, again, it's laughable to us that the Puritans were afraid of Quakers and Baptists, right? Today, they don't seem to be that offensive. As a matter of fact, Quakers seem to be, they represent that ideal. They believe in egalitarianism. They believe everyone's equal, that no one's better than anybody else and that everybody should be able, including women, should be able to speak their mind in worship services. But this terrifies the Puritans, of course, who are very hierarchical and very patriarchal, right?

Emerson Baker: But the Baptists are equally terrifying to the Puritans, because they don't believe in infant baptism. They believe that people should wait until they're adults to be baptized, when they can actually make a conscious choice. And, of course, Puritans are terrified about this because what happens if a baby dies before it's baptized? It'll end up going to hell. In fact, actually that's going on right in the midst of all of this as well, too. And the amazing part of this is that eventually even Maine decides that those Baptists are really too radical for the good people of [00:16:00] Maine, and the leader of that group, William Scriven, the minister, and members of his family and some friends, actually moved to South Carolina, and Scriven and this group are considered the founders of the Southern Baptist Movement.

Emerson Baker: The Southern Baptist Movement is being founded right in the middle, literally like a mile away from the lithobolia attack on the Walton Tavern in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1682. So this just gives you the idea of just how an unusual mix of characters these are, and that's just on Great Island, as you folks know from the story, there are other players that get involved in this too, including Scottish prisoners of war and all kinds of other folk that don't really fit the pattern of what we expect to see in early New England.

Sarah Jack: We've talked about a lot of the ethnic and religious diversity going on, and you touched a little bit on the political situation. Can you tell us more about the politics that were going on?

Emerson Baker: To me, this is an interesting story, because it really, in many ways, it does show the kind of tensions that do lead to witchcraft accusations [00:17:00] in Salem, in Great Island, and elsewhere, where you have a combination of factors. In this case, we have that original dispute, it ends up the Waltons, who do they accuse of being a witch? It's their elderly neighbor, Hannah Jones. Isn't it interesting that the two families have been involved in a property dispute over an acre of land on Great Island for over 20 years, right? So you have this kind of local kind of conflict that we see in other places. Indeed, like we really see in the Salem Witch Trials, right, where we have individual cases of neighbors accusing neighbors of different things, property disputes, things like this.

Emerson Baker: But on top of that, in Salem and in Great Island, we have serious colony wide political instability and political disputes. New Hampshire and Maine are very different than Massachusetts. These were not joint stock companies like the Massachusetts Bay Company. These colonies were started, really, as proprietary efforts. The Council for New England deeds Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges. They're in the process in the mid 1630s of deeding [00:18:00] New Hampshire to his friend Captain John Mason, when Mason dies. But by this point, the Mason family has put a lot of money into New Hampshire, and there seems to be they, there, there's a tacit claim that they have to the colony that they pursue really for over the next a hundred years. And it reaches a head in the late 1670s and 1680s in New Hampshire because in 1679, New Hampshire manages to convince the Crown to remove Massachusetts as its governing body and restore itself to be an original independent colony and under a sort of localized government run by the local merchants and folks in the seacoast of New Hampshire.

Emerson Baker: However, the Mason family sees this as an opportunity. In this case, we're talking about like the grandson of Captain John Mason, who is now trying to assert his claim to the colony. And he sends over an agent, Richard Chamberlain, to come represent the family and essentially stir up trouble and see if he can make an effective claim to the colony. [00:19:00] So what this really means is a time of political instability in the colony, where you have this change from Massachusetts to local government, but then this threat of New Hampshire being taken away by the Mason family. And isn't it interesting, of course, where does Richard Chamberlain, the agent of the Mason family, live? He's a tenant at the Walton Tavern on Great Island, and who is one of his leading accomplices in these efforts? None other than George Walton. And what they're really trying to do here, in theory, one of the things the Masons want to do is to resume ownership of all of the colony.

Emerson Baker: It would really vacate the title to every piece of land owned by every resident of New Hampshire. Now, that's the terrifying news to people, right? The somewhat better news is don't worry, we don't really want to take, really want to throw you off the land, but if the Mason family gets their claim established, we're just going to force you to pay property tax to us every year and [00:20:00] acknowledge us as owning this land.

Emerson Baker: And in fact, George Walton had gone so far as to purchase title to some neighboring parcels of land in Seacoast, New Hampshire from Chamberlain on behalf of the land that was already occupied, that if the people didn't pay their taxes, then good old George Walton would take it over.

Emerson Baker: So you can see this kind of, this real sort of political instability bubbling over in the colony, where people are upset over local property disputes on Great Island, this very small island of 100, 200 acres. And this whole political turmoil going over in the controversy. It turns out there's also a really major local conflict that will sound, I think, really familiar to people because just at the same time that Salem Village, present day Danvers, is trying to become independent from Salem Town, people on Great Island are desperately trying to [00:21:00] become an independent town, to escape from being part of the town of Portsmouth. Great Island they'd actually tried building a bridge to it, and today, actually, there are several bridges from the mainland, one from Rye, one from Portsmouth onto Great Island, now, and now it's town of Newcastle. At the time, though, they built one bridge, and the ice took it out after a year or so.

Emerson Baker: But at the time, people complained, 'hey it's taking us hours in bad weather in the winter to sail, and it's dangerous to get to the mainland to attend worship services.' Doesn't this sound familiar compared to people in Salem Village? Could we please petition the government to make us a separate town so we can hire our own minister, form our own congregation, build our own meeting house, right?

And as it happens, just a couple of weeks before the assault, that June assault on George Walton's tavern, there's been a very contentious meeting in Portsmouth where the Portsmouth town government, the selectmen, have voted against allowing Great Island to separate. [00:22:00] One of the factors that is in favor, that was a deciding factor to them was it was clear that there were people on Great Island who were not in favor of leaving Portsmouth.

Emerson Baker: Now there's no names mentioned, but it does seem pretty clear that let's just say Quakers like George and Alice Walton, who are the largest property holders on Great Island, who would've paid the highest tax to support a minister and to build a meeting house, probably also very much enjoyed having an excuse for not having to go to Puritan worship every week, where they could say, 'Oh, the weather was just too bad. We couldn't make it.' Gosh, right? It seems pretty clear that the Waltons and their family were against this move to separate the town. And in fact, eventually, and the whole issue is defeated, and it won't be until literally about ten years after the death of George Walton in 1695, that finally Newcastle will be established as a town separating itself off.

Emerson Baker: So you have petty local disputes between neighbors, you have disputes over a town trying to [00:23:00] establish its freedom, and then you also have a whole question over who's going to own and run the colony, and are we going to have to pay taxes to the Mason family or not? Tremendous amounts of political instability, and it's really clear that one of the major factors, even though witchcraft is a religious crime, it's clearly related to various levels of political instability and hardship by people. And you see this consistently in Great Island.

Emerson Baker: In addition to these layers of religious controversy between the Quakers and the Anglicans and the Puritans, because by the 1680s, there's a Puritan minister in Portsmouth and then the Baptists and other groups hanging around. And then someone like John the Greek Amazeen who probably would have been raised Greek Orthodox originally, right? It's a wild free for all of politics and factionalism going on in right here on this little island at the mouth of the Piscataqua River.

Josh Hutchinson: And a lot of activities seem to be centered, all of those things come together at the Walton Tavern. They're Quakers, they're supporting the Mason [00:24:00] patent claim, they're on the wrong side of other Great Islanders on the separation, the new parish dispute. It Sounds like a lot of people had reason to be mad at the guy.

Emerson Baker: Yeah, I think, it's to some degrees, I won't give away the ending. But it's Murder on the Orient Express, it wasn't a question of who did it, it was like, everybody did it, right? And one of my chapter titles is called, 'The Neighbors from Hell.' This is not like that other famous Walton family, John Boy and Ma and Pa and Walton's Mountain. These folks, they read this rowdy, debauched tavern, and there's one case where, actually the leader of the York County militia and his son in law come over to Newcastle, to Great Island to do some business, and they end up in the tavern drinking late at night, and they just get so drunkeverybody starts frolicking out on the grounds by the fort. They're playing leapfrog, and soon they look out and they think there's a fog rolling in, and they think it's the Dutch fleet coming to invade New Hampshire, and they raise the alarm, and people are on their knees praying to God that the Dutch are going to come and kill us all, and of course it [00:25:00] turns out to be a complete false alarm.

Emerson Baker: You have these kinds of things going on at the tavern. You have all kinds of odd incidents going on there. For example, there's an open well behind the tavern, and a cow drowns in it, and then one of the Waltons' grandchildren drowns in it. These sort of stories ripped from the headlines, and it really is, again, it's like having the neighbor's smell. You just knew if there was a problem that was going to take place on Great Island, it was going to take place at the tavern, because this is the busy waterfront of the Piscataqua, and you got sailors coming to there from all over the Atlantic world, causing all kinds of problems.

Emerson Baker: And no, taverns were considered a necessary evil by Puritan society, right? Travelers need a place to stay, a place where they can sleep, where they can get a decent meal. But they also look somewhat askance at taverns as places where people get into trouble with gambling and drinking and perhaps women of low morality and things like this, so it's this very dubious place, absolutely. To some degrees, I picture it like the Target logo, the bullseye. It's almost like there was this Target logo, I think, on the side [00:26:00] of the tavern and to me, the amazing thing about this is, there are two accounts that survive, and one is actually written by published by Increase Mather in Remarkable Providences, part of a number of really interesting stories that he tells, that he gets from the local minister, Joshua Moody in a series of letters.

Emerson Baker: But the other account, the longer account, is actually written by Richard Chamberlain, this guy living in the tavern, who actually have rocks almost hit him in the head,and somehow he seemed to be convinced that, I don't know what invisible agents of Satan, this is all. This is like a London trained lawyer, who's saying, 'gee, I can't imagine why anybody would shoot rocks at us, but clearly the devil has some kind of bone to pick with us. Not like we're really having all the neighbors upset over all this turmoil that, that I and George Walton might be causing on the town.'

Josh Hutchinson: It's interesting you described it as a Murder on the Orient Express. I described it as a Scooby Doo episode written by Agatha Christie.

Emerson Baker: Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment. It's funny because the actually, the ultimate compliment I got was from a friend [00:27:00] of mine when the book first came out. I gave him a copy, and he called me about two weeks later, and he said, 'hey, Tad, I'm really enjoying this, but this is a novel, right?' I'm like, 'oh, bless you.' No. No. All the facts in here are, putting this in quote marks, folks, true. These were recorded incidents. And to me the real story here, to some degrees, there are many fun stories here, but one is like, why did Chamberlain and George Walton, why did they at least pretend to believe that this was a stone throwing demon, that this was a satanically inspired attack rather than acknowledge the fact that literally everybody who went by this tavern was probably chucking rocks at it, and if anybody saw them do it, they were like going yeah, throw one for me, because they hate these people so much that they're doing that. But Chamberlain, in his account, never lets on. He says, ' some people say it was just the neighborhood boys, but we know better. It really was the work of Satan.' [00:28:00] Okay. And George Walton too, right? He seems to be very cynical about this and notes, isn't it interesting, he notes that when he goes upriver to his other farm up in the Great Bay, which is about five, six miles upriver, the attacks seem to continue there too, right?

Emerson Baker: And of course, they even try counter magic on it. This is clearly an attack, so they try to boil up this amazing scene where they really try to makewhat we call a witch's bottle, where they're taking urine and pins and boiling it up over the hearth. But unfortunately, the Devil of Great Island knows what's going on and starts lobbing rocks down the chimney, and it literally breaks up the cook pot, spattering urine all over the hearth, this boiling urine. And I think this was designed to ward off evil, but I think it would have warded off pretty much anybody entering the tavern for a few weeks, right? They were not able to, you're supposed to take this concoction and then pour it into a bottle and seal it and bury it under your hearth, and it'll prevent witches from coming down your [00:29:00] chimney. But they're taking all the proper steps and treating this like witchcraft, but you also think that isn't it interesting that ultimately, who do they blame for this, right? They blame next door neighbor who's been involved in this property dispute for decades, and If you think about it, an accusation of witchcraft is the ultimate nuclear bomb threat, right? In the 17th century. It is really in some ways, maybe the 17th century legal equipment of playing the race card. Let's accuse the opposition in this case of being a witch, and that will bring the court onto our side. So it's really there's a lot going on in this place. And I think if the story was just that in its own right, to me it would be interesting enough. But I guess the other thing that is to me is really fascinating about this is it really shows how witchcraft spreads.

Emerson Baker: Here's the thing. I've always been interested in the cases of witchcraft that take place in the Connecticut River Valley over several decades, really, from the late 1640s through into the 1660s. Up and down the river valley and you wonder [00:30:00] how that's how that information spread and how one case influenced the other. And we know this, we see this in Salem where we see the spread and even where we can say clearly what's going on in Salem pretty much seems to, we can't prove it, but it seems like that's influencing this outbreak of witchcraft in Connecticut even in 1692.

Emerson Baker: But here's the thing, it's really hard to tell how these cases spread, because witchcraft is normally, in this case, most of these cases are just witchcraft. But in this case, we have a stone throwing demon, so isn't it interesting, and in fact, Increase Mather, when he writes his book, he says, he describes the attack on the Walton Tavern, and then he says the same year there were these two other cases of a stone throwing demon. Isn't that interesting?

Emerson Baker: He's basically saying, what a coincidence. Maybe it's not a coincidence, Increase. When you realize that in fact, within a month or so of the attack on the Walton Tavern, if you go about a dozen miles upriver to Berwick, Maine, to one of the last houses in English Settlement before the wild frontier, [00:31:00] we actually have another stone throwing demon attack. And it takes place in an even stranger house than the home of George and Alice Walton. Because it takes place in the home of Antonio Fortado, who is a Portuguese sailor. And he's married to Mary Start, who's the daughter of a of a York fisherman. And they live in this house on the edge of the frontier. And all of a sudden, Mary walks out of the house one morning and she's got this huge bruise over her eye. And and bite marks and scratch marks on her arms and they say, 'Mary, what happened to you?' And she says, ' Oh, it was the devil of Great Island. It was the stone throwing demon that did this to me. That rock just hit me right here, son of a gun.'

Emerson Baker: I won't go into the full details of the story, but essentially what becomes really clear really fast is this is a classic case of domestic abuse, where her the husband is beating her and, like many people who are victims of domestic abuse, the [00:32:00] last thing you want to do is admit to that, so instead you make up this excuse of it being the stone throwing demon from downriver. And if you even read the account, it's really interesting that the way, eventually the stone throwing demon, or the witch responsible for the demon, manifests itself to her, to Mary. And how did, how is she described? She described as wearing this a safeguard, and she describes her garments. Now, a safeguard is like an overcoat that you wear over your skirt to protect it when you're riding, but it's basically a prop used in Elizabethan stage and in and Shakespearean stage. If someone comes, exit or enter stage, wearing a safeguard, it basically means that you come from a journey. Today, it would be like if you walk in carrying a suitcase. So what's Mary saying by this? 'Oh, it was that devil downriver. It wasn't anybody here. It couldn't possibly be my abusing husband who did this to me. This is the stone throwing demon downriver, right?'

Emerson Baker: And isn't it interesting, when they go across the river to seek the safety of another house, [00:33:00] the attacks stop. When they go back home, just the two of them, the attacks start again. In this case, it's a copycat incident that's clearly being used to cover something else, something very, very unfortunate going on in that household at the time, that now, unfortunately, the husband has free reign to continue to abuse the wife, unfortunately, right?

Emerson Baker: And then you find out later on that summer, there's another case in Hartford, Connecticut as well. In this case, you can see how these cases spread. And what it really tells you is how, and to me, that would be interesting enough if it wasn't the fact that, of course, the most famous case of a poltergeist or lithobolia attack in this time period is just a couple of years earlier in Newbury, Massachusetts, today where the people live in Newburyport, in the Morse House, where Elizabeth Morse is ultimately accused of basically bewitching her own household and her own family, including stone throwing demon and other poltergeist like activity. And eventually she's [00:34:00] convicted of witchcraft and put under house arrest for much of the rest of her life. It's a very odd case in its own right.

Emerson Baker: But isn't it interesting that one of her sons, that the son and nephew, live in Portsmouth? One of whom had actually bought property from George Walton and was a neighbor and didn't get along too well with the Waltons. In fact, the Morses and other folks knew exactly how to deal with people that they didn't like, and it takes this odd form of what we had forgotten was classic witchcraft in the 17th century. There you have not only this, you can actually track the course of the stone throwing demon and see how this is such bizarre news that it spreads like wildfire throughout New England.

Emerson Baker: And today, people think of Hartford, Connecticut, as being like this kind of interior place, but it's a major port in the 17th century. It doesn't take long for ships to get there from Boston or from Portsmouth, and news spreads, and the ministers in all these towns are writing letters to each other, so it's all part of this network of information, and to me was a different way to think about how news of things like [00:35:00] witchcraft spread.

Josh Hutchinson: It's great the way you tie all of that together. And that Connecticut case in 1692 really seems to me to be a clear they heard about what was going on at Salem and embodied that.

Sarah Jack: We do know, of course, that there were actually some of the people who fled Salem in 1692 actually did seek refuge elsewhere. We actually, at least a couple of them, the Bradstreet's probably came and lived with their sister in New Hampshire but then others, like the Englishes and John Alden folks probably, clearly ended up in New York City. And again, too, not that far, shall we say, as the stone flies from Hartford and that clearly this news is coming is spreading throughout the region really rapidly. And I just wanted a little, just a little information on lithobolia prior to New England. It didn't just show up there. Is that right?

Emerson Baker: Yeah, I know what's really fascinating about this is if you start [00:36:00] looking at it, actually, the whole term lithobolia is Greek for stone thrower, stone throwing demon, and you have stone throwing attacks like this going back to ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and throughout medieval history and that essentially this is a really typical kind of witchcraft. Again, Salem is so atypical. We're conditioned to thinking that's the only thing witchcraft can be, right? Instead of thinking of witchcraft being things like, again, we'd call like a haunted house. And so there are numerous cases of this going back into early medieval times as well, too, of houses being assaulted by demons and people try to protect them against rocks being thrown.

Emerson Baker: And yes, ultimately, if you look at the Salem Witch Trials, there are a number of cases, one incident in Reading, where it appears that there's rocks being thrown at the house, and there appears to be some sort of demon climbing on the roof, and in Gloucester as well, in the summer of 1692, when the Babson garrison there, it seems to be attacked by stones, and then they claim to see French soldiers, but it's a phantom attack, of course, and it's just war [00:37:00] paranoia. There's nothing taking place at all there. But again, how does it manifest itself, as stones and rocks being thrown and other things being thrown at the house? So this is classic.

Emerson Baker: But also, to me, the really interesting thing, too, is that also was the way people would, and we know in 17th century England and New England sometimes, would express their displeasure at their neighbors by throwing stones at them, and particularly at folks like Quakers, that this was not an unheard of treatment that again had absolutely nothing to do with anybody thinking anything supernatural was going on here. But just that as a sort of form of protest against one's neighbors, shall we say. It's got a long history of stone throwing. One point I was tempted to think about write a history of stone throwing, because I'm sure you could trace as well into the 18th and 19th ,century as well.

Josh Hutchinson: And Hannah Jones, she's a typical suspect for witchcraft. For one thing, it seems to run in her family.

Emerson Baker: Her mother, Jane Walford, is accused several times of witchcraft [00:38:00] ,and there's actually some line in where someone talks about, that basically every one of her generation, basically all your family are witches in other words, right? And this is again, very typical that we see in Salem and elsewhere is this idea that witchcraft travels from one generation of the family to the next. And frankly, folks, if I can make a broader point here of the efforts that you're taking out to further efforts to exonerate the remaining non Salem victims of witchcraft in Massachusetts, people will say so what, these people have been dead for 300 years. You can see here that sort of the transgenerational trauma that took place in these families, where once your family is labeled as being witches or in some way out of the norm, you're ripe for scapegoating for from anybody.

Emerson Baker: And I think in many cases, we have people, descendants today, 9, 10, 11 generations removed from these folks who really feel that they has that sort of stigma next to their name, their own sort of scarlet letter based on these incidents so long ago, and I think that's one [00:39:00] reason why it's really important to try to make amends for these transgressions in the past today, is because of this fact that people believed such nonsense that your mother was a witch, so clearly you are too, and that'll mean your children will be and and so on, right?

Emerson Baker: Can we at least acknowledge maybe that there were some wrongs done here and that, no, they weren't witches. There were no witches. Yes, we talk about them. We call them that, because frankly every time I can't put everything in air quotes or quotes when I'm writing, but we all know there were no witches in the 17th century that were in league with Satan to cause harm to people, right?

Emerson Baker: So can we acknowledge that maybe the government made a transgression there and whether they recognized it at the time or not? I think we could do it now so these families have what they consider to be that sort of stain removed from their name, right?

Josh Hutchinson: Exactly.

Sarah Jack: I really found it fascinating in your book where you pointed out the one early writer who was like,we're going to find the science to prove there's witches. We don't have it, but there are them. So they're real.

Emerson Baker: This is the thing. You [00:40:00] actually do have people of the Royal Academy, including folks like Robert Boyle, who's considered to be the inventor of physics, really, right? In the 1680s and 1690s, he and other Englishmen are really trying to prove the witchcraft exists. As a matter of fact, this is why Increase Mather is writing his Remarkable Providences in the 1680s. And he's writing to all the ministers, sort of thing, if you have any witchcraft or any odd supernatural occurrences, send that to me, because if we can compile all of these and then look into the phenomenon and regularize it and determine it, essentially what they're trying to do is prove the existence of the supernatural, to prove the existence of witches.

Emerson Baker: And that sounds like a crazy thing for people to be trying to do, right? But if you can prove the existence, here we are at the kind of the dawn of the age of reason, right? The fact that you have someone like Robert Boyle tried to prove the existence of witches, at the same time working with Newton to prove the laws of physics and gravity. But if we can prove the witches are real then we know that Satan is real, and if Satan's real, who does Satan get his power from? From God, [00:41:00] so then God's real, right? And so if we don't believe in witches, that's a slippery slope, because eventually someone's going to might say, 'wait a second, what does that say about Satan and what does that say about God?'

Emerson Baker: So there was this very real effort going on in the late 17th century to ultimately try to prove the witchcraft was real, and you can even see this, folks, you see this even in things like the witch's bottle or the witch's cake in Salem. There was an odd science to it, right? And if you read Thomas Brattle in his letter, he tries to get at some of this, but people have never been able to understand the witch's cake, that the question is whether it was John or whether it was John and Tituba baked in under the direction of Mary Sibley at the Parris parsonage, right?

Emerson Baker: But the idea is, again, it's like a proto-scientific principle, and that is, when witches curse you, there's this invisible force, almost like electricity, and of course they didn't understand electricity, either, but today we might think of something like this invisible force that goes from the witch and enters the victim with that curse, and but when that [00:42:00] person urinates, part of that witch's essence and the curse leaves the victim, so can we take that essence of the witch and put it in a cake, bake it up, and then feed it to the dog. And when that essence is being chewed on by the dog, it's causing the witch harm, and the witch will show up and will come in screaming and yelling and saying, 'who's hitting me? Who's hurting me?' And a witch will be revealed like this.

Emerson Baker: Now, again, to us, this sounds like almost something out of Monty Python, but there is this odd kind of early scientific effort there, and it's the exact same thing, actually, with the evil eye, is the same kind of thing, this idea of this invisible force going there and these efforts in some ways, people like the witch trials judges in 1692, in some ways are trying to be scientific with things like the touch test and the evil eye and witch cakes and things like that, and I guess the sad reality is that I fear that those kind of efforts at science are proto science, really only convince them perhaps of the efficacy [00:43:00] of these tests to prove people were witches.

Josh Hutchinson: You talk in The Devil of Great Island about what generally you need, the climate that you need to precipitate witchcraft accusations and stone throwing demon incidents. We have a lot of those ingredients in our world today,and we still see witch hunting today in many places in the world. That stew, what really sets it off, I think, is fear really gets you to start acting irrationally and make some of these decisions that lead you down this road. So when fear becomes prevalent in our community, what should we do so that we don't go down the road of witch hunting?

Emerson Baker: That's a great question. And I think about this a lot, like you can't watch the news nowadays [00:44:00] without somehow coming up with these parallels to things that took place three or four hundred years ago, right? And to me, what it is fear. It's fear of the unknown, of the outsider, of people who are different than you, right?

Emerson Baker: Here's the thing, fear is a natural reaction touncertainty of things that aren't happening the way you expect them to, of misfortune. And, unfortunately, the world is full of misfortune today as it was three or four hundred years ago. And even though we think we're maybe more scientific in how we express that, all too often, it seems to me, what we're doing is trying to find someone else to to blame for these problems, right? And basically what ends up as scapegoating. And so I really think to me the ultimate answer really is to find ways to build community as a society.

Emerson Baker: And I think, I hate to say this, but I really think all of us, or at least God knows most of us, I'm probably as guilty as everyone else today is, it makes that situation worse because we tend to be in our own bubbles. I [00:45:00] think, no matter where you are socially, geographically, politically, religiously, whatever, we tend to feel most comfortable with those people who share similar views, and we avoid those tough conversations. Sometimes, even like at Thanksgiving, let's not talk about religion or politics, right? Because, and at the same time, too, so instead, what ends up happening is you have these really tough conversations in forums like Facebook and social media, where you can't understand the subtleties of what people are saying, and it just makes things worse. Can we try to break down some of those barriers and try to understand people and get to know people who aren't just like us, who maybe are a little bit different, that can we escape our comfort zones a little bit to hear other views, to realize, before we demonize people, to realize that we all have a lot more in common than we have different, [00:46:00] right?

Emerson Baker: The tough part about, is these days is in these very charged lives that we lead where there's all these opinions floating out there in various forms of the media that seems to be an unreg ulated sort of space. How do we come together and have common cause? And I think that's the really difficult question that there are no easy answers to.Obviously, in some degrees, people say, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. But on the other hand, the devil you know, you at least know what to expect, right? And what they're from.

Emerson Baker: But the ultimate fear really is that devil you don't know. And if we can try to get to know better, maybe they aren't devils after all. But if I had the answers to how to do that, folks, I would, but I will say it's really intriguing, isn't it, that I fear that as long as we have bigotry and racism and hatreds that we are going to have some form of scapegoating and some form of witchcraft. And we don't necessarily have to call it witchcraft, per se, but [00:47:00] I think we see things like this happening in our society all, all too often, right? And I wish I had the answer.

Sarah Jack: When I hear what you're saying there, I just keep thinking, too, how one of the things that may hold me back or anyone back is what's this going to cost me? What's the risk here? And we need to start seeing maybe it's not as risky as we think. Maybe actually there's a payout, which is that common cause that you spoke of.

Emerson Baker: Yeah, and I do like to mention the fact that I think one of the reasons I love Salem so much is because I think a lot of people come to Salem because they realize, in fact, they've told me like, we realized that they may have rushed a judgment on people 300 years ago and that didn't work out so well, but I think, in many ways, the community tries to be very open and accepting of difference, of diversity, and you have this great organization, Voices Against Injustice, that is really, presents it well, like an annual award in social justice in honor of the victims of the Salem. But again, organizations like that, I think, [00:48:00] that are trying to build community and break down the bonds and have civil discourse about things, right?

Emerson Baker: But I should say, too, I'm a firm believer in the National Endowment of the Humanities and the State Humanities Offices. I'm former chair of the Maine council. And again, too they take some of these hot, sometimes they take some of these hot button topics and put together reading and discussion groups to bring people to different views to come together and think and talk about these kinds of things, right?

Emerson Baker: Maybe there's some solutions, but I think people have to be willing a little bit to put the, as you say, Sarah, to put yourself out there and maybe expose you to that kind of like that risk of that unknown and folks who you might not necessarily be comfortable normally, but hopefully that's what we need to do, right, is to try to become just better informed global citizens, right?

Emerson Baker: And now a merry minute with Mary.

Mary-Louise Bingham: Elizabeth Morse.

Mary-Louise Bingham: On March 2nd, 1679/1680 old style, the Court of Assistants recorded that Elizabeth Morse was indicted for the capital crime of [00:49:00] witchcraft, a crime of which she was wrongfully found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.

Mary-Louise Bingham: At a later Court of Assistants, dated June of 1681, Elizabeth's punishment was postponed until the following October, during which time Elizabeth lived in fear that her execution would become a reality. Luckily, that did not happen. Elizabeth was released from prison under a major certain condition, that she not travel from her farm unless she was accompanied by her minister. One can only imagine the fear and anxiety that Elizabeth experienced every single day of her life, wondering if that day would be the day that her sentence would be carried out, all the while being at the mercy of the minister if she needed to run necessary errands for herself and her family.

Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

Josh Hutchinson: Sarah has End Witch Hunts News.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News, a non profit [00:50:00] 501c3.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts and our projects and podcasts are wishing you a joyous holiday season filled with warmth and merriment. As the year draws to a close, we want to express our deepest gratitude to each and every one of our podcast listeners. Thank you for tuning in, sharing your time with us, and becoming a vital part of our community. Your support and enthusiasm make our podcast journey truly special. May your holidays be filled with laughter, love, and the magic of the season. Here's to a wonderful new year ahead. Thank you for being a part of our podcast family.

Sarah Jack: When we see you in 2024, you will find all of our same great guests and episodes under our new title, Witch Hunt. Please visit our new web link, aboutwitchhunts.com/, starting January 1st, 2024. To offer your financial gift in support of our advocacy and education, go to endwitchhunts.org.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Jack: You're [00:51:00] welcome

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to this special holiday episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer. We're so glad you decided to spend your time with us.

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Sarah Jack: Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Thank you.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great holiday and a beautiful rest of the year.

December 25, 2023

Francis Young on Witchcraft and the Modern Roman Catholic Church

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Show Notes

This episode examines what connects witchcraft, possession, exorcism and the modern Roman Catholic Church, with special guest, Dr. Francis Young, esteemed folklorist, author and historian in the field of religion and belief. Dr. Young guides us through the intricate world of Catholic demonology, shedding light on the complex relationship between witchcraft and demonic possession. Exploring the dichotomy between official doctrine and popular beliefs, we touch on the cultural and regional variations in belief and practice among Catholics globally. Dr. Young’s insightfully provided a fascinating explanation on how diverse interpretations of these phenomena manifest within different communities. We explore the risks of exorcism, examining the tragic case of Annaliese Michel and its lasting impact on the church’s approach to these rites. As the episode unfolds, we contemplate future navigation of witchcraft and exorcism. Join us as we continue the message and questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

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Transcript

Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. We have an intriguing episode for you.

Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we speak with Francis Young, author of Witchcraft and the Modern Roman Catholic Church.

Sarah Jack: We'll explore how the field of Catholic demonology has transformed since its dogmatic definition in the 13th century, leading to a more structured understanding of demonology.

Josh Hutchinson: We'll delve into the ethical and moral concerns surrounding exorcism. Dr. Young illuminates the potential risks and dilemmas inherent in this ancient practice, highlighting the importance of preserving human dignity and avoiding harm.

Sarah Jack: We'll also touch on the structural and hierarchical approach of the church to exorcism, a system designed to ensure caution [00:01:00] and respect for the gravity of these rituals.

Josh Hutchinson: Our journey will also cover the impact of the charismatic movement and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s on the church's approach to these supernatural practices.

Sarah Jack: Cultural and regional variations in beliefs and practices around witchcraft and demonology present unique challenges, as we'll discuss exploring how the church navigates these diverse interpretations.

Josh Hutchinson: A crucial aspect of our conversation was the tension between skepticism and belief. We'll revisit how the church balances these opposing forces, especially in a modern context where both extremes present challenges.

Sarah Jack: The legal and canonical framework governing exorcism within the church is another point we'll explore, understanding how these laws shape the practice today.

Josh Hutchinson: We'll also reflect on some controversial cases of exorcism and how they've influenced the church's stances and practices regarding demonology.

Sarah Jack: We'll [00:02:00] conclude with a forward-looking discussion on the church's future approach to witchcraft and exorcism, considering the global diversity of beliefs and practices.

Sarah Jack: I'm thrilled to introduce Dr. Francis Young, a UK based historian and folklorist specializing in the history of religion and belief. He's authored and edited and coauthored over 20 books, noteworthy for his authoritative insights into early modern English Catholicism, monastic history, and history of exorcism and magic. You will want to stay in the loop with his work and musings on Twitter, @drfrancisyoung.

Francis Young: So I'm Francis Young. I'm a historian of religion and belief. I've written a number of books on the subject of the history of supernatural belief, and several of those do touch on the subject of witchcraft. My most recent book, which is really relevant to the subject of witchcraft, and in particular belief in witchcraft in the modern world, is Witchcraft and the Modern Roman Catholic [00:03:00] Church, which came out in 2022.

Sarah Jack: What do we need to know about defining witchcraft?

Francis Young: The question of defining witchcraft, I think, is an almost notoriously difficult question. There are some scholars today who would almost give up, when it comes to defining witchcraft and say that, witchcraft is whatever people who consider themselves to be witches do, or it is whatever people who are accused by others of being witches are said to do.

Francis Young: I think for the purposes of the book that I mentioned about the modern Roman Catholic Church's engagement with the issue of witchcraft, I took the view that a definition needs to be established which isn't necessarily completely watertight from an objective point of view, but is a definition that corresponds to the way the Roman Catholic Church treats the idea of witchcraft.[00:04:00]

Francis Young: And so, on that basis, the definition I went for was instances where a human being is said to have caused some kind of supernatural evil to someone, or channeled some kind of supernatural evil, as distinct from the very ancient belief in the Christian church that the devil is active in the world, or demons are active in the world, and cause things like demonic possession and demonic vexation and so forth, without the intermediary of human beings.

Francis Young: So when that kind of stuff is said to involve a human agent, Then, broadly speaking, we're talking about what might be termed witchcraft, but that's just a working definition based on the way the Catholic Church has engaged with this.

Josh Hutchinson: And would that definition apply both to the clergy's official position and what the members view as [00:05:00] witchcraft?

Francis Young: I mean, yes, you're right to raise that distinction, because it really is a crucial distinction between popular Catholicism and official Catholicism. And my book is really focused exclusively on official attitudes. And what I mean by that is the pronouncements of popes, the pronouncements of official documents that have been ratified by the Vatican, the views of bishops and the exorcists that have been appointed by diocesan bishops. Now as soon as you get into the writings of exorcists, you do start to tip over into the personal. Personal views of exorcists are expressed in their writings, as well as any kind of official positions taken by the church hierarchy.

Francis Young: But to explore what Catholics on the ground actually think about witchcraft is, beyond my skill set, that would [00:06:00] require the work of multiple anthropologists, so it's not something which I've focused on for that reason. But, nevertheless, the views that the hierarchy, the views that those who are officially or semi officially authorized to deal with questions of witchcraft, what that gives rise to is some kind of interaction and some kind of compromise and some kind of give and take between popular Catholicism, popular religion, and the officially sanctioned views. But that is a huge source of tension in the Roman Catholic Church's attitude to witchcraft.

Sarah Jack: What is Catholic demonology?

Francis Young: So demonology is a branch of theology which can be traced back really to the Fourth Lateran Council. So in 1215, we have a council, an ecumenical council, held in the Lateran, and the crucial decree of that council which creates the discipline of demonology in [00:07:00] a formal way is the decree stating, dogmatically defining effectively, that Satan was once an angel of light who rebelled against God, and as a result of that, he and the angels who served him fell from heaven and became the demons in hell. So this doctrine of Satan as a fallen angel. Now that's not to say that Catholics didn't believe that before that point, but it hadn't been dogmatically defined. It had almost been a sort of extra biblical aspect of kind of Christian legend, but it becomes defined in 1215.

Francis Young: And what that leads to is theologians like Thomas Aquinas developing their explanations of how demons operate, how the devil operates. Aquinas writes a text called De Malo on Evil, which is one of the key texts in this regard. And, whereas there had previously been angelology, so the study of angels, the [00:08:00] study of spiritual beings that were deemed morally good, that's the flip side of that suddenly develops and you get the development of demonology and a sort of science of, a science of demons.

Francis Young: Now demonology can exist in two forms. It can be purely theoretical, so it can be a kind of inverse angelology studying the nature and behavior of demons, or it can be what I term practical demonology, and practical demonology is the idea that you'll get professionals such as exorcists, would be the most obvious example of that, who will actually derive information about what they believe to be the spiritual world, the evil spiritual world of demons from exorcisms, so from the behavior of demoniacs, from people who are supposedly possessed. Or indeed, of course, in the Middle Ages, you're talking about people like Sprenger and Kramer, the authors of the Malleus [00:09:00] Maleficarum, they are also deriving information about the demonic world from the confessions of people who have been accused of witchcraft. So there are these two aspects of demonology, the kind of the theoretical and the practical.

Josh Hutchinson: In understanding how demonology is practically executed through exorcisms. do we need to know anything about the ranks of the clergy in the Catholic church? Who does the exorcist work for and where do they get their leadership and ideas from?

Francis Young: Yes, I think it's quite important to understand that exorcism is a legal proceeding, effectively, within the Church. It's something which is governed by canons, by the laws of the Church, and there's a very good reason for that, which is that in the early Church, exorcism was a charismatic ministry that was exercised by those who felt called to it, who believed that they in and of themselves were possessed of some kind of, particular [00:10:00] gifting from the spirit that they felt able to exorcise where others couldn't. And of course, that's something which goes right the way back to the Acts of the Apostles, the New Testament.

Francis Young: Clearly, the existence of such people who claim to have special gifts within the church represents a threat to any church which is founded on the basis of hierarchy. Because hierarchy needs to be the source of authority, not charismatic inspiration. And the way that exorcism has developed, it's not been eliminated within the Catholic Church, but it has developed in a highly structured, hierarchical way. The Code of Canon Law, which was last codified in 1983, lays down that the ordinary minister of exorcism, that is to say, the person who is entrusted with this ministry within the Church is the bishop, but the bishop is not, unless in exceptional circumstances, actually going to perform exorcisms [00:11:00] himself, and so it therefore falls to the bishop to delegate to a priest or priests, but usually just one within his diocese, the ministry of exorcist. Now that is a ministry that the priest can only exercise on the authority of the bishop. He has no personal authority to exercise that ministry. Priests don't individually have any authority to do that, unless authorized to do so by the bishop. And indeed, if a priest is going to perform what's known as a major exorcism, a major exorcism being the exorcism of a person believed to be possessed, then he also has to have the specific and explicit permission of the bishop in order to do that.

Francis Young: So while a priest who is authorized as an exorcist can take it upon himself to do certain things, such as, for example, house blessings, to go around and, help those who believe that they are under [00:12:00] some kind of demonic vexation, that, their things go bump in the night, their house is haunted, that sort of thing. That he can do without consulting the bishop. But if it comes down to the point of actually performing an exorcism on somebody who is possessed, then the bishop has to give particular clearance for that to take place.

Francis Young: And in recent years, certainly since, in the last 20 years or so, I think it was founded in 2005, the International Association of Exorcists in Rome has given training to exorcists. And in some cases that's provided in Rome for priests who are appointed to the ministry of exorcist and journey to Rome in order to be trained. Or, as well, The International Association of Exorcists has kind of subsidiary groups affiliated with it that will administer that training in other parts of the world. And that's an attempt to regularize the ministry and to ensure that it's done in [00:13:00] broadly the same way around the world.

Sarah Jack: And, there's a rubric that's followed, or the rites of exorcism?

Francis Young: Yes, that's right. So there is a rite of exorcism that was approved in 1999, and that replaced the ancient rite of exorcism, which goes back to 1614. That was the exorcism of the Council of Trent. So, you know, anybody who's watched the film, the Exorcist, what you'll see there is the old Rite of exorcism from 1614 that remained in force right the way from 1614 up to 1999, when a new liturgy was promulgated. Now that liturgy has in turn been translated into English and other languages. It was only translated into English in 2017, so it's only since 2017 that it's been possible for Catholics to have exorcisms in English. Before that point they were all in Latin, and of course it still can take place in Latin.

Francis Young: But that liturgy is [00:14:00] accompanied by rules, essentially, guidelines for how it's to be used. And these are known as the praenotanda. And one of these praenotanda, number 15, is the one which is crucial to determining the modern church's attitude towards witchcraft, because it talks about people who might come to the exorcist and say, so and so has cursed me, so and so has cast the evil eye on me,so and so is trying to supernaturally cause me harm. And the instruction given in Praenotandum 15 is that is not to be accepted as a legitimate reason for exorcism, and such beliefs are to be discouraged as essentially false belief. So there is in theory, therefore, a sort of, I wouldn't say a ban, but there is in theory a, guidance which would indicate that exorcisms in response to a belief in witchcraft shouldn't take place.

Francis Young: Now, does that mean that [00:15:00] the Church actually teaches that such a thing as witchcraft isn't possible? No. I don't think that it should be taken in quite such a strong sense. But it does indicate a tradition which is rather skeptical of the idea of witchcraft. But having said that, when this rite was translated into the various languages, in each case, the bishops conference of the country for which it was translated added a set of interpretative documents, which effectively say how they think those bishops in that country think that this particular rite should be used within the cultural context of that country. And so within certain cultural contexts, but for instance in countries in Africa, there is much more of an emphasis on the possibility of witchcraft, whereas in other contexts, so for example, the French Bishop's Conference totally rule out any possibility that there could be, any [00:16:00] response to belief in witchcraft. So there is great variation across the world in the way in which these, these guidelines are implemented.

Josh Hutchinson: And what is the relationship between witchcraft and demonic possession?

Francis Young: Yeah, that's an interesting question. The idea of demonic possession is far older than the idea of malefic witchcraft, that is to say, the idea that people in league with the devil are causing harm, which, within the context of Christianity, is a belief that really only dates from the late Middle Ages. It's a newcomer, to the scene, really, compared to many of the beliefs in Christianity. The belief in demonic possession of course goes way, way back to, the New Testament, back to ancient Judaism. Indeed, all the way back to the ancient Near East more generally. In fact, I think some of the earliest writing that we have in the world relates to exorcisms of ghosts and things like that [00:17:00] from Mesopotamia. So that's a very old belief.

Francis Young: And the idea that there is a connection between witchcraft and possession is something which doesn't really happen until the early modern period, doesn't turn up until the 16th and 17th centuries. And I think there's one major reason why the idea of witchcraft becomes popular as an explanatory tool for explaining why people are experiencing what they think are the symptoms of demonic possession. Because the traditional view was that the devil has power over people through their sin, and therefore, if somebody commits a sin, the likelihood is that they might be possessed by the devil or vexed by the devil in some way. But cases occurred in the early modern period when apparently innocent people were experiencing these symptoms. And so witchcraft effectively serves an explanatory role to account for innocent people experiencing demonic possession and [00:18:00] vexation.

Francis Young: So in other words, a human agent gets involved and projects demonic power, sends the devil, if you like, to go and annoy somebody, or indeed, in some cases, to possess that person. So the idea of bewitchment becomes elided with the idea of demonic possession, and by the 17th century, these things are almost totally elided. And in fact, you've got, people who are engaging, practical demonologists, whatever you want to call them, who are simultaneously engaging in a ministry of exorcism, but also what Is effectively a ministry of witch finding. And so these two things become very intimately linked, but it's quite a late development.

Josh Hutchinson: What is behind the revival of interest in witchcraft and possession?

Francis Young: This is something which I have coined a term for, in my book, which is neodemonology, and this is a movement which I see within the Roman Catholic Church, and particularly [00:19:00] within this kind of professional cadre of exorcists, which begins really in the 1980s. And it's, in part, a reaction to the skeptical atmosphere of the 1960s and 70s, when many Catholic theologians were moving away from the idea of any kind of theological engagement with the demonic, the reality of the demonic.

Francis Young: You had theologians like Herbert Haag writing his book, Farewell to the Devil,denying the personal reality of the devil and so forth. So it's in part, it's a kind of conservative backlash, a reaction to that. In part, it is something which grows out of the slightly paranoid Catholicism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which we might associate with Leo XIII and his writings on Freemasonry and his belief in Satanic conspiracies, which feeds into a particular [00:20:00] event in the 1980s, which is the Satanic Panic.

Francis Young: And I think that the Satanic Panic was hugely influential, clearly, on Pentecostals, on charismatic Christians, on evangelical Christians, on their conceptions of demonology, but it's also had an impact on Catholicism, and I think that it fed into an existing kind of conspiracist mindset, which existed among some Catholics, which of course had for over a century been lurking in the background of some kind of Catholic attitudes, and particularly the attitudes of Pope Leo XIII.

Francis Young: So yeah, I think neodemonology is this idea that exorcism is something that is absolutely crucial, that the devil is very active and at work in the world. The idea of witchcraft is fairly marginal still, though, [00:21:00] I think, within that kind of neodemonologist view. What I would say that neodemonology has done with witchcraft is to broaden its meaning so widely that it's almost become a meaningless term. So when you read the writings of contemporary exorcists, they will often use the term witchcraft, not just to mean what I've defined it as in the direction of demonic power by a human agent towards someone to possess or vex them, but they will define it as any kind of dabbling in the occult. So any kind of involvement with New Age spiritualities or involvement with occultism or involvement with contemporary neo paganism, for example, will get written off as witchcraft. Now, clearly if you are so liberal with your use of the term witchcraft, it will quite quickly lose any [00:22:00] kind of meaning, and I think this is a particular problem in the contemporary Catholic church, because you've got neodemonologists within the developed world, who will be using the term in this very generalized sense. And yet you've also got, within the developing world, you've got, exorcists who are using witchcraft in a much more precise sense and a sense that is perhaps more recognizable from earlier phases of Europe's history, in terms of people who are believed specifically to be causing supernatural harm to others, people who are therefore at risk of persecution because they are believed to be causing supernatural harm to others.

Francis Young: And so I think that, in the church globally, there isn't much discussion of this, and as a result, there's huge semantic confusion about what's being talked about when the issue of witchcraft is raised.

Sarah Jack: I read Bill O'Reilly's Killing the Witches. I don't know if [00:23:00] you've had a glance at that, but he takes the story of Salem and he takes this, his book into this focus on the Exorcist film and talking about demon possession. And I was so taken off guard and didn't even realize at that point what a tie witchcraft can have to demon possession.

Sarah Jack:

Francis Young: Yeah, no, I think that's a really important point to make. And I think that, one thing that I've written about with regard to the 17th century is the way in which witchcraft becomes a greedy concept. In other words, a kind of a concept that eats all the other conceptual frameworks that people have about the supernatural. Everything becomes witchcraft. And the way in which possession, which as I say, is an ancient idea, going way, way back to the New Testament and beyond. It just becomes eaten by witchcraft and it becomes bewitchment. And the two are utterly inseparable,indistinguishable.

Francis Young: And [00:24:00] almost in any case where someone is showing those traditional symptoms that had classically been associated with possession, a witch will be sought because, this must surely be caused by a witch. And yet, what I'd emphasize is that's such a new idea, that's a recent thing that's come in to Christian tradition. No one before the 13th century certainly would ever have thought that way. They wouldn't have said, 'Oh, a witch must be involved.' The church had, of course, had a more skeptical attitude and had seen claims of witchcraft and sorcery as imposture and this, I think, is very much a tension in the modern Roman Catholic church, too.

Francis Young: So you've got those who are very concerned about the church's reputation and see any kind of endorsement of the reality of witchcraft as a kind of, potential reputational damage for the church, that the church has to be seen as beyond superstition. But you've got others [00:25:00] who, particularly if they're working in the context of developing countries where belief in witchcraft is so normal as to be an accepted part of life, and indeed it would be abnormal within that society to deny its reality, they would say, 'you can't go down this line of skepticism because otherwise you're pastorally abandoning the flock.' They're asking questions about witchcraft, they're asking spells to be dealt with, they're asking bewitchment to be dealt with. If Catholic priests are refusing to have anything to do with this, then they are ceding territory, spiritual territory, either to animist witch doctors or, potentially, to Pentecostalist preachers, and therefore the Catholic Church is losing ground.

Francis Young: The Catholic Church is caught between a rock and a hard place, because if it is too skeptical, then it will lose face in the developing world, and [00:26:00] if it's too credulous, it will lose face within the developed world. And I'm not sure it's a tension that can be resolved, and really it's a question I wanted to grapple with in this book, can a global church, a truly global church like the Roman Catholic Church, actually successfully adopt a single coherent line on something which is as culturally specific as witchcraft?

Francis Young: Because I said at the very beginning, it's incredibly hard to define what witchcraft is. People in Uganda might think that witchcraft is people who are secret cannibals, and therefore they live in fear of cannibalization. People in southern Italy might primarily think of witchcraft as being overlooked by someone with the evil eye. Now those are such two profoundly different conceptions of what witchcraft is, there isn't really any commonality between them. And I think these culturally specific and linguistic [00:27:00] issues are huge. Every language has got a slightly different word for supernatural harm caused by, agents of the devil or whatever you want to say, and they all have slightly different meanings. They all have slightly different connotations. It's not something where you can simply say, oh, we all know what witchcraft is. We all have some kind of agreed cultural parameters. for what it is, because we just don't.

Josh Hutchinson: And given all those differences, what could the Catholic Church do to prevent witch hunts from breaking out?

Francis Young: Yeah,the Catholic Church has a mixed record on this. There are cases where Catholic groups, particularly in Africa, have led witch hunts, and it's something which has been, yeah, connived at, really, by the Catholic clergy. When it has been exposed, generally speaking, the hierarchy has clamped down on it.

Francis Young: And for example, in Uganda, there were, in [00:28:00] the 1970s and 1980s, there were instances of lay Catholic witch hunting by devotional groups, but once they were clamped down on, they became these non violent campaigns of attempting to destroy what were believed to be instruments of witchcraft or to force people into confessing that they had been involved in witchcraft. And what some anthropologists have argued that this has a positive effect, in that it allows people to confess to have been witches, and therefore reduces the potential danger to those people because they can be re, accepted within their communities, and there's less danger of vigilante violence against them. But there's more than one way of looking at that, clearly. The classic case, which I think was a bit of an embarrassing moment for the church, was the case of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo. He was the [00:29:00] Archbishop of Lusaka in Zambia, so the head of the church effectively in Zambia. And he was performing, in the 1980s, he was performing mass exorcisms, which essentially were unbewitchings because of the particular cultural understanding of possession as being something caused by witches. And this caused great concern within the Roman hierarchy, indeed from Pope John Paul II himself, and Malingo was ordered to go to Rome.

Francis Young: Now what the Church believed would happen was that this would stop his ministry, but in fact, he just restarted his ministry in Rome, in Italy, and it defies all the expectations that we might have, all the cultural expectations that sociologists and anthropologists might have, where they might see belief in witchcraft as something characteristically African, for example. Apparently not, because he was as popular in Italy, particularly Southern Italy, as he had been [00:30:00] in Southern Africa. And huge crowds turned out, people started manifesting what they believed were symptoms of possession and so forth. And, yeah, he had a hugely successful ministry and eventually ended up being excommunicatedby the Roman Catholic Church.

Francis Young: That I think has several lessons to teach us. And one of it is that these heavy handed attempts by the central church to impose its cultural norms on developing countries don't seem to work. And secondly, that the expectations that we have about witchcraft is an African thing or it's a Papua New Guinean thing or it's something which we associate with the developing world. That doesn't seem to be truly the case. It's more complicated than that. So yeah, I think that the Milingo case is fascinating and I think it probably explains why the church subsequent to that has taken a very softly approach, or indeed almost buried its head in the sand when it comes to the issue of witchcraft.

Sarah Jack: I was interested [00:31:00] in finding out a little bit how the case of Anneliese Michel revealed previously private exorcism details.

Francis Young: Yeah, the case of Anneliese Michel is unique. It's the only case where we have complete documentation of a major exorcism that I know of. And the reason for that, of course, is because the priests who exorcised her were tried for unlawful killing. I'm not sure of the exact charge that was made against them under German law, but certainly they were accused of being responsible for her death. And therefore, of course, all of the documents in the Diocese of Württemberg were made public, because they were part of the trial evidence. And so we know every detail of that case. It was a huge embarrassment for the church in Germany. It was a huge embarrassment for the Catholic church in Europe.

Francis Young: I think that it created a reluctance amongst the bishops conferences [00:32:00] of Europe to endorse exorcism. It also came at a time in the 1970s when faith in demonology was at a low ebb in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. So in fact, before the Michel exorcism in 1975, a document called Christian Faith and Demonology had been issued as one of the post-conciliar documents in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, which didn't officially change any of the Church's teachings on demonology, but it very much emphasized the importance of caution, skepticism, downplayed the demonological tradition. And I think it's against things like that that the later neodemonologists were reacting against that.

Francis Young: In terms of the role of witchcraft in the Michel case, Annalise herself claimed that she had been cursed at birth, that someone in her village had been conspiring against her, that there were evil people who [00:33:00] were trying to introduce demonic influences in her life. This is the kind of stuff which very much kind of resonates later with the Satanic Panic, the idea of children being offered to Satan as babies and cursed at birth, and this kind of thing that then explains supposedly later manifestations and involvement with the occult and the need for exorcism at a later stage, although I think that in the case of the Michel exorcism, it also arises from Bavarian popular Christianity and a much older kind of folk tradition of suspecting people of witchcraft within rural Bavaria. It has international kind of ramifications, but it also does have culturally specific aspects that are rooted in that kind of Bavarian popular Christianity.

Josh Hutchinson: And in her case, was anybody named as a witch?

Francis Young: Yes, there was somebody named, but I think that it was somebody who had long since died.[00:34:00] The issue of naming people as witches is, I think, an interesting one, because in the West, certainly, it's something which really falls into abeyance in the 18th century. So whereas in the 17th century, people who were bewitched would often make an accusation against a specific person, who then obviously at that point, might end up being put on trial for that. By the 18th century, largely as a result of the fact that the law has changed in many countries, and certainly in England, the 1735 Witchcraft Act has made it a crime to attempt an imposture of being a witch, and the focus is on the kind of the vigilante violence against people who accuse their neighbors of being witches, that people start to make general claims about having been bewitched, but very rarely is anybody named. And this is what Owen Davies calls witchcraft without witches. The accusation of witchcraft is made, but it's not directed against anyone in particular.

Francis Young: And I think this very much [00:35:00] chimes with what we then encounter in the late 19th century Catholic Church, Leo XIII's rather generalized kind of paranoid fear of satanic conspiracies. And again, it's less about the accusation of particular people. It's almost as though the accusation of particular people would reduce the appeal of this paranoid mindset, because that kind of limits it. Whereas if you're making these vast kind of unfalsifiable claims about satanic conspiracy, we see it today in something like QAnon, that the vaster the nature of the conspiracy claimed, the more amenable it is to those who are of a conspiracist mindset to incorporate it into their worldview. And yeah, I think that it's not so much an issue of specific accusations, although having said that, in the Satanic Panic, of course, we do see the return of very specific accusations that are made against family members and so forth, and miscarriages of justice as a result of that,[00:36:00] but that's not something which is specifically Catholic. And in fact, the Satanic Panic is at its strongest within Protestant contexts and doesn't really take root in Catholic countries. So I think, yeah, the idea of accusing specific people of witchcraft is something which doesn't really have much of a place within more recent Catholic tradition but more vague claims of you know evil conspiracies or or people who offered you as a child to Satan and things like that those do have a, have a place and of course belief in the evil eye. I suppose the difference to the belief in the evil eye in somewhere like southern Italy, it's not actually the fault of people who have the evil eye. The belief there in Sicily, for example, is that some people are unfortunate enough to have the evil eye. And therefore, if they look at a child, for example, something might, bad will happen to that child. But that's not quite [00:37:00] the same as witchcraft in the way that we might understand it in the sense of 17th century Salem or something like that. It's not a pact with the devil. It's not a deliberate act. It's just that some people are ill-favored for unexplained reasons and when they look at people, bad things happen. So again, it's this very culturally specific belief, which can't just be, bunched, bundled together with all these other beliefs.

Josh Hutchinson: What is the significance of Pentecostalism and the Catholic charismatic renewal in regards to witchcraft and exorcisms?

Francis Young: Pentecostalism begins at the very start of the 20th century and is a fairly fringe movement within Protestant denominations to begin with. But in the 1960s, again, in the aftermath of the ressourcement of the Second Vatican Council, which means a kind of return to the sources, this idea that the church needs to return to the heart of its [00:38:00] tradition, rather than simply accepting tradition in its most recently received form. The idea of going back to the Charismatic Renewal becomes popular, partly, I think, because of the claims made within the Charismatic Renewal that their way of doing things was closer to that of the early church. So again, that's very much part of that resourceful kind of ideology of do things if you can in the way that the early church might have done them.

Francis Young: It's certainly true that when you look at the evidence for early Christianity, it was highly charismatic in the small 'c' sense, that people would act and minister as and when they felt they had the gifts from the Holy Spirit to do that thing. So certainly when it came to exorcism, that seems to have been how it works. There was no formal authorization or sense that exorcists had to be approved by the bishop or anything like that. So I think that, yeah, within Catholicism, the charismatic renewal primarily has been a return to [00:39:00] the idea of the active ministry of the Holy Spirit within the Church in things like healing and miracles.

Francis Young: The exorcism element of it is marginal, really, within that movement. But of course, where you introduce the idea of miraculous healings, exorcisms follow very swiftly behind that, because again, if you're being true to the New Testament, Jesus spent most of his time, if you're looking at all the people that he assisted, most of the time he was actually casting out demons from them. The majority of the all the healings in the New Testament are exorcisms. Again, that's inevitable that that's going to come up. That question is going to be raised. And I think this is something which the church, again, grappled with in the 1980s. To what extent should they accept that the charismatic renewal was bringing this ministry back into the church?

Francis Young: And, yeah, you can see that there is some hesitation, certainly Cardinal Ratzinger, who later becomes Pope Benedict XVI, was [00:40:00] very wary of this and issued guidance in the 1980s that tried to suppress these sort of spontaneous exorcisms and deliverance ministry within the charismatic renewal.

Sarah Jack: Where do things go from here? Where will exorcism go from here?

Francis Young: But I think when it comes to witchcraft, there is certainly no sign that belief in witchcraft is going anywhere, either in the developing world or indeed in the developed world. And I think that the, looking at the developed world particularlythe, the growth of conspiracy theories really makes it more likely that accusations of witchcraft or witchcraft adjacent accusations, things like the Satanic Panic seem more common, more likely to happen than ever before, really.

Francis Young: So I think that, yeah. The Catholic Church is faced with the question of how it deals with this. Does it double down on the the rather cautious, skeptical positions that were adopted in the wake of the second [00:41:00] Vatican Council, or does it go in a direction which is determined by the pastoral needs of countries in the developing world, where some would argue that unless the church engages with belief in witchcraft, others will, and therefore the church will cede that ground to other potentially more dangerous forces, which are less restrained and less governed by the hierarchical and legal restrictions that I've described.

Francis Young: So you know,it depends how people regard the Roman Catholic Church. They might see the Roman Catholic Church as one of the more benign religious forces when it comes to dealing with witchcraft because it has a historically quite cautious approach, at least in recent centuries, with regard to how it deals with the question of witchcraft.

Francis Young: Or they might see it as potentially a harmful influence, because the Roman Catholic Church has never [00:42:00] abandoned the basic principle that witchcraft might be real, andclearly it has this highly developed demonology, which makes it possible to draw on Catholic demonology in order to prosecute a witch hunt, which is something which has been seen in certain parts of the world where lay Catholic groups have conducted these witch hunts under the umbrella of their interpretation of Catholic teaching.

Francis Young: So I dunno, it's difficult to see, but I think that one thing I would say is that the church burying its head in the sand is probably not an option, because witchcraft is a major pastoral concern in many countries and a massive issue and something which people's beliefs about it have a profound impact on their lives, either because they end up being persecuted, accused of it, or because they believe so powerfully that they have been affected by it that it causes severe mental and physical illness.

Francis Young: So I think that it's something which the Church has no choice but to deal with. But it really [00:43:00] it meets with questions about synodality, which are currently being discussed within the Catholic Church, about the extent to which the Church should be governed by synods of bishops rather than by central authority. And certainly, when it comes to individual conferences of bishops in nations, determining what's the most culturally sensitive and culturally particular way that Catholicism would be implemented in their territories, less interference from the central church might potentially be a good thing, because it would allow particular cultural understandings to be recognized and pastorally dealt with within those countries.

Francis Young: But who can say, it's difficult to see where the future lies in this regard.

Josh Hutchinson: Given the death of Annaliese and we see stories all the time about deaths and injuries in other denominations during exorcisms, are exorcisms dangerous?

Francis Young: It seems that they often [00:44:00] are, yes, and I think that there's a simple reason for that. Which is that exorcism is a form of dissociation of a human person from their humanity. So if you say that somebody is a demoniac, that somebody is no longer themselves, but has become displaced by a demonic personality, your moral behavior with regard to that person is going to be affected by that, particularly if you have a powerful belief in the absolute evil of the entity that you're attempting to exorcise from that person's body.

Francis Young: And that therefore can overpower normal moral reasoning, it can overpower your normal human responses to that person who you believe to be a different person. So I think that there is, therefore, this tremendous danger to human dignity that is inherent in the practice of exorcism. Does that mean that it can be done in [00:45:00] an ethical way? I don't know, but the Roman Catholic church certainly has put in place safeguards, which are supposed to ensure that things like the death of Anneliese Michel couldn't happen again. And in fact, when you look atmost of the abuse scandals that the Catholic church has been associated with, the vast majority of them are of a sexual nature and not of a spiritual nature. Now, whether that's just because the ones of a spiritual nature have simply not made the headlines, that's one possibility. But it seems that the Church is much more careful about issues of exorcism, partly because it is so sensational. If these things reached the point where they start making headlines, it causes huge reputational damage to the church.

Francis Young: But yes, there are huge moral concerns about exorcism, and I think particularly when it's totally unregulated and there aren't really any rules about how it's done.

Sarah Jack: Is there anything else [00:46:00] that you would like to share today?

Francis Young: I'm particularly interested in the history of politics and magic, and there is a connection here, in that witchcraft very often has a political dimension that accusations of witchcraft are politically motivated or they're related to the political context of crisis through which a region or a country is going. And of course, much of what I've been talking about already is to do with ecclesiastical politics. I've written a book called Magic in Merlin's Realm: A History of Occult Politics in Britain, which came out a couple of years ago with Cambridge University Press. That's about one country. It's about Britain, but it's looking at all the ways in which magic and politics have been intertwined over the centuries. So that's another aspect of my research and something else that I work on.

Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary. [00:47:00]

Mary-Louise Bingham: Spiritual warfare is defined as protecting oneself against evil forces, which are derived from Satan and demons, while utilizing the practice of magic. It also includes protection from any inclination that one may act upon that is harmful to oneself, others, and the environment. Spiritual warfare differs in each culture, depending on religious beliefs.

Mary-Louise Bingham: In rural areas of Africa, the witch doctor is believed to be able to protect others against the sorcery. In the U. S., some religious leaders are believed to be trained to exorcise a demon which supposedly might inhabit a person who is not living a life centered in Christ. In the view of advocates to end witch hunts, it is the basic human right for every person to practice in any religious community. However, it is not a basic human right when that community uses their [00:48:00] religion to inflict physical harm with often deadly consequences on other innocent people. Thank you.

Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a non profit 501c3 Weekly News Update.

Sarah Jack: Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast, a project of the End Witch Hunts movement, amplifies global advocates working to end witch hunts. Explore our advocate episode list to hear how witch hunts persist in many countries and learn how to support their efforts. Learn about the crisis in Africa, India, and Papua New Guinea from our advocate interviews. Get a crisis overview with our Modern Witch Hunts 101 episode. Please deepen your understanding of the root causes of witch hunting and engage in conversations on social media and in person. Together we can empower advocates to impact their communities.

Sarah Jack: Witch hunts are not just a historical crisis, they persist today. Join the ongoing conversation about why, how, and who we hunt, and how to stop it. [00:49:00] Victims rely on our voices to amplify theirs. Special thanks to our historians and advocates for their contributions to the podcast.

Sarah Jack: If you've been keeping up with us on social media, then you saw our exciting preview. You're in for a festive treat this Christmas. Christmas morning, you can hit play in your favorite podcast app to unwrap a special surprise episode featuring a beloved guest favorite. Our December 28th episode marks the final release of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. Starting January 1st, we become Witch Hunt.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts is proud to educate and collaborate with like minded people and organizations to obtain a state apology and exoneration measures for the historical witch trial victims of the United States. In 2023, we worked with many dedicated volunteers to see the state of Connecticut clear the names of all their known witch trial victims. Now, we are seeking acknowledgement for those affected by witch trials in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. If you [00:50:00] would like to help obtain an exoneration for the innocent women hanged for witchcraft in 17th century Boston, Massachusetts, please sign the petition at change.org/witchtrials. To volunteer for this project, the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project, visit massachusettswitchtrials.org.

Sarah Jack: Your donation strengthens our education and advocacy. Consider including End Witch Hunts in your holiday giving at endwitchhunts.org.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Jack: You're welcome.

Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. Remember that we'll be changing our name to Witch Hunt on January 1st.

Sarah Jack: Join us next week.

Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.

Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.

Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great [00:51:00] today and a beautiful tomorrow and happy holidays.

December 21, 2023

Wonderful Mkhutche on Witch-Hunting in Malawi

Wonderful Mkhutche Ted Talk, Witchcraft Belief in Malawi

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Show Notes

Anti-witch-hunt advocate Wonderful Mkhutche, author, editor, biographer and executive director of Humanist Malawi introduces the witch hunt crisis in Malawi. We dive deep into the prevalent belief in witchcraft, where 74% of the populace acknowledges its existence. Explore Malawians’ perspectives on the powers of witchcraft and confront the legal implications surrounding witchcraft accusations. Wonderful illuminates the harsh realities of violence against the accused and delves into the imprisonment of victims. Gain valuable insights as Wonderful shares efforts to liberate and rehabilitate those unjustly detained due to witchcraft allegations.

Humanist Malawi Facebook Page

Humanists Malawi have called on Malawi to drop proposed legislation that would recognize the existence of witchcraft.

Wonderful Mkhutche Blog

Religion and Politics in Malawi: Short Essays

Dr. Dinesh Mishra on Facebook

Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

www.massachusettswitchtrials.org

Bennington Museum Special Exhibits

Advocacy for Alleged Witches, Nigeria

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

[00:00:15] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Today's episode will inform you on the current witch hunt situation in Malawi.

[00:00:22] Josh Hutchinson: Learn about the nation.

[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And the prevalence of witchcraft belief there.

[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: Hear about what Malawians believe about witchcraft.

[00:00:32] Sarah Jack: And become informed about what the law states about witchcraft accusations, and the reality of the violence against persons accused of witchcraft.

[00:00:41] Josh Hutchinson: Wonderful talks about why many victims are jailed.

[00:00:45] Sarah Jack: And how he and others have worked to free and rehabilitate people imprisoned long term following witchcraft accusations.

[00:00:53] Josh Hutchinson: This is another very educational episode. We hope you'll take what you learned to heart. Witch hunting is a [00:01:00] global crisis and we all must work together to solve it.

[00:01:03] Sarah Jack: Welcome advocate and author Wonderful Mkhutche. He is the executive director of Humanist Malawi. He has a master's degree in political science and a bachelor's degree in theology and religious studies. He is a professional editor and biographer and has published several books on politics and religion in Malawi.

[00:01:21] Sarah Jack: What would you like the listeners to know about your background, expertise, and profession?

[00:01:21] Wonderful Mkhutche: Yeah. Thank you for hosting me. My name is Wonderful Mkhutche. I work as the the executive director of Humanist Malawi. It's the only humanist organization in Malawi. About my background, I have a master's degree in political science and then a bachelor's degree in theology and religious studies. Um I've written several books on politics and religion in Malawi. So these are short essays. We are talking about [00:02:00] humanism. Issues to do with how we can relate about politics and the religion in the context of the Malawian society. Basing from what I have written in the book, I am also a humanist. Of course, I have over two decades history of me being a religious person, a Christian, uh, but. been engaged a lot of humanistic work here in

[00:02:21] Wonderful Mkhutche: I had over two decades bang in religion. but then around seven to eight years ago, that's when I made the decision to leave the church, our religion into humanism. I left after some years of debates of certain things about religion and then I wasn't dissatisfied from my own conclusions.

[00:02:40] Wonderful Mkhutche: So I chose to be a humanist, and since then I've been involved in several ways about humanism in Malawi, including the fight against witchcraft, against the violence. Do with the state and religion, how as a Malawian society, again we use the [00:03:00] humanism to to progress ourselves. So these are some of the contextual debates that I do engage with as a humanist.

[00:03:09] Josh Hutchinson: What do we need to know about the country of Malawi?

[00:03:14] Wonderful Mkhutche: Yeah. Malawi is a former British colony. We became independent in July 1964. And from then we have had successive leadership. The first president was the Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who was the, a strict Christian himself. And in those 30 years when he was in power the country was much tilted towards the the religious the religious path, especially the Christian one. And then after him we had the Dr. Bakili Muluzi, a Muslim, uh, but then even though he was a Muslim, he didn't choose that position to to advance Islam in Malawi. He came into power to democracy. So he tried all he could [00:04:00] do to make sure that the country is indeed following the liberal democracy principles.

[00:04:05] Wonderful Mkhutche: Another thing that we have to know about Malawi is it is one of the most highly religious countries in the world. Close to 90 percent of the population consider themselves to be religious, and in that percentage close to 80% percent Christians, dominated mostly by the Catholics. And around the 15% Muslims and the others small religions like Buddhism, Hinduism.

[00:04:32] Wonderful Mkhutche: In terms of the economy it is one of the most poorest countries in the world. Our economy is based on agriculture, which is still at the subsistence level. So you can have an idea that the economy is based on agriculture and then it is not mechanized. To that extent, most people living in poverty. We can say close to 80% [00:05:00] of the population is living in poverty. And due to that, that has given a lot of, uh, fertile ground for religion, especially the Pentecostal type of religion, which is promising people shortcuts like witches. These context switches have given rise to this issue it comes to the belief in witchcraft.

[00:05:25] Wonderful Mkhutche: Last year we had a survey that was done by Afrobarometer, and it established that over 74 percent of the Malawian population believe in the existence of witchcraft. And it's just surprising to see that most people use religion in order to ascertain that indeed witchcraft uh, exists because the Bible says it uh, so the Bible cannot lie. So these are uh, the challenges that we we face, because when an issue to do with [00:06:00] witchcraft has happened, it is hard to convince people that witchcraft doesn't exist, because you are basically a witch trying to fight against the Bible, a book that they consider infallible.

[00:06:12] Sarah Jack: What is witchcraft in Malawi?

[00:06:16] Wonderful Mkhutche: Of course it has different levels. The one which is popular in a mythical way is the one people believe that some people during the night they ride brooms. And they go to different places like maybe South Africa or even some people say they do even reach as far as the America. Just within seconds they start off from here and then they go to these far places.

[00:06:46] Wonderful Mkhutche: And again, people say the witches do meet at the graveyard, where they eat human bodies. But of course this version of witchcraft is not as popular as it used to be but the one that is popular is people going to make witch doctors, and then instructing them to do concoctions in order to order somebody's life. For example they want someone to be dead, so they would ask a

[00:06:59] Wonderful Mkhutche: the [00:07:00] most popular version of witchcraft is the one that people say one can go to a witch doctor and then ask them to do certain concoctions in order to alter somebody's life. For example, if someone wants to be dead, they will not come to me physically. They will simply go to a witch doctor instruct him what they want, and the witch doctor's going to mix whatever he has there. And while I'm here, I may simply witness something strange maybe just falling to the ground or a strange hammer just hitting my head, or If I have a business and it is prospering, that person can just tell the witch doctor will to make sure that my business should not be working or even my marriage or even my work. So yeah, in general for most people, they think that witchcraft is when you are using these traditional concoctions [00:08:00] to alter somebody's life.

[00:08:02] Josh Hutchinson: In your TED talk, you talked about a question you used to ask as a younger person, ' what evidence is there that witchcraft exists?'

[00:08:15] Wonderful Mkhutche: That's one of the questions that I used to have even when I was young. And that question came back when I was trying to discuss issues of religion before I left. That yes we do believe in witchcraft, but where's the evidence? What, You are simply surrounded with the society that is telling you, everyone in the society is telling you about witchcraft. Like for example, in my own story, I heard about witchcraft from my uncles, from my cousins. They would simply tell stories about what is happening in the village concerning witchcraft.

[00:08:50] Wonderful Mkhutche: So those stories, they act like the evidence. You grow up around the those narratives, and then you conclude that witchcraft is there. [00:09:00] And then, while after listening to those stories, you can spend maybe 10 to 15 years or even 20 years without even, uh, witnessing something that is close to the witchcraft description in your life.

[00:09:12] Wonderful Mkhutche: And then for me, I started wondering that I believe in witchcraft. But then where's the evidence? fRom that time, I remember engaging with people on the social media, witchcraft and the, they, we are not providing convincing responses. What happens is when you challenge the belief in witchcraft people simply try to threaten you to say something's going to happen to you and all that. If you are someone who is not mentally strong, you easily fall in. But for me, it was a moment where I was asking these tough questions, and people threatened me to say, 'something's going to happen to you, you are going to see and all that.'

[00:09:54] Wonderful Mkhutche: This is close to 10 years ago, and for the past 10 years, I haven't seen [00:10:00] anything that these people. They keep on talking up to this very day. So in short, there's no evidence of witchcraft. What people consider to be evidence is just the mental narratives that they have. For example, if someone has died suddenly, maybe it could be because of hypertension and all that. The conclusion that some or most people are going to make now is that It was a witchcraft hammer that was sent to that person.

[00:10:35] Wonderful Mkhutche: So for them that is enough evidence because how can a person simply die just like that? Because if a death has happened, then there must be a certain cause. So if we don't know that cause, then it should be witchcraft. But for a person like me, when such an event has happened, I don't use the witchcraft narratives to come to the [00:11:00] conclusion. What I would do is simply to ask questions. Maybe what sickness was the the person suffering from? What were the circumstances around the death? So from that information you simply make a conclusion that whenever people do not have enough information about an issue, they run to use witchcraft in order to answer that question.

[00:11:24] Wonderful Mkhutche: But when you have abandoned that idea and you then begin to doubt that maybe it wasn't, when people have been given the information a about certain, a certain strange event that has happened. You start that they start now doubting their own narratives. And this is a challenge in this country because as already said most people are in poverty and that the information on knowledge that they need to have maybe about health conditions, they do not have. When something strange has [00:12:00] happened, they simply use the witchcraft to answer that. But for a person like me, I look into an issue from all angles. I ask questions that people are not answering. So after that information has been given, you start doubting if the witchcraft is indeed there.

[00:12:20] Wonderful Mkhutche: But from my experience for the past years, I can conclude a hundred percent that the belief only exists when people do not have enough information or knowledge about a certain event in their lives.

[00:12:34] Sarah Jack: I thought it was interesting when you mentioned that the, it was, there was even fear around questioning the evidence or questioning witchcraft may not be true. That's the first harmful practice around accusations is not wanting people to question it because it could bring

[00:12:57] Wonderful Mkhutche: Yeah. Witchcraft is shielded in me [00:13:00] secrecy, uh, in a darkness. The narrative of witchcraft that we have here is it happens only during the night. That is when the the witches or the wizards meet at the graveyard or wherever they meet, and then they do anything that they want to do.

[00:13:17] Wonderful Mkhutche: So that idea alone simply tells it that you do not have to question the issues that are happening during the night. So if you come out and then start saying witchcraft doesn't exist, and all that, then that's a dark world. And if you do that, then something's going to happen to you. And it is the fears that we are given from an early age. People grow around these fears into their adulthood. So whenever they hear someone trying to question these issues, they are afraid that something is [00:14:00] going to happen to that person, or if they are connected to that person in any kind of way, if something happens to that person, then it may also reach to them.

[00:14:09] Wonderful Mkhutche: That's the the level of the situation that we have. But as already said before, me in the past 10 years, when I have, I started questioning these things, nothing has happened to me, even though there have been those kind of accidents.

[00:14:29] Sarah Jack: And I heard you just talk about night and darkness being a big element of this. That really made me think about some of the historic witch hunting that happened in other countries earlier in history where there might not have been a lot of light available at night. Is Malawi a very dark place at night for lack of lights? I wondered if that is part of it, because I know [00:15:00] that did play into some of the fear here in the American colonies.

[00:15:06] Wonderful Mkhutche: But in the context, it is not as prominent as to that extent. Yes, of course, we do not have adequate elec electricity connectivity here, because it's only 18% of the country that is connected to the national grid. Most parts of the country dark during the night. But I think associated witchcraft to do the night or darkness is just the part of the human history. It may also happen in countries where they do have enough electricity and all that. And that even extends to to animals that usually active during the night, like the owls. People associated them with the witchcraft a lot. If the an owl comes at your house, people will simply conclude that something bad is going to happen in that house.

[00:15:59] Wonderful Mkhutche: [00:16:00] And this is a belief most people have in this country. So you can see, an owl is just an innocent animal uh, that naturally is active during the night. But simply because of that, people associate it with the witchcraft. Or even talking of animals like the hyena. They are usually active during the night. So when people are going to the witch doctors, they want to do their concoctions, it's mostly the hyena that is used for for their for their medicine. So you can see whatever happens during the night is associated with the uh, sca.

[00:16:31] Josh Hutchinson: And how did you come to get involved in the witch hunting at anti witch hunting advocacy?

[00:16:39] Wonderful Mkhutche: I still remember clearly the issue that's brought me into this. After a few years of questioning the existence of witchcraft, something happened in general in 2016 in a place district called Neno. It's also in southern Malawi. It's one of the. high. And usually, uh, This is one of the [00:17:00] hottest spots when it comes to the belief in witchcraft. So in January 2016, four grannies from the same family were killed by the grandchildren of that very same family, uh, because they accused them that they were responsible for the death of one of the young family members.

[00:17:21] Wonderful Mkhutche: So these young family members went, and they gathered these four grannies, made them sit somewhere in the village, and they took panga knives, stones, sticks. They beat them to death, four of them. The issue was reported in the media. People were shocked as the how could do something as a terrible that happened to them.

[00:17:47] Wonderful Mkhutche: So when I saw that I remember going to a certain gentleman called Georgie Tidwell. By then he was famously involved in uh, uh, uh, uh, anti-witchcraft belief and issues, so I [00:18:00] went there and I told him that for the past three years, I have been doubting the existence of witchcraft, but I feel that doubt is not enough. Looking at what has happened in Inenu, I wish I can get involved in this, these issues in one way or another. So by then he was concluding a project.

[00:18:24] Wonderful Mkhutche: In this project he was freeing people who were in prisons across the country that were in prison because they were suspected to be witches. Not that the laws of this country do imprison people when they are said to be witches. No. Actually, the law that we have currently says that witchcraft doesn't exist, and it is against the law to accuse anyone of witchcraft, but what happens is when people are accused in their communities, uh, their communities do not want them to be around. And we do not have elderly homes [00:19:00] or good social services where they can go for them to live.

[00:19:04] Wonderful Mkhutche: So what happens is the police simply comes to the communities to get them and keep them in prisons, because that is where they can be. But it is not a good situation because most of those who are accused the elderly. And among the elderly, it is mostly women. Imagine a woman who is 80 years old, is not wanted by the community, who cannot be anywhere else, and then they are being kept in a prison. So this was the project that George Tidwell was the uh, uh, by then the organization was called the Association for Secular Humanism. So he tried to work with the government to make sure that these people are out of prisons and that they are taken back into their communities, and it was one of the most successful projects by them.

[00:19:51] Wonderful Mkhutche: So I offered myself. The project was going into completion. So I promised him that what I know is [00:20:00] writing, so I will use my writing knowledge or skills to make sure that I talk about these issues. And since that time from around 2015, 2016, I have been doing that to this day. I do write on the issues, and I also do talk about the issues in the media houses.

[00:20:22] Wonderful Mkhutche: SInce it is the mostly only me who is public about these issues, I have a good relationship with the the media here and they are doing a good job. Whenever something related to the to witchcraft-based violence has happened, they do contact me for a comment, and that provides a platform where we are trying to civic educate the masses on issues to do with the the beliefs.

[00:20:49] Sarah Jack: What is the status of accused being in prison today?

[00:20:53] Wonderful Mkhutche: To this day, there's no one who is in prison because they were accused of witchcraft.[00:21:00] The general public, the attitude seems to have changed when we are looking at how it was in 2015, uh, to now. So what happens is whenever an issue has happened and that the community doesn't want that individual, temporarily they are taken to the police cells, uh, where they are kept in order to look for a lasting solution.

[00:21:21] Wonderful Mkhutche: So it is the police and the also other organizations, including us, who are involved in the making sure that we negotiate with the community, especially through the tradition of our leaders, to talk the issues with the family and to make sure that the person goes back to the community. But of course it is still a threat because if the community thinks that someone is a witch, it's an idea that they have in their minds. They may change it simply because the police have negotiated the issue, but it still remains there. So anything can happen to that [00:22:00] person. To this extent, I have two examples.

[00:22:03] Wonderful Mkhutche: Last year, a similar thing happened in the Muranji. It is a district. Two grannies from one family were taken to to be beaten to death, because they were thought to be behind the death of a certain young family member. The good thing is the police the, uh, rushed to to the scene. They managed to save these two grannies. They were taken to the police cell for around two weeks. So one of the police officers contacted us. We tried to gather little things that we had, bags of maize, soap and the, anything as basic as possible for their own welfare.

[00:22:44] Wonderful Mkhutche: So we went there with the police, we met the two grannies. After we came back, I remember one of the police officers called me and said that the people in the community, they do not want to see you [00:23:00] again visiting those two grannies. Because if you visit them, you are giving them food items, it will encourage them to bewitch even more community members. So I simply wanted to to take home the point that even though they are back in the community, but they are, their lives are not as safe as they should be.

[00:23:20] Wonderful Mkhutche: Just two months ago, something similar happened in the same Neno district. Which I said earlier on that it is one of the hot spots for this belief. Young family members wanted to beat their grandfather, who is around 80 years old. They accused them to be behind the death of another young family member. The good thing is that he was rescued and he was taken to to a police station for a week, and after the media reported that issue, he was lucky to be taken into an elderly home. In Livongo. That elderly home is [00:24:00] being run by a certain young lady. All the So the first of this kind were All the people being looked after. So after that situation she volunteered to take that old man into the home. And just a few weeks ago I was there by we donated a few items. To the elderly home, and I happened to meet that old man from Neno. So he narrated his audio. He was saying that he simply accepted it that he was about to be killed only to be saved. I went there, I met him he narrated his audio. So he said he simply accepted me that it was called to be, wanted to be served. And he doesn't think that he will go back to his own home anytime soon. And I remember when I was leaving, he pleaded with me that we should go to his village to talk to the community to convince them about the issues of witchcraft. Because from his experience, he doesn't want anything like that to happen to anyone else.

[00:24:56] Sarah Jack: Yes. I was wondering you had mentioned earlier [00:25:00] in the conversation that individuals will go and ask for a witchcraft concoction. Are those people, do they get accused, if you go and ask for a concoction, or are the accused only folks that are not actually going to natural doctor?

[00:25:23] Wonderful Mkhutche: Yeah. For those individuals who go to the witch doctors, they do it in secret. You don't even know that someone went to a witch doctor to ask people for concoctions. It's a secret meeting between them and the witch doctor. What happens is when they meet there they say the witch doctor produces a TV screen that shows whatever, uh, an accused person wanted to do to other people, and when that person goes back to the community that is when they start spreading that rumor that they visited the witch doctor and the witch doctor told them that another individual is the one who is behind Thanks. Thanks. certain things that have been happening in the family or the community. It's not something that people do highly necessarily that they visited a witch doctor. Actually when certain things have happened in a family, it is the general agreement that we have to go to the witch doctor.

[00:25:34] Wonderful Mkhutche: So it's it's public information in sometimes that they go there and they, when they are back, they report whatever was told to them. But in some instances, it is private, them and the witch doctor. Only that after that meeting, whatever has transpired between the two is not kept in secret as well. It is brought to the public, whatever the witch doctor said. That it's,

[00:25:34] Wonderful Mkhutche: The meetings between people and the witch doctor, sometimes they happen in secret. People don't announce that they're going there. But whatever transpires there is communicated to everyone in the family or the community that I went to the witch doctor, and the witch doctor told me this and that. But sometimes it's an open secret where if something happening in a family. the family agrees to go to the [00:26:00] witch doctor. So they go there as a family, and then whatever they are told, uh, they come to it even to the community. So these meetings are sometimes while everyone is knowing.

[00:26:11] Josh Hutchinson: How can listeners support you in your advocacy?

[00:26:16] Wonderful Mkhutche: Yeah For us to be effective, we do need resources. In terms of money and resources. Of course, the challenge of the belief as it comes from several different angles. The first one I have talked about the witch doctors, but now we also have another emerging challenge with the Pentecostal, Christian Pentecostal preachers. They are using religion to act as the uh, witch so Whenever people are meeting misfortunes, they go there to the to the preachers or the prophets, they that's what they call themselves. So the prophets what they brought about is called the prophecies, so they will simply say you are meeting these misfortunes because a certain aunt in your family went to a witch doctor and the she doesn't want to see you prospering. That's one of the [00:27:00] major issues.

[00:27:01] Wonderful Mkhutche: So the people who visit the witch doctors are mostly those in the rural areas. And people who mostly visit the prophets, most of those in the the urban areas. You can see how wide the challenge is. If I Come out and then start saying, a witch doctor doesn't exist, I'm not only creating a wall with the witch doctors, no, but even with the prophets themselves.

[00:27:29] Wonderful Mkhutche: So they use the religion in order to threaten me, to say I shouldn't be talking about those, so they talk about, God is going to curse me. Sometimes they even do phone calls or even send me just anonymous texts to say, I should stop doing about that. One day God is going to visit you and do this and that, so it's a deep rooted problem, which needs serious kind of advocacy [00:28:00] in the media to talk about the issues, and the resources will also be needed to go to places where the an an issue has happened, because most of what happens now is due to lack of resources.

[00:28:13] Wonderful Mkhutche: An issue may happen. In the Moorland, for example. Uh, What we only do is to make sure we alert the police when that issue has happened. So if we are able to work with the community to talk to them about witchcraft issues, I'm sure a huge difference. But for now, we are simply operating from from afar, and it's not as effective. Of course, We also targeted the youth, because for the older people they already made their conclusions about witchcraft but the youth, they present a certain interesting perspective about the issues. They may believe in the issues of a witchcraft but they them. And I have seen this with my own eyes, and the experience. When you engage the youth in this matters, they are ready to give it a doubt about the [00:29:00] existence of witchcraft, because I think with the modern age, they're they have new information, the lack of it in the past is not the same as today.

[00:29:09] Wonderful Mkhutche: So to target the youth, we do say events. Like this weekend we'll be at the University of Malawi, where students are going to be debating the issues of in the country. So using that to change that people have. So these are some of the advocacy areas that we need using the media to visit work with the police, traditional leadership to make sure we directly engage with the the communities.

[00:29:35] Sarah Jack: I have a question. Wonderful. When it comes to any campaigns or organizations or advocates that are working on general violence against women and children in Malawi, does that include violence from witchcraft accusations? Is that recognized as part of the discussion?

[00:29:55] Wonderful Mkhutche: Actually I have always been talking with the human rights [00:30:00] organizations that are working in the gender area. When it comes to witchcraft based violence it doesn't come out in organizations that are doing with the women's rights issues. Actually, that's one of the major talking points that I have whenever I meet an organization that is into promoting gender or women's rights. We say yes we may need the women to get involved economically or in agriculture, but then there's also this issue of that. So it doesn't come out in as far as I understand the Malawian con context.

[00:30:36] Wonderful Mkhutche: When I talk to the organizations, they do admit that indeed they overlook the issue. In as far as the Malawian context is concerned, it is only Humanist Malawi, which is in the forefront talking about witchcraft.

[00:30:50] Wonderful Mkhutche: That's look after the welfare of the elderly. And other organizations, of course, they do get involved in the the witchcraft based violence. But the challenging part is that for them their approach [00:31:00] is saying that witchcraft does exist. They are simply dealing away with the violence and not the belief, even though we look at them as colleagues, but this is a major point of difference, because you cannot do away with the belief, if you still recognize witchcraft does exist.

[00:31:24] Wonderful Mkhutche: Actually about a year ago, there was a huge concern because the the we have an organisation called the Malawi Law Commission, which is mandated to propose that the Common Law Commission was proposing that we have to change the way as a rats to do things. Thank you. That if we then are going to worsen the situation, the Mai Law Commission suggested change in the witchcraft law. The present law was the established. So now,

[00:31:24] Sarah Jack: If you want to talk about the Witchcraft Act.

[00:31:24] Wonderful Mkhutche: The currently, witchcraft law that we have was maybe 1911 by the British colonial government. So the law, as I said it, say it says, wish anyone, uh, who. Has broken the law and the is unanswerable, but the Malawi Law Commission last year suggested for us to change the existence of witchcraft involved in all advocacy areas that we could,

[00:31:24] Wonderful Mkhutche: , The current witchcraft law says that witchcraft doesn't exist, and anyone who accuses another that they are practicing witchcraft or they are a witch, they are answerable to the law. So this law was, established by the British Colonial government in 1911. But last year the Malawi Law Commission suggested a change in this law. So they wanted the law to change from saying witchcraft doesn't exist to start saying witchcraft exists. So as a Humanist Malawi, we. [00:32:00] we were involved in all advocacy in the media to say that if we change the law to start recognizing the existence of a witchcraft, then we are going to take the witchcraft based violence to its worst. Because for now people have an excuse to say if the law says witchcraft is there then indeed we do have witches among us. That is going to be used for them to victimize other people. It is only Humanist Malawi that was saying that we do not have to change the law, while all other organizations are saying that we have to to change the law, in order to save the situation about witchcraft based violence.

[00:32:41] Wonderful Mkhutche: So that's one of the uh, major point of differences. For the other organizations, we do recognize their good work, but in terms of the witchcraft law, I feel that we still have to advocate for the law not to change, because if it changes, then it's going to put [00:33:00] so many people's lives at risk of accusation.

[00:33:04] Sarah Jack: Yes. Because one of the things that I was thinking about when you were talking about the prophets and the witch doctors, let's, the situation, there's the belief of the witchcraft is there, but they need to, I apologize if you guys just heard a, Notification, that doesn't usually happen. they need to not advocate for the violence, and it doesn't seem like there's a distinction there, that if the witchcraft is real, then they have to do the hunt, is what it sounds like. Where, you know,

[00:33:24] Wonderful Mkhutche: yeah. Yeah Of course they, for the witch doctors and for the prophets, they do not directly advocate for the violence. But for them simply to tell someone that your misfortunes are because of this person in your family, that's enough to advocate for the violence. Because what else do we expect that person to do when they go back to the family or the community? And yeah. A month ago, we had this similar incident that I'm talking about happening. Family members destroyed property, they fought each other simply [00:34:00] because the prophet had you told them that their misfortunes are due to a certain family member? And unfortunately these prophets are not answerable. I haven't heard anything to do with the maybe witch doctor or a prophet being arrested or answerable simply because they passed that message on an individual. What the law or the law enforcers, they simply focus on the violence that has happened. People are just arrested because of destruction of property or even destruction of a life. But the accusation part, I haven't heard the law touching that part. So it simply confirms that even the law enforcers, they believe that witchcraft is there, but then they simply rush to the situation in order to deal with the destruction of property and the life and not the accusation [00:35:00] itself.

[00:35:01] Sarah Jack: Thank you so much. Do you have any last words or comments that you would like to make? That's

[00:35:08] Wonderful Mkhutche: Yeah, for my last word, I will simply use this opportunity to say that there's a lot that needs to be done in order for us to change the situation. As a Humanist Malawi, it's almost on a daily basis that an incident to do with witchcraft based violence is reported. Of course, some issues do not involve the violence. Some people, some issues involve the violence. But due to lack of resources, we simply operate from afar. From our experience, I feel if we continue doing the interventions by and by to change. Of course, it's going to take a long time. But what we have to [00:36:00] do now convince, uh, people in, the. The circle of in order for them to directly get involved. Because we haven't had for example, an issue had happened, we haven't had even the president talking about it, even the ministers talking about it. They run away from the issue because if they come out in the public to criticize the violence or even say that witchcraft doesn't exist, then they are going to lose their votes, so because of that, they ran away from talking about the issues, but with the good advocacy as we are doing, as what we will be doing when we get enough resources, I believe the message going to reach these people, uh, for them to also involved in one way or another, in order to fasten the change that we are looking for.

[00:36:48] Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.

[00:36:50] Mary-Louise Bingham: Dr. Dinesh Mishra, an ophthalmologist by trade and an advocate to end witch hunts. Dr. Mishra has helped [00:37:00] hundreds of women who were brutally beaten and ostracized by their communities after being accused as dayans, the local term for witchcraft used in Chhattisgarh, India. Dr. Mishra has self funded services for women to be rehabilitated into society by personally offering them financial and legal assistance, as well as helping them find employment, particularly in the health field. These actions helped empower the women to move forward in their lives with confidence. Thank you, Dr. Mishra, for this and the many other ways you continue to advocate to help women in need.

[00:37:41] Mary-Louise Bingham: Please follow Dr. Mishra on Facebook. You will find he updates his page on a regular basis. Thank you.

[00:37:49] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

[00:37:51] Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[00:37:54] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts urges collective action to end witch hunting practices worldwide. [00:38:00] A witch hunt can happen in any community. At End Witch Hunts, we're dedicated to amplifying the voices of witch hunt victims and educators. Won't you join us? It is up to all of us to speak up about modern efforts to end witchcraft accusation violence.

[00:38:15] Sarah Jack: A witch hunt can happen in any community. Listen to, talk about, and use your influence to share our advocacy episodes and the advocate websites. It's an easy thing to do. Witchcraft accusations remain destructive and common. The world is filled with metaphorical and literal witch hunts rooted in unfounded fear of others, leading to crimes against innocent individuals every day.

[00:38:40] Sarah Jack: You are the key to raising awareness, building social momentum against such violence, and disseminating education about historical, contemporary, and ongoing witch hunting. A witch hunt can happen in any community. Purposely take up for the vulnerable. Call on others to do the same. Doubt the fear, not the [00:39:00] humans.

[00:39:00] Sarah Jack: It's easy to be a part of the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project. Sign and share the exoneration petition at change.org/witchtrials. Massachusetts residents, engage your representatives, and if you're a voting member of the Massachusetts General Court, lead or collaborate on the amendment effort to secure formal apologies for the accused witches of Massachusetts.

[00:39:23] Sarah Jack: Witch hunt memorials and commemorations now take many forms and serve as enduring, tangible reminders. On September 16th, 2023 in North Pownal, Vermont, the community dedicated the Legends and Lore Witch Trial Marker to accused witch Margaret Krieger. The event, made possible by Vermont Folklife Center and William C. Pomeroy Foundation, had support from Bennington Museum and Pownall Historical Society.

[00:39:47] Sarah Jack: Explore Margaret Krieger's history at Bennington Museum's Haunted Vermont Exhibit until the end of this year. The display features the Witch Trial, Vampires, Bennington Triangle, and author Shirley Jackson, [00:40:00] the renowned horror writer, and her first edition books and belongings, including a self playing music box and the table where she wrote her last novel.

[00:40:09] Sarah Jack: We are thrilled to announce that on the December 28th Thou Shalt Not Suffer episode, you will hear from Jamie Franklin, the esteemed curator of the Haunted Vermont Exhibit at Bennington Museum. He was a vital member of the research team securing the new memorial marker for Margaret Krieger. Jamie promises a delightful discourse on the museum, Vermont's history, and the intriguing witch trial lore of Pownal. The December 28th episode will be the final episode release for the year, but also the final episode released for Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast, because Thou Shalt Not Suffer becomes Witch Hunt, January 1st.

[00:40:43] Sarah Jack: Thank you for supporting our podcast. Your financial contribution empowers our education and advocacy efforts. During this holiday season, include End Witch Hunts in your charitable gifts. We thank you. Visit endwitchhunts.org to contribute and help bring an end to the dark history of witch hunting [00:41:00] practices.

[00:41:01] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.

[00:41:02] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.

[00:41:04] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.

[00:41:09] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.

[00:41:11] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts

[00:41:14] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.

[00:41:17] Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell all your friends our name is changing to Witch Hunt on January 1st.

[00:41:23] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

[00:41:28] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

December 14, 2023

Massachusetts Witch Trials 101 Part 2: Mary and Hugh Parsons of Springfield

Purchase The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World, By Malcolm Gaskill

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Show Notes

Welcome to the second installment of Witch Hunt’s 101 series exploring the Massachusetts Witchcraft Trials. In Part 2, we delve into the intricate narratives of Hugh Parsons and Mary Lewis Parsons, whose witch trials unfolded in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, years before the infamous Salem Witch-Hunt took place. This Springfield, MA duo found themselves entangled in what historian Malcolm Gaskill has identified as America’s first witch panic.

The Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project urges the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to acknowledge the innocence of its witch trial victims with an apology. The accused witches spotlighted in this episode have not received an official apology. Explore further details on our project website: massachusettswitchtrials.org. Take a moment to support our cause by signing and sharing the project petition at change.org/witchtrials

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IK Ero On Next Steps For Ending Witch Hunts TINAAWAHP

Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson:

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Hi, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.

[00:00:16] Sarah Jack: I'm Sarah Jack. In this episode, Massachusetts Witch Trials 101 Part Two, we will delve into the social intricacies of a New England colony building hopeful futures from backbreaking labor and long dreamt dreams in Springfield, a burgeoning company town shaped by William Pynchon's dream in the midst of Old England's conflict.

[00:00:36] Josh Hutchinson: Established as Agawam in 1635 and later renamed Springfield, this is where the lives of Mary Lewis and Hugh Parsons unfolded, intertwined moment by moment with those of their neighbors in this strategically planned community. Immersed in the pervasive fear of witchcraft and inherent distrust of others, this compelling narrative unfolds [00:01:00] profound historical repercussions and enduring aftermaths.

[00:01:04] Sarah Jack: It's the fascinating case of Mary and Hugh Parsons of Springfield, Massachusetts.

[00:01:10] Josh Hutchinson: The pair were engulfed in what historian Malcolm Gaskill has called America's first witch panic. Malcolm expertly unveils the interplaying dimensions of this history in his creative nonfiction work The Ruin of All Witches. Explore more depths of this captivating narrative by reading the book and listening to our delightful interview with him in the episode titled 'Malcolm Gaskill on the Ruin of All Witches.' If you haven't acquired a copy yet, consider supporting our podcast by purchasing it from our bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/endwitchhunts.

[00:01:46] Sarah Jack: In the Parsons saga, fingers began pointing in more than one direction. How did this lead Springfield to the threshold of a witch panic?

[00:01:55] Josh Hutchinson: It culminated from several pressures: economic disparity, [00:02:00] social power concentrated in a few people, and polarized beliefs. Everything was either good or evil, though Satan was not God's equal adversary.

[00:02:10] Sarah Jack: Springfield was an especially competitive atmosphere. In the seventeenth century, twenty five thousand people from Great Britain Migrated to New England. Pynchon selected his Springfield founding settlers to fill community functions, and so they came together from different regions and backgrounds. This is very unlike many of the other regions. Because when you're looking at those people histories, you're often able to trace them all from one ship back to one village.

[00:02:42] Josh Hutchinson: A lot of times the entire congregations moved over from Great Britain to America.

[00:02:49] Sarah Jack: So these folks were brought together and had to forge friendships.

[00:02:55] Josh Hutchinson: When they probably could hardly understand each other. Even though [00:03:00] they're both speaking English, they were speaking very different forms of it.

[00:03:04] Josh Hutchinson: And the people of Springfield were experiencing conflict in all areas of life, including Politics, government, military, religious, economic, cultural, societal, social, interpersonal and intrapersonal conflict.

[00:03:22] Sarah Jack: All of these aspects of life are in turmoil throughout the western world, and this true story highlights an extreme and tragic outcome of this for one early American colonial household. As pressure builds, a release is needed, or the whole system goes boom.

[00:03:38] Josh Hutchinson: With the tumultuous backdrop of the mid seventeenth century Western world, the Parsons' American tragedy unfolds with multiple people accused and most of the town's households involved. Learn the far reaching impacts of the witch hunting resonating through conflicts in Old England, New England, the bustling town of Springfield, and within the [00:04:00] intimate confines of the Parsons home.

[00:04:03] Josh Hutchinson: The 1630s and 1640s were a time of great conflict in both old England and new. In the old, rapid population growth triggered scarcity of resources, and political conflict escalated into civil war fueled by religious strife. In many areas, external pressures combined with local animosities and personal feuds to generate witch hunts. Across the sea, the Winthrop fleet settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a new Israel with life centered around congregational worship.

[00:04:35] Sarah Jack: By settling inhabited territory, the colonists invited armed conflict. Even in their meeting houses, these wide eyed optimists were hit by the harsh reality of disagreement resulting in the expulsion of many who did not tow the official line religiously. As there was conflict within the Bay Colony, so there was conflict between Massachusetts and the other colonial interests, including conflict with [00:05:00] England's French and Dutch rivals and with other English settlers.

[00:05:04] Josh Hutchinson: Amidst all this chaos, a town was planted at the northernmost navigable point of the Connecticut River. This town, initially called Agawam, was established by William Pynchon as a hub for his fur trading and was originally affiliated with the communities to the south on the river in Connecticut.

[00:05:23] Sarah Jack: The settlement, soon renamed Springfield, was located just twenty miles upriver from Windsor, Connecticut and separated from Boston by a difficult overland route of one hundred miles.

[00:05:35] Josh Hutchinson: Springfield was founded as a company town, and all business went through Pynchon. If you wanted permission to settle in town, you saw Pynchon, who limited the number of families. If you wanted to buy goods, you went to Pynchon's store. If you needed to borrow, you went to Pynchon. And he made sure everyone in his town needed to borrow and therefore, everyone in his town was in his employ [00:06:00] and in his debt.

[00:06:02] Sarah Jack: Springfield residents had a besieged and a beleaguered feeling in part based on tensions with the Dutch and with towns down the Connecticut River, in part based on fear of Native Americans.

[00:06:15] Josh Hutchinson: As elsewhere, settlers also feared fire, disease, and famine. As we mentioned earlier, some small New England communities were transplanted essentially altogether from Old England, as entire church congregations followed their minister to the new world, while Springfield, on the other hand, was somewhat more cosmopolitan in that residence came from many different regions of Britain. Customs and dialects clashed like everything else.

[00:06:46] Sarah Jack: Malcolm Gaskill wrote in his book, The Ruin of All Witches, "fear incubated guilt, which was projected and returned his anger. But mainly, the mood that made witchcraft plausible settled in New England because by [00:07:00] the mid sixteen forties, its economic and social woes had reached old world levels."

[00:07:06] Josh Hutchinson: Springfield was planned for profit. Here, intense competition for limited resources, coupled with a dramatic economic disparity and feeling of servitude toward Pynchon, allowed envy and hostility to creep into the community,

[00:07:21] Sarah Jack: Hostility and fear combined poorly.

[00:07:25] Josh Hutchinson: Creating a combustible mixture.

[00:07:29] Sarah Jack: Among those who landed in Springfield was a woman named Mary Lewis, who was invited to work for Pynchon's daughter Anne Smith and her husband Henry. Mary was born about 1610 in the Welsh Marches, and her maiden name may have been Reese. In about 1627, she married a man in Monmouth. His name is unknown, but it may have been a David Lewis. They did not have any children. In the late sixteen thirties, this man abandoned her. Later, Mary would describe him as a [00:08:00] secret Catholic who threatened that he'd do her in if she didn't convert. Mary used means to try to find him, probably employing a cunning person.

[00:08:10] Josh Hutchinson: After her husband left, Mary became a member of William Wroth's church in Llanvaches. Wroth was considered by some to be the Apostle of Wales. Then in summer 1640, Mary went to America. She stayed in Dorchester in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for a few months working for Pynchon before being sent to Springfield to work for his daughter and son-in-law. She arrived in Springfield in spring or early summer 1641.

[00:08:42] Sarah Jack: Pynchon hired Hugh Parsons, whose origins are shrouded in mystery, to be the town's sole brickmaker. Hugh Parsons was a man of few words, but his legacy story is woven with the weight of those carefully chosen words. He's also remembered for wearing a red [00:09:00] waistcoat and smoking a clay pipe.

[00:09:03] Josh Hutchinson: Mary Lewis and Hugh Parsons each arrived in Springfield with hopes and aspirations, fully embracing the rare opportunity to start a fresh and promising new chapter in life. Their presence in Springfield marks the actualization of their opportunity, and both labored with the intent of turning their ambitions into reality. Now recognizing the possibilities harnessed from a marital union, They envision joining forces to construct a shared future and family.

[00:09:31] Josh Hutchinson: On June 2 1645, Pynchon wrote to John Winthrop Senior, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston, about Mary Lewis's marriage and abandonment. The letter asked Winthrop to decide whether it was right or not for Mary to get married again. And Mary was sent to deliver the letter in person, possibly in company with John Winthrop, Jr., who had been visiting Springfield.

[00:09:59] Sarah Jack: I imagine she [00:10:00] was still traveling with excitement.

[00:10:01] Josh Hutchinson: I imagine that too.

[00:10:04] Sarah Jack: When Mary delivered the letter to Winthrop senior, he read it immediately, but did not reply. Instead, he said he would refer the matter to the House of Deputies.

[00:10:14] Josh Hutchinson: In mid September, Pynchon wrote Winthrop again to remind him. This time, a reply was received in early October announcing that Mary was officially a single person and therefore free to marry again.

[00:10:29] Sarah Jack: The future was bright for the Parsons family. On Monday, October 27, 1645, Hugh and Mary exchanged vows in a civil ceremony officiated by minister George Moxon, adhering to the customary practice in Massachusetts during that period. It's worth noting that in line with Puritan beliefs, Marriage was not considered a sacrament.

[00:10:50] Josh Hutchinson: The joy in the Parsons household was soon accompanied by the revelation of a pregnancy, a fact which was learned in November, just a month after the [00:11:00] nuptials.

[00:11:01] Sarah Jack: The first fruits of their union arrived on August 7, 1646 with the birth of her daughter, Hannah Parsons.

[00:11:09] Josh Hutchinson: By the 1647 tax assessment, Hugh Parsons owned thirty seven and a half acres of land. This land was testament to his growing stake in the community. Not only a landowner, he also took on the responsibility of Springfield's fence inspector, enriching his active role in civic duties and immersing himself directly in the high stakes realm of his neighbor's boundary, it matters.

[00:11:33] Sarah Jack: Cracks were already showing in the marriage.

[00:11:36] Josh Hutchinson: The recently laid foundation of their future was curing with visible fissures.

[00:11:41] Sarah Jack: And they considered marital strife an indicator of possible witchcraft.

[00:11:46] Josh Hutchinson: As Springfield grappled with the onslaught of smallpox and influenza epidemics in 1647, unrest and frustration descended upon the marriage of Hugh and Mary. Mary's hold on reality seemed to [00:12:00] falter, echoing the fatigue enveloping her spiritually, physically, and mentally. This wariness was exemplified by the relentless toil and anxieties embedded in the unyielding, laborious routine of colonial life, a ceaseless grind that rolled seamlessly from one sunrise to the next, offering little respite or appreciation. The spiritual toil of a Puritan woman would have equally drained her, necessitating unwavering self examination and judgment. In this instance, as in many others, these demands morphed into a disorienting self loathing for Mary. This tripartite downward spiral elicited resentment from her husband, Hugh.

[00:12:42] Sarah Jack: On May 26, 1647, just twenty miles down the river from Springfield, Alice Young of Windsor was convicted as a witch and hanged in Hartford. One night, Mary Lewis witnessed an enigmatic light. with these events, Mary Lewis experienced a profound shift in her demeanor, [00:13:00] succumbing to feelings of depression, sadness, listlessness, and a pervasive sense of being mopish.

[00:13:09] Josh Hutchinson: Night after night, yearning for a haven of solace, Hugh found himself greeted by a home wearied not from the day's toils, but saturated with the pervasive misery that Mary had imbued into its very atmosphere.

[00:13:23] Sarah Jack: By 1647, a marital bitterness encroached like ivy. It entwined itself around the fledgling Parsons partnership, steadily increasing its hold and stifling any harmony that could have fostered a healthy and strong alliance. The escalating scope of their discord transformed into an ominous darkness casting an oppressive gloom over their union, its effects seeping beyond the confines of their home into the public eye.

[00:13:51] Josh Hutchinson: In 1648, a tableau of pressures, disappointments and concerns continue to unfold.

[00:13:58] Josh Hutchinson: In April, when Hugh [00:14:00] attempted to secure a plowing job for Mary's former employer, Henry Smith, his efforts were met with rejection.

[00:14:07] Sarah Jack: That summer, England grappled with the second civil war, a royalist uprising in Kent, and the persecution of alleged witches by angry mobs.

[00:14:16] Josh Hutchinson: The arrival of a second Parsons child, Samuel, on June 8, 1648 held the potential to infuse new life or hope into their struggling marriage.

[00:14:27] Sarah Jack: Hugh continued to seek solutions that could help his household and future get back on course. He took on boarders, Sarah and Anthony Dorchester and their three children, but Sarah was dying from consumption.

[00:14:39] Josh Hutchinson: The same year, a new Massachusetts legal code was enacted. In the section referring to witchcraft, they cited Leviticus 20:27, Deuteronomy 18:11 and Exodus 22:18, 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'

[00:14:57] Sarah Jack: In the midst of this, the woman governor [00:15:00] Winthrop referred to as a healer, Margaret Jones, was hanged for witchcraft in Boston on June 14, 1648. Thomas Jones, her husband, was also accused in jail. William Pynchon was a magistrate on her trial.

[00:15:14] Josh Hutchinson: The same month, two infant daughters of Anne and Henry Smith, Margaret and Sarah, fell sick. Margaret died on June 24, and her sister Sarah passed a few days later.

[00:15:28] Sarah Jack: As ministers increasingly delved into warnings about the devil and heresy, Mary found herself increasingly preoccupied with the topics of the devil and witches, and her discourse on these matters became her obsession. She talked about them more and more. Her suspicions turned toward the widow Mercy Marshfield, whom she believed to be a witch. While Mercy now resided in Springfield, she had previously faced suspicion twenty miles away in Windsor, a town where ministers had stoked fear by emphasizing the closeness [00:16:00] of Satan and witchcraft. Notably, Alice Young, who had been hanged just the year before, had also lived in Windsor.

[00:16:08] Josh Hutchinson: The year sixteen forty eight concluded with yet another nearby witch execution. In December of that year, Mary Johnson of Weathersfield in the Connecticut Colony was found guilty of witchcraft and subsequently met the fate called for in the law.

[00:16:24] Sarah Jack: On February 6, 1649, Hugh had a disagreement with Goodwife Blanche Bedortha. He swore the following oath to her in front of her husband. 'Gammer, you needed not have said anything. I spake not to you, but I shall remember you when you little think on it.'

[00:16:45] Josh Hutchinson: Blanche awaited the fulfillment of the oath. One night, she noticed an unusual light on her waistcoat after hanging it up for the night. Then in early March, as her confinement period began in preparation for giving birth, Blanche experienced pain [00:17:00] emanating from her chest, extending to her shoulder and neck. During this challenging time, Mercy Marshfield remained by her side for three days.

[00:17:09] Sarah Jack: This trajectory of hardship and frustrations continued into 1649, paralleled by Mary's intense preoccupation of Satan and witches tormenting Springfield. Another Springfield neighbor, Griffith Jones, found himself in need of a knife, but none were in sight. After completing his task, he discovered three good knives exactly where he had previously searched. At that moment, Hugh Parsons was conveniently present. The two shared a smoke before heading off to then the two shared a smoke before heading off to the church meeting together.

[00:17:44] Sarah Jack: New New Year's ushers in great change. King Charles the first is beheaded on January first sixteen forty nine.

[00:17:56] Josh Hutchinson: Following the beheading of the king, governor John Winthrop senior [00:18:00] died just a few months later in March. In April, Mary Lewis Parsons began telling people she suspected Mercy Marshfield of being a witch. Mary told John Matthews she believed his daughter and heifer were bewitched to death by Mercy. She reminded him that it was known in Windsor that Marshfield was a witch, and she didn't doubt that Satan had followed her to Springfield.

[00:18:22] Josh Hutchinson: During that spring, William Branch had a peculiar encounter. One night, he witnessed the spectral boy with a face as red as fire. While it's possible that William was projecting his own anger stemming from Hugh's curse on his wife, that wasn't the interpretation he attributed to the strange sighting.

[00:18:41] Sarah Jack: In May of 1649, John and Pentecost Matthews informed Mercy Marshfield that Mary Lewis Parsons had said she bewitched their infant and heifer. Marshfield complained to William Pynchon who set a slander trial for the end of that month.

[00:18:58] Josh Hutchinson: Hugh began sleeping [00:19:00] in the long meadow at night.

[00:19:02] Sarah Jack: Resources were limited and debts were plenty. One morning, probably leaving the Longmeadow, Hugh went to Alexander Edwards' house and asked Sarah Edwards for milk to settle a debt she owed. When she refused, he left irate. The next time she milked the cow, it gave a third the usual amount, and this time it was the yellow of saffron and tinged with blood. Future efforts yielded milk of other unusual colors. Alexander Edwards informed Pynchon they believed Hugh had bewitched the cow. Pynchon thought it might be a natural illness.

[00:19:38] Sarah Jack: Now Mary Lewis Parson tells John Matthews that her husband, Hugh, is a witch.

[00:19:43] Josh Hutchinson: On May 29, 1649, Mary was tried for slandering Mercy Marshfield and was found guilty. The sentence was her choice, either pay a three pound fine to Marshfield or else be whipped twenty times. Mary chose to pay the fine.[00:20:00]

[00:20:00] Sarah Jack: Hugh expressed dissatisfaction regarding the fine.

[00:20:04] Josh Hutchinson: In late summer of 1649, William Branch was afflicted as he passed the Parsons House, taken with a strange stiffness, 'as if two stakes had been bound to my thighs, this feeling continued for two days along with the burning in the souls of his feet.' In September, there was a smallpox epidemic in New England.

[00:20:24] Sarah Jack: Mary persisted in her vigilant watch for signs of the devil. On a particular day, her attention was captured by a mysterious dog, a creature she suspected Hugh might have sent. Given his previous claim to understanding her private conversations, Mary speculated that he could be supernaturally spying on her. Furthermore, she noted that now whenever Hugh returned home late, a loud rumbling preceded his arrival. Mary discerned the preternatural nature of this occurrence.

[00:20:56] Josh Hutchinson: Baby Samuel Parsons fell ill, and his secret [00:21:00] parts appeared to shrivel, an observation made by George Colton, a condition that's explainable.

[00:21:06] Sarah Jack: Samuel had trouble breathing one night. Hugh, in tears, ran out and got help from Sarah Cooley and Blanche Bedortha. They saw the diseased secret parts of Samuel and recognized it as an area witches would attack because they hated fertility.

[00:21:23] Josh Hutchinson: The Parsons household was fraught with tension. The Dorchester family with several young children boarded there, and the wife was ailing. Amidst this, Mary accused the head of the household of witchcraft, adding to the already charged atmosphere, especially considering her own young children and the ailing baby Samuel Parsons. The climax occurred on the last Sunday in September, when Anthony Dorchester experienced an unsettling incident, his prized root of a cow's tongue vanished from a boiling pot without a trace. Anthony squarely placed the blame on [00:22:00] Hugh's alleged witchcraft as he insisted Hugh was not witnessed near the pot during the disappearance, but certainly was the culprit, cementing all suspicion.

[00:22:11] Sarah Jack: There just didn't really seem to be other culprits to pin some of this stuff on, so it must be the troublemaker.

[00:22:19] Josh Hutchinson: Blame Hugh.

[00:22:19] Josh Hutchinson: you.

[00:22:20] Sarah Jack: Blame Hugh. That night, Hugh didn't come home. Samuel died.

[00:22:26] Sarah Jack: Jonathan Burt found Hugh in the Longmeadow in the morning and told him. Hugh did not respond. He just stomped off to George and Deborah Colton's house where he said to them, 'I hear my child is dead, but I will cut a pipe of tobacco first before I go home.' They had not invited him over. Hugh went home, saw Mary with Blanche Bedortha, Anthony Dorchester, and Samuel's body. Hugh said nothing and soon returned to work in his fields. Samuel was buried later that day after Hugh had invited the neighbors to the simple funeral.

[00:22:59] Josh Hutchinson: [00:23:00] More deaths. On Thursday, October fourth, Sarah Stebbins died. Then on November eighth, sir Dorchester passed away.

[00:23:08] Sarah Jack: In the winter of 1649 to 1650, Hugh threatened Mercy Marshfield with an oath, not unlike the one he had for Goodwife Bedortha. When he went to pay part of the debt for his wife, Mary's witchcraft accusation slander conviction against Mercy. He asked Mercy to relieve a third of his burden. She refused. He said, 'it shall be, but as wildfire in your house and as a moth in your clothes.'

[00:23:35] Josh Hutchinson: Residents of Springfield became increasingly reluctant to engage with Hugh Parsons, leading to tangible consequences. John Matthews promptly canceled a contract with Hugh for chimneys. As the community perceived Hughes threats as more than mere words, his sense of being slighted by them deepened.

[00:23:54] Sarah Jack: In spring of 1650, Sarah Miller, the pregnant seventeen year old daughter of Mercy Marshfield, [00:24:00] began suffering fits. She blamed Hugh Parsons for rewitching her.

[00:24:05] Josh Hutchinson: Simon Beamon refused to help Hugh Parsons carry flour home from the gristmill. Beamon then fell off his horse, and his own sack of flour fell upon him. He rode again, and again he fell. Then he tried a third time, falling again. Hugh was definitely bewitching him.

[00:24:25] Sarah Jack: John Lombard borrowed a trowel from Hugh Parsons to replace one he'd mislaid and thought had been stolen by Native Americans who'd visited on business the previous day. When Lombard spotted the men again, he called for them, but they seemed not to hear. Hugh asked Lombard, why did he call for them? They've stole my trowel, Lombard said. Hugh replied, here it is, and pointed to a trowel on the sill where Lombard had thought he'd laid the one the day before. Hugh returned his bewitching pattern of hiding and appearing tools. Previously, it was knives, And now he had done it with a trowel.[00:25:00]

[00:25:01] Josh Hutchinson: A third baby was born to Mary and Hugh Parsons October 26, 1650, when Joshua entered the world.

[00:25:09] Sarah Jack: Later that winter, Hugh allegedly kidnapped and assaulted Samuel Terry, whom he believed had assaulted his calf.

[00:25:19] Josh Hutchinson: In winter sixteen fifty to sixteen fifty one, more alleged witchcraft attacks occurred in the colonies, and more witchcraft trials brought execution.

[00:25:30] Sarah Jack: Jane James of Marblehead was slandered for witchcraft a second time.

[00:25:36] Josh Hutchinson: Alice Lake of Dorchester was executed for witchcraft.

[00:25:41] Sarah Jack: Tragically, three year old Sarah Matthews, the daughter of John and Pentecost, passed away. Mary Lewis Parsons had conveyed to them a few years ago that she believed Mercy Marshfield had bewitched their infant to death. Now the heart wrenching reality repeats itself as another young child is taken by death.

[00:25:59] Josh Hutchinson: Baby [00:26:00] Joshua Parsons was now sick at three months of age.

[00:26:03] Sarah Jack: In February of 1651, Hugh Parsons went shopping. Simon Beamon claimed to be too busy to help. Hugh said Simon would have been better off to have helped him. At home, Hugh encountered Jonathan Taylor. Hugh told him and Mary what had happened and said, He shall get nothing by it. I will be even with him. I'll remember him. Later that day, Simon was hauling timber when his horses bolted, and he was thrown from the cart.

[00:26:32] Josh Hutchinson: In early sixteen fifty one, news reached the colonies that Bermuda had a witch hunt.

[00:26:37] Sarah Jack: In early sixteen fifty one, Joan and John Carrington of Wethersfield, Connecticut faced execution for witchcraft. It's possible that Hugh Parsons knew John Carrington. When Mary mentioned to Hugh, 'I hope that God will find out all Such wicked persons and purge New England of all witches ere it be long,' Hugh responded with [00:27:00] a scornful gaze. In a fit of anger, he grabbed a block of wood, momentarily raising it as if to throw it at Mary before relenting and dropping it into the fire.

[00:27:09] Josh Hutchinson: Hugh, besieged by mounting frustrations, began issuing threats with each new challenge.

[00:27:15] Josh Hutchinson: This situation worsened when he failed to produce bricks in time to fulfill a deal with minister George Moxon, adding another layer to his already troubled circumstances. He said, 'if Mr. Moxon do force need to make bricks according to the bargain, I will be even with him. If he do, I will be even with him.' Within a few days, Moxon's daughters, Martha and Rebecca, became ill. Moxon believed they were bewitched, while some neighbors thought them possessed. The girls recovered from their afflictions.

[00:27:48] Sarah Jack: Sunday, February 16, 1651, Mary Parsons was at the Ashley Alehouse between sermons when she started spouting off, blaming Hugh for deaths of the Smiths girls.

[00:27:59] Sarah Jack: [00:28:00] She told Frances Pepper that Hugh had bewitched his cow. She claimed Hugh had also bewitched her and announced that 'he cannot abide that anything should be spoken against witches'. Mary then slipped into some sort of trance. She believed during this trance that she agreed to serve Satan and was magically carried off to a witch meeting at John Stemmons' home lot. It was the dark of night, But fires allowed her to see Hugh Parsons, Sarah Merrick, and Beth Sewell.

[00:28:29] Sarah Jack: Mary came to when the meeting house bell tolled. At the second meeting of the day, while minister Moxon held service, other women, including Mary Bliss Parsons, not to be confused with Mary Lewis Parsons, convulsed on the floor in affliction.

[00:28:45] Josh Hutchinson: Two days later, Mary Lewis Parsons was at home when she heard a loud rumble as if forty horses had been there and he walked in, that night, he dreamed about fighting Satan. On Wednesday, February nineteenth, [00:29:00] Hugh asked George Langton to sell him some hay. Langton declined.

[00:29:04] Sarah Jack: On Friday, February twenty first sixteen fifty one, Hannah Langton made a bag pudding, which came out split from one end to the other as if cut by a knife. This was the second time in ten days this had happened. John Lombard and the Langtons decided to conduct an experiment and threw the pudding into the fire. Shortly thereafter, Bess Sewell arrived, though not the expected visitor. The group dismissed her visit and redirected their suspicions towards Hugh Parsons when he arrived an hour later.

[00:29:36] Josh Hutchinson: On Saturday, February twenty second, the Langtons complained about Hugh's witchcraft to William Pynchon. Mercy Marshfield also complained about Hugh that day, as he had allegedly interfered with Blanche Bedortha during childbirth.

[00:29:50] Sarah Jack: Sunday, February 23, the Langtons tried a third pudding, this one dividing into three even slices. They complained again to Pynchon.[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Josh Hutchinson: Tuesday, February twenty fifth, Thomas Miller was cut by an enchanted saw blade. That same day, Anthony Dorchester complained to Pynchon about Hugh magically stealing his cow tongue root, and Griffith Jones complained about Hugh making knives disappear and reappear.

[00:30:17] Sarah Jack: On Wednesday, February 26, 1651, Mary Lewis Parsons was arrested and detained on charges of witchcraft. Benjamin Cooley and Anthony Dorchester were assigned to watch Mary that night. Mary spoke to her watchers about Hugh's witchcraft. The pretrial examination was the next day, February twenty seventh. Pynchon took statements from neighbors, including John Matthews, Mary Ashley, Sarah Edwards, George Colton, Benjamin Cooley, and Anthony Dorchester. He was arrested later on the twenty seventh.

[00:30:49] Josh Hutchinson: He Hugh was led up the street. As he passed the Stebbins house, Anne Stebbins cried out,' ah, witch, ah, witch!' and collapsed. She had [00:31:00] seizures after. The same day, two year old Joseph Bedortha screamed and cried about a dog only he could see.

[00:31:07] Sarah Jack: Then on Saturday, March first, Hugh was examined by Pynchon. Many accusers testified of their bewitchment at Hugh's hand, and he was asked about afflicting the minister's children. It was noted that his sleeping in the Longmeadow instead of at home was sinister. Lastly, testimony to the indifference Hugh showed upon the death of his son Samuel was most compelling.

[00:31:32] Josh Hutchinson: On Sunday night, March second, Hugh suffered from an internal buildup of pressure, but didn't need to relieve himself when offered. How magical.

[00:31:43] Sarah Jack: March third, Pynchon ordered Hugh to be searched for witch marks.

[00:31:47] Josh Hutchinson: March fourth, baby Joshua Parsons died suddenly. Henry Smith noted in the town register that Joshua was killed by his mother, Mary Lewis Parsons.

[00:31:58] Sarah Jack: Starting March twelfth, hearings [00:32:00] resumed with more accuser testimony, and this continued over several days.

[00:32:05] Josh Hutchinson: Mary Lewis Parsons told Thomas Cooper about her party with the devil's own, Hugh Parsons, Sarah Merrick, and Bess Sewell that happened when she passed out at the ale house in her trance with the devil.

[00:32:18] Josh Hutchinson: Monday, March seventeenth sixteen fifty one, John Lombard testified before Pynchon.

[00:32:25] Sarah Jack: And Sarah Miller had fits a few doors down.

[00:32:28] Josh Hutchinson: Tuesday, March eighteenth, Hugh was examined a second time. This time, Mary was present. In all, thirty five people testified at the two hearings.

[00:32:38] Sarah Jack: Including the minister Moxon.

[00:32:40] Josh Hutchinson: Pynchon asked Mary to sum up her evidence against Hugh. She said that, first of all, Hugh always knew what she'd been talking about. Secondly, strange noises preceded Hugh's returns homes. Third, she'd seen a strange dog in the marsh. Fourth, the misfortunes of his [00:33:00] enemies

[00:33:00] Sarah Jack: On Saturday, March 22, 1651, Jonathan Taylor, Mercy Marshfield, John Lombard, and Thomas Merrick went to see Pynchon and informed him that Hugh had said he had often been afraid that his wife was a witch all the way back on February twenty sixth when Mary was arrested.

[00:33:18] Josh Hutchinson: Monday, March twenty fourth, Hugh and Mary began the journey to Boston for trial.

[00:33:25] Sarah Jack: Mary Bliss Parsons, not to be confused with Mary Lewis Parsons, was called a distracted woman by her husband, who would lock her up in the cellar at night, though she complained it was full of spirits. She also saw spirits while she was washing laundry in the brook.

[00:33:41] Josh Hutchinson: On March twenty seventh, Sarah Miller saw a spectral man. Jonathan Taylor testified April seventh to Pynchon. April twentieth, the Taylor child, Anna, died.

[00:33:54] Sarah Jack: Jonathan Taylor, Mercy Marshfield, Samuel Marshfield, Hannah Langton, and [00:34:00] Simon Beamon traveled to Boston to bear witness at the end of April.

[00:34:04] Josh Hutchinson: Mary was to be tried May eighth by the general court, but she was too sick that day and the next, so her trial was postponed until May thirteenth. That day, though she was still sick, she was tried. She was indicted for witchcraft and for the murder of her son, Joshua Parsons.

[00:34:24] Sarah Jack: The testimonies of thirty people were heard in court, but most were only read. Seven of the thirty witnesses managed to appear in court and swear under oath.

[00:34:34] Josh Hutchinson: Mary was acquitted of bewitching Rebecca and Martha Moxon. However, she plead guilty to the murder charge and was condemned to die. But governor John Endicott granted Mary a reprieve until May 29. Unfortunately, she passed away in prison between the thirteenth and twenty ninth of May.

[00:34:58] Josh Hutchinson: George Colton, [00:35:00] Jonathan Taylor, and Simon Beamon traveled to Boston for Hugh's trial in mid 1651.

[00:35:04] Josh Hutchinson: one.

[00:35:06] Sarah Jack: On June seventeenth sixteen fifty one, Hugh pled not guilty to witchcraft. At the June seventeenth session, Hugh was neither acquitted nor convicted, and the case was referred to the court of assistance. On May twelfth sixteen fifty two, Hugh faced trial by the court of assistance. Although no proof was presented of the charge that a witch was someone who hath or consulted with a familiar spirit, he was convicted. However, the general court overturned Hughes' conviction around May twenty sixth, and he was subsequently released from jail on June first sixteen fifty two.

[00:35:43] Josh Hutchinson: After he was released from jail, Hugh stayed in Boston a while with his daughter, Hannah. Sometime shortly after the trial, other accused witches, Sarah Merrick and Mercy Marshfield, passed away. At nearly the same time, Beth [00:36:00] Sewell and her family relocated to Wickford, Rhode Island.

[00:36:04] Josh Hutchinson: In sixteen fifty four, Simon Beamon married Alice Young junior, daughter of Alice Young, who had been the colonies' first victim of the witch trials.

[00:36:17] Sarah Jack: Hugh and his daughter, Hannah, moved to Rhode Island, probably to Portsmouth, in sixteen fifty eight. He married the widow of John Wood, a sea captain who worked for John Winthrop. Hannah married Henry Matteson and had seven children.

[00:36:32] Sarah Jack: Hugh died June eighteenth sixteen eighty five.

[00:36:36] Sarah Jack: Now for a minute with Mary.

[00:36:39] Mary-Louise Bingham: Sarah, Josh, and I had the pleasure of meeting with advocate Ikponwosa Ero on August thirtieth. I.K., who was born in Nigeria, is a lawyer by trade and spent six years as the first United Nations independent expert on the enjoyment of human rights of persons living with albinism. Her advocacy [00:37:00] focused on leaving no one behind, serving the most vulnerable first. Through her online presentations, I learned that people with albinism living south of the Sahara in Africa are often attacked. Their assailants will smuggle the body parts of the person living with albinism due to the belief that the body parts could be used for witchcraft rituals.

[00:37:23] Mary-Louise Bingham: When asked how she would advise her predecessor at the UN, IK said, "remember who you are working for." Then she concluded, "you are also working for those who have already died untimely deaths due to attack or discrimination whose memory you now honor by protecting others." Thank you, Ikponwosa Ero.

[00:37:43] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.

[00:37:47] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts news.

[00:37:49] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunt urges collective action to end witch hunting practices worldwide. At End Witch Hunts, our unwavering commitment drives us to actively educate and advocate for the [00:38:00] eradication of witchcraft accusation violence. We firmly believe in the power of collective action to bring about positive change. In alignment with our mission, we proudly support The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices, TINAAWAHP for short. Discover their impactful global advocacy work and their affiliated organizations at theinternationalnetwork.org. Subscribe at the bottom of their home page for the latest updates contributing to a deeper understanding of ongoing initiatives worldwide.

[00:38:32] Sarah Jack: Watch IK Ero's recent keynote on global advocacy for victims of witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks. You can find the link in our show notes. As the first UN independent expert on human rights for persons with albinism, she provides valuable insights and steps for future advocacy in a video titled Keynote for Expert Workshop, TINAAWAHP, November 2023. Gain perspective and consider how you can contribute to the fight for the rights and safety of victims [00:39:00] counting on us all.

[00:39:01] Sarah Jack: Join us for justice for the witch trial victims of Massachusetts by signing and sharing the exoneration petition for the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project at change.org/witchtrials. Massachusetts residents, engage your representatives, and if you're a voting member of the Massachusetts general court, lead or collaborate on the amendment effort to secure formal apologies.

[00:39:25] Sarah Jack: Thank you for supporting our podcast. Consider a financial contribution to empower our education and advocacy efforts. During this holiday season, think of End Witch Hunts for your charitable gifts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to contribute and help bring an end to the dark history of witch hunting practices.

[00:39:42] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.

[00:39:45] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.

[00:39:47] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.

[00:39:52] Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.

[00:39:54] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

[00:39:57] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com

[00:39:59] Sarah Jack: [00:40:00] com.

[00:40:00] Josh Hutchinson: We're excited about our podcast changing from Thou Shalt Not Suffer, The Witch Trial Podcast, to Witch Hunt in January twenty twenty four. Stay tuned for more great episodes of thou shalt not suffer through December, and look for Witch Hunt, January first.

[00:40:17] Sarah Jack: Thou Shall Not Suffer in Witch Hunt are presented by end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.

[00:40:24] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow

December 8, 2023

Mary Esty: Victim of the Salem Witch Hunt

Holiday Gifts to the Podcast Here

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In this episode of ‘Thou Shalt Not Suffer, The Witch Trial Podcast’, hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack delve into an intriguing conversation with Mary Louise Bingham about their mutual ancestor, Mary Esty, who was executed during the Salem Witch Trials. They explore their genealogical connections to Mary Esty, discuss her life and tragic fate, and shed light on the historical context of the time. Hear Mary Esty’s own words from original documents, including her impassioned plea to end the witch hunt.

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Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:16] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. In this episode, Josh and I talked to Mary Louise Bingham about our mutual ancestor, Mary Esty, who was hanged for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Hunt.
[00:00:26] Josh Hutchinson: And stay tuned at the end for a special announcement
[00:00:30] Sarah Jack: We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
[00:00:32] Josh Hutchinson: And enjoy any other holidays you celebrate this time of year.
[00:00:36] Sarah Jack: One thing I know you'll enjoy is our chat with Mary.
[00:00:41] Josh Hutchinson: Sarah, how are you connected to Mary Esty?
[00:00:44] Sarah Jack: So Mary Esty was the second Towne connection, direct connection that I found. I knew that I descended from Rebecca since the nineties. That was something my family had passed down. And then when I was doing my own [00:01:00] research, I realized the Mary line was there. I couldn't believe it. Their grandchildren married. So John Esty, their son, married and then had Hannah, and Francis and Rebecca had Elizabeth who married William Russell and William Russell married Hannah. And then my Russell's go all the way to my fifth great grandmother's maiden name was Russell.
[00:01:28] Josh Hutchinson: So you're connected to Mary through a grandchild, and I'm connected to Mary through her son, Isaac Jr., who married Abigail Kimball, and they had a daughter, Sarah Esty, who married Joseph Cummings. How did you say you were connected, Mary, through Isaac Jr. also?
[00:01:51] Mary Louise Bingham: Yes, I'm connected through Isaac Jr., as well. But in terms of the Towne family, so Mary's siblings, [00:02:00] I descend from Edmund, who I found out about first, Jacob, Joseph, and then it was Gail Garda who discovered Mary Esty, and that was such a surprise. I had no inkling about that, it was such a surprise. In fact, it's one of those where I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Mary Esty was my nine times great grandmother.
[00:02:28] Josh Hutchinson: I just found out that I'm an Edmund also.
[00:02:33] Mary Louise Bingham: Here we go again, Josh!
[00:02:37] Sarah Jack: I think it's interesting that Mary Esty, Mary Towne, was not any of ours first known link to the Salem Witch Trials. She was our secondary find. All of us. Second or third, third, fourth, fifth, maybe for Josh, and with history, she always, you know, is a little less known than her [00:03:00] sister.
[00:03:01] Mary Louise Bingham: And that's why I think this episode is very historic, because it's the first episode where we're telling the story of Mary Esty. I don't think I've ever heard any other podcast episode about the Salem Witch Trials even mention her name. They name a lot of the others, but Mary Esty is not one of them.
[00:03:25] Sarah Jack: I'm so excited that we're gonna talk about her today.
[00:03:29] Josh Hutchinson: And if you've listened to this podcast at all, you've probably heard me tell the story about how it was at Mary Esty's sister's house, the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, where I found out my first connection to the witch trials through my ancestor, Joseph Hutchinson, and that inspired me to get into the genealogy, which then led to a cousin in Massachusetts who had our connection to Mary [00:04:00] Esty researched. One Towne led to another in my tree. And now I've got Edmond Towne also in my tree.
[00:04:11] Mary Louise Bingham: Edmund is also an ancestor of Lucille Ball.
[00:04:16] Josh Hutchinson: So I'm a little bit closer to Lucille Ball than I was before. Like, one step on the genealogy.
[00:04:25] Mary Louise Bingham: It really is exciting.
[00:04:28] Sarah Jack: When we first teamed up last year on the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, Mary Bingham and Sarah Jack knew that they were related through Mary Esty, but we didn't know Josh was yet. So three Mary Estys teamed up to work on the exoneration for Connecticut.
[00:04:48] Sarah Jack: That's
[00:04:49] Mary Louise Bingham: Yes.
[00:04:50] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, without realizing it.
[00:04:55] Mary Louise Bingham: I know that's wonderful though. That's our connection, our spiritual [00:05:00] connection to each other, too, so as far as I'm concerned.
[00:05:03] Sarah Jack: right.
[00:05:04] Josh Hutchinson: It's imprinted into our DNA. We're supposed to be friends.
[00:05:14] Sarah Jack: Mary, please tell us the story of the mutual ancestor who brought us all together.
[00:05:20] Mary Louise Bingham: Mary was the sixth child born to William and Joanna Towne about the year 1634 at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. And William was a farmer and a basket weaver in this seaport town, known for its smoked herring, and he lived on a three acre house lot.
[00:05:38] Josh Hutchinson: You can learn more about the lives of William and Joanna Towne in Great Yarmouth by listening to our December 29th, 2022 episode, Rebecca Nurse of Salem with Dan Gagnon, and our November 10th, 2022 episode, Witch Hunts in Great Yarmouth and Salem with Dr. Danny Buck.
[00:05:55] Mary Louise Bingham: So why did the Townes leave? [00:06:00] Well, William wanted to worship as what we term today as a Puritan, but back in the 1600s, that term was considered to be derogatory. William would have considered himself and his family to worship as a community of believers known as the people of God. Their belief centered on reading the scripture without the superstitious articles in the church that had significant monetary value. During William and Joanna's time, some of those items were sold, smashed, or demolished, as in many of the side altars. And according to author Dan Gagnon, the Townes probably attended, and I quote, and unquote, 'unofficial services,' where they hired their own clergy to preach on Sunday afternoons and market days.
[00:06:51] Mary Louise Bingham: The new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633 further reformed the liturgy to resemble that of the Catholic [00:07:00] tradition, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Two years later, between April and September of 1635, William and Joanna decide to leave everything behind, making a dangerous journey across the Atlantic Sea with four children, including one year old Mary, to worship as they saw fit in new surroundings of which held both mystery, danger, and hope.
[00:07:30] Mary Louise Bingham: Upon their arrival, the Townes ended up at the northeastern part of Salem today, which is known as Danversport in Danvers, Mass, current day North Shore Avenue on what was a nine and a half acre farm. Their first house would have probably been an English wigwam, which did not protect well from the outside elements, though there was a fireplace, but the fireplace was made of wood, of all [00:08:00] things. About a year after their move, there was a hurricane, which caused great damage and wiped away many of the homes. So sometime after that, William would have had a more colonial wooden structure built. It was at this residence where the final two Towne siblings were born, Sarah and Joseph.
[00:08:22] Mary Louise Bingham: Young Mary would have learned how to operate the day-to-day activities of the household, such as cooking, sewing, weaving, spinning, using a cheese press and a butter churn, eventually milking the cows, taking care of the chickens, as long as the activity was in the home, in the herb or kitchen garden, or in the barn. Mary would master each skill with precision to perfection. In time, Mary would have to teach her own daughters what she herself was taught by her own mother.
[00:08:54] Mary Louise Bingham: Rebecca moved out of this residence about 1645, when she [00:09:00] married Frances Nurse. Then in 1652, William and Joanna moved the rest of the family more inland to Topsfield on a 40 acre farm, a definite move up for 18-year-old Mary and her family. Eventually, as William and his sons were granted and purchased land neighboring their parents, the entire Towne and Esty families owned the whole length of the seven mile drumlin running from east to west from what is now Essex County Co-op and the Fairgrounds all the way out to Beverly.
[00:09:37] Mary Louise Bingham: What is not certain, however, is whether or not Mary knew Isaac Esty while she was living in Salem or met him when they both lived in Topsfield. The first time Isaac appeared in the court records was in 1652, where he acknowledged judgment to Edmund Botter at a court held at Salem on November [00:10:00] 30th, but this entry does not specify where Isaac was living at that time. Also, 18 years old was considered young for a woman to get married, so she probably was married when she was 20 or 21. And since the Topsfield records from its incorporation in 1650 to 1658 were lost in a house fire, we can't be certain when Mary and Isaac were married and exactly when their eldest child, Isaac Jr., was born. In fact, Isaac Jr. is not even mentioned in the Massachusetts Vital Records to the year 1849 for the town of Topsfield.
[00:10:42] Mary Louise Bingham: But we do know that Mary eventually moved just across the street from her parents after her marriage to Isaac. And we know that Isaac loved Mary, as he demonstrated in both words and action. He said in his petition to the General [00:11:00] Court after he reviewed his travel and jail expenses, as well as the cost to provide provisions for Mary in 1692, that his total expenditures for that year for that travel was 20 pounds. Isaac continued, and I quote, 'besides my sorrow and trouble of heart in being deprived of her after such a manner which this world can never make me any compensation for,' end quote. Today, that dollar value might be about $2,070. Again, this dollar amount certainly does not include the trauma experienced by Isaac himself, his and Mary's children, and their grandchildren. Isaac traveled two times a week for five months, without fail, to bring provisions to Mary. These were long journeys, and Mary spent time in [00:12:00] three jails. The round trip from his home to the Salem jail was 14 miles. The round trip to the Ipswich jail was 14 miles. The round trip to the Boston jail was 44 miles. So this clearly demonstrated that Isaac was a devoted and loving husband to Mary and she a devoted wife to him.
[00:12:26] Sarah Jack: Forty four miles was a long way to travel in those days. Even traveling by horseback, you'd be hard pressed to complete the trip without overnighting somewhere, and he would have had all his work at home waiting for him.
[00:12:41] Josh Hutchinson: And Isaac Sr. wouldn't have been the only one in the family to be affected by this. As he was away, his adult children would have been helping tend to chores on his farm, therefore leaving their own families [00:13:00] and spending more time away than they would have, working extra hours, because they still had to work full time in their own professions and working their own farms and then go off and tend to their parents' farm.
[00:13:17] Sarah Jack: And they were used to seeing their mother there if they were visiting. If they were there before this, they would have gotten to spend time with her.
[00:13:26] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, there was always that empty seat at the table.
[00:13:31] Mary Louise Bingham: Mary and Isaac had nine children who lived into adulthood. At least two of her sons were active in town affairs as surveyors, constables, and bricklayers. Isaac Jr. learned the trade of cooper, presumably from his father.
[00:13:49] Mary Louise Bingham: Both Mary and Isaac were members in full communion at the Topsfield Church before 1684. This meant that the community of believers believed that both [00:14:00] Mary and Isaac were God-fearing Christians and that they were going to heaven once they died. They were among the Elect who received communion once a month.
[00:14:09] Josh Hutchinson: And most colonists were not church members, though they were required to attend services.
[00:14:16] Sarah Jack: Before the Salem Witch Hunt, it was rare for a full church member to be accused of witchcraft.
[00:14:22] Josh Hutchinson: Even in Salem, most of the population was not full church members, so most of the people that accused were not full church members, but there were enough church members accused that it stood out.
[00:14:40] Josh Hutchinson: It's one of the contrasts between Salem and a regular witch trial, which only involved one or two suspects at a time. Those cases, generally, it was not church members.
[00:14:53] Mary Louise Bingham: Mary was also known to tell someone if they spoke out of turn and to be very careful what [00:15:00] they say. She was also described by both the jail keepers at the Salem and Ipswich locations as a model prisoner. So we might assume that Mary did what she was supposed to do, but stood in the truth, or in her truth all the while.
[00:15:20] Mary Louise Bingham: So how do we get from a woman who was totally accepted by her community to a woman accused of being in league with the devil? One reason could be that Mary's sisters, Rebecca and Sarah, were already in jail for the same crime, which increased the likelihood that Mary would also be charged at some point.
[00:15:41] Mary Louise Bingham: Reason two, John Putnam Jr., who is a cousin-in-law to Ann Putnam Sr., said later that he heard Ann Putnam Sr. say something about the Townes sister's mother, gossip also most likely heard by two of Mary's chief [00:16:00] accusers, Ann Putnam, Jr. and Mercy Lewis, who was the Putnam servant living with Thomas Putnam Jr. and Ann Putnam. And please remember, it was believed that witchcraft could be passed from mother to daughter.
[00:16:15] Josh Hutchinson: John Putnam Jr. testified that, 'I, the said John Putnam, had reported something which I had heard concerning the mother of Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, and Sarah Cloyce.'
[00:16:27] Sarah Jack: And Ann Putnam Sr. testified that, quote, 'Young John Putnam had said that it was no wonder they were witches for their mother was so before them.'
[00:16:37] Mary Louise Bingham: Sure enough, the warrant for Mary's arrest was issued or sworn out on April 21st, and her chief accusers were Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and quote unquote 'others.' She would have been brought to Nathaniel Ingersoll's tavern until it was her turn for her pre-trial examination, when she would have walked down the [00:17:00] street to the meeting house. And the meeting house would have been packed on the inside, and people peering in the windows on the outside, making it very difficult to see. The atmosphere inside would have been incredibly noisy and disruptive. But Mary stood her ground against her accusers and the magistrates, even though they tried to bully her into a confession with leading questions such as, 'What do you say? Are you guilty? And, what have you done to these children?' Mary replied, 'I can say before Christ Jesus, I am free. I know nothing.' The magistrates then ask, 'how can you say that? You see that these tormented and accuse you. You know nothing'? Then Mary turned the tables and questioned the magistrates, 'would you have me accuse myself?' they reply, 'yes, if you were guilty.' Then they continue to badger her. 'How [00:18:00] far have you complied with Satan, whereby he takes this advantage against you?' Mary replied, 'Sir, I have never complied but prayed against him all my days. I have no compliance with Satan in this. What would you have me do?' And then they repeat, 'confess if you'd be guilty.' Mary doesn't waver, 'I will say it if it were my last time. I am clear.'
[00:18:28] Mary Louise Bingham: After Mary's pretrial examination was done, she was taken to the Salem jail and stayed there until possibly May 13th, when she may have been transferred to Boston. And this, we are not sure of because Margo Burns has stated that that particular document has a tear in it and it's missing one of the names. But we suppose that that's Mary Esty, because all of the others in Topsfield who the warrant went out [00:19:00] for that same day were all transferred to Boston at that time.
[00:19:03] Mary Louise Bingham: It seems that three of Mary's accusers changed their minds regarding her guilt, and she was released from prison on May 18th to the home of her son, Isaac. Her family must have been relieved, and the Nurse and Cloyce families must have received hope that maybe Rebecca and Sarah might be returned to their homes, as well.
[00:19:26] Mary Louise Bingham: So why not go home to her husband? One might surmise that Isaac, Sr. may not have been able to adequately nurse Mary back to health and since Isaac, Jr. only had his wife Abigail and their infant daughter at their house, he and Abigail may have been the best choice to care for Mary until she could return to her home. Sadly, that did not happen.
[00:19:52] Mary Louise Bingham: There were a lot of people in and out of John and Hannah Putnam, Jr. 's house on May 20th. The [00:20:00] reason? Because their servant, Mercy Lewis, who previously was a servant to John's cousin, Thomas Putnam, Jr., was violently sick in both mind and body. In fact, Samuel Abbey got wind of Mercy's condition, and he went to the Putnam household to see what was happening.
[00:20:20] Mary Louise Bingham: He saw Mercy in bed and unable to speak. Because John was not home, Hannah asked Samuel to retrieve Ann Putnam Jr. so that she could ID the specter who tormented Mercy. Samuel returned with Ann and Abigail Williams, and possibly Sarah Trask, who was along for the ride. So Ann and Abigail ID'd the specter as the quote unquote 'woman who was sent home the other day,' end quote.
[00:20:50] Mary Louise Bingham: The other specters were visiting as well, namely Anne Whitridge and John Willard. According to Ann and Abigail, they all seemed to be [00:21:00] attacking Mercy while she lay still and unable to speak. But that changed, and Mercy, when she was able to speak, begged God not to let the specters kill her. She further declared that Mary's specter would kill her by midnight, because Mercy remained steadfast in her belief that Mary was a witch, when the others basically cleared her.
[00:21:24] Mary Louise Bingham: Mary Walcott entered the scene at some point that same day and said Mary's specter told her that she would kill Mercy by midnight if she was able. So finally, Constable John Putnam returned home about 8 p. m. with his friend, Marshal George Herrick, as well as Benjamin Hutchinson.
[00:21:45] Josh Hutchinson: Benjamin Hutchinson was my ninth great granduncle, and this isn't the only time he stuck his nose in it. In fact, we'll have tales of some of his adventures in future episodes.
[00:21:56] Josh Hutchinson: And Mercy Lewis is my cousin. [00:22:00] So I'm related to so many of the characters in this episode. It's really personal to me and to see my relatives, Mercy Lewis and Benjamin Hutchinson being deployed almost against Mary Esty, my grandmother, is very weird to me to think about all my relatives fighting for life in such a way. We got Mercy and everybody, Benjamin Hutchinson, thinking that Mercy's going to die by midnight if they don't go and arrest Mary Esty, and just so tense for both sides. And I'm related to people on either side and that itself being related to the people who did the accusations, who made the arrests, that is a weighty [00:23:00] kind of ancestry, and the way I tried to use that to understand why accusations were made, and that helps to learn how we can stop witch hunts if we understand how they started in the first place, and having ancestors who accused gets me thinking about that a lot.
[00:23:28] Mary Louise Bingham: They seriously thought that Mary's specter would kill Mercy before midnight. Now the rush was on to apprehend Mary. Though John and Benjamin's travels for the next three hours or so are not recorded, George Herrick's travels are, and it's possible that they all may have traveled together. Anyhow, Herrick would have traveled south five miles to John Hathorne's house so that Hathorne could sign the complaint. Then [00:24:00] Herrick travels north 8 miles to Isaac Esty Jr. 's house. Isaac probably saw Herrick approach the house, gathered Mary, and swiftly brought her downstairs into the basement, which would have been a small root cellar at that time And she was probably crouched, most likely in a fetal position, by the cornerstone. Words were most likely exchanged between Isaac Jr. and Herrick. I cannot even let my mind and heart begin to imagine the gripping fear Mary experienced as she heard everything going on, then to hear those footsteps approach closer and closer until they find her and she is arrested yet again. And lore states that Herrick was not patient with those whom he arrested.
[00:24:54] Mary Louise Bingham: Then Herrick, with Mary, was required to travel nine miles south to [00:25:00] Beedle's Tavern in Salem. This must have been harrowing again for Mary. The men testified that they had returned to John Putnam, Jr. 's house by midnight only to discover Mercy was still not well, and she continued to have seizure like fits, complained of severe stomach issues until she fell asleep at dawn.
[00:25:22] Josh Hutchinson: When they put the time, the midnight deadline in here, it really gets very dramatic and intense. It's like watching a Hollywood thriller with that bomb ticking down and are they going to be able to defuse it in time?
[00:25:42] Sarah Jack: It's like a scene. It gives us the opportunity to see this commotion and this reaction and this fear and these men going after, hunting the witch. And I, personally, a lot of times I'm thinking of just that courtroom [00:26:00] and people riled up and, backing each other, but this is different.
[00:26:04] Josh Hutchinson: And it shows you the intensity of the fear of witchcraft that they're willing to travel all these miles at top speed trying to arrest her before the deadline so that Mercy's affliction would stop and she wouldn't be murdered. They think they're preventing a murder by doing this.
[00:26:30] Sarah Jack: Was John Hathorne asleep or was he waiting? He was probably asleep and they didn't mind waking him to stop the murder.
[00:26:39] Josh Hutchinson: It's a warrant getting issued to call the judge in the dead of the night and try and get a suspect apprehended or a site searched in a hurry. And This guy's dead asleep, passed out, who knows what condition he's in.[00:27:00]
[00:27:00] Sarah Jack: is recovering, presumably.
[00:27:04] Josh Hutchinson: Presumably that family doesn't know what's going on at the Putnam house, because they're all in bed for the night. And they're thinking she's a free woman and she's going to be okay. And then it gets pulled back. That's, gut wrenching. It's ripping your heart right out of you. Imagine what both of the Isaacs felt at that moment and the rest of the family.
[00:27:31] Josh Hutchinson: You think your wife and mother is in the clear and then she's just jerked away from you.
[00:27:39] Sarah Jack: And they know she's innocent. It's like a community betrayal to them.
[00:27:44] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it would be so easy just to be angry at basically half the community is lining up against them. So many powerful people, the Putnams being involved and getting [00:28:00] George Herrick out in the dark of night. He also, the marshal of Essex County, would he have been asleep? Was he still awake on duty somewhere?
[00:28:12] Josh Hutchinson: How did they get him over there to Salem Village so fast?
[00:28:17] Sarah Jack: Not one of these men said, hold up, let's discuss this in the morning, because there wasn't time.
[00:28:24] Josh Hutchinson: And they're just, yeah, because there's that midnight deadline, it's that ticking clock, just ticking down and they're desperate people at this time, willing to do basically anything. It's I picture, just horses zipping along rough trails and roads in the dark at night, people carrying lanterns or torches, maybe.
[00:28:54] Sarah Jack: And Mercy's suffering.
[00:28:56] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, and Mercy the whole time is having this, these [00:29:00] seizures, these fits, and everybody around her is just gotta be so tense with worry. So everybody here is getting dragged through the emotional wringer this night. Nobody's winning this one.
[00:29:19] Josh Hutchinson: So arresting Mary Esty, maybe it saved Mercy Lewis's life in these people's minds, but it didn't stop her afflictions altogether. So what does that mean? What are the implications of that? Does it mean there are other people afflicting her, or is Mary Esty somehow still doing damage from jail?
[00:29:46] Sarah Jack: There would've been accused in the jail, right?
[00:29:48] Josh Hutchinson: There would have been other accused people in the jail.
[00:29:50] Sarah Jack: Yeah. So Mary arrives at the I can just imagine the wail, the wailings that could have happened, the gasping, [00:30:00] the shock, the disappointment, and the fear.
[00:30:04] Josh Hutchinson: Right.
[00:30:05] Sarah Jack: Big brother or Yeah, Big Brother. When the house is sequestered those, they're waiting to see who's gonna come to the sequester house. shocked who walks in. But this is not just somebody losing a game.
[00:30:22] Josh Hutchinson: I'm just thinking about the people who were in jail already. They get awoken in the middle of the night, they're curled up on their piles of straw and trying to sleep on the rough floors of the really dank dungeon. And they had woken up and they're in their half. Asleep state seeing Mary Esty come to them thinking, Oh, I was so hopeful when she got released that the rest of us would soon be released. And now she's back.
[00:30:59] Josh Hutchinson: [00:31:00] Totally stunned, totally caught off guard. Yeah. Just in shock, jaws dropped to the ground and just, still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. Am I seeing this? This is Mary Esty? Yeah. And I'd be crying my eyes out just thinking, I thought I might have a chance to get out of here like she did.
[00:31:22] Sarah Jack: Because nobody's been hanged at this point.
[00:31:25] Josh Hutchinson: No, this is still early. Nobody's been tried yet. But there've been people sitting in jail for two months by this point and just more and more people getting thrown in jail. And finally, there's a ray of hope for all the prisoners when Mary's freed that, oh, maybe, they're coming to their senses and this madness is going to end and then she's back.
[00:31:53] Sarah Jack: Absolutely. Because it's been several [00:32:00] people were hanged in the colonies.
[00:32:02] Josh Hutchinson: But the recent Goody Glover hanging in 1688, just three and a half years before this is unfolding would have still been,
[00:32:15] Josh Hutchinson: ,
[00:32:15] Josh Hutchinson: yeah. And that is tied to afflictions of children. And you're seeing that scenario play out but on this much larger scale. There's many more afflicted people, and they're pointing the finger at everybody. It doesn't matter your status or anything. They're coming after you.
[00:32:39] Sarah Jack: Those afflictions were affirmed by the authorities just a few years before.
[00:32:46] Josh Hutchinson: Cotton Mather himself had written his book, Memorable Providences, which featured the Goody Glover case and the so called possession or affliction of the [00:33:00] Goodwin children, the four children she was supposed to have tormented. And so that's fresh. People have read that book. They've heard that book being read. They've seen it around, they've heard sermons about witchcraft and everything, so it's all in their minds, and this is unfolding in real life, in their own lives.
[00:33:29] Sarah Jack: Right before their eyes.
[00:33:31] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it's just shocking. I would have been so bewildered and befuddled by Mary's return, panic stations right there.
[00:33:46] Mary Louise Bingham: Since the records of her second pretrial examination do not exist, one can surmise that Mary was interrogated this time at Beedle's Tavern or at the Salem Town Meeting House. Either way, [00:34:00] Mary was sent to the Boston jail on May 23rd. Two days later, Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Cloyce were transferred to that same jail. This would be the last time that all three sisters were together and hopefully found some type of comfort in each other.
[00:34:20] Mary Louise Bingham: In a deposition offered against all three Towne sisters, and most likely used at both Rebecca and Mary's trial, was that of John Putnam Jr. and his wife, Hannah. He spoke of his own afflictions, from which he recovered, and the afflictions of his infant child, who died. John and Hannah described the affliction of their baby as similar to those afflictions suffered by those who accused Mary. John and Hannah were so frightened for their child's life they sent for his mother and, later, a doctor. His mother believed the child was bewitched, and the doctor could not offer relief. John [00:35:00] said that the baby died such a violent death, and I quote, 'being enough to pierce a stony heart,' end quote. However, he does not say who bewitched the child.
[00:35:15] Mary Louise Bingham: So the gossip of which John referred somehow morphed into Joanna Towne, Mary's mother, being accused as a witch about 22 years prior to 1692. After researching, I discovered that Joanna was never formally accused of being a witch.
[00:35:34] Mary Louise Bingham: While Mary was in jail, her sister in law, Mary Browning Towne, who was the wife of Edmond Towne, was summoned to appear in court with all of her children on September 7th. They don't show up. Mary Towne issued a statement September 8th that the entire family was too sick to appear in court. At this time, her daughter, Rebecca, was [00:36:00] continually falling down for no apparent reason.
[00:36:03] Mary Louise Bingham: A second summons was issued only for Mary and her daughter, Rebecca, to appear. The return for the summons does not exist, so one might assume that Mary doesn't show up again, and it turns out that her daughter, Rebecca, does accuse Sarah Cloyce of bewitchment. The fact that they don't show up for Mary's trial does not save Mary's life, but it may have helped to delay Sarah's trial and saved Sarah's life. You see, the indictment against Sarah, which involved her niece, was returned ignoramus, along with the other three indictments. Sarah Cloyce never stood trial.
[00:36:48] Mary Louise Bingham: On September 9th, Mary and Sarah offered three suggestions to the magistrates. Number one, judges should offer legal advice to the accused, who did not have legal [00:37:00] representation. Number two, testimony should be heard from the family of the accused, their neighbors, and their religious leaders. And number three, balance the testimony of the afflicted with legal evidence.
[00:37:16] Mary Louise Bingham: Furthermore, Mary's solo petition to the court, which was composed to save others from being hanged, though her date was already chosen, suggests that the magistrates examine the afflicted separately and try some of the people who confessed. Mary was confident that some of the confessors were actually innocent and believed that they were innocent. And they disguised the fact that they had nothing to do with witchcraft.
[00:37:45] Mary Louise Bingham: Mary was hanged on September 22nd, 1692. Some of the family members start to petition to lift the stain from their family name in 1703. Isaac Esty, [00:38:00] Sr. and Jr., as well as Mary's daughter, Sarah Gill. And the same thing happened in 1709 and was signed by Isaac Esty and John Nurse, among others, who had other family members that were hanged. And then, of course, Isaac Senior's petition, spoken of earlier in 1710. October 17th, 1711, was Mary's reversal of attainder. Isaac had possibly passed away. His death date is not recorded, and Jacob is a subscriber for the Esty family. They were awarded the 20 pounds, and it was equally divided amongst their surviving children, who were Isaac Esty Jr., Joseph Esty, John Esty, Benjamin Esty, Jacob Esty, Joshua Esty, Sarah Gill, and Hannah Abbott.
[00:38:59] Sarah Jack: [00:39:00] We would like to close this segment with a reading of a petition Mary Esty submitted to the governor, judges, and ministers.
[00:39:06] Josh Hutchinson: The humble petition of Mary Esty unto His Excellencies Sir William Phipps, to the Honored Judge and Bench now sitting in Judicature in Salem, and the Reverend Ministers humbly showeth that whereas your poor and humble petitioner, being condemned to die, do humbly beg of you to take it into your judicious and pious considerations, that your poor and humble petitioner, knowing my own innocency, blessed be the Lord for it, and seeing plainly the wiles and subtlety of my accusers, I myself cannot but judge charitably of others that are going the same way of myself if the Lord steps not mightily in. I was confined a whole month upon the same account that I am condemned now for, and then cleared by the same afflicted persons, as some of your honors know. And in two days time, I [00:40:00] was cried out upon by them and have been confined, and now am condemned to die. The Lord above knows my innocency then, and likewise does now, as of the great day will be known to men and angels.
[00:40:14] Sarah Jack: I petition to your honors not for my own life, for I know I must die, and my appointed time is set. But the Lord, he knows it is that if it be possible, no more innocent blood may be shed, which undoubtedly cannot be avoided in the way and course you go in. I question not, but your honors does to the utmost of your powers in the discovery and detecting of witchcraft and witches, and would not be guilty of innocent blood for the world. But by my own innocency, I know you are in the wrong way. The Lord in His infinite mercy direct you in this great work if it be his blessed will that no more innocent blood be shed. I would humbly beg of you that your honors would be pleased to examine these afflicted persons strictly and keep them apart sometime, and likewise to try some of these [00:41:00] confessing witches, I being confident, there are several of them has belied themselves and others, as will appear, if not in this world, I am sure in the world to come, whither I am now a going, and I question not but you'll see an alteration of these things.
[00:41:15] Josh Hutchinson: ThEy say, myself and others, having made a league with the devil, we cannot confess. I know, and the Lord knows, as will shortly appear, they belie me, and so I question not but they do others. The Lord above, who is the searcher of all hearts, knows that, as I shall answer it at the tribunal seat, that I know not the least thing of witchcraft, therefore I cannot, I dare not, belie my own soul. I beg your honors not to deny this, my humble petition, from a poor, dying, innocent person, and I question not, but the Lord will give a blessing to your endeavors.

[00:41:56] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to stay tuned for a special announcement [00:42:00] following End Witch Hunts News.
[00:42:01] Sarah Jack: Discover your Towne family heritage with the Towne Family Association, dedicated to preserving the history of William Towne, Joanna Blessing, and their six children, including the three sisters from the Salem Witch Trials, Rebecca, Sarah, and Mary. Open to all interested in Towne family history, membership costs 22 for individuals and 25 for families annually. Take advantage of the special two year memberships at $40 for individuals and $44 for families. Join the community on Facebook in the Towne Cousins Facebook group to connect with over 2,000 other Towne family descendants. Embrace your roots. The Towne Family Association gets together every year for a reunion. In 2024, it will be in Salt Lake City, Utah. Find out more, visit the Facebook group Towne Cousins today.
[00:42:52] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts urges collective action to end witch hunting practices worldwide.
[00:42:57] Sarah Jack: At End Witch Hunts, we firmly believe in the power of [00:43:00] collective action to bring about positive change. In alignment with our mission, we proudly support the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices. Explore the impactful work of this global network and its affiliated advocacy organizations at theinternationalnetwork.org. Take a moment to visit their website, where you can scroll to the bottom of the homepage and subscribe to receive their latest news and updates. By staying informed and sharing what you learn in your daily conversations, you contribute to a deeper understanding of ongoing initiatives worldwide.
[00:43:35] Sarah Jack: Join us in actively participating in these crucial efforts. Our podcast episodes feature insightful conversations with experts deeply involved in the network. Hit play to gain valuable perspectives from Damon Leff, Leo Igwe, Govind Kelkar, Samantha Spence, Amit Anand, and Miranda Forsyth. By listening to their experiences, you'll not only broaden your knowledge but also become a part of the movement against witch hunts. [00:44:00] Together, let's make a difference.
[00:44:02] Sarah Jack: Are you a part of the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project? It is seeking exoneration for wrongfully convicted individuals in Boston's witch trials. We aim to secure formal apologies for all formerly accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts. Give your support by signing and sharing the petition at change.org/witchtrials. If you're in Massachusetts, engage your representatives in proposing the amendment. And if you're a voting member of the Massachusetts General Court, lead or collaborate on this amendment effort. Reach out to us for support. Let's unite to close this chapter of American history. Take action now.
[00:44:38] Sarah Jack: Thank you for supporting our projects by listening to and sharing our podcast episodes. If you'd like to further contribute, please consider a financial contribution. Your financial support empowers us to continue our education and advocacy efforts. During this holiday season, we invite you to keep End Witch Hunts in mind when considering your charitable gifts. We have [00:45:00] donate buttons on our websites. Your gift is tax deductible. Your support is instrumental in driving positive change and bringing an end to the dark history of witch hunting practices. For more information and to contribute, visit endwitchhunt.org.
[00:45:16] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:45:17] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:45:19] Josh Hutchinson: now we have our special important announcement.
[00:45:25] Josh Hutchinson: Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast will be renamed Witch Hunt and the change will take effect January 1st, 2024 when the ball drops in New York City.
[00:45:41] Sarah Jack: Josh and I will continue to host the show with important contributions from Mary.
[00:45:46] Josh Hutchinson: Witch Hunt will feature interviews with leading scholars and advocates.
[00:45:50] Sarah Jack: Topics will include past witch trials, modern extrajudicial witch hunts, and everything in between.
[00:45:58] Josh Hutchinson: We will also continue [00:46:00] to create 101 episodes about specific events, regions, and topics.
[00:46:05] Sarah Jack: As well as bonus episodes focused on representations of witches and witch hunts in popular culture.
[00:46:12] Josh Hutchinson: So thank you for continuing to listen to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast, and for listening to Witch Hunt next year.
[00:46:21] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:46:23] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:46:26] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:46:29] Josh Hutchinson: Which will become aboutwitchhunts.com/ January 1st. And remember to tell your friends about Witch Hunt, coming January 1st, and stay tuned for more great episodes of Thou Shalt Not Suffer all through December.
[00:46:46] Sarah Jack: Thou Shalt Not Suffer and Witch Hunt are presented by End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:46:54] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

November 30, 2023

A True Account of Pirates with Katherine Howe

Show Notes

New York Times Bestselling Author Katherine Howe climbs aboard ship for a captivating conversation about her new novel, A True Account: Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself. Embark on a voyage with us as Katherine navigates us across the enthralling seas of piracy history, offering listeners an unforgettable discussion that delves into the high-stakes world of seafaring adventures. Her expertise and passion shine through, making this episode a must-listen for history enthusiasts, book lovers, and anyone seeking a thrilling journey into the past. Ready to embark on a literary adventure? Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen! It’s time to press play and sail through the seas of history, mystery, and the indomitable spirit of characters like Hannah Masury. And we don’t forget the witch trials.

Pitch in here on #GivingTuesday, November 28th

www.KatherineHowe.com

Buy the book: A True Account by Katherine Howe

Buy the book: The Penguin Book of Witches, Edited by Katherine Howe

Order the book: The Penguin Book of Pirates, Edited by Katherine Howe

Petition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts

List of those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts

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Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Ahoy, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial and Pirate Podcast. I'm Able Seaman Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:19] Sarah Jack: And I'm First Mate Sarah 'Calico' Jack.
[00:00:23] Josh Hutchinson: Today's guest is acclaimed author Katherine Howe, who is here to talk to us about her new book on pirates.
[00:00:30] Sarah Jack: That's right, this is our special pirate Thanksgiving episode. You may also be asking what pirates are doing on a witch trial podcast.
[00:00:39] Josh Hutchinson: Well, you know Katherine Howe the witch trial writer, but you're fixing to meet Katherine Howe the pirate writer.
[00:00:45] Sarah Jack: As announced here last year, she has written a wonderful historical novel titled, A True Account, Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pirates, Written by Herself.
[00:00:55] Josh Hutchinson: It's not just wonderful. It's marvelous.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Sarah Jack: That's an understatement. I had such a great time reading this book.
[00:01:05] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Once I picked it up, I literally could not put it down until I was done. It's really a thrilling book, and you have to know what's coming up next, so it just keeps you in its hook like grip.
[00:01:24] Sarah Jack: Hannah's account pulls you in immediately, and you start hearing it from the moment the story begins. It's full of local history and Hannah.
[00:01:39] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, the beginning of the book is just so captivating and really drew me in. And that's why I just, from there on, things just kept going and going. And I had to keep reading and reading.
[00:01:58] Sarah Jack: This is one of those books, as soon as you [00:02:00] have your nose in it, you are so glad you picked this book up and started it and you're thinking about your schedule and you hope you can clear your calendar so you can enjoy every page.
[00:02:11] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, you will be willing to drop everything once you get into this. Forget about sleeping that night or running the errands. They can wait, but Hannah Masury's story cannot.
[00:02:25] Sarah Jack: Hey, book clubs, this is a book for your club. This is great for discussion.
[00:02:32] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, you really enjoy Katherine Howe's comments on the book in this episode, and you can use those as some talking points in your book club. And we talk about how there are more similarities between witches and pirates than you might think.
[00:02:54] Sarah Jack: Executing the witches and executing the pirates were both acts of purification for the community.[00:03:00]
[00:03:01] Josh Hutchinson: Katherine Howe is the best selling author of The Physic Book of Deliverance Dane, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs, Conversion, The House of Velvet and Glass, and The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen. She is editor of the Penguin Book of Witches and, coming soon, the Penguin Book of Pirates.
[00:03:21] Josh Hutchinson: She coauthored Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune and Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty with Anderson Cooper.
[00:03:32] Katherine Howe: Chapter One, Boston, June 1726. I don't know what made me determined to go to the hanging. I'd always made a point of avoiding them. I resisted the entreaties of my friends who wanted to be in amongst the throngs of onlookers, ears pricked for the last words and the pious advice of the soon to be damned. Of course, I'd always been curious. One cannot help but wonder about the face of one condemned, [00:04:00] to see his carriage toward the crowd and himself, to feel the swelling cheers and cries of all the townsfolk, to hear the crack of the felon's neck snapped like a chicken's. I wondered if their eyes were open or closed when their moment came.
[00:04:14] Katherine Howe: What happens in the instant in between being a living, breathing creature, trembling with needs and wants and fears, and being an empty sack of flesh and bone? Is it the same for an old woman alone in her bed with the covers pulled up tight as it is for a man mounting the scaffold before God and everyone? Does an unearthly light of heaven attained shine upon the greasy strings of their hair if they have confessed and repented? Everyone repents at the end, or so I've been told. I'd heard the moment of public death described often enough, usually by someone with a hand around a glass, but I'd always been of too delicate a nature to see for myself.
[00:04:54] Katherine Howe: I didn't like to drown kittens or stomp trembled whiskered mice, and as often as not found a way to avoid such grim [00:05:00] chores on the occasion Mrs. Tomlinson chose to impose them on me. I even crossed the street from dogs lying dead in the gutter. But something about William Fly was different. I made up my mind that I would go.
[00:05:15] Josh Hutchinson: Such a good introduction. That hook just grabbed me when I was reading it. So starting with the execution, that was quite a way, quite a bang right at the beginning.
[00:05:29] Katherine Howe: Why mess around? One of the things that I enjoyed about working on this book, because it's set in 1726, it opens at a real event. So the hanging of William Fly was a real thing that happened. William Fly led a short-lived mutiny and went briefly pirating off of Cape Hatteras, and then he trusted a guy to take him to, I think it was Martha's Vineyard for water with, he had renamed his boat the Thames Revenge, which is such a great pirate name, but the guy he trusted [00:06:00] to pilot him fooled him and led him off the coast of Boston, which of course now as a sailor in Massachusetts, I find myself wondering like going on the outside of Cape Cod, which is how you have to go to get from Martha's Vineyard, like all the way around and get back to Boston, it's actually like a really long trip. It's like really way out of their way because there was no Cape Cod canal to cut through. So that must have been, William Fly must have been a pretty naive leader, unfortunately.
[00:06:24] Katherine Howe: But what happened was William Fly's public trial and gibbeting. So William Fly is tried and he's found guilty and he's not just hanged in front of everyone, but he's gibbeted. And what that means is that his body, after he is dead, it hanged in chains in a public place for everybody to see. And so he was gibbeted on a little rock, one of the Boston Harbor islands called Nix's Mate, and just left there to rot. And the historian Marcus Rediker has pointed out that is a that practice of publicly [00:07:00] displaying the mutilated bodies of people convicted of piracy was a, was like a conscious act of terror by the state. The state was trying to terrorize people out of thinking of turning to piracy.
[00:07:12] Katherine Howe: And it's so interesting to me because, of course, this is so most people who know my fiction associate me with Salem witch trial stories or Salem stories. And of course, this is a generation later, because Salem is 1692 and William Fly is 1726. But the idea of using public execution as a mode of terror is still very much in play. And interestingly enough, too, one of the theologians who presided over William Fly's trial was Cotton Mather himself. He was much more famous by the time the 1720s rolled around, and at the beginning of the story, in A True Account, we actually talk a little bit about his fame, that people respond to him like, like he's a celebrity, they freak out when they see him in the street.
[00:07:56] Katherine Howe: And Hannah Masury, is bound out to service in a [00:08:00] real tavern, Ship Tavern is a real place, at the foot of Clark Wharf, which is a real wharf, one of the longest, most major wharfs in pre-revolutionary Boston. And so I imagine her mistress, Mrs. Tomlinson, as being very much enthralled to Cotton Mather, very much like touched by his fame and the proximity of his fame.
[00:08:20] Katherine Howe: And so at one point, I even have Hannah remark to herself that she grew up in Beverly, which is a town close to Salem, which is on the water, a seafaring town, and that she grew up close to where Cotton Mather had driven the devils out of Salem a generation before, before she was born, which seems impossible to her, as impossible as driving fairies out of a hole in the ground, because public thinking about witchcraft had changed by the 1720s, but not completely. Hannah is still living in this sort of just post-Calvinist world and much of her internal monologue or the way that she understands the world is inflected by [00:09:00] Christianity because of the moment in which she's living, even though she herself is living a very, what we might term, unchristian life.
[00:09:09] Josh Hutchinson: As you mentioned, you're known for writing about Salem Witch Trials. What drew you away from that to write about pirates?
[00:09:18] Katherine Howe: I think, I think everyone is secretly attracted to pirates. Maybe that's a sweeping generalization, but maybe it was partly having spent so much time thinking about the world of very early European-settled, English-settled Massachusetts, and what an incredibly strict and hierarchical culture that was. And trying to imagine ways that people chafed under that structure or bucked that structure a little bit. And if Salem was, if the Salem Witch Crisis was one example of when regular people are at the center of the story, which is so a little bit unusual. So [00:10:00] much of our history is so called great man history where you talk about leaders or kings or queens or people who are in charge. And I've never been particularly interested by the people who are in charge. I'm much more interested by the people who are just trying to make their way in the world who are regular people.
[00:10:15] Katherine Howe: And so another instance of regular people in extraordinary circumstances is piracy. So often pirates didn't plan to be pirates, or they turned to piracy through mutiny or, as William Fly did, through what they called hard usage, and especially at a time when impressment was such a big part of the British Navy. You could be snatched away from everything that you knew in your life and thrown into a ship with no desire to ever leave the land and have your freedom taken away. And so I was interested by piracy, like the golden age of piracy, which kind of wound down in the 1720s, but stretched broadly from the 1680s to the 1720s, the same period [00:11:00] as the period of the witch trials in North America.
[00:11:02] Katherine Howe: And also it is an example of the collision between the most radical forms of freedom and the most radical forms of unfreedom. Because so much golden age piracy was inextricably bound up with the money to be made in the transatlantic slave trade, and one of the reasons that it was so important to the state to strike terror into the hearts of mariners of the threat of being tried as pirates was because of the economic risks that they posed to this very wealthy triangle trade between the Caribbean and the North American colonies and Great Britain.
[00:11:40] Katherine Howe: And so I was, I just was very drawn to the idea of here are people in extreme circumstances, under extreme forms of constraint, or sometimes forced servitude, and who throw off those constraints, often using violence and often, with no hope of success, [00:12:00] really, depending on how we define success.
[00:12:03] Katherine Howe: So I was just very, I was very moved by it, and also very moved by, the story of witchcraft is so much a story about women in extreme circumstances, and typically piracy is a story of men in extreme circumstances, but not always. There are a couple of very famous examples of women who disguised themselves as men and went pirating, and I was very moved by that possibility and what that might look like and how that might feel.
[00:12:34] Katherine Howe: And so I have Hannah Masury at the beginning of her story, she gets a sort of traditional call to adventure, as a way of structuring the story, where she's working, she's in her late teens, we never really learn exactly how old she is. She's bound out to service, which is not unusual for this time period. In fact, Abigail Williams, famously, who kicked off the Salem Witch Panic, who was 11 years old and was bound out to service.[00:13:00]
[00:13:00] Katherine Howe: And so Hannah ends up getting tangled up in the events around the trial of William Fly and winds up having to flee for her life in a way that she does that, because the only way in or out of Boston, pre-revolutionary Boston at this time, was by the Neck, which is a long, skinny stretch of land. So Boston at the time was this, was a peninsula. And it was very easy to choke off access to that peninsula. The only way that Hannah could escape, people are trying to hunt her down. I don't want to give away too much about why they're trying to hunt her down. They're trying to hunt her down, and so the only way she can flee is over the water. And so she disguises herself and ships out on what she thinks is a fruit packet down for the Azores. And then her adventure goes in a pretty wildly unexpected direction.
[00:13:47] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, quite a lot of wildly unexpected directions. Yeah, you keep us guessing what's going to happen next.
[00:13:56] Katherine Howe: Yeah, I don't want to give too many twists away, but I've been telling, when [00:14:00] people ask me about this story, I've been telling people it's a little bit like Treasure Island meets Gone Girl. And and there are people who are fans of pirate fiction, anyone who's read Treasure Island is going to see a couple of little winks here and there, narrative winks or things that are slightly familiar seeming but that is of course like the ultimate pirate story, which is also set in the 17, I've never learned the specific year, but sometime in the 1700s, but was written in the 19th century.
[00:14:29] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's what got me interested in pirates, Treasure Island. Read that very early.
[00:14:36] Katherine Howe: Yeah we're, I have a young son and I've been reading Treasure Island to him at night for some weeks now. And as you can imagine, we're a completely normal family. So his playhouse in our garden has a pirate flag on it. It has a sign hanging from it that says the Admiral Benbow Inn, which is where the action starts in Treasure Island, and a bill of fare hanging from a nearby tree. And my son likes to demand kid rum. Everything's completely [00:15:00] normal in my family. Kid rum is water, I hasten to add.
[00:15:04] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, okay.
[00:15:05] Katherine Howe: Not to worry. That's a worry.
[00:15:08] Josh Hutchinson: I was thinking it was a Juicy Juice or something.
[00:15:10] Katherine Howe: no. He gets very frustrated when other kids want to play pirates, but they don't know all the weird, obscure plot points of Treasure Island. He's no, you have to be the blind man.
[00:15:19] Katherine Howe: He's, very controlling. Anyway,
[00:15:22] Josh Hutchinson: That's adorable.
[00:15:23] Sarah Jack: It is. And he'll share his love for the story with his peers. Yeah.
[00:15:28] Katherine Howe: Whether they want him to or not.
[00:15:33] Sarah Jack: How has your love for sailing influenced your writing about seafaring?
[00:15:37] Katherine Howe: I think certainly my, I sail a lot in my free time. It's my only hobby, really. And it was inevitable that I would want to write a seafaring story, even though they're perhaps a little bit out of fashion these days, but there's something so unique about being at the mercy of the elements so completely. I mean, there are many elements of [00:16:00] seafaring that are attractive from a fiction perspective. One is that it is this self-contained world, if we're talking about the Age of Sail. You're living within this community in very close quarters. of a really profound intimacy can form, but even within that intimacy there is rigid hierarchies and structures and lines of authority and lines of command.
[00:16:22] Katherine Howe: There's also an incredible technicality to it that I find interesting, and especially imagining someone like Hannah, who has no background in seafaring at all, suddenly finding herself in this universe of ropes, where every rope has a specific name and a specific purpose, and the technical aspects of it, and how much knowledge there is to acquire in order to be able to effectively make a sailing ship go has was interesting to me from a narrative perspective.
[00:16:52] Katherine Howe: And also I think there's the idea of exploration, the idea of we now live in this world of instant discovery. If I want to [00:17:00] see what a picture of New Guinea looks like, all I have to do is type it into my phone. But the idea of these undiscovered worlds or uncharted worlds, you know maps that say 'here there be monsters,' and the idea of sailing into the unknown is for me, still a very romantic idea and something that I find interesting to think about. And over the course of the story in A True Account, we encounter many different characters who are all trying to find a path towards their own self-determination. If anything, I think that is the theme of the book. There’s Hannah, obviously, who’s trying to find her own route to freedom, if you will.
[00:17:42] Katherine Howe: Many of the pirate characters that she encounters are themselves actually seizing their own authority and freedom for themselves. And something about the freedom and the rebellion of it has always been very attractive to me.
[00:17:57] Katherine Howe: And also just speaking [00:18:00] personally, I think there are only two times in my life when I'm really fully present. And both of those times, one, one is when I'm writing, if I'm really engaged in what I'm writing and I'm completely involved in it. And then the other is when I'm sailing, when I'm underway, because it is so necessary to completely focus your attention on what you're doing, on what the surroundings are, on what's going to happen next.
[00:18:25] Katherine Howe: There's no room for distraction. There's no room for worrying about something else. There's no room for preoccupation. And for someone like me who lives in the head so much all the time, that is an incredibly liberating sensation. And so my mind, I wanted to try to explore in fiction, what that sensation can be like, and what that distinctly weird world is like as well.
[00:18:52] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah you built the world so excellently. All of those details that you put in, [00:19:00] and I loved learning the the terminology that you were just talking about, the names of the ropes, the mizzenmast, and this and that, and they're so good.
[00:19:11] Katherine Howe: Thanks. And I, believe it or not, I don't even get all that technical. If you read Patrick O'Brien, it's simply staggering how much, he's the guy who wrote Master and Commander, simply staggering the level of detail that he's able to access. But having Hannah come into a sailing world, naive, means that I can get away without actually weighing it down with a whole lot of jargon.
[00:19:35] Katherine Howe: But I also enjoy, I think there's so many turns of phrase and idioms that we use in English that are derived from seafaring, some of which we know in an abstract way, but many of which I think we don't know. Three sheets to the wind for being drunk is a great one, or armed to the teeth means carrying a knife in your mouth because you're about to board somebody else and you need to bring your arms with you. I really enjoyed unearthing some of [00:20:00] those turns of phrase that we still have this nautical discourse that we're not even aware that we use.
[00:20:07] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, really all of that, the rich detail, really helped bring the world to life. It was like you're there experiencing all the senses. Job well done.
[00:20:18] Katherine Howe: Thank you very much. But not too jargony, right? I hope not.
[00:20:22] Josh Hutchinson: No I was able to follow and I think I've been on boats like twice and they've been like speedboats at lakes.
[00:20:31] Josh Hutchinson: Uh,

[00:20:33] Katherine Howe: Glad to hear that, that it worked okay for you, Josh.
[00:20:36] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, my brother is in the Navy and he knows a lot about naval history, so I'm going to send him a copy of the book and see what he thinks of it. I think he'll get a kick out of it like I did.
[00:20:50] Katherine Howe: I hope so.
[00:20:52] Sarah Jack: And it allowed for us to really, as you said, experience her introduction to what she was going to [00:21:00] have to do to cope on that vessel and work. And As you can even hear in the very introduction of your book, you take us right into who Hannah Masury is. We start to learn the details about her. Who is Hannah?
[00:21:17] Katherine Howe: So Hannah Masury is, in the book, she's in her late teens. She was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, but she doesn't really remember any of her early childhood, because from when she was very small, she, it's hazy what her family situation was, but it's clear that wherever she was living, she, her parents couldn't afford to keep her, which was not unusual at that time.
[00:21:42] Katherine Howe: And so she's given to a distant relative of her mother's, and she doesn't remember if it's an aunt or a cousin, it's some kinswoman, some like long, long distance family member named Mrs. Tomlinson, who runs this inn, Ship Tavern. And Mrs. Tomlinson we understand has 13 kids, and it's a [00:22:00] boisterous kind of place.
[00:22:01] Katherine Howe: And Ship Tavern, most of their customers are Men who are sailors, who have just come rolling into town and need a place to stay, and not unlike Treasure Island, which opens in an inn, so the first, the character in Treasure Island is Jim Hawkins, and he is working in the Admiral Benbow Inn, and so I had Hannah begin her working life in a seafaring inn, which is when she first starts to encounter some of the pirate life, and similarly to early scenes, for example, in Moby Dick, you know, There's a lot of scenes there opening in where Ishmael meets Queequeg because they have to share a bunk. Because in many of these places it was very crowded and you would have to sleep in shifts or sleep two sailors to a bed head to foot or things like that.
[00:22:44] Katherine Howe: So one thing I wanted to explore a bit was the kind of, once again, I think when we look at the past we have a tendency to look at the way people with wealth lived. And it's partly because the material culture of people with wealth was more likely to [00:23:00] survive. We have a greater picture, we have a greater imagination of what a grand house might be like. House museums tend to preserve a higher class level of living. And I wanted to try to explore what was a more common way of living in around 1726.
[00:23:17] Katherine Howe: And so Hannah's days were organized by her work. She's a girl of all work. She has to wait at tables and scrub things and clean things and empty the chamber pots and do all those nasty things that she wouldn't want to do. But she also has friends who are like her. She has like girls that she hangs out with who are in similar circumstances.
[00:23:37] Katherine Howe: And early on she, she sneaks out of the inn after her mistress has told her she can't go to William Fly's hanging. She had seen them at church, because the pirates had been brought to church to be preached at by Cotton Mather, who was trying to bring them back publicly to repent. There are sins of swearing and whoring and disobedience.[00:24:00]
[00:24:00] Katherine Howe: And so it was, there was really in this time period, a unified perspective between religious leadership and government leadership to try to ensure compliance and obedience. And one of the things that I found so moving and striking about it was that in, in William Fly, Hannah sees someone who refuses to comply, who refuses to bend to what authority demands of him.
[00:24:29] Katherine Howe: And that is the moment that invites her own refusal of the circumstances in which she's living. And as she goes on her adventure, she ends up having to disguise herself as a boy, as a cabin boy, to go on this ship. And there are ways that I deal with objections, like why it might seem difficult for a girl to make it like she was a boy on in this time period, but I think it's actually quite credible, the more you think about it, the more you know about what the body would have been like after a [00:25:00] lifetime of work and after a lifetime of insufficient nourishment and things like that. And so we watch her come into herself or come into being as. As the more time she spends on the fruit packet, which we think is called the Reporter, but then is revealed to have actually been a ship called the Fancy, we watch her come into herself. She starts to learn what she's doing. She starts to learn her way around. She does things that she would never have imagined herself doing. At the beginning of the story, we see her steal a mug from a drunk person who is in her tavern, who drives her crazy. And at one point, that's the worst crime she's ever committed in her life. And then, within a few months, she committed crimes she never thought that she could possibly have imagined.
[00:25:45] Katherine Howe: And so one thing that I liked thinking about with Hannah was, not that she's proud of everything that she's done. She's still a moral being. But it's also an examination of what happens to our moral systems based on the circumstances in which we [00:26:00] find ourselves. In some context, morality is a luxury. And so I wanted to look at what it would be like, not to write an anti hero exactly, but to write someone who does things that we personally might find horrifying or objectionable, but to write it in such a way that we not only understand why she does them, but actually sympathize with her choices that she's made. I'm being a little bit deliberately vague, because I don't wanna give too many things away. And in the end, I also don't wanna give away the matter of what happens in the end.
[00:26:33] Katherine Howe: But suffice it to say, I also have fun with the pirate tropes. There's definitely a parrot, there's definitely a guy with one leg, there's definitely treasure, because you can't have a pirate story without a parrot, you've got one leg, and treasure.
[00:26:47] Katherine Howe: And one of the other things that is fun for me in this book, in A True Account and which you can see in the title, A True Account: Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pirates, Written by Herself, is the question of what is true?[00:27:00] Can something be emotionally true, but factually false? What does it mean to have a relationship between truth and fiction?
[00:27:08] Katherine Howe: And there's an ongoing debate about authorship and and authority, and who is writing what in the course of this story, and who is reading what in the course of this story. I get a little bit meta, but hopefully not in an exhausting kind of way. But as someone who is a historian who writes fiction, these are issues that I think about all the time, especially knitting together things that really happen, like William Fly's trial, I actually take pretty much verbatim from the trial transcripts. So all the discourse that happens on when William Fly is hanged, I didn't make it up. It's what people actually said. And Hannah herself is based on some historical antecedents, but she herself is a fictional character. So what does it mean if I'm braiding those things together?
[00:27:55] Josh Hutchinson: She's such a rich character, how hard has it been for [00:28:00] you to wait to be able to introduce her to the world?
[00:28:04] Katherine Howe: I'm very, I feel very close to Hannah. I think I'm more emotionally involved with her than I have been with a lot of my protagonists. I'm still very emotionally involved with the protagonist in my first novel, Connie Goodwin, because I think it's not unusual to feel very close to your protagonist in your first novel and because she was so personal to me, but I feel very emotionally involved with Hannah. I feel protective of her, maybe because she's younger than me, by a lot actually now. But at the same time, I feel proud of her, and, and so I'm excited for people to meet her. I'm curious. I'm very curious what people are going to think. Also cause it's not usual for me to write someone who does despicable things, and Hannah definitely does some despicable things. But at the same time I feel, I don't know, proud of her. Is that the right word? I don't even know. It's a little unusual for me to still be as [00:29:00] emotionally bound up with a fictional character.
[00:29:04] Katherine Howe: It's a shame to say that you play favorites with your protagonists, but right now I'm definitely feeling, I'm very, I'm treasuring Hannah a little bit right now.
[00:29:12] Sarah Jack: What you did with presenting her and bringing us along and what she was experiencing is incredible. Even, even when she was like needing to rest, you like felt it with her. Is she going to get enough hours to recuperate? So I can see how you would feel so proud of her. As a reader, and you start to feel like, oh, maybe she's your friend, or you want her to be your friend. You want to know her more and more. So when she takes care of things, does things to move forward and take care of yourself, you're like, it's a role model in a way for determination and moving forward.
[00:29:54] Katherine Howe: Thank you. One thing that also comes up in this book, and a lot of my fiction [00:30:00] deals with the ways that gender roles constrain or enable things that we're able to do, that we're expected to do. And this book is a little bit unusual. A True Account is unusual in being pretty explicit about about gender roles, in part because Hannah makes such a conscious decision to disguise herself. She assumes a different identity, and that identity is of a different gender.
[00:30:25] Katherine Howe: And there's another character in the book, and I don't want to give it away, it's too much of a twist. There's another character in the book who has a similar kind of fraught relationship with her own gender, with her own sexuality, at a different moment in time.
[00:30:39] Katherine Howe: And so I wanted it to be a way for the story to talk about a different perspective on the kinds of strictures that are in place, historically, but I think in the present too, we're living through this really interesting moment where so many young people are rethinking what gender can mean and what it [00:31:00] should mean and what they want it to mean and taking control of it for themselves.
[00:31:04] Katherine Howe: And in some ways, I was looking for a historical lens through which to think through some of those same kinds of questions. And, so it's inevitably different and historically grounded and rooted in sources, but it is trying to be part of that conversation. I think I've been thinking a lot about gender roles throughout my fiction writing career. But this is a another way of looking at it, as well.
[00:31:29] Josh Hutchinson: You alluded to another character. As in your other works, this is a dual timeline narrative. What's the relationship of each timeline to the other? How do they, are they echoes of the same story?
[00:31:49] Katherine Howe: Yeah, again, I don't want to give too much away, but there is a mystery that is, that surrounds Hannah's story. And there is a [00:32:00] character who is looking at Hannah's story and is trying to figure out whether it is a true account or not. And which is one reason I was so wedded to the title, A True Account, because it is insisting on its own truth.
[00:32:13] Katherine Howe: And yet anything that is trying to insist on its own truth, I think you should automatically question whether or not it is true. And so there is a kind of a framing story. And in a similar way to Hannah looking at William Fly and taking him as an inspiration for a change that she makes in her life, I have a character who's looking at Hannah and who ends up taking some of Hannah into herself and thinking about ways that it can change what her life is going to look like. And again, I don't wanna give it too much away, 'cause there's a, there is a little bit of a twist involved. There is a relationship between those two.
[00:32:51] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I definitely don't want to give away the ending, so we won't even go within 50 miles of that. I'll just say that it's such a [00:33:00] good ending. Readers will be pleased with that. Take care in the way you wrap things up.
[00:33:07] Katherine Howe: Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, as usual, there are a couple of like local nonprofits I should probably like warn are in this book. I don't think the Beverly Historical Society has any idea that they're mentioned in this book, I should probably tell them as a courtesy.
[00:33:22] Josh Hutchinson: Oh yeah, and maybe they'll get some questions in there. Can we see Hannah's book?
[00:33:27] Josh Hutchinson: In addition to the dual timelines, you also do an artful job of weaving a lot of different story threads through. You've got people on a sort of a quest for independence and freedom, but there's the pirating that happens and there's other layers.
[00:33:50] Katherine Howe: One, one major character that Hannah meets, so Hannah ends up meeting some real people and some fictional people. One of the real people that Hannah meets is a guy named [00:34:00] Edward Low, who was one of, who was a real person who was based for a time in Boston in this period, and he was a real pirate, and he was a famously cruel one. He was the guy who, one of the best known kind of first person accounts of piracy in this period was actually written by a Marbleheader named Philip Ashton, who was a fisherman on the Grand Banks and who was captured by Ned Low and escaped. He ran away from him in an island in the Gulf of Honduras and ended up having to live on his own on an island before he hitched a ride home on a ship that was based out of Salem.
[00:34:37] Katherine Howe: And so we learn a lot about Ned Low's cruelty, and we get a lot of the details about life on board a pirate ship come from some of those sources. From that, we actually learned that Ned Low had a soft spot for dogs. That was true. And we learned that he refused to have married men in his crew, the [00:35:00] nominal reason being that that he felt that someone should be home with their family if they had a family, but practically, as Hannah comes to think to herself, that's, there's a less noble interpretation of it, and that is that somebody who is married has a reason not to fight, if they have something else to live for, they're not going to fight quite as hard. There are a couple of ways you can interpret Ned Lowe's perspective in that regard. So she meets Ned Lowe, and some of the details about pirating come from the truth of what happened with Ned Low and some of his raidings.
[00:35:34] Katherine Howe: And there's another character she meets who is a fictional character, but who is based on fact, and that character is a man named Seneca, who is a little bit older than Hannah, he's in his early twenties. And Seneca we gradually realize is a self-liberating person. He, we never really learn any of his backstory, but we do learn that he liberated himself from bondage and went pirating, and there are actually several examples of [00:36:00] men who took it upon themselves to flee a life in bondage and to take to the high seas in doing that.
[00:36:07] Katherine Howe: And in fact, one of the things that was so interesting to me in reading primary sources of piracy was the ways that there are so many more pirates of color than he would anticipate. In fact one of the most notorious North American pirates was Blackbeard, who was active in the Carolinas. And when he was finally taken off the coast of, I think it was Hatteras. When he was finally taken, half the crew who was with him were men of color. And in fact, there was a guy who was all set to, he was like, with, he had a flint and he was all set to blow up the gunpowder magazine and destroy the entire ship and himself out of loyalty to Blackbeard. And he was talked out of it by a guy who was like imprisoned nearby, "no, don't do it."
[00:36:50] Katherine Howe: And and it's interesting to me, because I think there's some ways in which pirates of color get overwritten if you look at a lot of pop culture, Pirates [00:37:00] of the Caribbean or whatever, every, everybody is white, but that's just not what it looked like. One of the things that was really interesting to me was to think about the way that pirate crews tended to be these mostly men of like of no country in a way, and so the crew that Hannah ends up joining are from all over the place. One of the characters that she deals with is a Spanish Creole from, who had lived in Louisiana and speaks French. One of the guys, originally from Marblehead, but it's been a lot of his time in St. Petersburg, because that's where he had ended up traveling. There, there were men from the west coast of Africa. There are men from the Caribbean. There are men who are native. There are men who are all different kinds of people. And so the thing that binds them all together is their will to self determination and perhaps a certain degree of brutality.
[00:37:49] Katherine Howe: But I was and still am very interested in the ocean as its own nation, and so one argument that the novel, that A True Account makes is [00:38:00] that it's like a different model of citizenship, in a way, that you are no longer bound to wherever you happen to have been born or even where you happen to have spent most of your time on land. You're bound to the articles you pledge yourself to live under, and you're bound to your shipmates.
[00:38:18] Katherine Howe: And one of the terms of art that I liked about piracy is the way that the collective of pirates would be called the people. The people choose this, the people elect the captain by popular acclaim, the people do this, people do that. And especially given this time period, in the early part of the 18th century, that idea of the people, of the polis, is such a unique and intoxicating idea, such a proto democratic idea, almost, that it's something that I was really interested to explore.
[00:38:49] Katherine Howe: And so Seneca ends up. We discovered that Seneca has named himself because he has cast off the name that was foisted upon him, and no one's allowed to use it. And so he has chosen [00:39:00] the name of a philosopher for himself, a Stoic, and when we first meet him, or when Hannah first meets him, she doesn't know what a philosopher is.
[00:39:08] Katherine Howe: And so I liked the idea. It was important to me to have a main character who was a person of color, who was a self liberating person, because that is a part of the history of piracy that I feel like hasn't been really sufficiently explored.
[00:39:23] Josh Hutchinson: The articles and the structure of how they organize themselves on the ship was, it's so radically different than what Hannah grew up with where she's got Mrs. Tomlinson being the authority figure, but then beyond Mrs. Tomlinson, there's the ministers and the magistrates.
[00:39:45] Katherine Howe: Everybody outranks Hannah in Boston in 1726. And so the moment that she discovers that when she's on a pirate ship, they all put their, they all sign the articles, which are loosely based, I think, on the [00:40:00] articles of war. But it is a list of rules that really existed that spelled out their obligations to each other, who the officers were and how much everyone would be paid, how much people would be paid in the event of their being maimed or otherwise hurt and offers specific outlined bonuses. So when she discovers that there's a special bonus, you get to choose the best arms on board if you are the first person to spot a prize that you end up taking. It's the first time that Hannah has ever really been in an incentive labor relationship, that where she actually has an incentive to, to apply herself and do what she's doing.
[00:40:38] Katherine Howe: And she throws herself into it very quickly. And we actually see how she is able to rise a little bit in the ranks from just being like a regular crew member to being rated able. Being an able seaman gives her like a greater sense of authority and purposefulness and belonging.
[00:40:57] Sarah Jack: When I read your [00:41:00] articles, I thought how enjoyable that must have been for you to create. And then I just, I felt like I was taking all your bait through the story. And the article that jumped out to me... You know, a few sentences after the articles, here you have Hannah grabbing onto that article. And I had already written a note for myself. Oh, this is my favorite one. We saw that as her in, know, one of her ends, one of her ways to get traction to her next step. So I really loved the articles. I loved picking one and then finding that I was following the crumbs. I was like, oh man.
[00:41:40] Katherine Howe: I'm glad. Yeah. Yeah. Hannah has freakish farsightedness, which is actually something that that I've given her for myself. There's not a whole lot of myself personally in Hannah, but I've always been farsighted. And particularly in one eye more than the others, which makes this bad for ball sports. So don't expect to throw a ball at me and have [00:42:00] me actually catch it. But can be handy when you're looking for something on the horizon.
[00:42:05] Katherine Howe: I will also mention as you can imagine, I did a lot of research for A True Account. And the fruit of that research, besides the novel itself, is that in February, I'm releasing an edited volume, The Penguin Book of Pirates for Penguin Classics. And it's going to be a primary source reader, basically like The Penguin Book of Witches.
[00:42:26] Katherine Howe: And it will include a lot of the original source materials that I read to fuel my imagination for a true account and for Hannah's adventure. And it starts in the 1500s and goes up through the Amistad, the case of the Amistad, which is in the 19th century, and I'm pretty excited for people to read that book. I think it's going to be really fun. And it also includes two excerpts from the most widespread fictional accounts of [00:43:00] pirates. One thing that's interesting to me, both as a historian, but also as obviously as a fiction writer is the way that, especially for something like piracy, the way that myth and fact can sometimes blur a little bit.
[00:43:13] Katherine Howe: So there are a few examples in The Penguin Book of Pirates that are not factual, but were so widely circulated that people mistook them for fact. And then it includes two excerpts, one from Peter and Wendy, the novel version of Peter Pan, which talks about Captain Hook. And the other is 'What I Heard in the Apple Barrel,' the chapter from Treasure Island where Jim learns that Long John Silver is actually the leader of a secret pirate crew.
[00:43:44] Katherine Howe: And it was fun to do those both, because those are both pirate stories we all know so intently, they're dramatized so much. And yet have you actually really gone back and really read them? For instance, Captain Hook [00:44:00] in Peter and Wendy, which is from 1911, we learned that he was a graduate of Eton.
[00:44:05] Katherine Howe: And so like a lot of Captain Hook's ridiculousness, like you picture him, this sort of Disney restoration flowing wig and then crazy, the crazy coat and everything. But his foppishness derives from an embedded class critique in Peter and Wendy beyond anything else.
[00:44:22] Katherine Howe: Or it's also interesting to me that there is actually an allusion in Peter and Wendy. Hook's nickname is Barbecue, or they talk about him going up against a pirate named Barbecue, and they're actually alluding to Long John Silver in Treasure Island. So they're like origin point, because Long John Silver's nickname is Barbecue in Treasure Island. So there is this intertextual aspect of even classic pirate lore, and that extends even into examples of actual piracy itself, because the generation of pirates who were active at the beginning of the 18th century, [00:45:00] like Edward Low or Blackbeard or some of these other guys that we know. They're actually a generation later then the first golden age generation of pirates from the 1680s, 1690s. So the guys who go pirating in the 1720s and teens have been hearing stories about the guys who were pirating in the 1680s and 1690s. So there's already this like meta aspect of even actual piracy.
[00:45:26] Katherine Howe: And in fact, one of the, one of the guys who's my favorite is he was the guy who was dramatized in Our Flag Means Death. So one of the guys who was an active pirate in Bermuda, I think it was, in the 1710s and 1720s, was a guy named Stede Bonnet, and Stede Bonnet is fascinating, because whereas usually men go pirating out of necessity or a desperation, Stede Bonnet is rich and decides he just feels like going pirating. He gets out a ship, he hires the crew, [00:46:00] he consciously chooses to leave his life as a wealthy plantation owner and go raiding on the high seas. And he likes to wear all red and red feathers, and there's this very self aware aspect to it that I thought was really, it was really fascinating. So that's one of the reasons that the story in a true account is very much engaged with questions of authorship and truth and fiction and the relationship between those things and what is, what counts as a trustworthy source when we're talking about piracy.
[00:46:37] Sarah Jack: What you do with your writing, your fiction writing, shows the power of historical fiction and why historical characters and fictional character representations of historical characters are so important.
[00:46:52] Katherine Howe: Thank you very much. I'm glad that you think so. I have a sort of a different approach to historical fiction, but I think it's mainly, I think it's largely rooted in being an [00:47:00] Americanist and being, as I said before, particularly interested in the kinds of stories or the kinds of histories that are largely overwritten by the archive or are harder to excavate from the archive, stories about regular people, stories about people who are not literate or are not otherwise remembered, people who maybe have dramatic and memorable lives, but maybe those lives are not written in, historical annals. And so I think that's my perspective as a historical fiction author.
[00:47:35] Katherine Howe: I'm not going to be writing any regency romances, I'm afraid. Although I do enjoy them, they are quite fun, but there's not going to be any court intrigue and no regency romance in my wheelhouse.

[00:47:48] Katherine Howe: Piracy, yes. Riots, absolutely.
[00:47:54] Josh Hutchinson: oh, wonderful, yeah,
[00:47:57] Sarah Jack: Yes.
[00:47:58] Katherine Howe: 100%.[00:48:00]
[00:48:01] Josh Hutchinson: I'm there for that,
[00:48:02] Katherine Howe: Yeah,
[00:48:02] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah I wanted to know if we could talk about Hannah's sexuality,
[00:48:08] Katherine Howe: Sure. Yeah,
[00:48:10] Josh Hutchinson: because You've mentioned a lot of the important themes in this story, but one of those is her quest for finding herself, and that's revealed partly through her sexuality.
[00:48:23] Katherine Howe: That's true. And yeah, writing Hannah as an explicitly sexual being, I'm, I tend to be a prude. And most of my fiction is very PG or PG 13. I tend to like, not have romantic scenes that much just because I don't think I'm very good at them. They're actually really hard to do well.
[00:48:43] Katherine Howe: And so Hannah is, for me, is a little bit of a departure in that she is so explicitly a sexual being. And one of the questions that I wanted to raise in thinking about her was, I think was the extent to which [00:49:00] she, because she operates because of her class status and because of her gender, she operates in a tense point between, on the one hand, she could be seen as sexually vulnerable, right? And there are moments in the course of the story where we see a picture of that vulnerability.
[00:49:22] Katherine Howe: Like at one point, she's, she's coming home from having sneaked off with her friends to watch William Fly's hanging, and she's on her way home and she doesn't want to go back to the inn because she's going to get in trouble for having sneaked out. And so she's hanging out in the street for a while by herself, but it's nighttime. But then she starts to attract attention because she is a young woman alone at night in the street, and she has to, and nothing happens in that moment, but I wanted to, us to be aware of what that choice would suggest about her.
[00:49:52] Katherine Howe: We don't get a full picture of, of her life, her tavern life, as she puts it. But, she, there is a [00:50:00] fluidity to her sexuality, also. She has a quasi-romantic relationship with one of her female friends. And she gives us to understand that she'll let people stop in her hayloft with her, but that it's her decision.
[00:50:15] Katherine Howe: And so on the one hand, she, within the context of her time, she is morally, like debased is too strong of a word, but she's not married. She is not a virgin. She is a sexual person, despite the fact that she's young and she's not married and she lives in this Calvinist, just post-Calvinist moment.
[00:50:37] Katherine Howe: But at the same time, I wanted to explore Hannah, the way that Hannah takes what could be a vulnerability and turns it into a source of power for her, a source of power, also a source of pleasure, because Hannah, in, in her life has so little of her own, right? So little of her own that she owns or that she can enjoy or that she can rely on or that [00:51:00] she can count on.
[00:51:00] Katherine Howe: She has no leisure to speak of. She has no time. She has no goods. She has very little comfort, but sexuality is a way that lots of people can find comfort or can find pleasure or can find freedom. And so I wanted to explore that a bit, and that comes into play in the pirate crew, as well.
[00:51:22] Katherine Howe: Because of course there you would think with a young, sexed person, in a crew only of, of men, there's an obvious question to be asked there. And Hannah does ask that question. She addresses that question. She's here's how I made up my mind that I'm going to deal with that eventuality or that possibility. And so I'm intrigued that you wanted to, that you wanted to ask about her sexuality because it is, there's at least one sort of scene of Hannah's sexuality being deployed.
[00:51:53] Katherine Howe: And it's not gratuitous, I don't think. I think it is important because it advances the plot in a way that the [00:52:00] plot has to advance. And of course there's an added risk of her discovery. And so that, that is part of what is at stake in the deployment of her sexuality later on in the story.
[00:52:11] Katherine Howe: But I think that's something that, that we all have to decide as we are, especially when we are in our coming of age, as it were, coming into ourselves, whether that happens in our teens, whether that happens later in life. Sometimes, as there's another character in the story who comes into her own sexuality and the deployment of her sexuality. She's at a later point in her life. But for whatever reason, this is the moment when it is happening for her. And so I wanted to make that an issue for Hannah that she had to, it is another arena for her to decide how she wants her life to be lived and how she wants to assert control over her life.
[00:52:52] Josh Hutchinson: And I think between the two eras that you choose, they're times of great sexual suppression, [00:53:00] and she's taking her independence from that.
[00:53:03] Katherine Howe: Yeah, but sexual suppression of a different kind. One thing that's interesting to think about, talking of like the colonial period, on the one hand, it was a time of sexual suppression, but on the other hand, it was also a time of sexual frankness. You would have shared rooms like a married couple would have, a kid sleeping on a trundle bed next to them and a baby in the bed next to them, right there. They're not waiting until everyone's at school. You know what I mean? They're not like, they're not waiting for date night. That's not a thing that happens. Like there was a greater, you know, there were no bathrooms. You'd go off into the corner and you'd use the pot and whatever.
[00:53:39] Katherine Howe: There was a different relationship between bodies in the late 17th and into the early 18th century than we have now. And it's partly because of the way that space was at a premium. There was a different sense of what privacy could look like at that time. Which I think is something that we forget, especially in [00:54:00] thinking about the kind of moral strictures under which Calvinists and just post-Calvinists were living.
[00:54:06] Katherine Howe: There's a weird tension between those two facts. Like there's the fact of bodies in everyday life, and there's also the fact of this like incredibly heavy, overbearing Christianity informing every aspect of everyday life. And then in the other time period that we're talking about, which is 1930, that is a slightly different time when there were, I don't want to go into too much detail about it because I don't want to give too much away from that timeline.
[00:54:33] Katherine Howe: But, it was also a time of changing sexual mores a bit, after the 1920s and into 1930, they're like, like laws were changing around sexuality to some extent, and the way that gender was performed or policed, depending on who you were and where you were and what time you were, was changing to some degree but not entirely. So it's a very different time.
[00:54:56] Katherine Howe: But both of those times are actually quite different from the time we're living in right this minute, [00:55:00] which is another thing that I think is worth considering that, we, all of these historical moments are so contingent on so many different factors and so many different things. And so things that we would assume as natural in one time period would seem profoundly unnatural in another.
[00:55:18] Josh Hutchinson: And you use that issue of privacy on, in Hannah's life on the ship also, where she's in disguise and can't be found out, but she has to share a head with dozens of men.
[00:55:32] Katherine Howe: I know.
[00:55:33] Josh Hutchinson: yeah,
[00:55:33] Josh Hutchinson: that gets a little awkward for a moment.
[00:55:36] Katherine Howe: Yeah. It's a little, it's a little bit awkward. At one point we address the question of of like her body and whether or not her body would give her away. And so even though she was 17 she was starving. So she was starving, and she'd spent her entire life undernourished.
[00:55:52] Katherine Howe: So she would have been skinny. She would have been almost wiry. She would not have had any body fat. Without enough body [00:56:00] fat, she wouldn't, she may have even never started menstruating, right, even at 17. She would not have had breasts to speak of. She, her body would have still looked not like a child, but like a young youth. I think her body would have read very differently.
[00:56:17] Katherine Howe: And so one thing that we, that I suggest in the story is that particularly in a time period where costume or clothing choice was so rigidly determined that if you saw someone dressed in britches and a blouse or a waistcoat, the assumption would be that you were looking at a male gendered person.
[00:56:40] Katherine Howe: That there, there was no like, oh, I feel like wearing shorts today, option, like I'm speaking to you in t shirt and shorts today, I'm wearing the exact same thing that like a 12 year old boy would wear potentially, but that simply wasn't the case in the 1720s, and so thinking about Hannah's body, but also what that [00:57:00] body would have looked like, like the way that poverty and that time period etches itself in the body in some ways independent from sex, arguably.
[00:57:10] Katherine Howe: And so that is part of how Hannah is able to be so persuasive in her disguise. And in fact, at one point I have a scene in the book where someone is looking at lots of paintings on the wall of sailors, and a lot of them are boys. And the character who's looking at them is starting, for the first time, thinks, oh, wait a minute. Are they boys? I don't know. Maybe they're not like part of it is, part of it is that you see what you expect to see.
[00:57:37] Sarah Jack: Yeah, I really enjoyed the lessons that you give about that in this story, throughout the story. I think that right now our society is grappling with that, why do we have to expect a specific, defined person. The youth and others are [00:58:00] teaching You can't count on that.
[00:58:03] Katherine Howe: Yeah. We're living through a really fascinating and exciting moment. And it's, I enjoy grappling with some of those questions in the way that I would being a, you know, a historian and a historical fiction person grappling with it and in a historically-informed way.
[00:58:20] Sarah Jack: Do we have time to talk about execution?
[00:58:22] Katherine Howe: We always have time to talk about execution. Are you kidding?
[00:58:25] Sarah Jack: I really like the parallel between the hangings of the pirates in Boston, and then you've got how the crews handle punishment.
[00:58:36] Katherine Howe: Yeah, that's true. That is also true. And this again, this goes back to the uses of terror. This is an argument that historian Marcus Rediker very generously gave me a quote for A True Account. I was really blown away that he would agree to do that. His work is very seminal to my thinking about pirates and piracy. And one of the big arguments that he has made is about the [00:59:00] role of terror in piracy. And that role was twofold. One was the terror that the pirates inflicted on the people that they were raiding. So it was actually, the threat of violence was actually their most effective tool, perhaps even more effective than the violence itself.
[00:59:19] Katherine Howe: And at one point in the course of a raid, we even learned that it's not out of, it's not unheard of for a ship to see pirates coming and just say, 'take it all, we give up,' because the threat of terror, A, and B, because of the role of insurance, actually. From a historiographic standpoint, thinking about insurance probably doesn't sound very exciting, but all the cargo that were raided by pirates, including human cargo, thank you very much, were all insured by insurance companies, and so in many cases, the mariners who are on board the ship, they have no interest in what is being taken from them. They, why would they lay their lives [01:00:00] down for a load of lumber and, or a load of breadfruit or whatever it is? Why would they lay their lives down for that when the insurance company is just going to make the syndicate whole anyway? That's the insurance company's problem. And of course, the insurance companies were then in a position to put pressure on governments to reduce the risks of piracy to maritime trade.
[01:00:19] Katherine Howe: But in many instances, the threat of violence was enough. And would give a reason for mariners to, to happily give up, not, maybe not happily, but to give up their goods. And and oftentimes if a mariner, for whatever reason, or a captain decided to fight the pirates off and was successful, I can point to at least one example of an insurance company actually rewarding the captain with a really nice silver tea service for defending their property. And so it was certainly in the insurance companies' interest for piracy to be suppressed.
[01:00:55] Katherine Howe: That being said, there's a scene where the Ned Lowe's crew [01:01:00] takes a small man of war, a small like Navy ship and hangs everybody up in the spars and in the rafters. And that was a not uncommon way of either murdering people or at times trying to torture them into getting information. So like you could hang somebody and then let them down and ask, 'okay, tell me where the goods really are,' hang them, let them down, 'no, really. I mean it', hang them, let them down because hanging, of course If it's the choking kind takes a little while.
[01:01:29] Katherine Howe: That's a grim way to think about it, but it's absolutely true. So you're right. There is a parallel, a visual parallel between the hangings of pirates at the beginning, the gibbeting of William Fly's body, the way that the state used terror to try to suppress piracy. And the ways that pirates used terror to try to get what they wanted, or the threat of terror to get what they wanted.
[01:01:54] Katherine Howe: And as I said, that argument, that sort of dual pronged uses of terror, twin uses of terror, was an [01:02:00] argument Marcus Rediker has made, not me. But which I think is a very persuasive and interesting argument, and is at work in some plot points in
[01:02:07] Sarah Jack: and it gave you then the opportunity to show the responses of the people who are experiencing the terror. And there are different ones.
[01:02:17] Katherine Howe: Yeah. There are some different ones. And yeah it's interesting because at the very, at the beginning, we see the responses to William Fly's gibbeting, particularly for Hannah, like the William Fly actually becomes kind of a recurring theme, almost like a Greek chorus in Hannah's ear a little bit, because she keeps thinking about him. She keeps turning her mind back to him. And because she was so horrified by the spectacle of his mutilated body. He had gone from being this very handsome man, who not much older than her, handsome, rebellious like playing to the crowd. One thing that William Fly really did do this, which is amazing, William Fly, he's on the scaffold, he's [01:03:00] about to be hanged, and he looks at the noose, and he says to the hangman, "don't you know your trade?" He unties the noose and reties it better, because he's a sailor and he knows how to tie knots. Which like, for my mind is ranked right up there with Sarah Good, "I'm no more witch than you are a wizard. And if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink," for badass things people have done on a scaffold. Things that I would be far too terrified and pipsqueaky to possibly contemplate. But he really did do that.
[01:03:28] Katherine Howe: And so there is both the way that Hannah experiences some kind of mixture of inspiration and love and pity when she sees what's done to William Fly that then turns into a kind of determination or rebellion.
[01:03:46] Katherine Howe: And then there is a different reaction later in the story to a pretty grotesque scene of hanging that causes a pretty pronounced change in how the plot is unfolding and in the group of pirates. [01:04:00] And it shows the different ways that terror can be brought to bear on individual people. .
[01:04:08] Katherine Howe: And for that matter, it's still also for anyone who spent as much time thinking about witches and witchcraft as I have, or as your listeners have, you can't help but think about the spectacle of the hangings at Salem too. That was also a method of the state employing strategies of terror to get compliance. It was the same thing, the same strategy. And the fact that the Salem Witches bodies were cut down and then chucked into a ravine and were not, that it's not gibbeting, but it's not that different. It's treating their bodies like, like trash instead of objects in which a soul used to dwell. And so in that sense, especially given the proximity of those events in time, the fact that Cotton Mather presided over both of them is, at least for me, certainly something that was in the back of my mind while writing those scenes.
[01:04:57] Josh Hutchinson: And since you've [01:05:00] written about both witches and pirates, have you detected any other similarities between the two?
[01:05:07] Katherine Howe: I think the biggest areas of similarity are, well, now that, thinking about it, in some respect, they're both economic crimes. And one of the things, and piracy ends up being suppressed and becomes less of an issue in the late 18th century and then resumes its role into the 19th century as the politics of the slave trade changes, and witchcraft recedes as a crime with the dawning of the consumer revolution in the 1730s, and so in that instance, of course with witchcraft it's like personal household level of crime, butter not coming together, beer going off, what have you. And with piracy it, the crime is perhaps on a larger scale, because it is being, it is against nations and [01:06:00] nations' economic interests, and therefore nations have an invested incentive to suppress it and to thwart it.
[01:06:07] Katherine Howe: But other than that, there it, there's a funny, there is a funny similarity to it. They're both essentially economic crime. They're essentially economic crimes that are controlled or suppressed with methods of terror. They are crimes that are perpetrated by working people, people without a lot of economic power, a lot of, or without a lot of social power. So in that sense, maybe there are some similarities, of course, and of course, but then you have to look at the way that they're gendered.
[01:06:36] Katherine Howe: But that has to do with the universe in which each crime is unfolding, because the universe of the witchcraft crime is a domestic universe. It is the domestic sphere. And the universe of piracy is a maritime universe, which is an almost entirely male space. So in a, maybe there is more points of commonality between those two than we've thought about up until this point.
[01:06:59] Katherine Howe: It's a good question, [01:07:00] Josh. I'm glad you asked.
[01:07:01] Sarah Jack: I had thought on the side a little bit, because you had me thinking so much about gender roles. And then I was thinking, I was like, Oh, look at this over here with the piracy. That's a lot of male. And then over here in, In New England, a lot of, female witch accusation. So that's interesting.
[01:07:20] Katherine Howe: yeah, it's interesting. I don't know that I have a a particular conclusion to draw, but it is intriguing to, to juxtapose those two sets of circumstances, those two sets of extreme people, like individual regular people in extreme circumstances are, that's an interesting juxtaposition.
[01:07:37] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, there's two sides of a coin, they're the female and male aspect of the supervillain, so to speak. They're menaces, and they terrorize communities.
[01:07:51] Katherine Howe: And anyone can be turned. Maybe there's another way to think about it, too, that you don't know who, who is going to, who will fall next. Who is going to, who will [01:08:00] resist like Philip Ashton and swim away to Roatan Island and camp out, and who will cave and sign the articles?
[01:08:05] Katherine Howe: And there's also a question of signing. You put, you, you put your mark on the articles just as you write your name in the devil's book. And I have actually the. The signature that I have Hannah use when she signs the article, she chooses a spiral, and because she's not literate at the time of the story. And she says she chooses it because of the pattern of stars that she sees in the night sky over her head.
[01:08:28] Katherine Howe: But actually, I chose that mark for her because it was one of the marks, one of the Salem girls made. One of the accusing girls made that mark, who wasn't It wasn't literate. I'm sure other people made that mark as well or chose that mark, but I, that is where I had seen that mark before.
[01:08:45] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's a powerful symbolism. You've certainly had a busy writing schedule and publishing schedule.
[01:08:57] Katherine Howe: I'm tired.
[01:08:58] Josh Hutchinson: Would you like to tell us anything [01:09:00] about Astor?
[01:09:01] Katherine Howe: So I have been, yeah it's a busy publishing season for me. On September the 19th, whatever that Tuesday is my next collaboration with Anderson Cooper is going to be published by Harper. It's called Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune, and like Vanderbilt, it is an unconventional look at the sweep of one person.
[01:09:27] Katherine Howe: It's about a major American family, but it also, it goes in a couple of unexpected directions, just as Vanderbilt did go in some unexpected directions. But it starts with John Jacob Astor, who immigrated first to Baltimore and then to New York from Germany, Waldorf, Germany, and became first a fur trader and then started making his money in Manhattan real estate.
[01:09:49] Katherine Howe: And then we go all the way up through the kind of conflagration that ended the Astor dynasty in New York, which was the trial of Brooke Astor's son, [01:10:00] Anthony Marshall, for elder abuse shortly after her death. And that was about 20 years ago, give or take. And in between, we have some really interesting waypoints, including an Astor being the most famous person who went down on Titanic and including some unexpected twists and turns.
[01:10:18] Katherine Howe: So we talk, we end up having a way of talking about the draft riots, which is the biggest race riot in New York city history that happened. If you saw Gangs of New York, actually, the movie, the Martin Scorsese movie. We just saw a dramatization of of, the draft riots. And we also touched on the Astor Place Riot, which happened before before the draft riots.
[01:10:37] Katherine Howe: And it looks like Vanderbilt. It looks at, What wealth can do to individuals, but it also looks at the unusual ways in which this one particular family have etched themselves into the American landscape in some regards. And I think it's going to be pretty fun. It's meant to be like an episodic history, easy to dip into and out of. You can read a [01:11:00] chapter at a time, very meant to be very readable. And if you're at all interested in the Gilded Age or in New York or riots, it's a pretty great read, and I'm really proud of it. And so that'll be out in September. And A True Account: Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pirates, Written by Herself comes out on November the 21st.
[01:11:20] Katherine Howe: I have to say as a native Texan where there, there is an independent bookstore on the front lines of attempts to ban books in schools for teenagers. Shout out to Blue Willow Books for all that they're doing. I think it's very important. We actually can't really overstate how important independent bookstores are for free reading. And so I would really encourage readers who are listening to this to support their independent bookstore and their local library that way.
[01:11:45] Katherine Howe: A True Account will be out on November the 21st, which is the Tuesday right before Thanksgiving. And I'm gonna be doing a couple of events that week, and then also the following week, which you can find out about on my website katherinehowe.com/events, [01:12:00] or on my Twitter, where I'm still, strangely, on Twitter, @katherinebhowe, or on Instagram which I have a little bit more fun, and there's lots of sailing pictures there, too, which is also @katherinebhowe and then The Penguin Book of Pirates will come out in February, on February 6th. So it's going to be a piratey winter in my household, and maybe then I'll have a vacation.
[01:12:23] Sarah Jack: Good. So is that what's next for you? Some
[01:12:27] Katherine Howe: We'll see I, I have, I'm already have an idea or two for a couple of novels that I would like to work on next. I think one of them might be a New York City, It's a little bit, because I've been spending so much time thinking about New York in the 19th century riot era New York, I might find that a fun time to write about, and we'll see if Anderson and I can come up with another collaboration. I think it would be fun to do, and I have a, an idea where that might go, but we'll have to see what his schedule looks like for that as well.
[01:12:55] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I know Vanderbilt is such a great book.[01:13:00] Looking forward to reading Astor.
[01:13:02] Katherine Howe: We're really proud of Astor. I think it's pretty great, and I think it's a little bit. As I say, we try to have a more critical view of history. So it's not like a straight up celebration of wealth and splendor book. There's plenty of wealth and splendor, but there's also some the other side of the coin as well, as you might expect from anything I'm involved with.
[01:13:23] Katherine Howe: Yeah. Gotta have riots. Riots.
[01:13:27] Josh Hutchinson: How can you have a book without a riot?
[01:13:29] Katherine Howe: How can you have a book about a riot? Is it even possible? Is it a book if there's no riot?
[01:13:33] Katherine Howe: Oh, that's what's up for me.
[01:13:36] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, that's awesome. Congratulations on all your successes.
[01:13:42] Katherine Howe: Thank you so much. And thank you so much for inviting me back on on your podcast. I've had such a pleasure. Such a great time visiting with you both.
[01:13:50] Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.
[01:13:52] Mary-Louise Bingham: Dr. Charu WaliKhanna welcomed me from India in September with a smile and [01:14:00] namaste before we chatted about ongoing witch hunts. She is a Supreme Court lawyer specializing in women's rights. Dr. WaliKhanna educates on accusations against tribal, single, elderly, or widowed women who inherit or own their land. A related family will call her a Daian, the Indian term for witch. The family will kick her off her land, if she is not killed first. There is no centralized anti-witch-hunting law in India. However, there are varying anti-witch-hunting laws in different states, the strictest in the state of Assam. Anyone who accuses another as a dayan in Assam and the accused is murdered will go to trial with no possibility of being released on bail and could face seven years to life in jail.
[01:14:46] Mary-Louise Bingham: Watch Dr. WaliKhanna's interview in the video, Witch Hunting in the 21st Century. Read her book, Law on Violence Against Women. Thank you for your voice, Charu WaliKhanna.
[01:14:59] Sarah Jack: Thank [01:15:00] you, Mary.
[01:15:01] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[01:15:04] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts urges collective action to end witch hunting practices worldwide. At End Witch Hunts, our commitment is unwavering to actively engage in educating and advocating for the cessation of witch hunting practice. We can do this through the power of collective action. Thank you for already supporting our projects by listening to and sharing our podcast episodes. If you'd like to further contribute, please consider a financial contribution. Your financial support empowers us to continue our education and advocacy efforts. As the holiday season approaches, we invite you to keep End Witch Hunts in mind when considering your charitable gifts, especially with Giving Tuesday right around the corner. We have donate buttons on our websites.
[01:15:46] Sarah Jack: Our latest historical justice initiative, the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project, is dedicated to securing formal exoneration for those wrongly convicted as witches in Boston. We are also seeking a formal apology for all documented victims of the [01:16:00] Massachusetts Colony Witch Trials. Each of these individuals has a story of innocence, injustice, and consequences due to false accusations. You can make a difference immediately by signing and sharing the petition. Do so now at change.org/witchtrials.
[01:16:16] Sarah Jack: If you live in Massachusetts, you can share this project with your legislative representatives and ask them to propose the amendment. If you are a voting member of the Massachusetts General Court, we need you to lead or collaborate on this amendment effort now. Please consider reaching out to the project so that we can support you as you propose or support such an amendment. Please take action, and let's work together to help close a chapter of American history that calls out to us all for answers.
[01:16:43] Sarah Jack: This holiday season, as you gather with friends and family, consider sparking friendly conversations about social issues, like the historical and modern implications of witch hunts. While it requires a thoughtful and respectful approach, discussing such topics within your community can be both enriching and eye opening.
[01:16:59] Sarah Jack: [01:17:00] Here's a guide to initiating a positive dialogue. Identify shared interests and experiences. Begin by finding common ground. Try asking about their podcast or reading preferences. Creating a comfortable sharing atmosphere before diving into more substantial topics. Lead with basic information, starting the topic with an informative comment, such as, 'I've recently been learning about historical and modern witch hunts.' This statement naturally invites a response and opens the door to a relaxed and friendly chat about the realities of witch hunting. Share a specific element. Choose one aspect of witch hunts that you find intriguing or important and share it casually. Whether it's a historical fact about witchcraft trials, or your interest in learning about modern violence related to witchcraft accusations, keep it simple and factual. Bring up a favorite book, podcast episode, share about relevant online resources like our website. This approach helps ease into the topic and fosters a more comfortable environment for such a layered social issue. Respect diverse perspectives, [01:18:00] especially around celebrations and get togethers with loved ones. Accept that people have diverse perspectives on social issues.
[01:18:07] Sarah Jack: Recommend additional resources. If the conversation flows smoothly and your friend or family member expresses interest, recommend additional resources on modern witch hunts. This could include documentaries, articles, more podcast episodes, or other educational materials. Always be mindful of comfort levels. Pay attention to cues from your conversation partner. If they seem disinterested or uncomfortable, respect their boundaries and avoid pushing more information. You've already successfully introduced the topic and created awareness. They may take time to think about and process what you introduced them to. Let them decide to learn more.
[01:18:40] Sarah Jack: May our suggestions serve as inspiration for you as you craft your unique approach to navigating social issue conversations. This holiday season, aim to enrich your personal growth by fostering understanding and by seeking meaningful connections, successfully weaving the social significance of witch hunting into your conversations is undoubtedly a triumph. [01:19:00] However, when you dedicate effort to learn more about those around you, recognizing their perspectives and experiences, consider that a victory as well. Whether you immerse yourself in thought provoking discussions about witch trials or focus on finding connections, both avenues actively contribute to richer social interactions.
[01:19:16] Sarah Jack: Your support is instrumental in driving positive change and bringing an end to the dark history of witch hunting practices. For more information and to contribute, visit endwitchhunts.org.
[01:19:28] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah,
[01:19:30] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:19:32] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial and Pirate Podcast.
[01:19:37] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[01:19:39] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:19:43] Sarah Jack: Visit ThouShaltNotSuffer.com.
[01:19:45] Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell your friends about the show.
[01:19:48] Sarah Jack: Please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:19:52] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:20:00]

November 23, 2023

I Be a Witch: A Film about Salem Witch Trial Victim Ann Foster

Petition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
List of those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts

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Show Notes

Meet Lori Prescott Hansen and Matthew C. S. Julander writer and co-director of the upcoming film I Be a Witch. The film tells the story of Lori’s ancestor, Salem witch trial victim Ann Foster of Andover Massachusetts. Ann’s story is told through visions and memories that Ann is experiencing during her last days in the Salem jail. Lori and Matthew reflect together on the making of the movie and the impactful lessons the history offers.

I Be a Witch Facebook Page

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Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast, the show that asks why we hunt witches and how we can stop hunting witches. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:19] Sarah Jack: I'm Sarah Jack, and today we speak with Lori Prescott Hansen and Matthew C. S. Julander about their film, I Be a Witch.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: The film tells the stories of Lori's ancestor, Salem Witch Trial victim Ann Foster of Andover. Based on actual events, Ann's story is told through visions and memories Ann is experiencing during her last days in the Salem jail.
[00:00:43] Sarah Jack: Welcome Lori Prescott Hansen, Salem Witch Trial descendant, writer, and actress, and I Be a Witch film director, Matthew C. S. Julander.
[00:00:52] Lori Prescott Hansen: I'm Lori Prescott Hanson. I always throw in the Prescott, because I live in a small town, and there's five Lori Hansons just here. My husband and I have been theater artists for a long time. We actually met in a production of King Lear. And we began to do professional storytelling quite a while ago. And we've been doing that ever since. He taught theater at the university here for 20 years, and I did a lot of directing of shows here and here in small town, Idaho as far as being a storyteller goes, there's not a lot of venues unless you create them yourself. And so that's what led me along the path of doing one person shows. And this one about Ann is the second one I've done. And so that's my background. Matthew, take it away.
[00:01:47] Matthew C. S. Julander: So I'm in Utah. I went to film school at Brigham Young University and then zapped off to Los Angeles for close to 20 years of unsuccessful attempts to make my way into the film industry in earnest. So I worked on a few shows and made some corporate videos and just bounced around.
And then eventually decided to move back to Utah. And at which point I met Sherry Julander, who I then married and she is the lady who co directed our movie. And also adapted the screenplay from Lori's one-woman show. And so the story goes that I don't know, two years ago Sherry comes to me and says, 'Hey, I have some friends who are putting on a one woman show up in Idaho,' so we drove for six hours and like about hour one of the drive, she said, Oh, by the way, it's a middle aged woman doing a one woman show. And she was worried that I was going to hate the whole thing and want to turn
[00:02:43] Lori Prescott Hansen: it under wraps.
[00:02:44] Matthew C. S. Julander: But so she waited until we got far enough along that I was stuck. So we went up and watched it, and the story is really compelling. I was just struck. And so I, as soon as the lights came up, I turned to Sherry and said, we, do you want to try and make a short film out of this? And thus was hatched our little plot here. What started as something that was going to be a 25 to 30 minute movie has ballooned up to a short feature length movie. And now we're on your podcast.
[00:03:16] Lori Prescott Hansen: Sherry was actually a former student of my husband's. And so we had worked together. I've done plays with her in the past. And we had talked years ago about wanting to do something around Salem just because we've both always been intrigued by the subject. Then I found out later my ancestor was actually one of the accused women, and Sherry said that name sounds so familiar and she went back and checked her personal history and lo and behold we are both descendants of Ann Foster. We felt a real a real bond and a real kinship doing that. And something that we meandered around years ago finally became a reality.
[00:03:58] Josh Hutchinson: Wow. What's it like to find out that your friend is also your cousin?
[00:04:03] Lori Prescott Hansen: It couldn't have happened to a nicer person. I love her. I love her to death. And she is an amazing actor as well as screenwriter, and she and Matthew are a force together to be reckoned with, as far as film production. We're really excited that they joined on.
[00:04:23] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, Sarah and I also have a common Salem ancestor. We started doing this show, and then found out that we're cousins.
[00:04:31] Lori Prescott Hansen: Really?
[00:04:33] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we're both from Mary Esty.
[00:04:36] Lori Prescott Hansen: Oh, wow.
[00:04:38] Josh Hutchinson: yes.
[00:04:39] Lori Prescott Hansen: Yeah. You hear all these names and there's so many stories. So many stories. Yeah.
[00:04:48] Sarah Jack: Do you wanna tell us about Ann Foster's story?
[00:04:52] Lori Prescott Hansen: My son called me one day. He's known as a storyteller. I've always been drawn to crone figures, to wise women, to that sort of thing. And jokingly have always said I'm part witch. But he called me one day and said, "did you know that you are related to an accused witch of Salem?" And it just floored me. And I, cause I had no idea. So I went back and he showed me the timeline, the link from grandmother to grandmother. And she's my 11th great grandmother. And so I began to just read into her life, and the more I read, the more compelled I was and because her story is so unique and uniquely tragic, because of the elements in her life that it just it just pulled me in, and I wanted to do something about and for this woman that I felt a real kinship to. So that's the kernel of the beginning of it for me and my appeal to Ann, because like I say, even if she weren't a relation, her story is so compelling, because it's very unique in its own right. Go for it, Matthew.
What was it about Ann that sucked you in as a non relation?
[00:06:14] Matthew C. S. Julander: Something that I found striking about this whole process is how much of just the dialogue in our movie is pulled straight from like court reports. This is apparently what, at least whoever was writing it down, got, is the exact things that people were saying. And so that makes it very it does make it very personal.
And you're saying, 'oh my gosh, this isn't just a story, this isn't the Avengers, this is like a real person that all this stuff happened to.' So as we set about to make a movie of it, in large part we just followed what we saw Lori when she put on the one woman show, but we, we treated it with a certain degree of gravity or reverence or care, because we wanted to keep it a true story. We wanted to keep it true to what, as far as we can tell, Ann Foster might've really felt. I have a feeling that Lori might be, I don't know, a feistier person than Ann was? Because I'm told that at the time of, yeah, maybe Ann was feistier in her younger years, but at the time of her incarceration, she'd gotten on in years and she was quite feeble.
[00:07:20] Lori Prescott Hansen: No one will ever accuse me of being feeble.
[00:07:23] Matthew C. S. Julander: But on the other hand, just from the life that she led and some of the things that she did that were contrary to what would have been culturally accepted, especially since being culturally accepted was, I think it was a much bigger deal for the Puritans in New England. I think she probably was a feisty lady. She probably was a little bit of a rebellious lady. And maybe she was forced to be that way just because she married a guy who was way too old for her and defied some expectations.
So in any case, it was really interesting being able to look into the life of this very real person and have some of the words that she came up with when she was in the trial, when she was giving her confession and just trying to not just see through that window, but try and open that window up to other people so they could see into it as well.
[00:08:14] Josh Hutchinson: And so this began as a solo project, a one person play, and then evolved from there. What can you tell us about the one woman play?
[00:08:27] Lori Prescott Hansen: When I began writing this whole thing, I began it through a storytelling approach. I was going to tell her story third person. And I actually wrote it out, and I began reading it to my husband, and I realized it was so boring, and it sounded like a book report. And so I played around with combinations of narration and then character, and that became really singsongy back and forth and he finally said one day, you just need to write it as a play. And so I did. I take on other voices throughout the script but not a lot. It's mostly her own voice, her own words. My creation, but it's through her voice. And yeah, it was really well received where I've done it. I've only really done it a handful of times.
But the thing that really turned the corner for me on writing it was my husband again, who is also a playwright, said to me one day, 'you're writing it like you're writing about a woman who knows she's going to die. And he said, that's not interesting. You should be writing about a woman who is fighting to live.' And that was like a huge light bulb moment for me, and I realized he was exactly right, and that's when the writing really began to flow.
And like I say, it was really well received. I was really very proud of it. When Sherry and Matthew came up and saw it and they talked to us about it directly after the show, honestly, I feel such a, not ownership, but such a, this is my thing. And I was really afraid to turn what I had envisioned and done over to someone else. And if it hadn't been that it was Matthew and Sherry, I may never have said, 'okay, you can take this and do it you want with it.' But I did. And I couldn't have been more happy.
They were true to Ann. They were true to her story. They were true to how I envisioned the show, and they only heightened it with a full cast and fleshed out dialogue and lots of scenes in the jail. And anyway, so that was the metamorphosis of it for me.
[00:10:57] Sarah Jack: Is there anything about her history, the story, that you want to share today?
[00:11:03] Matthew C. S. Julander: I can give you like a slight overview of what what the story is about. So Ann Foster was in Andover. She was not among the first people that were accused or tried for witchcraft. Her story started because there was a man in her town. So Joseph Ballard's wife was ill and he thought maybe it was witchcraft. He had heard about all these people getting accused and convicted of witchcraft in Salem, so he went down to Salem and grabbed some of the teenagers who had been accusing people and brought them back up to Andover.
And they spotted Ann Foster and accused her of being a witch. And so then she was dragged in and eventually tried, convicted, and set up in the the Salem jail. We basically tell that story and something that's interesting. This is maybe not so much about Ann's story, but it's more about how this, the way that we tell the story is like structured.
When Lori wrote this script, she wasn't following like the formulaic stuff that they use for say, like writing screenplays. Whereas the story that we told it's almost as if the inciting moment happens before the story starts. And it happens like in a flashback because the whole story is told from Ann Foster's perspective in the Salem jail. And the question that we're trying to put into the minds of the audience right out of the gate is, 'okay how did she get here? What happened? How did this madness ensue?'
And then she just tells the whole story. She goes back to the whole Salem witch like craziness, to her earlier life. She talks about how she was married to a man who was quite a bit older than she was. She talked about her children. She talks about something that happens, one of the terrible events that happens to one of her children, which maybe I don't want to reveal yet, because you have to watch the movie. All these things could have had an influence on why the people of the time thought, 'oh, yeah, that makes sense that Ann Foster would be a witch.'
[00:13:00] Lori Prescott Hansen: Because when you're already the other, you're a sitting duck.
[00:13:03] Matthew C. S. Julander: She was already like an easy target for the accusations. I think that everybody who does a Salem witch trial story or tries to tell the story, the central question is, 'how did this happen?' It's always, 'how did this happen? How did these people get to the point where they're actually executed people for a thing that nowadays we see is just like being a fiction, just completely made up?
And so we tried to get in there, too. And because we have Ann's personal story. And some of the things that she said, we have some of her words, we can say, okay, this is at least the perspective of one person, how she was able to, how she sees it ,why she was dragged into it.
One of the striking things for me is that Ann Foster herself, in our dialogue, she says, 'Oh, I believe there's witches. I'd just be not one of them.' That's not the exact quote, but it's close. So it's oh yeah, everybody believed that it was real. But everyone also knew about I'm not one, though.
We even got into the idea that some people maybe started toying with the idea that, 'am I a witch? Maybe I've had bad thoughts about this person or that person. Maybe I projected some evil onto that person. Maybe that's some witchcraft. Maybe I'm somehow involved.' And that's the sort of thing that allowed it to roll.
[00:14:21] Lori Prescott Hansen: That's one Ann's lines in it is, 'can one be a witch and not know it?' Which is an interesting question. The most poignant question to me that we raise in the script is a line of Ann's. She's in jail. She's been there quite a long time. And she says, 'so what do you do with a broken, old witch?' No one's paying for her to get out, whether they could or chose not to, we really don't know. She's there for the duration until she dies
[00:14:52] Matthew C. S. Julander: Spoiler alert.
[00:14:54] Lori Prescott Hansen: So what do you do with people like this that are the throwaways? Even though your sentence has been stayed, you're still a convicted witch. That's probably the most poignant question to me in the film is 'what do you do with a broken, old witch?'
[00:15:12] Matthew C. S. Julander: And it's maybe not a question that we answer in great detail. It's something that the audience is left to think about for themselves. Because since we stay in Ann's, in her perspective, in her mind the whole time, it's yeah, we don't know why her son Andrew never showed up to pay the jailer's fees.
[00:15:30] Lori Prescott Hansen: Abraham is the one that paid to take her body. They paid to retrieve her body. They did not pay to have, you had to pay for everything. You had to pay for your straw. You had to pay for your chains. You had to pay for your food or water, anything. And we don't know if they didn't have the money to pay her way out or whether they chose not to. We know they did not sign the petition that the town raised when everyone had decided enough was enough. Whether they didn't want to bring more attention to her story or there's just so many questions that we don't have answers to.
[00:16:07] Matthew C. S. Julander: So we asked the questions.
[00:16:09] Lori Prescott Hansen: We asked the questions, and we did take a bit of a slant on things, because we realized if we're going to do this project, we have to make choices. We can't just have the whole thing be ambivalent. We have to make some choices. I hope they were the right ones, but we'll see.
[00:16:28] Sarah Jack: Yeah, I think the creative piece of telling the story is an essential part. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys have put together.
[00:16:38] Matthew C. S. Julander: So are we!
[00:16:40] Lori Prescott Hansen: Me too.
We actually just did our first submission of it.
[00:16:45] Matthew C. S. Julander: That's a rough cut.
[00:16:47] Lori Prescott Hansen: It's this close to being done, but we were able to slip it in on a deadline that was important to us. Yeah, it's very close. We actually, the four of us traveled three weeks ago? Four weeks ago? We actually flew out to Andover and Salem and met with some people out there and particularly in Andover we met with a woman that works at the North Church, which is the congregation Ann would have been part of. We met with the caretaker of the cemetery on the South side of Andover.
We met with Jill Christiansen from the Salem Witch Museum, and she was very, very helpful and very kind. And in fact, all of them were, and it just, we really hope to be able to do a screening in, I would really prefer Andover to Salem, because that's where it began, and that's where it would be full circle. So anyway, we've talked to a few people and nothing's set in stone, but we're excited, excited.
[00:17:58] Josh Hutchinson: A lot of people don't realize the involvement of Andover, even though Andover had more accused than Salem did.
[00:18:10] Lori Prescott Hansen: And Martha Carrier was from Andover. It's almost treated as an afterthought in some ways to Salem, and I guess that's probably because of the hype.
And I think there are many people in Andover that feel those strong, still connections to their history.
[00:18:30] Matthew C. S. Julander: It's striking as we went to the graveyard at the South church in Andover and then the other, the cemetery it's up closer to the North Church. When we went to those places and we looked at gravestones, I was struck that very often the people who were buried in, the official graveyard, the official cemetery, are what I would now consider the villains of this story, lots of the judges, but none of the people who were accused of witchcraft and then who would not cop to it.
The ones who would never give up and say yes, I'm a witch. The ones who actually maintain their integrity, those are the ones that don't get to be buried there. And, it's not even sure where many of them any of them, are buried. Because even the ones that were officially hanged, it's they have a, there's a Walgreens. Up the street from, that's where the which memorial is it?
[00:19:23] Josh Hutchinson: That's the Proctor's Ledge,
[00:19:25] Matthew C. S. Julander: the proctor's ledge. So they have a sense of, we think they must be buried here or here, but it's not really known.
[00:19:33] Sarah Jack: It's the exact situation in Connecticut with their victims and the, the founders that ran the witch trials and those kind of things. Their statues are there honoring the history, the impact of their history. And we worked on an exoneration project for the Connecticut victims last year, and the state did pass a bill apologizing to the 34 indicted, 11 hanged.
Now we're working on. State memorial for the victims and one of the things that we're up against is making room for these accused because there's already, all the space is taken by those who have already been buried and honored and,
[00:20:22] Josh Hutchinson: in a lot of cases are the accusers.
[00:20:24] Sarah Jack: They are the accusers. When you started talking about that, I'm like, oh my goodness, there's some other ancient burial grounds in New England, it's the same situation.
[00:20:32] Lori Prescott Hansen: And just following your Facebook posts and that, I realized that the Connecticut thing has been a passion project for you a labor of love, and,
[00:20:43] Sarah Jack: Yeah. It was interesting because there were local Connecticut residents and advocates and descendants who, for many years, have tried to get an acknowledgment. And then last year when North Andover was working on Elizabeth Johnson Jr. 's exoneration. It was happening during the 375th anniversary of the hanging of Alice Young who was the first hanged in Connecticut and it just seemed so unfair that nobody knows her name. She has not been apologized to, and it really just fired a bunch of us up and everything, it was just the right timing. The politicians there were ready to make an attempt, and so this project, which we've talked quite a bit about in several episodes, it was a passion, and we all came together and found a route to that apology.
[00:21:37] Lori Prescott Hansen: Wow.
[00:21:39] Sarah Jack: But now they need a memorial. There's a few individual bricks in some of the local towns honoring some specific victims, but there's nothing. Nothing, there's no monument for the history, so that's what's next. We'll see how that unfolds.
[00:21:59] Lori Prescott Hansen: Yeah. Because people don't even really think of Connecticut. It's that Salem story, no, it was all over. Yeah. Connecticut was earlier than Salem and Massachusetts, wasn't it?
[00:22:13] Josh Hutchinson: It, yes, it began much earlier, started in 1647, so 45 years before. But Andover also, there's not, a specific site to go to in Andover to remember the victims from there. And there were, what was it? 45 or 48 people accused from Andover? Very high number. And there's nothing there, there's no plaque, there's no statue, there's no wall or benches or
[00:22:52] Matthew C. S. Julander: Something that when we set out to make this movie, making movies can be a pretty A large undertaking. Although this movie was quite small by comparison to some. We shot the entire thing in a 20 by 30 garage. So even though it is a period piece, we built a couple of sets.
So we have a prison set that is meant to look very realistic, and we had a Foster home set that ended up looking very realistic over the course of the shoot. The first scenes that we did in that, we only had two walls of that set, but later on, we built out the whole thing. In any Case it takes over your life for a while, because you end up realizing, oh, it's I'm building a house. There's something where you have to decide that you want to go through all the trouble, right? You have to tell yourself this is worth it. And so as we've been talking about the people who are past and the people who went through this incredibly unjust situation, and some of them lost their lives I, I was thinking, eh, whether you believe in an afterlife or not, I would think that those people, maybe it doesn't matter what we think of them now, right?
If you don't believe in an afterlife, then clearly they don't care. If you do believe in an afterlife, they might be busy with something else. And so it's maybe not so much for them that we do these memorials and that we try to try to set things right. It might be more for us. And so that's the thought that I had when we were making this film is, 'I want this film to be something that shows how that happened back then.'
In that sense, that those who don't learn from history will repeat it. If you do learn from history, hopefully you grow. And yeah. As we were making the film, I was always trying to think, okay, how is this going to affect people? How can we show people something that hopefully makes them into better people?
And the crazy thing about the whole witchcraft trial fervor that ran across Europe and then America in many cases, it wasn't as if there was some ulterior motive. But a lot of times it was just, I don't know, the arrogance of the judges. The arrogance of the people in their religion thinking that they were infallible. It was just, things got out of hand, and people's emotions were driven to a certain direction and there was no one to say, 'whoa, let's calm down. Let's think about this.' And so it seems like that is an informative lesson for us right now. And maybe always, everybody always likes to say, 'Oh, in our time, things are so tough.' And it's so similar to now. And you could say that about now, you could say that about probably any epic in the Earth's history as well.
In any case, it seems like it's a useful story for us to look at and say, 'Hey, do I have any prejudices? Do I have any arrogance? Do I have any beliefs that are untested that I'm so sure about that I would do something that might turn out to be reprehensible?' And I hopefully the movie and these stories, and even when we talk about the monuments and trying to call attention to it, so like Alice Young that nobody's ever heard of. If we can call attention to these people and say, 'look, these stories all happened,' hopefully that'll affect us now and say, 'okay I don't want to create another story for somebody 375 years from now to look back at and go,'
[00:26:06] Josh Hutchinson: And Ann Foster's story is so compelling because of so many reasons. You alluded to earlier something that happens to one of her daughters before the trials. And then there are things that happen to her family during the trials.
[00:26:27] Lori Prescott Hansen: Ann, humble, meek, fragile, old Ann was very well known, because of her family and what had happened in it. Everyone knew Ann Foster's history. She was very ripe for the picking. Yeah.
[00:26:45] Matthew C. S. Julander: I think that's actually an interesting thing about the story. So maybe most people's entrance into their understanding of the Salem Witch Trials is the Crucible. That seems to be the most famous story that's been told. But the Crucible sets it portrays John Proctor and is it Elizabeth Proctor? They're portrayed as having John had an affair, right? He's portrayed as having this sin that he committed.
Ann is interesting in that there's really no sin for her, but there is this circle of bad things that have happened, things that, okay, your son in law is a really bad guy though and maybe there's a little impropriety with this and maybe like your granddaughter is a bit of a mess. She's not being very Puritan. There was things that made it look like she could be looked at as being bad somehow.
I think that's a really important thing to look at in the story. If I were to tell another story from the witch trials, I maybe would want to do one about Rebecca Nurse, because she's theoretically like the perfect Puritan, just angelic in every way.
But the idea that I'm going at is some of these people who got roped up in this, they really were unimpeachable. I guess you can't say they were above reproach. They would probably, had their, personal interactions where they might get mad at somebody or do something that people would remember and think of them as having been sinful or wicked or something.
They really were just good people, just fairly honest, fairly good. People like hopefully you and me.
[00:28:10] Lori Prescott Hansen: And John Proctor himself, the same thing that, historically there was not an affair or anything like that. That was Arthur Miller's slant on it that pulled us all in. John Proctor was unique in that he didn't buy it, and he decided he was going to beat the witchcraft out of, was there, was it Mary Warren? And because he didn't go along with it, he was pegged.
The other thing that was interesting about Ann, too, with Joseph Ballard is that was the first time anyone had gone to Salem and literally recruited these girls and brought them back to Andover. And then they singled out Ann, who they already were aware of who she was, everyone was, but that was interesting to me, the lengths that he went to to find a witch, to literally go recruit the girls and bring them up to Andover from Salem.
[00:29:08] Josh Hutchinson: That was a major turning point in the course of the witch hunt, bringing them to Andover, starting that whole, it just snowballed after that, Andover, you had Martha Carrier accused previously to that, but it was limited to her.
And then that just opened the floodgates, and they had the mass touch test where they brought everybody in and had the afflicted people touch them to see if that cured them.
The touch test, basically the belief was that when a witch used their magic against their victim they're transferring this effluvia, this kind of substance from the witch to the victim, and then on contact, the substance would go back from the victim into the witch.
[00:30:09] Lori Prescott Hansen: A literal substance.
[00:30:11] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, a literal substance that they could...
Yeah, so they could beam at you through the evil eye
or they could get you with it, an image of you, there was, there were poppets and image magic and spells and curses. So they had a few ways to strike at you. But there were ways to cure. You just had to get really close to the person you thought had bewitched you.
[00:30:40] Matthew C. S. Julander: So what the part about it that was backwards is they would, they would blindfold or somehow make it so that the witch was unaware of who was touching them, but they would let the person, the afflicted, still be able to see. So when they did these touch tests, the afflicted person would come in, they'd know exactly who they were touching, so if they like, oh, it's Ann Foster is the one we're accusing. When I touch Ann Foster, I'm suddenly going to not be afflicted anymore, right? So they could clearly fake it. Whereas, Ann Foster didn't know who was touching her, right? So the idea was, 'we don't trust the witches, so we have to blindfold them. But clearly our accusers are perfectly honest, good people, so we don't have to blindfold them.'
And that's just you guys are very bad at interrogation. It never occurred to you that maybe the accusers are not being honest. If we're doing the test, either they're being honest or they're, it's one of the possibilities that we should be testing for. And we can, we just blindfold everybody.
[00:31:30] Josh Hutchinson: Or even if they truly believed that the person was bewitching them, they would behave differently around the person. They buy into this stuff, they first, they see that person, they fall into one of their fits, then they touch the person believing that's going to cure them, and the fit suddenly stops.
[00:31:54] Lori Prescott Hansen: We have tried with the film to be as accurate as we know and as we can be. We all felt, I think, a real sense of obligation to do that. We want it to be true to her story. It's sensational enough on its own. We didn't need to hype it up even more than her story already is. To me, it may be the most compelling of that era, her story, because of so much, but I'm also biased.
[00:32:23] Matthew C. S. Julander: We've talked about how in Andover, it was like a much bigger problem. It was, it's really where it got it blew up more. I said something that maybe for the listeners, it'd be nice to clarify. I said maybe it was because of Ann. So Ann Foster apparently is the first one to have ever said that there were 300 some odd. 307, oddly specific, but maybe she knew that would, made the story sound more authentic. She said there were some 307 witches in our county and nobody had ever put a big number on it like that. And so maybe when she said that, everybody was like, and so then the authorities are like, 'okay buckle on your swords, boys. We got to go pick up some more people,' or something like that.
[00:33:06] Josh Hutchinson: That's also something that makes her confession really interesting, and it is a big turning point, again, in the witch hunt, because, early on, Tituba says there's nine witches, so they're looking for nine people, but then the number just keeps growing, and then it leaps with Ann Foster to this 300 some people, and yeah, they really were looking under every stone, trying to find a witch in Andover.
[00:33:40] Lori Prescott Hansen: Was she the first one, I can't remember, was she the first one in her confession that talked about flying on a stick, or had someone done that before her?
[00:33:49] Josh Hutchinson: Tituba had talked about it.
[00:33:54] Lori Prescott Hansen: and even that she had cheese in her pocket, which I thought was not funny, but like that's really specific. And you do get the idea, too, the question is raised, she was old, she was feeble, she was frail. Did she start to believe these things? Was her mind beginning to wander? Was she confessing to save herself and members of her family, to take it on herself? We don't know all those things, but they're all really compelling questions.
[00:34:27] Josh Hutchinson: And we do know that people, as you mentioned earlier, were thinking, 'could I be a witch and not know it?' Was a theme that was going through the Andover Confessions,
[00:34:41] Lori Prescott Hansen: Right.
[00:34:42] Josh Hutchinson: People questioning themselves, could I have committed some sin that turned me over to the devil?
And could I unwittingly be causing these people harm?
Yeah, people were truly confused about it.
[00:34:59] Lori Prescott Hansen: It's interesting too, to me, that Ann called out Martha Carrier. She wasn't guiltless in accusing others. In her mind, Martha Carrier is already in prison, so I'm not doing any additional harm. You could spend years delving into all of this and never get to complete answers.
[00:35:23] Matthew C. S. Julander: I feel like one of the things when we're trying to figure out how it all happened is this idea of like they had competing virtues. Like one of the virtues was you had to have faith and believe. And another virtue was you had to have integrity and be honest. And those were competing virtues in the sense that say with John Proctor, who thought that all the witch stuff was a bunch of hubbub. And Lori said he tried to beat it out of his servant. He's, ' I'll show you, say that you've sensed witches, whack whack, do you still sense witches? Nope!' For that, for Proctor to do that, it's like he's saying, 'okay, so witches, that's a bunch of nonsense,' but witches are in the Bible and witches are something that we all believe is part of, it's tied to the religion.
And so is John Proctor like showing a lack of faith and a lack of belief? That means John Proctor is not virtuous. But on the other hand, John Proctor went to his execution and wouldn't say that he was a witch. He would, he never I don't want to say admitted because that suggests that he actually was. He never copped to it, right?
And so in that sense, he had the other virtue of the integrity. So these people who were trying to say, 'maybe I am a witch. Can I be a witch and not know it?' That's their attempt to make those two competing virtues work together. I'm still going to believe, but I don't want to lie. It's a form of like cognitive dissonance for them, but like that's an interesting and I guess kind of awful way that they had to try to do the mental gymnastics to make it so they could keep all their virtues.
[00:36:52] Josh Hutchinson: That's a really good analysis. And there was so much going on in Andover contributing to the confessions. Really most of the people in Andover did ultimately confess, and they were being pressured by their own families to do so, because there was a rumor going around that if you confessed, you'd be spared.
[00:37:17] Lori Prescott Hansen: be forgiven. You were capable of being forgiven or of repenting.
[00:37:22] Josh Hutchinson: Unfortunately, they did end up convicting a number of people who confessed, but fortunately for them it was late enough in the game that they were never actually executed. But that rumor was going around. And then there was the whole, 'could I be one and not know it? Everybody's telling me I am a witch. If the magistrate is telling you you're a witch, and he's a reliable guy and trusted and looked up to, and maybe you start believing him instead of yourself.
[00:37:58] Lori Prescott Hansen: And if you look at that in terms of Ann, she had so much tragedy in her life that maybe this has happened because I am this and she's old and she's feeble and she's worn down and she's seen so much in her family that's just remarkable. I'm sure she was just, in some ways, just done.
[00:38:21] Matthew C. S. Julander: I do wonder how she came up with all the details that she came up with. Like the bird that came black and left white, or the dog, the stick, the cheese in the pockets. There were so many like interesting little tidbits. It's is it because she was in that kind of feeble place and her mind was just making things up now and she was in fever dream mode? Or was she like knowingly trying to protect her family and she's, this is the best way to do it. I've seen enough lying. I if she had, but I'm going to do details with the lies so they seem more.
[00:38:52] Lori Prescott Hansen: And the details of life that are given extra magical or whatever stories to explain them. Ann had a bad leg or a bad hip. She says it's because she fell off the stick. So anyway, just so many things that make it. It's interesting and sad and educational that, if we can learn the lessons that we ought to learn, we'd be better off for our own futures.
[00:39:23] Matthew C. S. Julander: Somebody was talking about how dense those forests are and imagine them without electric lighting, like how there'd be so little that you could see and how everything would be so close. There was the dangers of getting diseases. There was plenty to be afraid of that you couldn't see and wouldn't know was coming, right? And that seems like that also made it rife for people to work up in stories of things and to believe in things that maybe weren't there. It's a really strange place.
[00:39:53] Lori Prescott Hansen: New England is, it's to me a magical place. It's beautiful. It's picturesque. The houses are amazing. I love the styles and all that. I love the toll roads, but it's interesting that such a tragic thing could take place in such a beautiful place. And that's, that happens everywhere, it can happen anywhere. And it was the frontier, particularly Andover. It was the frontier.
[00:40:22] Josh Hutchinson: I've camped in the forest near Andover. There's a Harold Parker State Forest right there. And I spent about 10 days, I believe, in the woods right there. And even today, the woods are so thick that if you're out on one of those hiking trails, it doesn't take long to not have roads and sounds from roads and so just imagining back then, and coming from England where it's a little more crowded and there'd be some more lights to this very wilderness. It's so hauntingly frightening. You actually have wolves and bears and things that they don't have in England anymore. Yeah, it's just a spooky environment, but so beautiful.
[00:41:16] Lori Prescott Hansen: beautiful.
[00:41:18] Sarah Jack: At this stage with your project, what is it that you need from listeners, from supporters?
[00:41:25] Lori Prescott Hansen: We need viewers. Yeah. And exposure. Exposure. That's why we appreciate this podcast so much because it's huge. It's a huge benefit to us. So we need energy.
[00:41:39] Matthew C. S. Julander: We are going to try to put it into festivals, and as we do, we'll post about it on our Facebook page and on our website so that anybody who's interested in seeing the film can go see it. So one thing would be great for us is if you go search for I Be a Witch on Facebook and follow us there. Or you can go to ibeawitch. com, bookmark that, and go back to it. You can also go to ibeawitch. com and find your way to the Facebook group from there.
And that way, anybody who's interested in the film can keep track of, like, where it ends up, so where they can see it. And that, then, as we start, rolling it out and showing it in different places, the exposure would be great. If you, if... If you want to help us with the film, you can, "Hey, they just said they're going to be in this film festival in North Carolina. Everybody who wants to go see it in North Carolina." And that, that, that'd be helpful for us. Eventually, we hope to get it onto a streaming platform. And when we do that, of course, we'll tell everybody where that is. And then it's just a matter of, yeah, tell your friends, go watch the movie.
[00:42:38] Sarah Jack: And right now they can watch the preview,
[00:42:40] Lori Prescott Hansen: They can. You can watch the trailer.
[00:42:42] Matthew C. S. Julander: The trailer's on ibeawitch. com.
[00:42:44] Lori Prescott Hansen: The trailer, I have to say. I'm tickled with it.
[00:42:48] Josh Hutchinson: We'll have a link to that in the show description to both the Facebook and the website. And as you start to have showings, we'll definitely share that on our social media to help get the word out. It's something that our listeners are going to be interested in. We'll definitely be helping promote that as we can.
[00:43:12] Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.
[00:43:14] Mary Louise Bingham: Alice Markham Cantor, a freelance writer and a fact checker for the New York Magazine. She is creating a database regarding worldwide witch hunts. Alice uses her writing skills by weaving the common threads of witch hunts from the 1300s to the current day. Alice introduced me to the story of Iquo Edet Iyo, a prosperous woman looked on with suspicion for years who was accused of using black magic to cause a motorcycle accident at Cross River State, Nigeria. As a result, Iquo was brutally murdered in October of 2022. Alice reminded me that there are over 1,000 innocent people killed due to ongoing deadly witch hunts every year. I encourage the listeners to read Alice's story titled, "Social Turmoil Has Increased Witch Hunts Historically" on Portside.Org. Check out her profile on theinternationalnetwork.org. Thank you, Alice Markham Cantor, you are one powerful advocate.
[00:44:17] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:44:22] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[00:44:25] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts urges collective action to end witch hunting practices worldwide. At End Witch Hunts, our commitment is unwavering to actively engage in educating and advocating for the cessation of witch hunting practice. We can do this through the power of collective action. Thank you for already supporting our projects by listening to and sharing our podcast episodes. If you'd like to further contribute, please consider a financial contribution. Your financial support empowers us to continue our education and advocacy efforts. As the holiday season approaches, we invite you to keep End Witch Hunts in mind when considering your charitable gifts. We have donate buttons on our websites.
Our latest historical justice initiative, the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project, is dedicated to securing formal exoneration for those wrongfully convicted as witches in Boston. We are also seeking a formal apology for all documented victims of the Massachusetts Colony Witch Trials. Each of these individuals has a story of innocence, Injustice and life altering consequences due to false accusations. You can make a difference immediately by signing and sharing the petition. Do so now at change.org/witchtrials.
If you live in Massachusetts, you can share this project with your legislative representatives and ask them to propose the amendment. If you are a voting member of the Massachusetts General Court, we need you to lead or collaborate on this amendment effort now. Please consider reaching out to the project so that we can support you as you propose or support such an amendment. Please take action, and let's work together to help close a chapter of American history that calls out to us all for answers.
Commemorating Goody Glover Day, November 16th.
On this day of witch trial memorialization in Boston, we want to highlight the significance of November 16th, proclaimed as Goody Glover Day by the Boston City Council in 1988.
Goody Glover, an Irish Catholic widow, was falsely accused, convicted, and hanged for witchcraft on this date in 1688. We invite you to commemorate Goody Glover Day by visiting her memorial plaque at the parish of Our Lady of Victories. The memorial plaque recounts the tragic tale of Ann Glover, emphasizing her unwavering commitment to the Catholic faith.
You may not be able to visit the memorial plaque, but you are able to pay tribute through various means, including social media discussions, coffee shop conversations, educational programs, and moments of reflection. Your support is instrumental in driving positive change and bringing an end to the dark history of witch hunting practices.
For more information and to contribute, visit endwitchhunts. org.
[00:46:58] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:47:01] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:47:02] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:47:07] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:47:09] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:47:13] Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:47:16] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[00:47:19] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:47:24] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

November 16, 2023

Colonial Earthquakes: Witchcraft or God’s Will? with Kathleen Langone

People Hidden in History Podcast

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Show Notes

Kathleen Langone of the People Hidden in History podcast speaks with us about colonial New England Earthquakes before the 19th century as signs from God. We discussed several historic earthquakes and the colonists’ reactions. What did the ministers and other leaders have to say about the tremors? Were earthquakes acts of witchcraft or acts of God? What providences were considered acts of witchcraft?

Interview with Greater Boston, Josh Hutchinson, and Dr. Emerson Baker (at 15:38)

Preservation Connecticut Presentation: Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson

Fox Live Now, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack

Washington Post, Josh Hutchinson Interview

Petition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
List of those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast, the show that asks the questions, why do we hunt witches? How do we hunt witches? And how do we stop hunting witches? I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:23] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:25] Josh Hutchinson: Today, we're speaking with Kathleen Langone, host of the People Hidden in History podcast, talking about colonial New England earthquakes as signs of God's wrath.
[00:00:34] Sarah Jack: How did the society respond to earthquakes differently than other misfortunes?
[00:00:46] Josh Hutchinson: And what did the ministers have to say about the potential meaning of the earthquakes?
[00:00:53] Sarah Jack: Kathleen Langone is the creator and host of People Hidden in History podcast. She enjoys telling people about history that isn't commonly known, or possibly people hidden in the shadows of the more famous. Be sure to check out her website, peoplehiddeninhistory.com, and find her on X to find out more about these hidden stories. .
Kathleen, we are so happy to have you join us today on our podcast. You've had us twice as guests to talk about witch trials. Thank you for coming.
[00:01:28] Kathleen Langone: I'm delighted to be on this series, and it was always fun to talk to you folks from my podcast series, and just briefly about my series, it's called People Hidden in History, and I cover very interesting but not well known people from the 1600s up through about the 1960s. And there are 20 episodes now, a few more to come. And these are, I would say, longer, more academic episodes, but I would love for some of your listeners to come over and listen to some of these podcasts. Thank you.
[00:02:00] Sarah Jack: I love your episodes. Our listeners will really enjoy hearing them and I just, your podcast has a special place in my heart ,because it was my first experience talking on a podcast and thank you for that.
[00:02:15] Kathleen Langone: You're welcome.
[00:02:18] Josh Hutchinson: And how did you come to have expertise in New England earthquakes?
[00:02:24] Kathleen Langone: It's an interesting story, folks. I actually had an undergraduate degree in earth science. I got that from the University of New Hampshire, and through a number of circumstances, I connected with New Hampshire Emergency Management, actually in the late 1980s. There was actually money coming into New England to do research on earthquakes, because various people realized in the United States Geologic Survey that there was a pretty extensive history of earthquakes, as we'll talk about, in the 1600s, 1700s, and there was some concern if these were to happen again that there'd be little preparation, in terms of emergency management. So they brought me in and actually hired me. I worked for a couple of different groups to do historical research on earthquakes, and I went through a lot of dusty library shelves and many interesting historical accounts. And that's really how it all started.
[00:03:21] Sarah Jack: At that time, the research would have been really like hands on. You would have been digging in archives and looking at actual documents for that information, not just jumping on the internet.
[00:03:35] Kathleen Langone: Yeah, that was very true. Back then, there was very little that had been scanned in and digitized, so many hours spent in libraries. And my thanks to the many generous librarians that let me hang out in their institutions.
[00:03:48] Sarah Jack: So have earthquakes become less common? They were more common hundreds of years ago. What's the situation on the frequency of earthquakes in New England?
[00:03:59] Kathleen Langone: That's a good question, because I think people today don't really perceive earthquakes as a threat to New England. They were really quite common in the 1600s, 1700s. And even recorded back to the 1500s. So if you look at the major events, there was a major earthquake in 1638, I think was recorded likely up in New Hampshire.
There were two major earthquakes in the 1700s. 1727, epicenter believed to be in Newbury, Massachusetts, which was in northeastern Massachusetts on the coast, and the 1755 earthquake, which was quite large, maybe the epicenter about 25 miles off the coast of Boston. And then there was a break of activity. And interestingly, there were no earthquakes of note during the Revolutionary War. I think had there been, this would have been much more prominent in history. Very little activity in the 1800s, then there were actually twin earthquakes up in Tamworth, New Hampshire in 1940, and not much since then.
[00:05:03] Josh Hutchinson: You talked about earthquakes in the 17th and 18th centuries. How would the colonists have responded to those? How would they have viewed that experience?
[00:05:16] Kathleen Langone: When I first started researching earthquakes, of course, I was aware of the witch trials in the 17th century, the 1600s, and I thought that these would have been attributed to, the devilish acts of these witches, and there was never a connection there. But these events were definitely seen as acts of a vengeful God. So many of these earthquakes created sermons, which we'll talk about in a little bit. So there was a definite division between what witchcraft could cause. They often would attribute things like diseases, stillbirths, dead livestock, things of that nature, to witchcraft, whereas earthquakes, maybe even hurricanes or things of that nature, were of this very powerful, vengeful god.
[00:06:02] Sarah Jack: And what do the ministers say about his vengeance or what was to follow? What kind of ideas or messages did they have for their churches?
[00:06:17] Kathleen Langone: I think that they almost welcomed these earthquakes, in a way, because to them it was a very clear message that people have sinned and to prevent them from sinning in the future. So these ministers would record these earthquakes, like I said, as acts of a vengeful God. And we'll talk about one minister, Cotton Mather, from 1727, and he's talking about the conditions just before the earthquake and then the earthquake occurring. And he says, "the air was never more calm, the sky never more fair, everything in all imaginable tranquility." But then he says, "was heard in Boston, passing from one end of town to another, a horrid rumbling."
And let's talk back to 1638. There's a recording from William Bradford, second governor of Plymouth Colony, and this passage was actually written at a time when they were having meetings. The town fathers were meeting about actually expelling some people who were not adhering to whatever the laws were of the community, and during this meeting, the 1638 earthquake occurred, and it states, "as if the Lord would hereby show the signs of his displeasure." So in other words, if earthquake was seen as justification for them having this meeting to expel these people.
[00:07:43] Josh Hutchinson: That's really remarkable timing, the 1638 earthquake happening while you're making a weighty decision. I would definitely see them, how you would interpret that as being a sign of what you're supposed to do.
[00:08:01] Kathleen Langone: I would like to mention another recording from the 1638 earthquake. At the time that occurred, the famous Anne Hutchinson that we know ran up against Governor John Winthrop, et cetera. She, in a sense, had been expelled. She was down in Rhode Island at this point, and she was having a meeting, a religious meeting, if you will, at her home. And when the earthquake occurred, from her perspective, it was almost a justification that she was where she was, that it's good that she was no longer up in Massachusetts. So to her, it was a positive sign. And in a couple of weeks, I hope to have a podcast out on Anne Hutchinson. I've recorded it. I'm still editing it, but that's going to be an interesting story that I think you two will enjoy also.
[00:08:46] Josh Hutchinson: I'm really looking forward to that. There's some witchcraft implications in the case of Anne Hutchinson and her associates, the midwives for bearing the children with congenital disorders that they deemed the monster birth, to use the term of the day. Yeah, and John Winthrop even called one of Anne Hutchinson's friends a witch.
[00:09:20] Kathleen Langone: Exactly, Josh, she did have a monster birth. Sadly, I think when the various trials were going around, she was still in Boston. She did have basically a deformed baby that died, and I'm sure that they pounced on that.

[00:09:33] Kathleen Langone: Now in addition to earthquakes, there were some other odd phenomenon that happened in New England. In 1780, though, much later, there was something called a dark day, and this was attributed, they understand now, to these massive forest fires in Canada, which of course we're very familiar with this year, bringing over these huge clouds of smoke and it's stalling over New England. You can have one of these thermal inversions where the air just doesn't move off to the coast. And there was a minister in Connecticut that actually labeled this as a sign of a judgment day that had come across his community. And, you know, I think that's a very strong statement to actually call this a judgment day. So again, earthquakes and some other less easily explained phenomenon were seen as acts of God.

[00:10:24] Sarah Jack: Some of the other things that impacted the colonists, you wouldn't necessarily feel it, you might see it or hear it, and with an earthquake, you've got all your senses being pulled into it. I think how powerful that must have felt to them.
[00:10:41] Kathleen Langone: Well, I think, following up on what you said, the fearful colonists, I think would want to hear from their ministers, because they would see this as an act of God. They would like to hear that confirmed by the ministers, or maybe know in ways that they can repent.
So not only was there shaking of houses and everything, there was an odd phenomenon occurred with the 1755 earthquake called earthquake lights that was even more frightening. So in New England, there's a lot of granite. We all know about granite in New England. And when these earthquake waves would come through, and if they were intense enough, they would actually compress the granite and the quartz in the granite would emit sparks or lights. So in the middle of this earthquake, they would actually see lights skitter across the ground. It was recorded as a blue light, and that's even more fearful. And again, an example of something that would not be explained and be very fearful.
[00:11:37] Sarah Jack: How powerful.
[00:11:39] Kathleen Langone: So I just want to bring up a more humorous aspect of a minister talking about the 1755 earthquake. This is Reverend Phillips from Andover, Massachusetts. And I guess before the November 1755 earthquake, there'd been a lot of people who fell asleep in his sermons. And of course he would rebuke them, etc. And after the 1755 earthquake occurred, he was able to say, you better not sleep now, because God's pretty upset with you. And people stayed awake for a while in his sermons.
[00:12:09] Sarah Jack: Nobody wants to get rapped on their shoulder for dozing off in a service or class, but how even more upsetting to be rattled by God's hand on an earthquake.
[00:12:24] Kathleen Langone: And I think those sermons back then, Sarah, were a couple of hours. They weren't like the nice sweet and short ones we have now at 45 minutes. These were a couple of hours. So I probably would have fallen asleep, too.
[00:12:34] Josh Hutchinson: They would hold two a day on Sundays. You'd go for morning service, break for a long lunch, and then go back in the evening. And sometimes the evening service, it would be so dark in there that you could hardly see the minister. But these are long hours that you're putting in an uncomfortable wooden bench in a building that's either too hot or too cold. It's rarely just right inside one of those buildings.
Was an earthquake always a sign of God's displeasure?
[00:13:12] Kathleen Langone: It mostly Josh, for the earlier earthquakes. By 1755, you had some other trends coming in. This coincided with the Age of Enlightenment from Europe, a lot of new scientific thought coming out, trying to explain things in the world with rational scientific explanations. So there were scientists at that time in Boston who were trying to explain these earthquakes by other means.
There was John Winthrop, a scientist from Harvard, that said these earthquakes could be occurred by strange vapors that might explode underground. And he published his theories on that. There were even theories that Ben Franklin's lightning rods were causing these earthquakes, and you could think of conducting that energy through the lightning rod and the house into the ground causing earthquakes, which of course was not the case.
But these more rational thoughts were not met very well by the ministers, because that would take away their messaging that this was a vengeful god, so there was actually conflicts back and forth between some of the Harvard scientists and the ministers at the time.
[00:14:20] Josh Hutchinson: Were there actions or maybe a set of actions that ministers would take following a sign like an earthquake? Would they, their messaging change? What would they be pushing for to happen as a response?
[00:14:39] Kathleen Langone: They would like some sort of sign of repentance from the parishioners, and there were these fast days called where they would be asked to fast for a day. I know for the 1755 earthquake, there were broadsides, basically posters that were posted in and around Boston saying that people should lead a less sinful life, etc. These fast days were very real.
There were also more frequent sermons and meetings held at the churches. And it's funny what happened with these earthquakes, with any earthquake, of course, there would often be aftershocks. So you'd have your primary shock, and people think it's over. I'll repent. I'll be a good Christian. But then the aftershocks kept coming, and they would think God's still looking at me. I better not sin. And what happened as the aftershocks would decrease with frequency, people would be less apt to go to church. So you'd see this great uptick of people going to the sermons and even though the ministers would keep wanting them to go to church and have more frequent services, the attendance fell down when the aftershock stopped.
[00:15:43] Josh Hutchinson: It's like they had a sense of urgency while the earth was still rumbling, that you let your guard down afterwards.
[00:15:53] Kathleen Langone: And it was to their advantage, really, because it supported their word. Now one other thing I would like to mention of the 1755 earthquake, a few weeks before that earthquake, so the Boston earthquake was November 18th. On November 1st was the very famous Lisbon earthquake that was far more violent and damaging, many people died in that earthquake. It leveled Lisbon. There was a tsunami, all of these various effects. But you have to realize the news of that earthquake reached New England literally right after their earthquake, so if you're thinking of a vengeful god, this would have been even more profound and frightening, because not only did he shake up New England, he shook up Europe, so at that time, they would have thought God was very upset with mankind, and an interesting literary note about the Lisbon earthquake, it was mentioned in the book Candide by Voltaire, And it was an example of how life can turn very horrible, even though you think life is good and God is good, there can be very severe consequences.
[00:16:57] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, so other earthquakes happening in other places, the news of that must also have shaken things up, excuse the pun, in New England for as far as the them interpreting signs of God's displeasure. Hearing of earthquakes in other places must have also affected them.
[00:17:21] Kathleen Langone: Very much and again, I think it, it supported those who saw as a religious angle on this with a vengeful God. It further supported that without question.
[00:17:31] Josh Hutchinson: I know denominations, Catholics and Protestants and Puritans and Anglicans, often used natural disasters politically against each other. Did you ever see anything where say the New England ministers, there was an earthquake, maybe in a Catholic territory, and they pounced on that as a sign that God was unhappy with the Catholics?
[00:17:59] Kathleen Langone: It's interesting that you say that. Because, obviously, Lisbon was predominantly Catholic, and sadly, there were hundreds of lives lost. The number might have even been higher, so the Calvinists and the Puritans in New England might have seen that God was very directly vengeful by killing all those people. Because, if you look at some of the sermons out of Boston of 1755 Earthquake, they cite, a very powerful, vengeful God, but then maybe a kind God in that nobody died in that earthquake or any of the previous earthquakes. So it could be an example that he was directly punishing the Catholics. So you might have a point there.
[00:18:41] Josh Hutchinson: I didn't realize nobody, nobody died in those New England earthquakes. That is quite remarkable.
[00:18:49] Kathleen Langone: Let me follow up on that, because there's a saying among seismologists, "earthquakes don't kill people, buildings kill people." Because if you're just standing out in a field, and even if it's a severe earthquake, at most you're just going to be knocked down. So if you think of the structures up until 1755, they were post and beam. And when earthquakes would come through to these post and beam homes, they could shake and creak a little bit, but they didn't necessarily collapse, because there was some give given the construction.
In Boston, by 1755, there were a number of brick buildings, and they didn't completely collapse, but definitely there were bricks littering the streets, but still nobody got killed. And you didn't have highway overpasses, you didn't have large, metal bridges. So the things that killed people now simply weren't present back then.
[00:19:41] Josh Hutchinson: I imagine in Lisbon, you had more stone buildings in an established older European city.
[00:19:49] Kathleen Langone: I think that would have been very true, and if you ever read the accounts of that earthquake, it was especially nasty.
[00:19:57] Sarah Jack: Kathleen, we don't have a lot of extra information on the Jamaica earthquake. We saw that Marilynne Roach mentions it in her Day by Day Chronicle, when it happened.
[00:20:10] Kathleen Langone: I can tell you I know what the physical effects were. It was on one end of the Jamaica Island, and it was a pretty nasty earthquake. Part of the land actually subsided into the ocean, and the land there became like quicksand, and I have an account, it's a little bit gruesome, but it's a realistic account.
Some people who were walking around as this land began to subside, it became wet, it became like quicksand, and people were actually trapped in the land to the point where just maybe their head was above, and nobody could pull them out. And then actually dogs came around and actually ate some of these people. I know that sounds horrible, but it was pretty gruesome.
[00:20:55] Josh Hutchinson: Samuel Sewell mentioned it in his diary in 1692, and so it had some relevance with Salem witchcraft crisis going on. There was a belief that there was a diabolical conspiracy against the Puritans, against their mission in New England. They had warfare going on with the French Catholics and the Native Americans, who they considered to be pagans.
So they thought that they were being surrounded on all sides by the devil trying to tear down Christ's church. And I know that it was recorded that they did take some solace in that, with the Jamaica earthquake, as terrible as it was, the Puritan minister survived, and no New England vessels were lost in that earthquake. So they took that as solace, but they were still deeply concerned of what the earthquake itself meant.
[00:22:05] Kathleen Langone: Yeah, that's an interesting comment. And again, it goes to the examples where no one died in the New England earthquake. So again, it was a vengeful God, but he spared lives. And I do want to talk a little bit about the 1755 earthquake again. That was during the height of the French Indian War. And a number of accounts are in the accounts of the war, et cetera. So they do mention that earthquake. So it was recorded in journals, if you will, of the French Indian War.
[00:22:39] Josh Hutchinson: That's fascinating how you seem sometimes to have these events compounding, there's just one thing on top of another, and that really gets you wondering, what is this a sign of? Is this maybe the end times?
[00:22:57] Kathleen Langone: Exactly.
[00:22:59] Sarah Jack: You mentioned the dogs at the Jamaica disaster. I was curious if you got to see any other information about animals responses, or if anybody talked about behavior, animal behavior in relation to earthquakes.
[00:23:18] Kathleen Langone: Very good question. There were often recordings of dogs howling just before earthquakes. There's even been some scientific study on that, that before you have the ground motion, there could be some sort of very high frequency waves that can come through an area that animals pick up on. It's been documented many times that dogs and other animals will howl or become restless within a few minutes of an earthquake.
[00:23:44] Sarah Jack: I was also wondering with the fishing, if anybody reported an effect on their fishing.
[00:23:52] Kathleen Langone: There was an account with the 1755 earthquake from a ship that was off the coast of Boston, that just after the earthquake, they saw this huge upwelling of dead fish. It might have been some sort of compression of the water waves that might have killed a school of fish, so there was a recording of that.
[00:24:12] Josh Hutchinson: Wow, that is fascinating. You mentioned tsunamis in regards to the Lisbon earthquake. Was there ever a report of a tsunami or anything to that effect in New England?
[00:24:27] Kathleen Langone: There were not. It just happened to be with the angle that these earthquakes occurred, if you will. There's no recordings of that per se. There are recordings of land subsidence, maybe not huge chasms in the earth, but there were recordings of certain areas of land that became depressed. And there was another effect that I'll mention, what happened in the Jamaica earthquake. If you have certain kinds of sandy soil ,and if it's moist, it can become like quicksand. There were incidences of land that would just depress. You might have a hole where the sandy soil was. You might have some trees tilt over, if they were rooted in this sort of soil. There were many accounts of that.
In fact, what scientists do now, and in present time, they might go to an area that they suspect had this kind of soil. And they would take samples, they would take these ground corings, and they would see through the levels of the sand or the clay or whatever, these explosions, if you will, they're called sand blasts or sand blows. So that would have occurred, and that's a great marker when people do research, because if you have these, you have to have an earthquake of magnitude at least five or above.
And let me digress for a moment and talk about the magnitude of these various earthquakes, just to give people a reference. The 1638 could have been a very powerful earthquake, maybe 6.8 on the Richter scale. The one in 1727 in Newbury, Massachusetts, maybe a little less, maybe a 5.7 or 5.8 on the Richter scale. The Boston earthquake could have been as powerful as a 6.1 or 6.3 on a Richter scale. And do remember that the Richter scale is logarithmic, simply meaning that if you go from a 6.1 or 6.2, it's a pretty large jump. So it just gives you an idea of the magnitude of these quakes. They were quite appreciable.
[00:26:24] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, 6.8, in modern times with modern structures, would be devastating.
[00:26:33] Kathleen Langone: Most certainly. And there's certainly a lot of predictive models that say these earthquakes will come back, and they will at some point. I don't know if they'll be in our lifetime, but they easily could occur again. And just to give some explanation of how these earthquakes occur, there are no active fault lines that we have here. We're very familiar with the San Andreas Fault in California, etc. But these are called intraplate earthquakes, so they're in between the spreading zones. So you think of the Mid Atlantic Ridge, which you might be familiar with, where you have the earth being formed and the crust sort of pushing both against the North American continent and towards Europe. So as this pressure keeps happening, something has to happen. It's like the middle of a graham cracker cracking, if you will. So this pressure comes into New England and old faults from many eons ago are basically activated, and you have these earthquakes.
[00:27:29] Josh Hutchinson: I didn't know that type of earthquake existed. I was thinking there must, surely there must be a fault. I live out in the West, so I'm much more familiar with the California earthquakes. I've experienced a couple of those. And knowing that there's activity in the middle of a plate, that's brand new.
[00:27:51] Kathleen Langone: Yeah, there is, because all these crusts, you put enough pressure on anything like that, and it's going to crack at some point.
[00:27:58] Sarah Jack: At what point would have they started reflecting on these scientifically, putting data together, would it always have been looking back to get information, or I'm just curious, when you have Governor Winthrop reporting what he saw and what the experience, when did the documenting become more scientific?
[00:28:24] Kathleen Langone: I think that you have to look at the rise of science of geology. I think geology came into its own more so in the 1800s, and maybe there was more scientific recording, etc. So back, I believe in the 1970s, there were seismic networks set up throughout New England and Southern Canada, seismographs, of course. And now we have Weston Observatory, which is basically an earthquake observatory in Weston, Massachusetts. They're associated with Boston College, and they're, if you think of it, a major monitoring station and their instruments will pick up anything in New England, as a matter of fact, anything from around the world. So there's quite a sophisticated network set up now, but I think that's really recent, in the last 60 or 70 years. I don't think there was much monitoring formally done before then.
[00:29:17] Josh Hutchinson: And how are these magnitudes of historic earthquakes, how is the magnitude calculated?
[00:29:26] Kathleen Langone: Very good question. Of course, back then, you know, in the 1600s and 1700s, you didn't have the concept of a Richter scale. You had a scale, which we now call the modified Mercalli scale, and that is a scale of felt effects. And I'll give you an example, back to colonial times. If you had, let's say, a pewter goblet fall off the table, that might be a magnitude like a Richter scale four or something like this. So a lot of these reports and what people like myself and many others did, they would record all of these physical effects and say, okay, if I've had a collapse of a chimney, that's maybe at least Richter five. So you would map these physical effects to what that would map into the modern day Richter scale.
And it's funny back then, because if we think of an earthquake coming through, we might say it would sound like a jet coming by or a train, but back then it was carriages coming by, like large, thunderous carriages. So there were different descriptions of how these things were back then.
[00:30:32] Josh Hutchinson: It's interesting.
[00:30:33] Sarah Jack: I'm curious what surprised you while you were researching. Did you have any insights that you didn't expect or what was most impactful to your research for what you found?
[00:30:49] Kathleen Langone: I think what surprised me the most was the tight correlation between religious life and these events. There was no question when these occurred, people would immediately think it was an act of God. There was no question. There was not a split second, gee, I wonder what that was. It was immediately thought of as an act of God. And how these ministers would use these earthquakes or things like the dark days to bring people into their parish and to help people stay to the way of God's and not be sinners. So again, it was a very integrated thing of these events going into the religion of the time.
[00:31:24] Sarah Jack: Yeah, it really shows how encompassing the interpretation of all the things happening, how tied it was to God's favor or God's displeasure and what their behavior should be. We look at the witch trials, and we see what a major piece of that the religion was, but it's very interesting to look at weather or these natural disasters and see that it didn't take them off guard. They didn't try to find a reason for it. They just knew, hey, this was part of God's working as well.
[00:32:03] Kathleen Langone: Now, from both of your research, what would you say was most frequently perceived that witchcraft would cause? We talked a little bit about that, but what would you say, witchcraft caused this in the village? What would that list of bad things be?
[00:32:18] Josh Hutchinson: Start with the death of animals and children. Death and sickness were the most common issues. There were some reports of weather related to witchcraft. There was one of a ship that was caught in a storm by witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. There was also a really infamous case, the North Berwick Witch Trials in Scotland, where King James VI of Scotland, who became the first of England,, his bride was on the way over from Denmark to meet him in Scotland to get married. And this huge storm nearly sank the ship and they blamed it on, I believe they ended up rounding up dozens of individuals as witches based on that storm. So there was some of that, but most commonly it was a neighborly dispute that led to an animal dying or was believed to have directly led to an animal dying or a child dying or a mysterious illness, maybe an early death.
[00:33:45] Sarah Jack: Another one that comes to mind is food or anything they might've been preparing, butter. It comes up on all the continents as being bewitched, and then even soup has been a culprit in more than one dispute.
[00:34:04] Josh Hutchinson: And the pudding in Springfield, Massachusetts, with the case of Hugh Parsons, he was believed to have bewitched a pudding, so it came out of the oven split evenly, as if by magic, and there were in Ireland, I know Andrew Sneddon mentioned the butter thieves and milk thieves that by witchcraft would take the milk from your cow directly. So then when you went to milk the cow, it was dry.
And there's some degree of nature, some degree of magnitude where a witch could cause a minor storm, but God would cause an hurricane or an earthquake, or was often responsible for large fires and plagues. Where a smaller, individual community episode of smallpox might be witchcraft, a grand plague sweeping would've been seen as requiring more power than what the devil could have given to a human.
[00:35:23] Kathleen Langone: Oh, that makes perfect sense. I could see plagues certainly being directly attributed to God and not a couple of weakling witches, if you will. That's very interesting, Josh.
[00:35:32] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, there were limits to the power of witches based on the limits biblically to the devil's powers, because he was the source of all the witchcraft powers, at least in the eyes of the ministers and the elite. Now, the folk beliefs in witchcraft were largely just based on believing that certain people had innate abilities to perform magical feats, but again, that there would be, presumably be, some limits on what a human can do compared to what a demon or a devil or some more advanced being could do.
[00:36:14] Sarah Jack: Katherine Harrison had too much good luck, and they would attribute her cattle responding to her well to her witchcraft.
[00:36:26] Josh Hutchinson: That's right. She called to her cattle, and her cattle came to her more quickly than other people's cattles came to them. There were like multiple witnesses to this event. She went out and she said some, something that to the hearers sounded like a magical phrase. It was like a nonsense word. And she just shouted this to her cattle, and then they came at a gallop, according to the witnesses. There were interesting effects with livestock.
[00:37:01] Kathleen Langone: So for your listeners out there, if you Google New England earthquakes, there's a lot of great online resources. There's certainly a web page for Weston Observatory, which I mentioned is a very active observatory now. And for those living in New England, you just might want to know about how to deal with an earthquake if it occurs. It wouldn't be a bad thing to read.
[00:37:22] Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.
[00:37:24] Mary Bingham: Sashiprava Bindhani, a lawyer, was the first advocate to meet with me, a board member representing End Witch Hunts. Her beautiful smile lit up my phone screen last July and we have remained in touch. Sashi relayed how she put measures into place to slow the spread of witch hunts in her home state of Odisha, India.
Her reasons? To protect women from witch hunts. After all, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recognizes that both men and women deserve equal protection under the law. Before 2014, anyone who accused a woman to be a Dayan or a Dhani, the Odisha words for witch, suffered little consequence.
Sashi's hard work resulted in the Odisha Prevention of Witch Hunting Act and was signed by the governor in 2014. Anyone who now accuses a woman to be a die in could be imprisoned up to three years and or pay a fine of one thousand rupees, which is twelve US dollars. Thank you, Sashi.
[00:38:27] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:38:29] Josh Hutchinson: And here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
End Witch Hunts News. End Witch Hunts is a 501c3 non profit organization. End Witch Hunts is a movement to stop the deadly practice of witch hunting around the world. Our vision is a world without witch hunts, where all victims are exonerated, and modern victims and their families receive justice. Your financial support empowers us to educate and advocate. Your donation is tax deductible. Please keep us in mind when you give your holiday charitable gifts. Thank you for supporting our podcast project. Go to the show notes to see how to donate to our nonprofit organization and podcast.
Our newest project, the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project, is seeking formal exoneration for those convicted as witches in Boston, and asking for a formal apology for all those documented to have suffered in the colony witch trials. We have researched these individuals, and they each have a story of innocence, injustice, and devastating life altering consequences due to false witchcraft accusations.
We want to address this colony wide miscarriage of justice with an amendment to the previous legislation that has already exonerated those convicted in the 1692 Salem Witch trials. Please sign and then share the petition change.org/witchtrials to show your support.
To learn more about this project and how you can get involved, visit Massachusettswitchtrials.org. Our podcast creator, Josh Hutchinson, and Professor Emerson Baker had a great conversation last week on GBH News Greater Boston about the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project. Watch it today to hear about the significance of acknowledging the five innocent women who hanged in Boston for witchcraft. Margaret Jones, Alice Lake, Elizabeth Kendall. Ann Hibbins and Goody Glover.
An amendment to previous legislation is all that it takes to clear their names. It's the right thing to do. It's an easy thing to do, but someone in the Massachusetts General Court has to initiate the amendment. Thank you for stepping up and making a difference. If you live in Massachusetts, you can share this project with your legislative representatives and ask them to propose the amendment. If you are a voting member of the Massachusetts General Court, we need you to lead or collaborate on this amendment effort now. Please consider reaching out to the project so that we can support you as you propose or support such an amendment. Please take action, and let's work together to help close a chapter of American history that calls out to us all for answers.
[00:41:04] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:41:06] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:41:08] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:41:12] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:41:14] Josh Hutchinson: Please rate and review wherever you get your podcasts and hit that subscribe button.
[00:41:19] Sarah Jack: Go look at our other episodes at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:41:24] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[00:41:27] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to help end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:41:32] Josh Hutchinson: To support the show, please make a tax deductible donation, purchase books from our bookshop or merch from our Zazzle shop, links are in the show description.
[00:41:43] Sarah Jack: Have you considered supporting the production of the podcast? Join us as a super listener. Your super listener donation is tax deductible. Thank you for being a part of our work.
[00:41:53] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

November 9, 2023

Ending Witch-Hunts in India with Samantha Spence and Amit Anand

The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices

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Show Notes

Today we talk about the complexities of witch hunting across India with advocates Dr. Samantha Spence and Dr. Amit Anand from the organization, The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices. This conversation highlights how intersectional factors such as legislation, culture, religion, superstition, gender, and status tie into the manifestation of witchcraft fear and resultant violence in unique communities. What solutions can work on the ground?

We consider: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

Interview with Greater Boston, Josh Hutchinson, and Dr. Emerson Baker (at 15:38)

Two of Windsor: Accused and Exonerated of Witchcraft with Beth Caruso

Preservation Connecticut Presentation: Sarah Jack and Josh Hutchinson

Fox Live Now, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack

Before there was Salem, there was Connecticut with Dr. Kathy Hermes and Sarah Jack

Washington Post, Josh Hutchinson Interview

Petition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
List of those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.

[00:00:13] Josh Hutchinson: I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:15] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Today's guests, Dr. Samantha Spence and Dr. Amit Anand, are human rights advocates and will be speaking to us primarily about the witch hunting situation in India.
[00:00:29] Josh Hutchinson: They represent the organization, the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices.
Could you please introduce yourselves?
[00:00:41] Amit Anand: I am Dr. Amit Anand. I am currently working as a lecturer in law at the School of Legal Studies, REVA University, Bangalore, India. I Recently graduated with a PhD in law from Lancaster University, UK. The topic of my research was violence against women in India, where I was focusing on the practice of witchcraft, honor killing, and temple prostitution. I also hold an LLM in Human Rights Law from the University of Reading, UK and my research interests, they lie in the area of international human rights law, particularly on gender based violence and caste based discrimination in India.
[00:01:20] Samantha Spence: My name is Dr. Samantha Spence. I am the course director for postgraduate studies in law at Staffordshire University in the UK. I have been working on this issue for over 10 years now. My research is predominantly around harmful practices in women. And my PhD I did at Lancaster University, where I met Amit, was on witchcraft accusations and persecutions as a marginalization mechanism of women. So the predominant focus of my research is international human rights and women's rights and marginalized communities.
[00:01:59] Josh Hutchinson: And you're both part of very important organizations, international NGOs that are working to address the situation of witchcraft and sorcery accusation related violence. . .
[00:02:16] Samantha Spence: So the International Network came about from essentially there was a group of us that started this work many years ago. It was started originally by I. K., so Ikponwosa Ero, who was the previous mandate holder for albinism at the U.N. and Charlotte Baker at Lancaster and Gary Foxcroft who had WHRIN, which was the Witchcraft and Human Rights organization. Being at Lancaster, I jumped in due to similar research areas. And then the International Network is basically the group of people who worked on this issue from the start and have continued on this journey. So I'm the co director of the International Network with Miranda Forsyth, who I believe has been interviewed also. And then we have a variety of international advisory board members, of which Amit is one.
[00:03:08] Sarah Jack: What do listeners need to know about the witch hunting situation in India?
[00:03:14] Amit Anand: Okay so the witch hunting situation in India or witchcraft accusations, it's a very complex phenomenon here in India. We can't really understand it from one perspective, but mostly overall what I found in my research was that it's very gender-specific. So most of the victims are women, and these are women who are already marginalized because of their status in society. And this again depends on several factors. So status in society is not just about rich or poor, but then there are different social markers on which people are divided here in India. It could be religion, it could be caste. So there are these intersecting factors, but like I said, it's very gender-specific. And because India is mostly set to be a patriarchal society, so then there is also this male dominance and subordination of women just to safeguard male supremacy. So it's a very complex issue, and that's why it's still something that's not clearly talked about.
People have though, written about this but very, very briefly. And there is very less literature or very less dialogue from a legal perspective. Nothing much on the human rights violations front. Because the society is complex and then again, talking about gender-based violence or witchcraft accusation or witch-hunting, which is a part of that.
It makes it all the more complex, so there are these different factors that we really need to take into consideration to understand why this practice still happens in 21st century India, despite there being several legislations in place and despite the law saying that everyone's rights should be protected, there are these different factors which are very complex but we do need to consider all of them and if you want to understand why this happens.
[00:05:11] Samantha Spence: For me, I find, I agree with what Amit has said, and I think the problem is because this belief in witchcraft, it encompasses these different areas, so religion and culture and superstition, and underlying that is these concepts of fear and evil. And if you put all these together, this is problematic, because people don't want to challenge any of these.
And superstition is rife in India, and it's this misconception that specific behavior can actually influence events, but they're unrelated. Because what it does as superstition is it creates this link between an action and an outcome, but the reality is that there's no causality there. And this culmination of superstition and evil and fear is problematic, because it regulates society. People are afraid to challenge it, and it regulates through fear. So it provides this kind of discourse, let's just say, as to, it explains that why things are happening, but it doesn't actually give the answers.
But the fear itself is enough for people not to challenge it. And as Amit said, in India, there's a patriarchal society and women particularly are completely unable to challenge it and they become the victims and the intersectionality there of the caste system and all these other factors just perpetuates this kind of narrative of witchcraft, because it's prevalent, and it's foolproof. How do you counteract this discourse? You can't. Yeah it's so complex, different manifestations in different places, but for me that, there's still the underlying cause there is this fear.
[00:06:47] Josh Hutchinson: There are many different states in India, many different cultures. How do the witchcraft beliefs, how do they differ across those cultures?
[00:07:00] Amit Anand: I guess there are certain things that tie them together, but in practice is what they differ. So in terms of accusations, how that happens, to whom it happens, what happens after the accusations, that's something that differs in nature. The kind of violence that is inflicted, that could differ, but what ties them together, like Sam said, is superstitious beliefs and that's just the starting point.
And you know that places where this happens, people are not educated very poor literacy rates. So these superstitious beliefs, which are often strengthened by folklore and myths, they allow malicious intent to spread rapidly within these communities and then create a sense of fear, which is then used by a certain group of people who hold some kind of power and then want to dominate and control women. And then comes the accusation and which follows violence.
Superstitious beliefs, fear of evil eye, these are things that you will find are common. How they are understood might differ. When a woman is accused of being a witch, that might differ. How the violence is conducted, that might differ. But there are a few things which tie all of this together, but it's very difficult to pinpoint what those factors are because all these separate places, they tend to believe in things differently and how they relate with the nature or how much fear or superstition actually works in favor of then prolonging witchcraft accusation, that might differ. So it's very, what's the source of all of this? Is it religion? Is it something else? Is religion used as a tool to then perhaps see that our beliefs are right, so it's very difficult to pinpoint when it has started, how it has started but yeah it, they are different in different places, but then if you see it all in one place, you will realize that there are similarities and that's why the law can, in some sense, work on the ground, but then again, these social realities have to be taken into account.
[00:09:05] Josh Hutchinson: Then is there a need for different approaches in different places?
[00:09:12] Amit Anand: Yes, definitely. I would say that, for instance, the place that I come from, that's the state of Jharkhand, and that tops the list of witchcraft accusations in the entire country. The government collects records with respect to witchcraft accusations and mostly accusations resulting in violence and in the death of the victims, which are mostly women. So my state has a lot of killings over the last 10 years. So if you take the data says that from 2010 to 2021, there are close to 1500 people who died in my state alone. So that's a huge that's a very big data and that's very disturbing.
But in, so how my state sees it, the literacy rate isn't high in my home state, but despite all of that, we do have a state based legislation, so it's a legislation that doesn't cover the entire country but only restricted to my state, but the legislation, it's very weak in nature. In terms of punishment that it gives, it's just three months of imprisonment, even if you are accused of killing a woman who was accused of being a witch. So if you have accused her and the violence happens and she is dead, then the maximum punishment that you get is just three months of imprisonment.
So obviously, the law hasn't really looked at the social reality or what it can actually do in terms of practice but my state essentially what it's focusing on and this is, again, replicated in other parts of the country, as well, is about social awareness. So they are conducting camps, trying to educate people, and this is where in, nGOs come in picture. The state government has joined hands with local NGOs and is trying to educate people in villages. It's actually reaching out to survivors of witchcraft accusations, because they know what has happened to them. And if they come out and speak to other people, then whatever it is that they say, their story will have more impact than the government telling people not to do it.
So they have joined hands with survivors, tried to locate them, tried to bring them in the forefront, and then take these people out again in the villages and then try to explain to people that whatever it is that you believe is completely against the law and then how you believe that how it manifests in violence, then that's, again, a very huge violation of the right of the victim.
But this is a good way of doing it, but the government, again, is slow. If there are budget cuts, it's not a priority. Again there was a very big news that the government plans to do it. They actually started doing it, but then they stopped midway, because they said we don't have funds, there are other problems that we need to focus on.
Other states tried to replicate this, but they haven't really moved far ahead. It's a problem. It's a very big problem. They do acknowledge, but then there isn't that will to actually do something about it. So that's why most NGOs on the ground are even struggling to, to get all these separate state governments on board together and then force the center to pass a national law. Very many challenges in different parts of the country.
[00:12:17] Sarah Jack: Yeah. I can see what a challenge it would be. You have two facets. You have the need for the people in society to understand that the violence is not okay, and you have your victims the survivors with the message there. And then you have... your message to the leadership that, to change that mindset and to find a drive for collaboration across the states. That's a lot. That's a big mission.
[00:12:49] Samantha Spence: Yeah, I think the law doesn't work in isolation. As lawyers, we'll both say, laws, unfortunately, don't work all the time. They still don't work in the UK, for example. We still, people still murder people. This is the reality of life. But because it's so complex, it's not a priority. And what you're dealing with is these issues of the intertwining. Is it religious? Is it cultural? What's it driven by? And people don't want to challenge that. And as a government, why would you? You want to maintain the status quo and keep the people happy. And this is where the problem lies. And also that people aren't educated on the laws, and the laws then aren't, they could be there, but then they're not implemented because there's corruption. And like I say, if you deeply, if you believe something so deeply and passionately, then a law is not going to change that.
It's this kind of social awareness, like Amit says, in these campaigns, and there's some fantastic people, Dr. Dinesh Mishra, for example, he has an awareness of superstition, and he's an ophthalmologist by trade, so he's a scientific doctor, and he goes around to try and disprove some of these theories. But again, you can't, it's not something that will change overnight, and you need to empower people, but it's also very hard to empower people in a society where that's not the done thing.
Even internationally, as well, we actually held a recent event at the UN, and we asked mandate holders there and a lot of them weren't aware. We have the resolution through, but they still weren't aware. And when you discuss it, "oh yeah. That's just a cultural thing." But the reality is okay, but people are dying. People are suffering here. And this is why it's so complex. People just don't want to challenge this narrative.
[00:14:33] Amit Anand: I just wanted to add a minor point. So I was reading up about uh, witchcraft and what's the latest that is happening in India. So I simply found out that in the month of May, there's an article that was written in the New York Times, which was focusing on witchcraft situations in India. And it largely focused on the problem of acknowledgement, that we need to understand that yes, it happens, witchcraft accusations, witch hunting, killing in the name of witchcraft accusation does happen, but it mostly happens in places that are remote, people are not very literate. They don't know about the laws.
But we have to keep in mind that a society like India, even in educated classes or people that are well off or in metropolitan cities, people do believe in such things. They might not agree with the killing, but there are things if you ask them that, is there evil eye existence, they would say yes, they would be mindful that there is magic or superstition, some form of superstition exists and almost every Indian does believe in some sort of superstition. It might not be to the extent of killing someone, but they do relate to these things, sorcery, supernatural entities, and they do different things to, to safeguard their personal interests.
But then you look at these communities where all these killings happen, and their belief system is tied very heavily with how they associate themselves with nature. And then religion also has a very big role to play in that. And it's very difficult to disassociate these two things. So religion on one side and your belief system, which is again very complex and what actually goes into it, it's very difficult to experience. So is religion then only used as a tool to then spend on the belief system or the belief system? Is it standing on its own?
The educated class on one side, when it listens or when it hears about such killings, it automatically brushes all of this away, saying that this is something wrong, it's killing people in the name of witchcraft or witchcraft accusations is wrong, but then they don't do anything to stop it because they also in some ways play some sort of a role in then advancing superstition or because they can't then detach themselves from that very fact because their belief system, their religion also teaches them something about good people, inherently good people, inherently bad people. There is good and then there is evil, and mostly evil is associated with with women.
And because they're things are said they have a very weak nature from the very beginning, so they are, they could be attracted to evil easily, and if that happens, then the men need to jump in and safeguard the interests of society, and one way of doing that is by removing these women from the picture, and you could kill them, and then that still would be right, because it's, the good is winning over the bad, and it's how that could be wrong in any sense, so it's It's a very complex thing, like how Sam also said that if we are trying to find solutions, we are at a stage when we don't even know what the right questions are to which we are trying to find answers to.
So there are a lot, many questions, which we haven't even thought of which might play a very big role in actually moving forward with solutions that could that could really work on the ground. So there are these.
[00:17:58] Sarah Jack: It appears that the marginalization is something that many women in the country in different states are really trying to rise above and then you've got this constant branding of women as evil. That's such a complex thing.
[00:18:20] Samantha Spence: Complex, it's intersectional, because, let's take India, so you've got women, you've got the caste system, you've got patriarchy, you've got culture, you've got belief, superstition, religion, throw it all together, and you've got a mix that no one wants to tackle, and unfortunately in society, women are the other. They always have been, and we fight and fight, and we're still fighting. So imagine, and that's in places where we think we are quite modernized and democratic. We're still fighting.
And what witchcraft does is it gives people answers, as Amit was saying, then it gives people answers to the things that they don't have an answer for. Something bad happens, then we always want an answer. Why? Why has it happened to me? Why has it happened to them? And what it does, it provides the cause, because it would say, it's distinguishing between the how and the why, and we know sometimes that it's just bad luck. But actually, they're looking for someone to blame, and how does that work? Someone's daughter died from a disease? Oh, she's killed them. She looked at them a certain way, and you think, wow, really?
But yeah it's really, people genuinely believe, and it's how, it's not to say that people can't believe, that's not. It's how you manage those beliefs. It's how it's manifested, and it's that next step into, you might believe that something's happened, but then actually going and accusing somebody that is completely innocent in mob violence, which is quite often.
Again, and even the stronger women would say, Oh, she's not a witch. Oh she must be a witch as well. And it's foolproof. There's a discourse, and that's why it's used, but it's used to, um, manipulate, it's used to get answers, it's used to deal with conflict, so when it's the election time, it's rife, everybody's accusing everybody else, and these are politicians, but it's also, for me, used to deal with difference. If someone's a little bit different, and we're not quite sure how to understand that, then there must be something wrong. Mental health, for example, elderly people with Alzheimer's, widows, or you want to get rid of someone. It's a perfect example of what we'll do is we'll do this. And my question has always been, and I still don't know the answer to this and I think, I always discuss, do people actually deeply believe the people that propagate, say the witch doctors or shamans, whatever you want to call them. And they can say, this can cure whatever. Do they actually believe that? And I don't know the answer to that, because I would say no, it's a manipulation, because what we have now is I, this term spiritual entrepreneurs, I think Jean LaFontaine said many, many years ago, people now manipulate it to make money.
And this is what we've seen for persons with albinism in Africa, this kind of, as I. K. said, menu of, oh what you need to do is go and get the arm of such a person and this, and that will cure whatever you've come, and they're paying money for it, and we see it here with people are paying for their children to be exorcised from the devil when maybe they've just wet the bed, or they've got some issues there that are logically explained, and it's a manipulation, and that manipulation is dangerous. And I think this is what takes it to the next level.
So you've got an understanding here of where people genuinely are looking for answers to questions, but then it goes a step further and it becomes manipulating. So I know we can get something out of this. We can get land, we can get money, and that's where it becomes even more dangerous. And I don't know how you stop that. Because it's everywhere. That seems to be a similarity I've found globally now. It's become monetarized as such. And when money's involved, what do you do?
[00:22:03] Amit Anand: I just want to add two points to what Sam just said. One thing was, which I was speaking about earlier, which was about how the educated class in India also believes in some form of superstition. In my research, I did find that you with respect to the existence of the evil eye, there are different notions attached to it but that's in some ways common with with the most with all the educated classes regardless of which part of the country they are, they believe in certain things, so there are things like witches are often accused of casting the evil eye, and then the term witches, which is, again, only associated with women and witch hunters or witch doctors are always men is again a very different debate.
So it's said that these women, they cast the evil eye mostly on children and men. And it is said that children who are very young are at high risk of being harmed by witches. So people generally are asked to be careful around old, sterile women and women who have had a miscarriage. And when a child is frequently ill, it is usually said that there must be a witch was at work. So there are these things that go around families and regardless of how educated you are, you do believe that there are these bad people out there. There are these bad things, and we need to do everything that we can to protect our loved ones.
So you will find people, most people in India, wearing amulets, rings, threads around their waists, they'll have lockets with some incantations. All of these things they'll fairly regularly devote themselves to performing different rituals, either, either on their own or with the help of either a witch doctor or someone else, just so as to ward away the evil eye out of their homes.
Another thing that I wanted to point out was about property disputes, and this is something that Sam also touched upon, is property dispute is one of the main reasons for witchcraft accusations in India, and this happens because you have a woman who is single, might be a widow as well, and she has some property in her name. And then you have her own family members, male family members. Very rarely would it be a stranger who accuses her of being a witch. Mostly it will be men in her own family who does that to her, just because they have the intention of grabbing the property. So property disputes is one of the very big reasons for witchcraft accusations, and there's one other point that's added to it.
So it's often said, it's also true that witchcraft accusation comes from men that belong to, say, a higher class or a higher caste, and that's, and these men do it to women of lower class and lower caste. But when you look at property dispute, that within the family itself, it could be a family that's already marginalized. And the men and women belong to the same family, to the same downtrodden family and the same caste, but then these men are doing it to their women, so there isn't a higher class man or a high caste man involved here. The family is doing it to one of her own, just because she has a property in her name and she can't really stand up for herself.
But the other way is also true that generally it happens from a higher class or a higher caste man to a lower class or a lower caste woman. So it's a property dispute. The main motive is to grab the property, but then how do you do it? Superstition, fear, gossip, rumor, all these things help you then do that. And you say that you, someone in your family had some disease or something didn't work out. It could be a very minor thing, but you tend to then blame it on the woman just so as to label her as a witch and then take away her property.
[00:25:56] Samantha Spence: It removes your responsibility, then, if you blame somebody else, it's somebody else's fault, and it's just removing, so it absolves that person of any responsibility whatsoever and puts it onto the person who's completely innocent.
[00:26:08] Josh Hutchinson: Such a good point. You spoke earlier about the difficulties in approaching this culturally, because no one wants to interfere with another group's culture. However, every culture has these negative consequences somewhere within it, and we all need to work to address those things. So how do you tackle the negative without interfering with the positive aspects?
[00:26:46] Samantha Spence: In international human rights, you have this theory of universalism and cultural relativism, and there's long been the argument that human rights are universal to all, and the counter argument is, yeah, but not in our culture. In our culture, we believe this. As I said, it's not so much tackling the belief as it is the manifestation of the belief, because everybody believes you can't go over and as Amit well knows, this happened to me recently in India, why are you over here telling us how to behave?
And it's that's not what it's about. It's about take away all that, and it's about the women and the victims. And I, for me, these, oh it's our culture, this, it just becomes an excuse or a layer to justify, and the reality is that people are being killed, that's the reality, that's what we're trying to stop. We're not coming to take away your culture, or whatever you believe in, that's not my right to do. But what... My, I feel my right is to do is to protect these people that cannot speak for themselves and you provide that voice there, but of course you're always going to get these labels because people don't want to change the status quo.
That's the way it works. If a system is working based on these characteristics, then why would they want to change it, those in power? Why would you want to empower women and give them a voice? Look what's happening across the world. We need to shut them down. So for me, the. The UN, universalism is supposed to be there, but countries very often use this cultural relativism argument.
And I completely agree, culture is different everywhere. I mean, Even in the UK, from the north to the south, it's very different in people. I'm a northerner, my accents can tell, but it depends all over. Take all that away though, what is the issue? The issue is that people are being harmed, people are being killed and discriminated against. And that's, for me, the way I look at it, because you can't challenge the others. I can't anyway, because I don't live in that particular society or culture, and you don't want to come across as that you are coming across with your Western values, which is something else that has been thrown there.
Again, that's not the case. It's not Western values. The values are that people are dying. And that's everybody's values. And we need to sort it. How? We don't know. But yeah, let's get to the crux of the issue and stop making excuses about why we're doing it.
[00:29:05] Amit Anand: Yeah. There's also, if we are focusing only on the law or the legal aspect or looking at it from the very human rights centric, taking that approach, then I guess we tend to, at some point, we will stumble upon power and authority, these two, these two words, in a society like India. So even if we are not talking about culture or belief system or witchcraft accusation or what that is, we can't really turn a blind eye to the fact that there is someone dying or getting seriously injured because of what's happening.
But if we are only looking at it from a very legal point of things, we'll know that it's about control. It's about power and authority and which is directly going against right to life or equality before law. To some extent, if we take help of the law, it can solve the problem to some extent, but then we then need to really tell people that why is it that this person is a victim of why are we calling this person a victim?
Because to the ones who are doing it, that person isn't a victim. That person is the bad guy, the bad person. So they feel that whatever their actions is all good. It's good. It's getting a very big support from the community that nobody's thinking that it's wrong. But if you are looking from the victim's perspective or what the law actually tells these people is that there is a victim involved here and it's about what you people are doing is you are trying to make sure that the status quo doesn't change. You want to hold on to the power, you want to hold on to the authority that you get by virtue of using all of these things to then manipulate the larger society, and then they back you up with whatever it is that you are doing. So again, it's about gender relations, it's about, it's mostly about men who are trying to control gender relations through various rules, regulations that they often impose on women. And then women who do not abide by them, who are vocal, who want to fight for their rights, then they are the ones who get punished. And witchcraft accusation is just one part of it. Women have been punished for being vocal in different ways. Domestic violence, rape, domestic abuse, gender based crimes. There are so many offenses that and so many different forms of punishment that women have to bear and go through because they are trying to be vocal and witchcraft accusation is a part of all of this. It's one form of that larger punishment that is done to women for just being, just trying to be vocal, just trying to stand up for themselves.
To some extent, if you are taking the legal perspective or the human rights centric approach it's, I'm not saying that it won't work, it works, but then it can only go so far. Beyond a certain point, I believe the law does not know what more it can do. It can specify the rule. It can tell you if you do this offense, that's the punishment that you will get, but our focus shouldn't be that, and to pass a law is a very good thing, but we should try to focus on prevention rather than punishing people for having committed a very gruesome offence.
If we are capable of at least in some ways getting to a point where we can actually prevent these things, then I guess it would make a much more sense. And then we can say, turn around and say that society actually learned a few things that we try to make sure that it won't happen. Because if it does, the law obviously is there, but our focus should be about preventing it rather than strengthening the law up to a point wherein maybe to some extent, it doesn't really make that much sense in paper, because at some point, it's going to then attack culture, it's going to attack religion, but I don't think that would help, because you would then, in some ways, be violating the rights of other people, as well. You would be telling them that this is wrong, you don't believe in these things, that shouldn't be the thing. And this is where I guess a lot of confusion exists, that you're not telling you not to believe, you're telling you to believe, but then you also should be mindful of other people's right. You would believe, or whatever it is that you hold close to yourself shouldn't then lead up to violent crimes, shouldn't then encourage other people to do violent crimes. And this is where both law and then society both these different factors should then actually work together to then try and find a compromise, a solution that is close to a compromise so that the violence stops.
[00:33:49] Samantha Spence: Yeah, I'll just jump on that. As women are the bearers of their own culture and places the rights are assigned to them. It depends on their religion, ethnicity, class, caste, and that's fine. But my question is, and it touched on what Amit has just said, how can women be equal legally if they're not equal socially?
The answer is, they can't. It's impossible. I go back, you can have all the laws in the world, but if you're not equal in society, then it doesn't matter. It's as simple as that. And that is the problem. And that will always continue to be the problem until we sort that out. And people, again, don't want to sort that out because the power and control, the status quo it's there throughout the world, and people don't want others to get above the station, and they want to keep people in their place, because when people become outspoken and they start to get educated, they start to challenge. People in, in power don't want that. That's the problem. You need to be equal in society before you can be equal legally. And we don't have that as women, unfortunately.
[00:34:56] Josh Hutchinson: And how do you go about solving that?
[00:35:01] Samantha Spence: That's the question, isn't it? For me, I think you give women the tools to empower themselves. But again, that's difficult in different societies and situations. Education, I think you educate and you make people aware within their own cultures. Again, this is pointless me coming and telling somebody from a completely different culture how to live their life. That wouldn't, that's not right.
There's many NGOs, smaller NGOs that are working within their own languages and within their own cultures to make this understanding of how it works for them. There's not a one size fits all model, there's no magic bullet. It's little steps. We've been taking little steps for years, and it's little steps. There's a lot to overcome and I'm really glad that we have people like Amit, for example, who, who are men, who are fighting this cause, because that's what we need. We need everybody. Men can be part of the problem, but they're also part of the solution, and we need that. We need everybody to work together, because if everybody's not working together, then you're not going to win this battle. And that's what we need, a more holistic approach of everybody on the same page. How we get that? If you find out, please tell me.
[00:36:14] Sarah Jack: But we do, we need to work across the cultures, across the miles, around the globe, together like that.
[00:36:26] Samantha Spence: Across the cultures is that, as we go back, people are dying. People are suffering. That's cross cultural. That's nothing to do with any of those excuses or, oh no, not here. No, people are dying. We need to sort that. We need to empower people, because the levels of violence are horrific.
And there's a phrase that was used for women, which is womb to tomb. So from the very start with female infanticide, right to the very end of widows being murdered, all the way through is this cycle of violence. And it needs to stop. It just cannot continue. And I think we just keep trying and trying to get the message across as a community. That's all we can do.
[00:37:10] Josh Hutchinson: And as Sarah mentioned, this is happening globally, and I think it's important to note that other nations are facing this problem. Many are. Killings like this even happen in the U. S. occasionally, so it is a problem that's common to probably every culture but it sounds like every culture is using the same excuse or reason for not dealing with it.
[00:37:45] Samantha Spence: Very much yeah, I think the problem is state impunity doesn't happen here. It's not our problem. And you see it on the reports that come through from the UN special rapporteurs that go into a country and the country will completely deny all knowledge of it happening. And until it's actually realized that there's a problem, then nothing will be done about it.
And, of course, there's this phrase in the UK, it's, yes, it's the headline is tomorrow's chip paper, because the world moves on, it doesn't become a priority, something else happens and something else happens and takes over and that will always be the case, and that's been the case for the rights of women for forever. You keep fighting and fighting, this is just another manipulation and a way to, of controlling.
[00:38:31] Amit Anand: Yeah, a lot of the debate is. In India, it's mostly about what exactly is violence against women, or what is gender based discrimination? Till today, there isn't a very clear understanding of what these things are, let alone different forms of violence against women or different forms of gender based discrimination.
We have the harshest law on the offense of rape, but then we still haven't been able to put an end to it, or at least try and bring down the crime rates of the offense of rape, because the society thinks that young men have this right to, to rape women if they reject their proposal for marriage or if they reject their sexual advances. So they feel that it's the right thing to do. And that's where the problem lies, that we just don't know what is violence against women and what our behavior or our acts could then fit into violence against women. And then we are talking about something as complex as witchcraft accusation. Most people in India would say these are the things of movies and folklore and myths and it doesn't happen in the country, but it does happen. But we are still struggling to get past what is violence against women and then we are trying to tell them even something which is more complex and still deeper and we are trying to educate people about witchcraft accusation and this is happening and it's complex, there is culture involved, religion involved, gender relations. Solutions could be in policymaking, in education, in just raising awareness, there could be things that we haven't even thought about that could work in terms of a solution, giving voices to survivors could be one thing.
Yeah, the discourse around violence against women in India is very weak, and we are trying to then build it, build something on that weaker structure, which again, That's why I think most attempts have failed to actually bring some change on the ground because the foundation itself isn't strong enough. And then we are trying to then make sure that we sustain on that weaker foundation this idea of witchcraft accusations and why do we need to stop them? So like I said, it's a, it's a very complex issue. It has links in almost every other aspect of life and how people live and how they relate to each other in India.
And I think the problem starts from there. And then it becomes something entirely different when it takes the form of witchcraft accusations and witch killings in the name of men, mostly labeling women as witches. Yeah we still don't know how it starts, where it starts. Is there even a starting point? And because of these challenges, we just don't know where to look for solutions, but then just because there are these problems, we shouldn't stop talking about the problem and trying to focus on the solutions, because if we then just give up, then we aren't actually helping the victims or the survivors, that it's a very long, it's a very long fight, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't at least try to speak and educate the ones whom they can about these things.
So if that starts, then perhaps because of that could be leading up to a snowball effect and we could then educate a lot, many people and then perhaps some change, or at least we'll try to move towards some change in terms of at least bringing down these violent crimes, even if you can't really stop them, at least just trying and bringing down the, the crime rates, especially with related to witchcraft accusations and killings.
[00:42:13] Samantha Spence: I think Amit just hit the nail on the head, though, it was we need to talk about it, start the conversations, and then let's see where it takes us, because I teach in the UK, and I used to teach, and they'd go, what, he what, what, historically, you're going, no, now, this is happening now, and people aren't aware it's happening now, and we need to get the conversations out there. And the more we can do that in any shape or form, it starts to create this dialogue, whether people agree or disagree. It doesn't matter, people are still talking about it. But it still goes back to this issue in society of we need the equality in society.
We need that stable foundation that Amit was saying. If you're building a house, you wouldn't build it on mud, you'd have a solid foundation on which to build on. And we haven't got that. So these awareness campaigns and these conversations are good, but we also need a joined-up approach, because we found that when we were starting the network that there's so many people working on this that we weren't aware of, and we all need to come together because it's more powerful when you come together, and it gives you that gravitas to move forward.
But these conversations and things like this podcast are good because it gets people thinking about, Oh my God, I didn't realize that was happening. Oh, it doesn't happen in our country. I think you'll find it does. Let's try and keep the conversations going. And also it affects everybody. I think the other thing I find is, Oh, it's not my problem. It is, it's everybody's problem. And we all need to step up and deal with it. How we do that, I don't know the answer, but little steps of moving forward as opposed to just completely denying or saying it's nothing to do with us. Yeah.
[00:43:54] Josh Hutchinson: Your answers have been so enlightening and eloquent. I appreciate you both giving us your time and your best. And this has been so wonderful. Is there anything else that you wanted to be sure that you were able to say today?
[00:44:15] Samantha Spence: Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for trying to help raise this awareness. We need more, definitely.
[00:44:23] Amit Anand: I would say the same that it's important to have platforms like this where you can talk about things like these, because in societies where this is happening, you might not get the opportunity to talk about something as sensitive as this, because people just wouldn't want to know about this for whatever reason. So whatever opportunity you get to just get the message out should just grab that opportunity and thank you for allowing us to speak about something that's very close to us and just giving us this chance to talk about something as sensitive as witchcraft accusations. Thank you.
[00:45:03] Samantha Spence: Never just accept, always challenge, always ask why. I always say to my students, why? Ask those questions, because you don't know what answers you're going to get, but if you don't challenge, and you carry on to accept, then, yeah, things won't change. Culture changes, the world changes, and we need to enable the change for good and help people, as opposed to this, it's not my problem. That doesn't get us anywhere.
[00:45:31] Josh Hutchinson: Now, Sarah has End Witch Hunts News.
[00:45:34] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News. End Witch Hunts is a 501c3 non profit organization. Our Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project is actively educating about the history of hundreds of witch trial victims from the Massachusetts Bay Colony who have not been acknowledged for their suffering of such a miscarriage of justice. We are seeking formal exoneration for those convicted as witches and executed in Boston and an apology for all those documented to have suffered in the colony witch trials. We want to make this happen with an amendment to the previous legislation that has already exonerated those convicted and executed in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Please sign and then share the petition to show your support at change.org/witch trials. To learn more about this project and how you can get involved, visit Massachusettswitchtrials.org.
But don't stop there. If you live in Massachusetts, you can share this project with your legislative representatives and ask them to get involved. If you are a voting member of the Massachusetts General Court, we need you to lead or collaborate on this amendment effort. Please consider reaching out to the project so that we can support you as you propose or support such an amendment. Please take action and work together to help close a chapter of American history that calls out to us all for answers.
Most citizens of Earth who have been accused, attacked, or killed as witches are not known and have not been remembered. We only know of and memorialize a handful of witch hunt victims from across time. The witch hunts of today are more than a remnant of witch trials and witch hunts past. They are the bulk of the victims. Like before, the women, men, and children are unjustly blamed and feared. They are unjustly punished. We must keep working to make people aware that witch hunts are not simply the result of superstition and hysteria, but rather a fundamental human reaction to pressure and strife, an outcome of power over the vulnerable, intertwined within all cultures and religion. There are always multiple factors that are repeatedly found in combination.
Informed advocates in countries gripped by witch hunts are asking us for our acknowledgement and support. You should not think, I wish I could help. Helping is simply you sharing the information in conversation and on your social media. Helping is you searching out knowledge about what is happening. Help by talking about what they told us today. Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast supports the efforts to end witch hunts.
We never stop educating. You can continue to learn. Check today's show notes for links to recent news media and presentations by Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project members Sarah Jack, Josh Hutchinson, Beth Caruso, and Kathy Hermes. Does your company or organization want to invite us to present witch trial history and anti-witch-hunt advocacy? Please contact us. Your partnership helps to end witch hunts. The End Witch Hunts website has information on active witch-hunt advocacy organizations. Go and learn more. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or make a financial contribution to our organization. Our links are in the show description.
[00:48:50] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:48:51] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:48:53] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:48:57] Sarah Jack: Join us each week.
[00:48:59] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
[00:49:03] Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:49:06] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[00:49:09] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:49:14] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

November 2, 2023

Ain’t it a Scary Halloween with Sean and Carrie

Sign the Petition to exonerate boston’s witch trial victims

Ain’t It Scary? with Sean and Carrie
Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project at change.org/witchtrials
Buy Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, by Nicholas Rogers
End Witch Hunts Movement
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Show Notes

Happy Halloween from Thou Shalt Not Suffer!
We’re talking about Halloween’s origins and the past influences coming through into our modern traditions with Sean and Carrie from Ain’t It Scary? with Sean and Carrie. In this super fun episode, we gab about our favorite Halloween traditions, such as trick or treating, wearing costumes, and bobbing for apples. We reflect on the social and cultural generational shifts driving the nuances, fears and creativity of celebration adaptations over time. We talk about it all. This Halloween, you’ll want to turn the lights off and ignore the neighborhood kids so that you can listen to this episode.

Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to a fun and informative episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Halloween Podcast, in an episode that asks why we trick or treat and wear costumes. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:21] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack Skellington.
[00:00:24] Josh Hutchinson: Today, we're joined by fellow podcasters, Sean and Carrie of Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie.
[00:00:30] Sarah Jack: This is a fun chat about Halloween traditions.
[00:00:33] Josh Hutchinson: You'll really enjoy this one.
[00:00:35] Sarah Jack: 4 podcasters who love Halloween talking all about it.
[00:00:39] Josh Hutchinson: And you can join in on the fun.
[00:00:41] Sarah Jack: Climb up into the wagon for an enjoyable podcast hayride.
[00:00:45] Josh Hutchinson: This episode is a real treat.
[00:00:48] Sarah Jack: Throw on your costume, grab a candied apple, and get cozy for this one.
[00:00:53] Josh Hutchinson: We'll talk about all things Halloween with our wonderful guests.
We are excited to announce the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project, which seeks recognition of all of Massachusetts' witch trial victims.
[00:01:06] Sarah Jack: The Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project proposes that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts restore to good standing those convicted of witchcraft and issue an apology to all who were accused and suffered the consequences of accusation.
[00:01:22] Josh Hutchinson: This effort follows on the heels of the exoneration of Elizabeth Johnson, Jr. by Massachusetts in 2022 and the exoneration of 34 individuals by Connecticut in May, 2023.
[00:01:34] Sarah Jack: Please visit massachusettswitchtrials.org to find out how you can volunteer.
[00:01:40] Josh Hutchinson: Lend your voice and effort to speak for people all but forgotten to history.
Sign the petition today. The link is in the show description. Thank you.
[00:01:49] Sarah Jack: He's skeptical, she's spooky. Together they explore the unknown, unsolved, unbelievable, and just plain weird on their podcast, Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie. With their passion for history and the truth, they bring their different perspectives to today's episode team up. It's about to get scary with Sean and Carrie and Josh and Sari.
Sean and Carrie, we're so glad you're here.
[00:02:15] Sean and Carrie: So glad to be here. We first got in touch with you guys, I think, when you were just getting started. And I feel like you had a part in the exoneration recently of the witches here in Connecticut and uh, well, non witches, the victims here in Connecticut. And it's been great to watch your podcast grow, it feels like grow past its original remit now, witches all over the world and modern day witch hunts and some really interesting but important stuff. Whereas we talk about stuff that might be interesting, but it's often not very important, at least not in the immediate sense.
[00:02:53] Sarah Jack: I love your format. What you guys do, there's not another team out there that can do it just like you. How did you guys decide what you guys were going to be talking about? Cause you have a great area that you cover.
[00:03:06] Sean and Carrie: It actually, it took us a few years for getting into making Ain't It Scary. You know, COVID, lockdown, you get to talking about some really weird things, and we were always talking about history, and we were always very honest with each other with our interests right from the beginning, so he knew I loved scary stuff and weird stuff, so we would always be talking about that, and we loved to travel, so we would always hit up a ghost store whenever we'd go somewhere, and then from there, we've just always been really interested in true crime and history, for sure. I think I brought my interest in the paranormal to Sean, because he doesn't really believe in it, but he still enjoys the stories and all that, the history aspect of it.
Yeah, and we felt it out a little bit as we go, like sometimes a particular, you know, you're doing a story on D. B. Cooper, and you're like is this scary, though? And it's it's weird enough. We don't know this guy. All right. This fits in the remit or I'll be doing something on a, you know, on Nero or something. It's this isn't really horror movie stuff. Am I still in the remit of the podcast? But Carrie's let me get away with it so far.
I feel like it would be scary enough to be on Nero's bad side, so that's...
Yeah, oh yeah.
Yeah we were just in lockdown and decided we have some of this audio equipment around, let's give it a shot. We had bonded over our love of podcasts before then, and yeah. And it ended up pretty well. It took a while to get started, for sure, but then after that, we just really committed to it.
Yeah, my educational background's in production and stuff, and so is Carrie's, just on different sides, yeah. And so it was a natural thing to just take the conversations we were already having and put them on the internet.
[00:04:55] Josh Hutchinson: And so great that you did. I'm so glad about your show. It's so entertaining, but educational and a really fun ride every episode.
[00:05:07] Sean and Carrie: Thank you very much.
Thank you. And I think we even started off a little more upbeat. I think we've tackled some really intense subjects over the years now. But we always try to keep it relatable in a way and not with the true crime stuff, not be too leery and into the weeds of the gross stuff. I'm always trying to be respectful because you are telling someone else's story, but then when you have Jeff the Talking Mongoose or some crazy ghost story or whatever, you could have a little fun with it once in a while.
[00:05:41] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I see you've been doing vampires lately.
[00:05:45] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, we've had two weeks of historical vampires. Historical vampire inspirations with Vlad Dracula and then this week was Elizabeth Bathory. And uh, really, really interesting people who lived in a really, you know, a tough time to be a person.
Probably didn't make it any easier on themselves or anyone else, though.
Oh no. I wouldn't have wanted to necessarily have either one of them in my life, but I think we both learned some surprising things about both of those people. And, next week, I think we'll learn surprising things about their connections, or how tenuous their connections are to Dracula, which is going to be our topic next week. and Try and keep up this vampire thing, I don't know, all the way to Halloween if we can.
[00:06:29] Sarah Jack: Awesome.
[00:06:31] Josh Hutchinson: Perfect.
[00:06:32] Sarah Jack: And what are the platforms people can check your episodes out on?
[00:06:36] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, if you're looking for Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie, you can find it. Hey, if there's a podcast platform that you can't find it on, let me know, because I've tried to hit all of them: Apple, all of the usual platforms. All the pod catchers should be there.
Google Podcasts.
Anyways, Google, yes. And at aintitscary.com. You could also listen to any of the episodes there if you wanna really go desktop with it.
[00:07:01] Sarah Jack: So one of your episodes I loved from last year was your Halloween history.
[00:07:07] Sean and Carrie: Thank you. Then that was something that we had wanted to do since the very beginning. That was on our, when you sit down and you're going, "I'm going to make a podcast," that was definitely one that we wanted to do. But there was a lot to it. So I had to do a lot of research for it.
There are some topics from that original list of 50 ideas that we still haven't gotten to. It's we want to really do it right, though.
Yeah.
But the yeah the Halloween, it took us a while to take the right swing at it.
Yeah. We did our Salem Witch Trials episodes first. That was like our first, I think our first big Halloween series that we did. And then, yeah, we wanted to do, it's just such an interesting history and it's got so many unexpected connections across history. So definitely something worth looking at.
[00:07:53] Josh Hutchinson: I definitely recommend everybody check out that episode from October 30th, 2022, I believe. And that's the History of Halloween on Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie. And I learned so much from that episode, and I'm hoping that we can pick your brain a little tonight and get some golden nuggets out of there. I'm sure there's plenty there. The episode was full of them. So what can you tell us about the very beginning of Halloween history?
[00:08:27] Sean and Carrie: Absolutely. So yeah, there's no real start date as these things go. They just appear in time. And the thing that we can really trace back the most to today's Halloween in the past is to the Celts, the Druids. These are people that lived in early Ireland, Wales, England, Scotland, that whole area. And they had a really nature-based lifestyle. They were a nature-based religion. It was a pagan religion based on nature. And they were farmers and they lived on the land, so they were very connected to the earth.
And the original Halloween was one of their pagan traditions to celebrate, Samhain, is what it was called and still called by pagan practitioners today, and that's really to mark the onset of winter and basically when the harvest was done. Back in the day, we've always had dramatic climate changes and weather changes, and at this point in time, at that place in the world, you really had two halves of the year. You had the summer half. And the winter half. It was really much more like six months, six months, and this was to celebrate the onset of the winter half of the year, where you would bring in the harvest and hibernate and not be harvesting and farming as much. So it was really their New Year a lot of those things that we associate with this time of year, those harvests and cornucopias and all that fun stuff, really comes from that this was a harvest, like a pagan harvest celebration to mark the end of that time of year.
[00:10:24] Josh Hutchinson: So I imagine there was a lot of feasting then.
[00:10:28] Sean and Carrie: Lot of feasting, obviously they would save what they could, but they would also, it was like a communal feast. It was very symbolic, because they were sharing it with their ancestral dead, as well. They felt like this was the time of year where they could really connect with those who had passed away before them. And so it was marked with these feasts where they would commune with the dead, symbolically, in a way. And so they would have part of the harvest set aside just for this big party, and part of it would also be offerings for the dead.
[00:11:05] Josh Hutchinson: After the harvest, it's a time of plenty. Of course, you have to plan ahead and not starve yourself at the end of the year, but it's a time of plenty, and you're looking at this bleak season coming up. So you've got to get out there and live it up while you can.
[00:11:22] Sean and Carrie: Absolutely, and I'm sure they had some raging parties where maybe they had a little too much of the harvest, a little more than they meant to, but yeah, it was the time before things were about to get hard with winter, and they're living much closer to the land. A lot of people wouldn't survive the winter. A lot of people would starve, if they hadn't planned out, or if their crops hadn't produced that year. This was a really major time to try and connect with the earth and make sure that they were all, all good with the good vibes of the earth and their ancestors to try and watch over them in this very difficult time of the year.
[00:12:04] Josh Hutchinson: I want to party with a druid, have a nice druidic rave. That would be killer.
[00:12:10] Sean and Carrie: Raise some standing stones? Absolutely.
[00:12:12] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, yeah. Beat some drums in there. Get those vibrations going.
[00:12:17] Sean and Carrie: Yeah. There would definitely be a lot of music. There would be, a big thing was bonfires. They were really big about the firepits, which we're bringing back nowadays. But, because their religion was just so based on nature, it wasn't even like the same kind of idea of a Christian God or anything like that. It was, the world is their god. So because the sun was growing weaker in the colder months, and especially as they got closer to that time of the year, they really saw it as like the sun is a god ,and so what they would do is this like begets like idea of if we make these big bonfires, and we have this big light, hopefully that'll have the sun make sure that it doesn't leave them forever. Cause that was always one of their fears was that the sun would rise again. So they figured if we put up these fires, the sun will like that, and it'll want to stick around, pretty much. It sounds a little wild to us today, because we understand what the sun is, and that it will come back, hopefully.
But, yeah, I guess any religion can be wild in the eyes of someone else, but it's really cool how these traditions, harvest bonfires and like sitting around the fire pit having s'mores in the fall. That's such a fall activity, and they were doing that centuries before Jesus was even around, very BC.
When did the fear and the spooky start?
[00:13:49] Sean and Carrie: There is that, probably in our perspective today of they're connecting with the dead and their ancestors, that's spooky, but they wouldn't have seen it that way. It's very much like something like Dia de los Muertos, where it's more of a reverence. Part of the spookiness, I would have to say, came from the Christians, those good old Christians assimilating pagan traditions to try and, you know, like, well, they're already celebrating this, so we can figure it into our feast calendar and try to get them to join Christianity but not have to give up all of their traditions, and so they really went deep into the idea of a time of the dead, because they couldn't really call it the same way that it was, which was like a harvest festival paying tribute to the harvest, which was like a godlike figure.
You can't do that in Christianity, so they changed it to All Saints Day and All Souls Day. That was the time of what would be called Hallowmas, November 1st and 2nd. And so the Saints Day would be to mark the saints, especially in Catholicism, obviously, and then All Souls Day would be for the spirits of those who had passed already. I mean, Catholics do everything a little spookier, I feel like, so that sort of brought a little bit of a less of a celebratory tone and more of a mourning, like a sad tone when it came to All Souls Day. And then the dead really got involved, the idea of the dead got involved in the tributes. There would be a lot of prayers. People started baking soul cakes to you couldn't make sacrifices anymore to the dead, because that was pagan. So you could bake these cakes and make them as offerings, which became our treats that you would give out on Halloween. Yeah, I think Catholicism really brought a dark, I'm not trying to be critical, but like a darker kind of more mournful tone to it, and that just naturally became spooky.
Carrie, do you think it'd be accurate to say that it's always been about being closer to death, but that our attitudes toward death have changed?
I think that's exactly it. Yeah, I think as science and as time has gone on, as we've understood things more, death has become less of a constant in people's lives. Obviously it's constant in everyone's lives, but even through the Victorian era, people were having funerals in their houses, like people would be around death very often, right up close to it. And they were more used to it. So I think it makes more sense that as time has got on, we still have these traditions that are spooky or morbid, but they've become, in our perspectives, spookier and more morbid, because we're less familiar with death. And I think we're more scared of it, because it's much more of an unknown. People live a lot longer. People get well after getting a cold, knock on wood. Back in the day, if you caught a sniffle, that could be it. And people would have 10, 12 kids, because they were assuming that a few of them would not make it to adulthood. I think as we've dealt with the death much less in our day to day lives, that's made the sort of death rituals much creepier to us, because I think it freaks us out more.
[00:17:25] Josh Hutchinson: Think that's such a really good point. Now death is also a little sanitized, because so much of it occurs in hospitals and hospice that, you know, you're on in a hospital bed in hospital clinical conditions, it's all clean and peaceful and you're not in a home with your loved one being the one as the only one there for you.
[00:17:53] Sean and Carrie: Often you would be, like, as the loved ones, you would be the ones cleaning the bodies, dressing the bodies. You would be very much right into it, and probably from a young age. So people were much more, I guess, inoculated to the creepy factor.
Carrie has a fascination with this, not a creepy or prurient fascination, a fascination with this very prevalent Victorian tradition of the corpse photograph that they would take, especially after children had died, they would take a photo of the little child's corpse.
And you see these in antique stores and stuff sometimes. It's just a photo of a body, but you wanted to keep what that child looked like. Cause maybe people only got one portrait in their life at that time. And it was the easiest to take pictures of the dead, especially children, because children squirm around, they move around and those cameras, you would have to stay stock still for up to 10 minutes at a time for one picture. So often these parents didn't have pictures of their children at all, which to us sounds crazy because you could just take out your phone and take a picture.
But that was usually the best time where they could get a picture, or else you're not getting one and you just have to sort of based on your memory. So to us, that sounds horrific, like, oh, a picture of a dead body. To that grieving parent, that's the only image they would ever have of their child. And they wanted to have that image more than just never having a picture of them. So yeah, the traditions they had back then, they sound really extreme to us or very morbid or creepy, but to them, it was much more normal.
[00:19:36] Josh Hutchinson: You've talked about the Celtic influence on Halloween. One thing that interested me from your show was the Roman additions to Halloween. I wasn't aware of that.
[00:19:51] Sean and Carrie: I hadn't been either until I started looking into it, because you've got the Celts, you have the Christians and the Catholics, there has to be some sort of bridge there. And that was really the Romans. Everyone had different traditions going on, but the Romans, it's interesting because so many cultures had this sort of festival, the mark of the end of the harvest and the beginning of the cold seasons, because seasons don't really change, they change every year, but they haven't, they don't vary wildly. They're like, okay, next is when it gets dark and cold, and then it'll get warm and sunny again. So those were things that people would have celebrated since the beginning of time, because that was another common thing that we all had.
We all experienced when it got cold, and then we all experienced when it got warm again. So the Romans had their own festival, also November 1. The day's obviously a little wibbly wobbly, because the calendar is a newer thing than a lot of these traditions. But this would be the end of the harvest season for the Romans, and this would celebrate the goddess Pomona. They were very much into these feasts and festivals for their gods and goddesses, paying tribute.
I think it was even more deeply into the culture than even the Celts, because I think they were a little more disparate. They weren't as organized, maybe, in some of their beliefs. But the Romans in government and everything, and in the town you're praising the gods and goddesses. And this was the deity of the orchards and the harvest, and so they would have to pay tribute to her, because you want the harvest to be good again next year, so you want her to be happy with you. So you would have feasts of plenty, and that would be apples, nuts, and grapes, and orchard fruits, because orchards were a big thing in Rome and you know in that area and and so you'd have this big feast and then put everything away for winter and those are the kinds of things that they would dry or try to preserve for for the harder seasons so yeah the Romans brought that sort of fall girl energy into it with picking apples and like the idea of those kinds of harvest elements.
Yeah, pumpkin spice lattes.
They are the Romans are like the pumpkin spice latte of these traditions. It's like they're very much into like... You know, it's, it's autumn like, like, they're very, they're very into that they bring the harvest energy into it. So it's not really super spooky with them, but it's a very harvest based and very autumnal, their their traditions.
It wasn't super Roman. Not a single person or animal got murdered in that whole,
No, because it was all about crops. You just, you're just eating, you're eating your offerings.
[00:22:46] Josh Hutchinson: Wow. No gladiatorial war simulations.
[00:22:50] Sean and Carrie: No, it was a pretty peaceful, it was a pretty peaceful celebration.
[00:22:53] Josh Hutchinson: yeah, that's,
[00:22:53] Sean and Carrie: until, Constantine and then the Christians came in and they were like, you can't do this. But yeah.
Although I think once the Coliseum went up, basically every holiday was marked with a couple of people getting free.
That's true.
[00:23:05] Josh Hutchinson: yeah, a few hungry lions and a few unfortunate people.
[00:23:10] Sean and Carrie: There's really these interesting through lines throughout all of them. There's always going to be a feast. It's always marking a transition time and often because it's this transitory time where we're going into darkness and coldness and then bringing in often that has to do with marking the dead because the darkness is the unknown, is death, is all of these things.
And so that's why they would believe that we were closer to the dead at that time. And people had a very significant relationship with at least the concept of their ancestors, I don't know, through, through the early Christian times, I would say.
Not to be a podcaster on another podcast talking about another podcast, but in, in,
uh, In Dan Carlin's awesome fall of the Roman Republic thing, death Throws of the Republic, he calls it, he talks about how Julius Caesar would've grown up in a house where you just have the faces of all of your, you have an ancestor, Roman, you just have the faces of all of your dead ancestors, their death masks painted all over the walls of this room with lines showing, who's related to who, but they're all looking at you every day. Yeah, what are you going to do?
[00:24:20] Sarah Jack: Oh yeah.
[00:24:21] Sean and Carrie: I think in this digital age, I think a lot of people are trying to get back to that connection because so many of us, you know, you go back a few generations and then it's just lost and you, because a lot of us are immigrants, whether, we came from other countries to America or went somewhere else, we've lost those ties that they had so deeply.
So I think we're trying to get back to that, but yeah, because they had such close links to their ancestors and they had a lot of word of mouth of what they were like, and they were literally all around them often with statues and things like that, they would be paying tribute to them. And this was the time of year when they would do it.
[00:25:02] Josh Hutchinson: And bringing the apples to the party, that was a nice contribution to bring in the bobbing for apples, and now we have the candied apples.
[00:25:13] Sean and Carrie: Yeah. And the apples, they started with Rome. That's where it comes from. It comes from, I'm sure if there were apples around in the Druid times, they had it then too, because that was part of a crop in the harvest. But the idea of bobbing for apples and that being part of the tradition, and, I feel like that's yeah, so apple picking starts with the Romans and then you're, you start playing bobbing for apples around Victorian times, so they're still incorporating apples and they're just finding fun new ways to do it. And I think this would be called snap apple at the time was bobbing for apples. I guess you try to snap into it.
For the Victorians?
Yes.
[00:25:57] Josh Hutchinson: Okay.
[00:25:58] Sean and Carrie: They set a lot of our modern, not just for Halloween, even, but they set a lot of our kind of traditions in stone, right? For a lot of holidays?
A lot of holidays, yeah. But the biggest source of, specifically, our American concept of Halloween really starts with the Victorians. Obviously, because we had freedom of religion, that's why I think it became so popular here, because it wasn't, I mean some countries probably didn't allow it for a very long time 'cause it has these pagan roots. But we, we had this freedom of religion and that starts and we have the Revolutionary War, and then in the Victorian era the, they're feeling very close to death. The Victorians are notoriously very morbid. And they start to have actual Halloween parties and things like that where it's not samhain or like a pagan festival, but it's like a fun time to, they were like matchmaking events. You'd go and court your beau at the Halloween party in Victorian times.
[00:27:00] Josh Hutchinson: It's funny because we often think of the Victorians as such stuffy, prudish people, but they would let their hair down and go wild at these parties.
[00:27:10] Sean and Carrie: Absolutely, and funny you mention that because a lot of the reason we think that is because the most of the first photos we have that are surviving today, most of them are from the Victorian era, and they're all very serious, and they look really grumpy, and that's because often enough, they're trying desperately not to move an inch.
And you can't smile for 10 minutes straight, or else your face starts hurting, and then you drop your smile, and then you're all blurry in the picture. You had to be ramrod straight, and so you would just have a dead face, basically just trying to get the picture taken. And so we have an image of them being very grumpy and serious, but that's because they couldn't be like joshing around in pictures or, like grinning and smiling like we would today because they had to pose for so long.
So that's not really how people were. People were serious and people were cheerful and, just like nowadays. It's just that The evidence we have of them looks like they're all so serious. There's no candids because you would have had to wait 10 minutes to finish cheersing your friends at the bar or whatever it was you were trying to take a picture of.
Yeah, so the pose was just trying to just relax your whole body and just stare for 10 minutes. I'm hoping that this picture would come out because it was also very expensive. So that's why we have that impression of them. But they were, humans be humaning all the time. They did wear a lot of clothes.
I think that's the other reason we have that impression. I probably would have been cranky about that too.
[00:28:48] Josh Hutchinson: Now, when did the really wild side of Halloween, the mischief and tricks come in?
[00:28:57] Sean and Carrie: It's interesting because. Tricks and treats come through all throughout time even from the Celtic times and from the early Christian times of baking the soul cakes and giving those out. The idea of giving out tricks or treats or going from person to person or house to house to get these treats, that's from the beginning of Halloween, because you would try to, to go way back, you would wear disguises and try to outwit some of the spirits. And that was some of the fun stuff. So you would go from house to house trying to run away from things and lead the spirits away from town. And for your troubles, you would often get a treat, and then that would turn into offerings to the spirits. Now the Irish, they had a really big hand in trick or treating, actually, in our modern concept of trick or treating, and it was actually Irish immigrants.
Irish immigrants make everything more fun.
Absolutely.
It must be said.
And they, if the Victorians were like the era that had the most influence on what became Halloween as we know it, I feel like the Irish immigrants were the people that really had the most influence on American Halloween, because they had this really deep connection to their Celtic ancestors, so they still had some of those traditions, and they brought them over from their homeland. And even after Christianity, they're stubborn. They still want to do these traditions and they started marking that time of year. It became more and more popular and and yeah, revelers, Irish revelers would go from house to house, they would be singing songs on Halloween and they would be given ales or treats as they went from house to house singing their songs.
They really brought in trick or treating, they brought in the the it's arguable, but possibly the idea of the jack o'lantern. Jack o'lanterns were probably turnips that were carved and lit up to, to light the way. Again, it's dark early, you have to have a way to, to light the trying to get the spirits away from town and so they, they don't all descend on everyone, you want to bring them away, so you have these little turnips lit up and that'll guide their way. So that's probably something that came from Ireland.
So you're carrying a turnip from house to house and people are giving you free beer?
Yeah, that's pretty good.
Yeah, Irish Halloween doesn't sound spooky particularly, but it sounds fun. It sounds like a good time.
So they really brought that tradition to America and then it became something that kids did really mostly after World War II is when it became a kid's holiday.
[00:31:45] Sarah Jack: That's interesting. When you just mentioned the kids, I was thinking about how technology, is reaching children younger and younger. So I was like, oh, how did they pull in the Halloween fun younger and younger back then?
[00:31:58] Sean and Carrie: Yeah it was always something, interestingly enough, young girls were very, young girls have always been witchy. We've always been making potions in the backyard and things like that. We always have liked witchy stuff. And one thing that girls have always liked to do is, who am I going to marry? Whether you're doing mash or the little like paper things, fortunes, there's always been that, and so young girls around Halloween time would gather together at midnight because this is the time where we're closest to the spirit world and you can maybe get some answers about things, and they would try to do some divinations to find out who they were going to marry. Maybe the spirits would be, close enough that they'd be willing to tell them. So young girls really brought in that aspect of it, and they've always been interested. And then after World War II, we had so many kids because the baby boomer generation, uh, the youth population really sharply increased.
And that's because the spirits were such successful matchmakers? I guess.
[00:33:04] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:33:05] Sean and Carrie: I guess so. And, you know, the holiday had become less spooky. It wasn't Victorian times anymore. And it had become more of a party holiday after Victorian times. Young girls had always been interested in the witchy aspect, so it just naturally became a kid centric holiday. Once there were so many kids, they all gathered together and started adopting these traditions.
And then there was money to be made, right? And the rest is history. Yes. Now we got to sell Halloween costumes and then the ball's rolling. Not that that's a bad thing. I love Halloween. Honestly, I love Halloween.
[00:33:43] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I wouldn't mind if Halloween went on a little longer than it does. I think definitely by Labor Day you should be in Halloween mode if not, Fourth of July, start getting ready for it.
[00:33:57] Sean and Carrie: Preaching to the choir, I think our first Monster Mash might have, it might have still been August.
[00:34:01] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, very good.
[00:34:05] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, kids were also dressing up in costumes and at least as early as the 20s were some of the earliest mentions of actual kids costumes for Halloween. There was a, an article in Ladies Home Journal in 1920 that talked about some kids Halloween costumes, which I just love reading about because again, kids are always going to be kids and so what they're interested in is, it's always just fun and what they want to dress as. And in this article, they mentioned two Charlie Chaplins in the same group and a gingerbread man, so it's like this sort of fairy tale character. And then I just love the two Charlie Chaplins is having two Ironmans. That was what was popular. That's what kids liked. So it's a fun way to look at history as well. Yeah, kids are always going to be interested in their stuff and they're always going to want to dress like it.
[00:34:58] Sarah Jack: Is there an era between that fun piece where the kids got to start shaping the holiday and the satanic panic? What was the shift? Is there something in the middle there or did we just go straight into that?
[00:35:11] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, we didn't go straight into it. I think it's, when it comes to the Satanic Panic, which we've talked about on our show, it's very much the political leanings of the country. We're seeing some of those things now again, the same sort of, we're talking about baby eating again. It's, it comes in waves.
And Halloween, because it deals with fears and, you know, spookiness and fears of death, especially, it often gets associated with our general fears as a culture. Kids were starting to wear costumes and stuff in the twenties. Then in the forties and fifties, they're starting to make it a more kid centric holiday. It really spreads across the country as kids go trick or treating on Halloween. That didn't happen until the 50s and 60s. By the 60s, you have it pretty much across the country that people know what trick or treating is and they're going trick or treating.
I think you needed the invention of the fun sized candy bar to really fully optimize.
You joke, but like widespread entertainment, media, TV, commercials, things that can be targeted as, at kids. they get brought into this holiday of oh candy. Okay. So we can make this targeted at kids, have them be like, mom, get me this candy. You can have commercials for that now. Mid century, you're seeing more of the widespread celebrations. And then in the 70s, just like with the rest of the country, there's a lot of unrest after Vietnam. There's a lot of political strife. There's the youth generation versus the older generation, those sorts of feelings. And that's when some of the backlash begins. And that also incorporates the satanic panic and those kinds of fears.
And in the 70s, you have the first murder associated with Halloween candy which is Ronald Clark O'Brien. Now this is a bit of a trivia, no one's ever been poisoned or, anything with Halloween candy by a stranger. That has never actually happened. There's never been an injury from razor blades and apples. Very dubious as to whether there has ever been a stranger giving out razor blade apples.
Sure, but O'Brien, here's one Irishman who was no fun at all.
[00:37:33] Sarah Jack: Oh
[00:37:35] Sean and Carrie: because of this murder who, just to go into it quickly, he was a very sick man who poisoned his own son in Halloween candy to try and get insurance money. But it became an urban legend, the person poisoning the candy, you better check your candy because there could be poison in it. That's when you start getting the sort of darker side of Halloween in terms of the darker side of the fears of the entire culture at the time.
Cause the razor blade thing has.
Never happened.
Never happened.
Yeah. There's been a couple of things where, could this kid have had some sort of drugs? And usually it might've been some thing where they just got into a relative's stash or whatever. And, but no, no kid's ever been poisoned that way, but it became a fear, became parents warning their kids, parents checking their kids' candy, and that was just exactly at the time where we started ramping up to the Satanic Panic of the 80s. So it's really just culture building it on itself. And it's so interesting to see how it has its tentacles in everything, the Vietnam could be directly related to like Halloween PSAs, which you wouldn't think that, but, it's a logical step of the feeling of the entire country turns into the fear associated with this holiday.
And I think the seventies.
There's just a fearful time, there's a lot going on. There's serial killers still, they, from our research, they feel like they were running rampant, I don't know.
Yeah, exactly, yeah. A lot of the serial killers you know about are from the 70s or the early 80s, the economy was on fire, the world had a lot of weird things going on tensions going on. Crime felt The Cold Ward, it was very high. It was a weird time, and so everything just became a little weird. Yeah. Everybody was really afraid of everything. I wasn't alive, but it feels like everybody was really afraid of everything. Yeah.
And even if you were a little religious, my, my parents were not, but I still remember they, they reacted to fears even when I was in, I guess this is like the 90s, early 2000s, very early 2000s, but I remember having, you could go to the police station and get your candy x rayed if you really wanted to. They would always check every piece, make sure anything that had been ripped open, whether it was accidentally or whatever that got thrown out. So they were very paranoid too, and I think it's such a kid-centric holiday. It has to do with kids running around and having fun and being spooked and things like that.
But you also had Stranger Danger. So you're going to stranger's houses and asking for candy, but don't ask for candy from that stranger in the van, a lot of mixed messages, but, and because things were similar in those ways, I think they just got associated with each other. And so Halloween became more of a scary holiday, based on like strangers and things like that, where it hadn't really been before. But that also had to do with kids not really roaming around freely as they did in the 70s and 80s, as time went on, it became much more reined in, I think.
[00:40:55] Josh Hutchinson: And now today it's conspiracy theories and fentanyl in the candy.
[00:41:02] Sean and Carrie: Well, Fenton, yes, and that's a big thing, and a As far as there's nothing for this year, but as of last year, there wasn't any actual fentanyl poisonings and candy or anything like that, but that's just the new razorblades and apples. I, yeah I used to work for a local news station and you get a lot of that kind of stuff rippling through the
Like they're giving out edible gummies to kids. So if you think about why would anyone ever do that? First of all, that costs money, presumably. And then second of all, why do you want to get kids high on edibles? What good does that do? How is that interesting? What does that do for you? No one would ever really do that. And no one has really done that. Kids have gotten into their parents' stuff, and there have been reports of that around Halloween, but there's never been reports of someone giving out pot brownies to trick or treaters just because they wanted to. It's always been, like, relatives and things like that.
Yeah, there's no wrapped Jolly Ranchers that are actually made of fentanyl or anything like that people have to
But you'll see that on Facebook. I'm sure my mom will post something like that this year.
But it seems and I'm sure these fears play into this phenomenon, but it seems the trunk or treat is all the rage now.
Yes, much more popular.
That's the new evolution is the, they'll all just gather in, all the kids gather at the school parking lot or something and and take candy from people. I guess as long as the end result is you get to see your friends and wear a costume and eat some candy.
It feels like it's done real, real quickly just on the parking lot.
Yeah, it's not quite the same adventure. That's for sure.
Yeah.
[00:42:40] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I would miss the old days of walking for seeming like miles and not caring because you're fueled the whole time.
[00:42:51] Sean and Carrie: Exactly. Trunk or Treat was really past our time, too. That's, I only started hearing about that when my cousin who just graduated college or college, high school was in elementary school. That was the first time I ever heard of that. And I think As kids become more independent in other ways, like with social media, having phones, and they, parents can't necessarily control that aspect of their lives, I think they want them, along with those paranoias about missing children and stuff, they want them roaming around less, and so they want to have an eye on them whenever they're doing trick or treating and things like that. So that's where the trunk or treat comes from.
I have no idea what you're texting about, but do it in my sight.
[00:43:33] Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
[00:43:35] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, it's interesting how the freedom aspect along with the youth culture, it took a steep rise of trick or treating spreading as a tradition throughout the country. And I speak of American culture just because it's so prevalent with Halloween as it is today. It does happen in other countries. But we're number one when it comes to Halloween, we're really into it. So as the freedom rose for kids where they would just bike around, or they would be able to wander by themselves, then that hit a point where, around the 70s, somewhere in there, it just got, there was too much paranoia, there was too much fear, and that, the freedom started to decline to the point where now, yeah, I think trunk or treat is probably more prevalent than trick or treating nowadays, at least from what I've seen in the last couple of years, but we were in a condo, yeah.
I was going to say, I hope not, cause for the first time we're in a house on a street.
I've invested in a lot of candy to give out. So I really hope we get trick or treaters. But yeah, it's definitely gone down in recent years because of these organized events, and I think that has to do with, again, directly, you can chart Satanic Panic to Trunk or Treat, and I think it, you can make a straight line there as to, point A to point B.
[00:44:52] Josh Hutchinson: And then you throw in the pandemic and that throws everything for a loop.
[00:44:57] Sean and Carrie: That's like a new kind of paranoia. They could be giving you bacteria now. And, I think 2021 was the first year where I saw anyone really going trick or treating after, really last year or more, but, you know, UV lights. And um, yeah, it's spraying down originally with the groceries, spraying down the wrap, like the wrapped bag with the Lysol and then letting it sit.
And, it's just another thing to be afraid of.
And Oh, that month when we were leaving our, all our groceries out on the deck for a little while first.
Yeah, Yeah, I saw a lot of the UV lights for Halloween and things like that after COVID because it just, it's another way we adapt the tradition to fit our current fears.
[00:45:46] Sarah Jack: Yeah, that year for a trick, my son was like eight. And so everybody was shooting their candy down these
[00:45:54] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, I
saw that too.
[00:45:56] Sarah Jack: on their,
[00:45:56] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, but Halloween will always make you creative. So there's also the good side of it. There will always be people that want to give treats to kids on Halloween because it makes them happy. And so they're all, there will always be positives with it. But yeah, I think this holiday more than any other, we really uniquely adapt it to our culture, especially in terms of what we're afraid of, because that's what the holiday's about, and so I think it really reflects where we are socially and culturally, every decade or so you can see how it changes to fit those social and cultural changes.
Although it's funny, kids, and this isn't just, I'm not like, kids today, but kids, but when I was a kid, there was a year that we were all Power Rangers, there was a year that, it's not like we're always dressed in, dressed as things that scare us necessarily. You're just like the coolest thing you can think of is everybody gets to be somebody else for the night on Halloween. Yeah. So that's another aspect of it too. And we'll be Bonnie and Clyde this Halloween. That's our plan. Yeah.
[00:47:00] Sarah Jack: Oh. Oh.
[00:47:02] Josh Hutchinson: awesome.
[00:47:03] Sean and Carrie: Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Thank you.
Although we will be posthumous. Yes. They will be dead. You gotta do that with them, I think. But yeah, costumes will always be a thing, but now that there, there are other concerns. There are people wearing costumes into movie theaters and doing bad things. That's our talk. So the, those fears get adapted and some, now you can't wear masks certain places on Halloween and stuff like that, which makes total sense safety wise, but that wasn't something we were concerned about till we were concerned about it.
[00:47:37] Josh Hutchinson: One trend that I'm seeing in Halloween is more travel, especially to places like Salem. I know they had their record year last year with over a million visitors in October, and it's a town of 40,000 or something. And it broke the toilets. So
[00:48:00] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, it's a small city and we love going there because we're only a couple hours away. I usually like to go a couple times a year because it's just a really cool town, even subtracting all the witch stuff, but that's just great frosting on top of the cake for me. But I think it's interesting how culture does inform these things, because I think it started really skyrocketing in terms of insane attendance rates around the time of, weirdly enough, like Hocus Pocus's around 25th anniversary for the movie, because they have a lot of movie-related celebrations and stuff in town, and people started realizing you could go see the the places where they filmed in town for the film Hocus Pocus. I think the people who grew up watching it on Disney Channel, like I did, millennials, now we had the money and the resources to travel to a place because it was in a movie that we loved as a kid. So I think all of that sort of wrapped up together in around like 2015 ish.
And and then, crazy enough, with lockdown, people got really stir crazy after that. And I, I know a couple of people that work in tourism in Salem. My friend Elise runs thingstodoinsalem.com, just got to give her a shout out there, but she said after COVID, you would think it would go down the attendance rates and it's skyrocketed.
Even more than anything related to Hocus Pocus or anything like that. The last couple of years, 2021, 2022 have just been stratospheric. You can't even drive into town barely any day in October anymore, which you used to, it would be busy, but you would be able to drive in and park somewhere. But now you can't do that.
You know how a couple of years ago you didn't know a single person who had been to Iceland and now every fifth American person you meet is like, Oh, have you been to Reykjavik? It's the coolest place.
It's like word of mouth too. Yeah. Oh, I went to Salem and it was like Halloween town for Halloween, and so you gotta go. And then everyone else that's, oh, like I, I have money and I have a car now. I could probably do that.
So many people who go you guys must love Salem. I went there last year for the first time. What a crazy place during October. So I think it's having a moment, for sure.
And I started going yearly around 2015 or so, which is that time that I mentioned, but that was also the time where I happened to be living on my own and Planning my own weekends away. And while I wanted to go to this place that my parents brought me to as a kid, I didn't really understand it then, cause I was like seven years old at the witch museum. But now I wanted to experience it as an adult and appreciate it. On my own time I think a lot of people have had that same thing the last few years, especially with Salem, because at least locally, it's much more easy for people we know to just drive over there.
But even other places have become destinations as well, and I really think it's just because of, certain, generations are really interested in certain things. And my generation likes spooky Hocus Pocusy stuff, so they go to Salem.
[00:51:22] Josh Hutchinson: My parents love to go down to Tombstone for Halloween. They have Helldorado days
[00:51:29] Sean and Carrie: Oh, that
[00:51:30] Josh Hutchinson: they can cosplay as dead cowboys and things like that. So it's a pretty awesome.
[00:51:37] Sean and Carrie: I would love to go to Tombstone generally, but around Halloween is, that sounds like a great idea. I always tell people now that they should go to Salem twice because it is cool to see the October of it all, but you can't even get into museums. Like at that time of year anymore, I say go twice. Go like in the spring, like off season and actually go to the museums and enjoy it without a thousand people in every store. And then go and just experience that Halloween stuff and don't worry about tourism just to experience the celebration because they're very different vibes and very different things.
It's a town that has confronted its, it's very public, ugly history in such a way that it has turned inside out into the most liberal, groovy town you've ever.
Which of course is attractive to a lot of people wanting to party, I'm sure.
So it's yeah I really enjoy our time there.
And they got a cool comic book store, too.
Yeah, that helps.
[00:52:37] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, they do. We were there in May and fortunately May's a good time, especially if you're there in the middle of the week, you can get into anything you want to the middle of the week. And May was my experience where I was there in October in 2016. And yeah,
it
[00:53:00] Sean and Carrie: So crazy. Yeah.
Like, just imagine that I guess probably like times five now. The, just the attendance rates have been astronomical. But yeah, it's a totally different experience. And you're, you go for the history and the actual town itself off season. And then in October, you're going for that Halloween experience that you can only get there.
[00:53:23] Josh Hutchinson: Right, and a lot of people have gone from doing the haunted house to staying in a haunted hotel for Halloween.
[00:53:33] Sean and Carrie: Yes. And that's something that you would think people don't want to stay in haunted rooms. But certain rooms in certain hotels, you have to book years in advance. Salem, just to have a hotel in town, you have to book a year in advance for Halloween season now. It used to just be Halloween that you would have to make sure you had reservations. So now you End of September to early November, you need to book a year in advance if you want to go. And if you want one of the purportedly haunted rooms in the Hawthorne Hotel, then, yeah, good luck.
But there's also more places that offer those sorts of experiences, like the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast. You can... You can go there and sleep in a room that people were murdered in. And those kinds of historic kind of escape room-y but real situations have become a lot more popular as tourist destinations in the last few years.
And those Lizzie Borden people actively seem to advertise to the like, clicky machine ghost adventure set, yeah. They know where their bread is buttered and ghost hunters love going there.
I would love, I would, I, I haven't been, only Carrie has, but I would love to stay at the the Lizzie board.
I haven't stayed, but I've done the tour and it was very educational.
[00:54:53] Josh Hutchinson: I would like to stay there just out of Morbid fascination with the case of, was she an axe murderer? Am I staying in the axe murderer's house? This is interesting.
[00:55:07] Sarah Jack: I know a couple episodes you can listen to find out, Josh.
[00:55:10] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, yes.
[00:55:12] Sean and Carrie: I think I think people have always... It's both a little morbid and maybe the rush reminds us that we're alive, and I think people have pulled pranks since the cavemen's times and people have told scary stories since we had language and we've told ghost stories and stories about monsters and things like that since we've had language.
We've always liked to be a little scared. Controlled scared. Watching a horror movie, you know that's not happening to you. Telling a scary story, you know it's not actually happening around the campfire. So it's like a controlled dose of fear. To sort of, you know, give you that little adrenaline boost, but also reassure you that you're in no real danger. And I think stuff like what it's called dark tourism, the, these sort of spooky tourist places or ghost tours or things like that you're getting close to it, but you're still in control of the fear. And I think that can be very attractive to some people who enjoy that. It's like going on a roller coaster.
Carrie, if I may steal a story from you, an anecdote when you were very young, you, your uncle had a bust of Frankenstein, of, sorry, Frankenstein's monster on his desk, and you were fascinated and frightened, and you terrified me, but I would always sneak into the room and I was only scaring myself. It wasn't that people said I couldn't go into the room, but I would sneak in like I wasn't allowed and I would peek at it and then I would run away, 'cause it was so scary. But you kept creeping in 'cause it was fun to be scared by the bust in a controlled way where you knew once you ran away. Yes.
That's how and I know it's not Frankenstein, but he looks scary. And so it's a little shot of, Ooh, that's scary. And then you run away.
It's not Frankenstein. It's the monster. The creation.
But I think kids are like that, which is also why they respond to Halloween. And I think people, humanity has always been like that. And that's why we all respond to Halloween, even nowadays.
That's very much what our podcast is about, too.
Ain't it scary?
[00:57:22] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:57:23] Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything that you wanted to cover that we haven't talked about today?
[00:57:29] Sean and Carrie: Good question. Yeah we've really gone through all of history, haven't we? My goodness. Yeah, halloween, as it is today, as the Halloween that we're talking about is such a uniquely American holiday and American experience. And this version of Halloween has leached out into other countries now, whereas people, kids dress up and they go trick or treating now in places like the UK and Australia and things like that.
Obviously, there were traditions that we brought with us, but I think because we were such a country of immigrants, and because we were founded on the principle of freedom of religion, that's why all of these traditions from the Celts and the Romans and the Catholics and all these different Americans traditions were allowed to coalesce into this really unique holiday and it's not based on any specific religion. You can be pagan and celebrate Halloween in America, but you could just be nothing and celebrate Halloween. You could be Christian, you could be Jewish, you could, it's not like Christmas which, has its own way of modifying for anyone. But even more Halloween is for everyone. And it's just, it's a really interesting melting pot of all of these traditions that were brought into this country. So I think it's underrated in terms of history. I think you look at Halloween and first of all, this massive timeline of, ancient culture to now, but you also see a real timeline of America and what's important in our culture and what has been important in our culture and how those things have changed, especially related to both our fears and our children the youth of America, because it's such a youth based holiday now.
And so it's just a really fascinating way to, to look at history and look at our culture in a way that you wouldn't expect necessarily, because, you grow up and it's normal to you and it's always there. But when you really take a look at it, you see a little bit of everyone in it.
Especially 2 Charlie Chaplins, and 2 Iron Man.
And to Gingerbread Man.
[00:59:45] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer
[00:59:49] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:59:51] Josh Hutchinson: And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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[01:00:26] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great Halloween and a beautiful fall.

October 31, 2023

Witches in Popular Culture with Maya Rook

Salem Oracle by Maya Rook

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Show Notes

Welcome back cultural historian Maya Rook. October is a great opportunity to discuss the portrayals of witches in pop culture, witchcraft and magic. Enjoy this fun and reflective episode as we consider the witch in pop culture over time, how she is rooted in Greek Mythology, and her stereotypes and tropes. How are her powers centered within the domestic sphere? Where did we get our image of the good witch? Of the bad witch? What does the future hold for the pop culture witch? Why are men wizards and women witches?

Illusory Time by Maya Rook

Petition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
List of those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts

Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Hello, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:16] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Today, we're excited to share a conversation we had with historian and friend of the show, Maya Rook, about portrayals of the witch in popular culture.
[00:00:26] Josh Hutchinson: We had a great time talking with Maya about how the witch has been depicted over the generations.
[00:00:32] Sarah Jack: From classical Greeks to modern Americans, people have both loved and reviled witch characters.
[00:00:38] Josh Hutchinson: Witches can be good or bad, or increasingly a little of both.
[00:00:43] Sarah Jack: What lessons can be learned from Sabrina the Teenage Witch and her fellow pop culture witches?
[00:00:49] Josh Hutchinson: And what does the future hold for popular representations of the witch?
[00:00:54] Sarah Jack: Welcome back, Maya Rook, cultural historian, educator, and host of Illusory Time and Salem Oracle. Maya is vibrant, creative, playful, humorous, delightful, informative, and you will appreciate the perspectives she brings to this topic today.
Let's start talking a little bit about our favorite pop culture witches. Maya, do you have a favorite pop culture witch?
[00:01:16] Maya Rook: I do have a favorite, and it is Sabrina the Teenage Witch, specifically the show with Melissa Joan Hart that started airing in 1996. So she always just comes up for me. I love so many pop culture witches, but I was at like the prime age when that was released, and I just was fascinated by the show. I loved it. I watched it until I grew out of it. But I've returned to it as an adult, and I think that it really keeps up, holds up, and I really love that one.
[00:01:45] Josh Hutchinson: I like that one a lot, too. Yeah, Sabrina and I like Hermione. It's a pop culture witch. There's some others we're thinking about, like Mary Poppins isn't always considered a witch, but she's very magical. And Bedknobs and Broomsticks, that witch is really good. Those are a few that I like.
[00:02:09] Sarah Jack: I love Morgana from the TV series Merlin. I love her transformation over the series. Unfortunately, it's from good to bad, but I don't know if that is unfortunate. It's a real, real important thread through the story, but I have enjoyed that character.
[00:02:27] Josh Hutchinson: Who else do you think of when you think pop culture witch? Who are the most iconic?
[00:02:34] Maya Rook: That is such a challenging question, because there are so many pop culture witches, and I think, and depending on who you ask, they're going to have that one person or group of people come into their minds, but I think of even just like the Weird Sisters from Macbeth. You have the three witches around the bubbling cauldron that is such an iconic image that continues to impact us to this day, and then we see different iterations even from that. We have the Sanderson sisters and Hocus Pocus, which I think a lot of people would say, iconic witches right there in pop culture.
We also have The Wizard of Oz, and I think that within that, the creation of Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West are both incredibly iconic. Samantha Stevens in Bewitched, for so many people that's their witch that they think of. Of course for me, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and then you have other teen witches as well, so thinking about The Craft, we get into kind of a little more dark witchcraft there. We have the sisters that show up in Practical Magic, and there's Charmed, the television show. You already mentioned Hermione from Harry Potter, right? The Witches of Eastwick is another big one.
I don't know, I feel like I could just name witches forever, but those were the top, I think, ten that showed up for me when I thought iconic pop culture witch.
[00:03:55] Josh Hutchinson: We talk about Hermione being an iconic witch. Why don't we talk about Harry Potter as being an iconic witch? Is it because the label is wizard for him?
[00:04:08] Maya Rook: Yeah, I think so, right? Because he's a he, because he's a male and is referred to as a wizard so much, I think that he doesn't really pop up into people's minds when we think iconic witch. Although we have witches in pop culture or, in the past, where men would be considered witches, for the most part it's associated with women. So I think that's really where our minds are still going to go to this day is we're going to look for the female character that's associated with magic. And in that case, we have Hermione, who is amazing.
[00:04:40] Josh Hutchinson: So there's still like a strong demarcation between here's a wizard and here's a witch and they're not the same thing.
[00:04:49] Maya Rook: Yeah, I think so. I was thinking about that, and we have different representations of wizards, but a lot of the times when I think when we hear the word wizard, what comes to mind often is like an older, white, male wizard with a long beard and the like pointy hat, maybe it has stars on it. A lot of times they're associated more with good magic, and I think when we have witches, we tend to imagine women. And now we have a lot more representations of good witches and bad witches, but I think the sort of stereotype that's left over really from the European witch trials and the witch hunting texts is that it's more negative. They're associated with harmful magic, darker magic. And I think that we're still impacted by that to this day.
[00:05:39] Sarah Jack: Do you think the portrayal of witches in pop culture instill fear, or do you think it takes away fear?
[00:05:49] Maya Rook: Both. And I think it really depends on what era we're looking at. So if we trace the trajectory of pop culture witches, we see this shift happening. I mentioned the European witch trials, the witch hunting texts, the images of witches that are created during that time. We're talking hundreds of years where this is really taking ahold of people's imaginations. And it's, it is very negative. And that, at that point in time is very much going to instill fear. And as the two of you and many of your listeners know very well, it instills fear to the point of persecution and execution, right? So the popular image of the witch ends up having this huge impact on people's everyday lives, on society as a whole, that is very fearful and negative.
You go through time, obviously, to get away from the witch trials within Europe and America. We have fairy tales and folk tales of witches, also often very negative. Hansel and Gretel, don't wander off into the woods, because the witch might get you and try to lure you in with their magic and eat you and all that good stuff.
But I really think that this shift happens that splits with The Wizard of Oz. When we get that good witch, Glinda the Good Witch, which, she's not instilling fear for most people, I would hope, right? She is this benevolent witch who's there to help Dorothy. And then you have the Wicked Witch of the West, who is really, in a lot of ways, left over from those negative stereotypes, and that's the one that you fear. So depending on sort of which of those two witches you trace, you can either get that fear, or you can get something that actually could help release fear.
As we get into the 20th century, we have people like Samantha Stevens from Bewitched, we have good teen witches like Sabrina, other fun kind of pop culture witches, as well, and all of those might be seen actually as a form of empowerment or play or this ability to have a good time with magic and be able to manipulate and control your world from a place of goodness rather than from a place that's pulling from a darker magic.
[00:07:58] Josh Hutchinson: How do you think the portrayal of witches in pop culture affects our understanding of practicing witches?
[00:08:06] Maya Rook: Yes, I think that there's a couple layers there, because the portrayal of witches in pop culture can be for a lot of people your entryway, what sparks your interest. And especially, I think the younger you are, because. And I think that's, you see this, you're fascinated by it. It's oh, this witch can wiggle their finger and then make everything change around them, or they can manipulate their environment. They can have a little more control over their relationships, even their own well being. So it's very enticing. So I think that it could actually draw people to want to explore what is witchcraft and what is magic and what is my own magic. But then I think that the other aspect of it is because that portrayal, it almost is so fantastical and it's external. You see when Sabrina the Teenage Witch, she waves her finger and then sparks will fly out of it and something will happen. But that's not going to happen in our real day to day lives. Real witchcraft, real magic, in a lot of ways, is very ordinary, and it doesn't have such a big, flashy show, and it can take a lot of work to tap into and trust in yourself.
So I think that it doesn't always show us the reality that if you want to practice magic, there's going to have to be a lot of inner exploration, and that some things might just actually be ordinary and boring, but you are tapping into your own power.
[00:09:32] Sarah Jack: I was thinking how some of the challenges or a lot of the challenges that they show Sabrina facing are actual challenges that other girls, boys are facing at that age. And so as you referred to looking into yourself and for your solutions. Hopefully, that those kind of examples can push people to see that in the ordinary there is solutions, that you do have power and strength from your own gifts, as well as your witchcraft interests.
[00:10:06] Maya Rook: Sabrina makes so many mistakes as she's navigating, learning her magic, and I think that's really great, because any teenager, any person coming of age, any human being is gonna make mistakes, they're gonna screw up, but they're able to do it in a way that's very comical. It's set up in that format for a sitcom. Or there's always a lesson that's learned from it, and I think you get this glimpse also that it doesn't actually matter how much magical powers you might have, that there's still going to be opportunities to learn, to grow, and that sometimes the magic is not what's going to be what will save you. It has to be your ability to like talk and communicate with people or share what's going on or ask for help or whatever it is. So all of that is intertwined into those episodes as she's navigating her world.
[00:10:56] Josh Hutchinson: What are some other lessons that we can learn from Sabrina and other witches?
[00:11:03] Maya Rook: I think that one of the biggest lessons we can pull from observing witches and the portrayal of witchcraft in pop culture is that there's more than meets the eye in our day to day lives. I think that it's a reminder that there is something that's like powerful and magical that can be beneath the surface, that you can have that idea of peeling back of the veil and there's another layer, there's another experience to the world around us or to people's abilities.
So a lot of times in pop culture, we have the witches who are very clearly witches, and they have the pointy black hat and they're supposed to look like haggard and just very obvious. They're around the cauldron. They're witches.
But then we have the witches that look really ordinary. They look like everyday people. And I think that a lesson there is this reminder that when we encounter people, we meet somebody, we don't actually know what's beneath it. We don't know who they are. And there could be, and a lot of times there is, this like immense insight, wisdom, power that's beneath them. And it could be something that they're hiding from the world. Because a lot of times these witches that we've mentioned, they're out and about in their day to day life, and they're not revealing to anybody the powers that they have. So yeah, I think that's what stands out to me the most as a larger lesson of like, there's more than meets the eye.
[00:12:24] Sarah Jack: The powers that we find in pop culture, where do they come from or where do they get their power?
[00:12:31] Maya Rook: Yeah, so I think that the power of flight is one that we definitely see, again, rooted back in the witch hunting texts that are coming out during the European witch trials. So we're talking about things that are starting really in the 1400s, and we start to hear messages about that witches can fly in the night. We see images coming out of like woodcuts and paintings, where we see witches on broomsticks, or they're flying through the air in some way. So I think that when we see that today or throughout the 20th and 21st century, the image of the witch on the broom flying through the air, all of it can really be, I believe, rooted back to that moment in time.
And I don't know. I think that it's probably a very enticing power to think about. If you could have the power to do anything, the idea that you could levitate and that you could fly in the air and that you could have that kind of control over something that other people can't and have that ability to fly around. I feel like a lot of people would take advantage of that if they could.
[00:13:39] Josh Hutchinson: I'd definitely be up there all the time, no hiding it, just look what I can do.
[00:13:45] Maya Rook: Yeah, I have the ability to lucid dream, and oftentimes, when I do tap into a lucid dream, one of the first things I start doing is flying, because why wouldn't I? Like, What else am I going to do? Okay, well, it is it's really fun. Something I will say that I love about, again, because I know we're going to keep coming to bring this back to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, vacuum cleaners. So they update it in the show when she's introduced to flying, she assumes it's going to be on brooms, but they actually use vacuum cleaners, and it's this really just quirky, fun, modern touch of why would we use an old-fashioned broom when we could use the modern vacuum cleaner to fly around in the air? And just one of those like silly moments that they put into the show.
[00:14:28] Josh Hutchinson: It evoked also Hocus Pocus 2, where they use a Swiffer and some Roombas.
[00:14:36] Maya Rook: Yes, I forgot about that.
[00:14:38] Josh Hutchinson: So yet another upgrade to keep up with the technology. But it's still rooted in that domestic sphere, which women were limited to during the witch hunting era in Europe and North America.
[00:14:59] Maya Rook: I think that's a great point, and I think that we do see a lot of that sort of domestication of the witch happening, as well, and some of the, if we're you know, want to still look at some of their powers, this connection there but following Glinda the Good Witch, I see that as this good witch lineage in the 20th century. And then all the witches that tend to be good witches are usually somehow associated somewhere in the household. So we have Samantha and Bewitched, and she's navigating okay, suburban housewife, and being a witch, what's the line between that? And then we have Sabrina, again, living in the suburbs, like a lot of her life takes place in the house with her aunts. They're in this domestic sphere, the vacuums, as we mentioned before, the flying on brooms.
I think that we also see, again, tracing back to the European witch trials, some of the things associated with witches take place in that world. I'm thinking of the Malleus Maleficarum, and this one story that's told in there about, there's some fear around midwives, and they're talking about how if a witch who is a midwife helps a woman give birth, they might pretend like the baby is dead so that they can take it away, or they might bring it, describing bringing it into the kitchen, holding it up by the fire, and offering it up to the devil.
And that is all the domestic sphere, that's all the women's world, what they're associated with. And it's being almost inverted in some way. Instead of the power of being by the hearth and the fire as this place to create life, it's then being associated with this darkness, right? So they are inverting their relationship with domesticity. And also some of the crimes they were associated with, infertility, miscarriages, the killing and the eating of babies, as well as even things like crops failing, livestock falling ill, all of that kind of has to do with instead of creating life and helping it to flourish, making it diminish.
So those are some of the more negative aspects associated with it. But I feel like that idea of rooting things in the domestic world we see continued throughout that whole trace of pop culture witches.
[00:17:11] Josh Hutchinson: And I was thinking the the Malleus was basically the pop culture of its day, so that's another pop culture portrayal of witches. Unfortunately, it's a very devastating one with real consequences.
[00:17:29] Maya Rook: I'll say one more thing about the powers of witches that we see, because the ones that I've mentioned so far, really, I think we see strongly in the European witch trials, but in the Western world, we can go back even further, and I do see some aspects of magic and witchcraft rooted in Greek mythology that we still see today.
So Hecate comes to mind, and Hecate was the goddess of nocturnal sorcery and crossroads and threshold boundaries, those kind of areas in between. And she was able to go between the mortal and the divine spheres. So she could go between the underworld and the earth. And even It's kind of funny that I see Sabrina going between those two worlds as well, right? Because she's half witch and she's half mortal, so she's straddling that line. And then Hecate was also associated with certain herbs, which of course we see to this day, the idea of like witches and witchcraft being able to have an herbal magic and be able to make potions and things like that. And then Hecate's daughter, Circe, had the ability to transform humans into animals. So most famously, probably in The Odyssey she transforms the men into swine. And you usually have a magic wand or a staff that was associated with that power. And so I think we still see echoes of that that come through the witch trials all the way up to the present day.
[00:18:51] Sarah Jack: The shape changing's one of my favorite portrayals of witchcraft. It's, sometimes it's very light hearted and fun, sometimes it's very deceitful and there's trickery. But yeah, I really enjoy the shape shifting. I don't shape shift. Yet.
[00:19:11] Josh Hutchinson: Working on it, though
[00:19:12] Maya Rook: Keep trying!
[00:19:13] Josh Hutchinson: Practice makes perfect.
[00:19:16] Sarah Jack: Alrighty.
[00:19:16] Josh Hutchinson: I'm glad you brought up the Greeks because when we think pop culture witch, of course we often think in today's terms of who's a 20th, 21st century witch, but witches have been in pop culture ever since there was basically writing, stories being told.
[00:19:40] Maya Rook: Yeah, absolutely. I think that it's important to remember that humans all over the world have long believed in magic, right? It doesn't matter what culture you're in, what society, there's usually some notion that There's a magic in the world, there's an ability to manipulate the world around you, and that certain people hold that power and that ability. So the name for what that is can change over time and, depending on the culture, but there's usually somebody that you can make a parallel as being a witch.
[00:20:12] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We had Owen Davies on recently talking about The Art of the Grimoire, and there's grimoires back from 3000 BC, 4000 BCE. So witches have been in literature for thousands and thousands of years, and it's really interesting to watch this metamorphosis over time. You talked about how Hecate and Circe and then up to the Malleus, where the witch in European culture is this very malevolent figure, to now We have good witches and bad witches, but where do you think the witch is going in the future in pop culture?
[00:21:00] Maya Rook: That's really fascinating to think about. I don't think that we will tire of witches in pop culture, especially considering, as you just said, 3,000 years, 3000 BCE, I think you said, we have evidence of witches in pop culture, right? So they're not going to go anywhere. I think that we'll continue to navigate that and keep the witch, the person who has that ability to manipulate the world around them through that power. It'll continue.
How will it change? I think that more and more people are publicly Considering themselves witches and sharing what their connection is with magic and witchcraft in more public spheres. There's people talk about witchtok, witches on TikTok who share what they're doing, and, of course, across all social media, you have similar things happening. I think that's going to end up influencing the future of witches and pop culture. In some ways, it might become a little bit more normal, so we might start seeing films that are just otherwise just regular, a comedy or a drama, the story has nothing to do with witchcraft, but maybe there'll be a character in it who's just oh they're a witch. It's just normal. It's part of who is in our society, who's in our culture. And it might start being portrayed maybe even in a more positive light, maybe like a little more fun, a little more playful, perhaps more stuff for children but yeah, it's hard to tell.
People will never tire, though, of the evil witch. I am such a big fan of horror films, and I feel like, there's no way that you could have a lot of horror films out there. They need that dark character.
[00:22:44] Josh Hutchinson: For sure. But I liked what you said about normalizing portrayals of witchcraft and modern which practices just to see, they're just your neighbor. They're whoever regular people in your family and like practicing any other faith.
[00:23:04] Maya Rook: With the witchtok and the Instagram witches and stuff, I think it's fascinating to watch, and at the same time, it makes me also a little bit nervous of a watering down that could happen, or just doing it for the show of it, and I think that any spiritual practice in a lot of ways is more, a lot of the meaning is coming from your personal connection to it. That doesn't mean it's going to be lost if you share it with other people in a public setting, but I think people have to be careful about that too, because, if you're just doing something because you're like I have to create content and I've created this following and I'm going to do it, then what's your motivation behind are you is your intention really there to do this spell, to do whatever it is, or are you just trying to get likes and followers?
Maybe that's not what you think you're doing, but that's how it ends up unraveling for yourself. And so I think it's probably important for people to remember, if they go into that world, to check themselves and make sure they're really coming from a place of this is my spirituality, this is my practice and really considering what it is that they're showing the world.
[00:24:09] Josh Hutchinson: Instead of just making it flashy, putting in all the trappings of excitement, what is the actual practice that means something to you as a person, as a creator? That's a good point, too.
[00:24:27] Sarah Jack: I was really curious who your favorite horror film witch character is.
[00:24:32] Maya Rook: I really love The Witch that came out in, what was that, 2015 or so? I just find that a fascinating film. I was so excited when it came out. I had done so much research on the Puritans of the Mass Bay Colony, obviously the Salem Witch Trials, and I went to that movie and I felt like I was being really brought into 17th century New England.
I felt like I was really there with that family, even the way that they spoke to each other. It was the way that it looked, the dynamic, all of it just felt so real and captivating to me and then to watch the main character and her storyline unfold, and this potential, this fear around magic, this fear around the devil, and her sort of luring that comes into it, and then by the end, spoiler alert, for anybody who hasn't seen The Witch, pause this, go watch it, come back.
But to see her kind of give in to that power in the end is this really beautiful, incredible moment. And I just absolutely loved it. I've watched that movie several times now and I feel like it just doesn't get old to, to watch that unraveling.
[00:25:45] Sarah Jack: It's so crazy that you just said unravel because I was literally going to say the film is showing like the unraveling of the mother, of the faith, they were just really striving. They were there, spoiler alert, in the woods because of their strong, stubborn beliefs and they wanted to have things the way they wanted it. But then that's unraveling for them and then she's like blooming into this character. It's so intense.
[00:26:20] Josh Hutchinson: Thomasin is another person who doesn't feature a lot in conversations when I was looking around the internet, who are the top pop culture witches. She doesn't feature there, but that's cited as a top witch movie. So it's interesting that she's not thought of in that light.
[00:26:43] Maya Rook: Yeah, she in some ways doesn't have, you have to really get to the end of her story to see her as a witch when she's levitating in the air at the end. And I think that it doesn't have that same flashiness as when we think of like the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus, right? But it's still really powerful and it's interesting. Yeah, she doesn't usually, Thomas and we're like, oh yeah, Thomasin the witch. It's like we think of her as a character and we think of the movie, which is called The Witch, but at the same time, it's like yeah, she doesn't stand out. But I think it's absolutely one of the best portrayals of witches and witchcraft that we have in popular culture and specifically, as you asked about in horror films, I think it's pretty high up there.
[00:27:24] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, another thing Sarah and I were talking about the other day. In The Witch, there is the older woman in the woods that's tempting her so that person is more or less the villain of the feature, other than uh, Black Phillip, depending on your opinion about him. But is it always an older figure targeting a younger figure when it comes to the villains?
[00:27:57] Maya Rook: That's a great question. My instinct is, yeah, it seems like it usually is somebody who's older. I think, I also feel like in cases where it seems like it's somebody who's younger, that it always ends up that they are actually older, the skin comes off and it's revealed they are actually much older, and they're just manipulating the way they look, so yeah, I think you might be onto something there, that it's typically an older witch villain, whatever, that is bringing and luring in the younger into their world.
[00:28:31] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we're thinking even, you go back to the fairy tales, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, it's an older person stealing youth, either they want to eat the youth or they went to somehow capture it for themselves. And that seems to carry forward, Harry Potter's a school student and Voldemort. Oops, I said his name. He's obviously the older adult preying on children. So it seems like that Hansel and Gretel kind of role is still going on.
[00:29:10] Maya Rook: Yeah, absolutely, I'd agree. I'll have to think on it, though, and see if I can come up with any examples, like, where there's a younger witch luring an older person. It might be out there, but it could take some time to find it.
[00:29:23] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Another thing we were curious about, and don't know if there's been research done into this, but how many of a witch's victims are female versus how many are male? We see a lot of older women going after younger women or girls.
[00:29:42] Maya Rook: Yeah. When you ask that question, what it first makes me think of is that we see, I believe, a lot of times, with the older witch, it's and they're approaching a younger girl might be to actually lure them also into witchcraft, but when they're approaching men, a younger man, it's usually, there might be something sexual there. The older witch might be getting something out of it, pleasure for themselves, but then they discard the man or harm him in some way. So it seems almost a using and a violence against men and then like a bringing in, a manipulation and a bringing in of women into the world of witches and witchcraft.
[00:30:23] Sarah Jack: That initiation.
[00:30:25] Maya Rook: Initiation. Yeah,
[00:30:26] Sarah Jack: Do you think there are any witches in pop culture that challenge traditional stereotypes?
[00:30:31] Maya Rook: So when I do a lot of my work on pop culture witches, and I do usually culminate it with Sabrina the Teenage Witch I always see that household as really challenging some gender stereotypes and the way that a household is created, because there's really no men in that house, right? We have the two aunts, so we have this kind of alternative lifestyle. Neither of them are married. For a lot of the show, they're not even really in relationships, so they will be, but they're not like center stage. So we have the two sisters who are leading the household, and then they're raising their niece, right? Not even their child. So that's not a typical, standard house. And then the one male that you have in the household is a warlock who's, he has to live in the body of a cat for a hundred years because he tried to take over the world. So the man who's in the house has pretty much no power, always trying to get it, but he's dependent on everybody around him. So I think it really flips a lot of the what we think about in terms of gender and power in a typical domestic environment.
I'm also thinking about which witches buck the stereotype of a witch, and at this point we just have so many different images of witches, I'm like I feel like our pop culture just holds a lot of different representations that it would be challenging now to think of one in this moment of time that would somehow be going against what's already been created. It's possible out there, but I think we'd have to almost go back and think about, okay, what was the stereotype in this moment of time, what shifted it? And to me, that always comes back to Glinda the Good Witch as being that pivotal moment where the change happens.
[00:32:15] Sarah Jack: Is there a tie with Glinda's image and portrayal and fairies, fairy godmothers?
[00:32:23] Maya Rook: I do think so, especially in the way that she is presented in the film. I think it really pulls on that image of the fairy godmother being more benevolent, caring, showing up in that moment to be of service and to help whoever the protagonist is, in this case, Dorothy. But it's really interesting, L. Frank Baum, when he wrote The Wizard of Oz, his mother-in-law was Matilda Joslyn Gage. And she was an early suffragist and feminist before people were even really talking about those things. And she was also an early researcher of the witch trials and one of the first people to say this was an attack on women.
And so we're talking about somebody writing and researching and talking about this in the 1800s, late 1800s. She was also involved in spiritualism, so engaged in things like seances, and she was part of the Theosophical Society, so she was in touch with the world of magic, and she was very close with L. Frank Baum, so mother-in-law to L. Frank Baum, and it seems as though she had a pretty big influence on him. They talked about a lot of stuff, and a lot of people believe that she influenced his perception on witches and witchcraft, and that when he wrote The Wizard of Oz, because of that connection with Matilda Joslyn Gage, that he created this character that went against the stereotypes that were left over from the witch trials, and he had both of them included.
So I think that she's this kind of more unknown person, but I think has incredibly impacted our understanding of witches today and especially from that portrayal of Glinda the Good Witch.
[00:34:05] Josh Hutchinson: I'm so glad you brought that up.
[00:34:07] Sarah Jack: Me too. I'm wondering, and I'm thinking, of course, from the film perspective, what's the significance to the wizard just being an ordinary man?
[00:34:19] Maya Rook: Yeah, the wizard. And again, we talked about wizards before, right? They're like older, male, they're usually have, good magic and whatnot. And in this, yeah, he has no real, all his power is a facade and eventually has to admit that he's just manipulating people and almost doing little tricks to get people to believe that he's powerful, and people do, they do believe it, but it falls apart eventually, right? The man behind the curtain. And of course, in the story, that is this really important moment because it, for the characters, shines this light on they always had those qualities within them and so that power laid within. But yeah, it is interesting that you have this powerful male figure, but then turns out actually is just, just like an ordinary guy.
[00:35:14] Sarah Jack: So then I have another question. You've got, courage is found, the brain, the heart. Those weren't just people. They were made up characters. I wonder what, why he went that direction with those who found their, the lion finding his courage, so maybe, I don't know.
[00:35:34] Maya Rook: Yeah. I wonder... It could just be that it was like a kid's story, and he wanted to create a fantastical world in, they don't show this in the movie, but in the book, the Tin Man started off as a real person. So the Tin Man chopping wood cut off his foot and it gets replaced and it cuts off part of his leg as well, so eventually he becomes this Tin Man and I, it's a little bit fuzzy in my mind, but I think part of it is that he had been in love with a woman and by the time that it gets to the point of his heart being replaced, he can no longer have that love.
So coming back and that very much could be representative of the time. We have industrialization, we have people who are working more and more in factories, and a stripping down of people's humanity, and so a reminder that people aren't tin men, they're not robots, they're not just there to do work, but they actually have a heart within them that we have to remember that.
[00:36:29] Josh Hutchinson: What do you think are some common stereotypes of witches, some tropes that we see in pop culture?
[00:36:39] Maya Rook: One that we've been coming back to is definitely that witches are typically seen as women. Think of a witch, depict a witch, a lot of times it is a woman, it's a female character, and I really do think in that case we can look at some of the statistics from the witch trials and see that when the witch trials began, about half the people accused were men, half the people accused were women, and then over that course of 400 or so years, by the end, 80 percent of the people who are accused and executed are women. So that shift, it takes some time, but by the end of it, I think it's really solidified that this belief that women are the ones who are associated with the magic, with the witchcraft, and the potential to be witches. So that's one of the largest.
Other common tropes, I would say, spells and incantations oftentimes Creating potions, so that image of the cauldron will be associated, that's another common one. Potentially, you have the solitary witch, but a lot of times you do have the coven of witches as well. So usually, in that case, there'd be three witches who are doing their magic together, flying, especially broomsticks, trying to think of some other ones.
That, the eating of children, we get that in Hocus Pocus, we get that in the European Witch Trials, and we get that as well in Roald Dahl's The Witches, so that's one of the main motivations is is it that they want to eat the children or they want to just kill them? They want to rid the world of children, that's what it is, and so they try to use their magic as a way to essentially they want to turn the children into mice, I believe. It's been a while since I read or watched that one, but this anti-child trope, I think, for the evil witch comes up a lot.
Oh, and they have familiars. So that is another major trope for all witches, I think, good or bad is that they have a familiar. Originally, familiars were believed to be domesticated demons in the shape of an animal. So it could be a dog, it could be a cat, a snake, a frog, or something like that. And then a lot of times in the present day, familiars are seen, not so much as demons, but, as a companion that has a relationship with the witch and that maybe their sort of powers help one another. And that was a big shift in the Sabrina the Teenage Witch with Melissa Joan Hart, because Salem is there, so he's like the familiar in that case, the cat.
And then in the new version, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, where things get a lot darker and more occult, more satanic, they bring back that idea of the domesticated demon. So she gets Salem. She gets a cat, but it is actually supposed to be a demon in the shape of a cat rather than, a friend, essentially.
[00:39:27] Sarah Jack: I haven't had a chance to watch that. I was curious, do they, how does the Book of Shadows represent different in that series? Does it?
[00:39:37] Maya Rook: I cannot... I can't remember. I did go back and watch the first couple episodes. It's been a while since I saw The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. So I'm not remembering. Really specifically what happens with the Book of Shadows. I will say one thing I know about the show is that, it's not the Book of Shadows, but they, it's like the devil's book that they have to sign.
In Sabrina the Teenage Witch, in the 90s television show, their power is definitely not coming from Satan, it's coming from like an unknown source, but that's clearly a fairly good or neutral source that it's coming from, but then in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, for her to become a witch when she's 16, she does need to sign the devil's Book and give herself over to the dark lord. So they really hearken back to the image that was created during the Witch Trials, and I think that's a major difference between the two.
[00:40:36] Sarah Jack: Oh yeah, I'm surprised there's any room in that book after all the witch trials and signing that was going on.
[00:40:42] Maya Rook: Yeah, it's magical, right? So maybe just more pages just keep getting created.
[00:40:47] Josh Hutchinson: think so. And they used a lot of different writing surfaces in the witch trial accounts of that. So they must have just pieced it together in a big three-ring binder or something. He's got a scrapbook, the devil's scrapbook. Anyways.
[00:41:05] Sarah Jack: Is there anything else that you'd like to be sure to speak to you about this topic or Sabrina or any of it?
[00:41:14] Maya Rook: I feel like as we consume pop culture, just remembering, it's to have fun with it, and then have a little bit of a discriminating eye and see what might be laying beneath the surface and what it can tell us about who we are as individuals and our society as a whole.
And I'm very curious, since you asked that question about the future of witches and pop culture, how that's going to unfold, right? And what it's going to tell us about generations as they're growing and changing and as our society changes, as well. I think that our perception of witches will be an insight into it.
[00:41:51] Sarah Jack: And now, for a minute with Mary.
[00:41:54] Mary Bingham: We already know the Puritans look to counter magic for protection, the shoe in the wall, the horseshoe over the doorway. But what about a witch cake? And why bake this awful concoction and feed it to the dog? It seems evident that Tituba loved Betty Parris and Abigail Williams. She was so concerned for their well being, as she was probably horrified while witnessing seizure like symptoms the girls experienced. Not even a doctor could diagnose their illness, saying that the girls were "under an evil hand." Tituba decided to take matters into her own hands and called upon the help of the Parris family neighbor, Mary Sibley. They baked that cake, made out of some type of flour, most likely rye or barley meal, they mixed it with the girl's urine and ashes from the hearth, and they fed it to the dog.
I once believed that the dog had somehow identified who was bewitching the girls, but was this actually the reason for the two women to bake the cake? The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology by Russell Hope Robbins states that if the witch cake is fed to the dog and the dog shakes, the afflictions, be they fevers or shivering fits, would be cured.
So this makes me wonder, could Tituba have wanted to find out who was bewitching the girls? Did she think she was offering a cure for their symptoms? Or both? I will let the listener decide. Thank you.
[00:43:32] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:43:35] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[00:43:38] Sarah Jack: Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast and End Witch Hunts collaborate on the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project and will work earnestly for all names to be cleared and for all lawmakers and global leaders to become better educated about witch hunts past and present. Lawmakers of any party can support legislation that has a real and resounding local and global impact. Other countries need to see us take a deliberate stand for alleged witches in our history with expressed concern for stopping alleged witchcraft violence today. Official state acknowledgement of the innocency of the 17th century accused and hanged witches from the American colonies resounds globally.
Thank you, State of Connecticut, for officially apologizing to all your known witch trial victims. Thank you, Massachusetts, for beginning the work of exoneration by addressing the injustice against those convicted in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. But, it's time to begin the work to acknowledge the injustice of those convicted in Boston between 1648 and 1688.
Massachusetts, it's time to stand with Connecticut and include all those who suffered in your colony in an official apology. It's time to acknowledge the absolute innocence of all those accused of witchcraft and the injustices committed against them.
[00:44:49] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much, Sarah.
[00:44:51] Sarah Jack: You're welcome, Josh.
[00:44:53] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:44:57] Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.
[00:45:00] Josh Hutchinson: Review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:45:04] Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:45:07] Josh Hutchinson: Tell all your friends and family about the show.
[00:45:11] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more about volunteering and donating.
[00:45:19] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

October 26, 2023

Massachusetts Witchcraft Trials 101 Part 1: 1648-1656

Petition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
List of those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth Century New England
The Devil in the Shape of a Woman
Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England
End Witch Hunts

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Show Notes

In Part 1 of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast’s Massachusetts Witchcraft Trials 101 series, we start at the beginning of witch hunt history in Massachusetts Bay Colony, decades before the famous Salem Witch-Hunt. This episode focuses on the stories of those accused of witchcraft who faced trial in Boston, including Margaret Jones, Alice Lake, Elizabeth Kendall, Anne Hibbins, John Bradstreet, Jane Walford, and Eunice Cole.

The Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project is asking for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to proclaim the innocence of its witch trial victims. The convicted victims talked about in this episode have not been exonerated, and no Massachusetts witchcraft trial victim has received an official apology. Please visit our project website at massachusettswitchtrials.org for more, and please take a moment to sign and share the project petition at change.org/witchtrials

Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Hello, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast, the show that asks why we hunt witches and how we can stop hunting witches. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:20] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. This episode is the first part of a Massachusetts Witch Trial 101 series.
[00:00:27] Josh Hutchinson: We're so glad to be able to give this part of history the detailed coverage it deserves.
[00:00:33] Sarah Jack: Massachusetts had more witch trials than just Salem.
[00:00:37] Josh Hutchinson: That's right. Before 1692, witchcraft trials were held in Boston.
[00:00:42] Sarah Jack: Let's dive into the details.
[00:00:44] Josh Hutchinson: Though rumors of witchcraft arose soon after settlement of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, and were certainly making rounds by 1638, when Governor John Winthrop wrote that Jane Hawkins "grew into suspicion to be a witch", it took many years of suspicions under normal circumstances to trigger formal witchcraft complaints.
[00:01:09] Sarah Jack: Between 1648 and 1693, two hundred and seventeen individuals were formally charged with witchcraft, and several others sued their accusers for slander. For a complete list of victims, visit massachusettswitchtrials.org
[00:01:27] Josh Hutchinson: 156 people are verified to have been formally accused during the Salem Witch Hunt.
[00:01:35] Sarah Jack: And 61 were accused before Salem.
[00:01:38] Josh Hutchinson: A total of 38 were convicted, 30 in Salem and 8 in Boston.
[00:01:44] Sarah Jack: In all 24 were hanged and one was pressed to death in Massachusetts . These 24 hanged included my ancestor, Rebecca nurse,
[00:01:54] Josh Hutchinson: And our mutual ancestor, Mary Esty.
[00:01:58] Sarah Jack: You know the 19 hanged in Salem, and you know Giles Corey's story, but do you know the 5 victims who were hanged in Boston between 1648 and 1688?
[00:02:08] Josh Hutchinson: And over the years, at least six additional people died in jail while awaiting either trial or execution for witchcraft.
[00:02:18] Sarah Jack: In total, 118 people were indicted, including my ancestor, Mary Hale.
[00:02:24] Josh Hutchinson: And my ancestor, Mary Osgood, as well as several of my aunts, uncles, and cousins.
[00:02:30] Sarah Jack: Another 99 were complained of, arrested, jailed, and/or examined, but their cases did not go to trial.
[00:02:38] Josh Hutchinson: In many of these cases, we simply do not have complete records to know the outcomes.
[00:02:46] Sarah Jack: Contrary to popular belief, confessing to witchcraft did not save your life. Before Salem, several confessors were put to death in both the Massachusetts and Connecticut Colonies.
[00:02:57] Josh Hutchinson: During Salem, several who had confessed to witchcraft were indeed condemned to die and death warrant was issued and a date set for execution. However, the governor stepped in and metaphorically called the warden at the last minute. Those who had been condemned were reprieved.
[00:03:21] Sarah Jack: I want to hear about the first woman formally charged with witchcraft.
[00:03:25] Josh Hutchinson: The first woman formally charged with witchcraft in Massachusetts was Margaret Jones, who was accused in 1648. We know about her case primarily through the journal of Governor John Winthrop and a book by minister John Hale, which was written a full 49 years after Margaret's trial.
According to John Hale's recollection, Margaret "was suspected partly because that after some angry words passing between her and her neighbors, some mischief befell such neighbors in their creatures or the like." These neighbors used counter magic to identify the witch who'd bewitched or charmed certain objects, which they burned. Margaret unfortunately came to the house where the objects were burning at the worst possible time and was assumed to be the witch.
According to Winthrop, Margaret was a healer, but one whose malignant touch could cause deafness, vomiting, and "other violent pains or sickness," and whose medicines also had unspecified "violent effects." But if someone didn't use her medicine, she told them they would never be well, and accordingly, they never got well. Margaret was also supposed to be able to foretell the future, and she knew things that she wasn't privy to from private conversations in private houses.
During the investigation, Margaret and her husband, Thomas, were both watched. Now watching was an English technique for detecting witches, which was popularized by the self-defined Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, during his East Anglia witch hunt in the mid 1640s. Watching involved sitting a suspect in a room, keeping them awake hour after hour, and watching to see if an imp or familiar would come in to feed, because witches were said to feed their imps and familiars from teats, which were often hidden in their secret parts.
Men would take shifts watching, instructed to keep the victim awake no matter what and use any means necessary to wake them up if they did fall asleep, because also once the person was sleep deprived, they were more likely to confess.
[00:06:22] Sarah Jack: Couldn't the watcher become sleep deprived?
[00:06:25] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And in this case, while Margaret was being watched, one of the watchers saw a small child in her arms who ran away into another room and then vanished when the watcher followed. Perhaps the watcher himself was suffering sleep deprivation, as you said, Sarah. But others also claimed to see this apparent familiar in different locations associated with Margaret at other times.
In addition to being watched, Margaret was examined for witch's teets and was found to have one in her secret parts. They described it as being "as fresh as if it had been newly sucked, and after it had been scanned, upon a forced search, that was withered, and another began on the opposite side."
Alice Stratton attempted to defend Margaret by saying that the teats were just scars from a difficult childbirth, just as Rebecca Nurse argued in Salem 44 years later. Subsequently, Alice Stratton would find herself accused of witchcraft. Ultimately, Margaret was convicted, and she was condemned to die by hanging.
On the day she was to be executed, young John Hale and some neighbors went to the prison and exhorted her to confess and repent. They were not there to save her life. They were there to save her soul. However, she refused to belie herself and maintained her innocence up until her death later that day.
Now, according to John Winthrop, the same day and hour she was executed, there was a very great tempest at Connecticut, which blew down many trees. Then, following Margaret Jones's execution, her husband Thomas tried to board a ship to Barbados but was refused passage due to lack of payment. While anchored at Charlestown, before it could even get underway on the Charles River to Boston Harbor, this ship, carrying a load of 80 horses, began rocking side to side violently, though the weather was calm. And so this continued for 12 hours.
At some point while the ship was struggling, a witness ran to the county court, which was in session, and told the magistrates about the rocking and also told them about how Thomas Jones had been denied passage on that ship and hey, wasn't it weird that the husband of an executed witch would be refused passage and then the ship would have these troubles? The magistrates agreed with that logic. How could you not? So they send an officer over to arrest Thomas.
Now, according to the account of Winthrop, as the officer was crossing over on the ferry, someone said to him, "you can tame men sometimes, can't you tame this ship?" And the officer answered, "I have that here that it may be will tame her and make her be quiet." As the officer was showing his arrest warrant to this other person, the ship slowly began to stop swaying. The stoppage of the swaying was completed once Thomas was behind bars.
Unfortunately, we don't have good records to show us what became of Thomas after this incident. We don't know how he lived out the rest of his life.
[00:10:36] Sarah Jack: Do we know anything of their children? She had a birthing scar.
[00:10:40] Josh Hutchinson: We don't have anything about their children. We have very scant records of this couple. We basically know about them through the witch trials.
[00:10:51] Sarah Jack: We know that there were accused witches who didn't have a full house of children or they lost their pregnancies or infants.
[00:11:04] Josh Hutchinson: We will talk about that during this episode, because there is a recurring theme of childless women who were perceived by the others to have child envy and want a child for their own by any means necessary, including witchery.
[00:11:27] Sarah Jack: Let's talk about Alice Lake from Dorchester. She was a wife of Henry, a mother of four. We don't have a lot of information on Alice Lake, but what we know is sad. We know that later she confessed that she "played the harlot" when she was young and single. During that time, she became pregnant. In trying to hide her shame, she attempted to terminate that pregnancy but failed. Following this event, she considered herself to be a murderer, because she had made the attempt. As shown by the cases we've already covered and many still to come, infanticide and perceived sexual immorality are more reoccurring themes in witch trial accusations.
According to Nathaniel Mather, brother of Increase Mather, when another child died, Alice Lake was visited by the devil in the child's shape.
The exact timing of Alice's trial is unknown, but she is believed to have been executed in about 1650. As with Margaret Jones, Alice received visitors on the day of her execution, who likewise pleaded with her to confess and repent. They were trying to save her soul. Following her execution, Henry moved to Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Four children remained in Dorchester, where one died. The other three later moved to Rhode Island and then uprooted to Plymouth Colony with their father.
We have heard from Alice Lake descendants.
[00:13:00] Josh Hutchinson: We have, and we want to hear from more descendants. If you're out there listening to us, please get in touch. The contact information is in the show description.
Another person accused of witchcraft around this same time was Elizabeth Kendall of Cambridge. Again, like Alice Lake, the date of Elizabeth's trial cannot be pinned down but is believed to have been somewhere between 1647 and 1651. The one and only source that we have for her case is John Hale's book, A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, which wasn't published until 1702, so only very limited information is available about Elizabeth.
What we know from Hale is that she was accused by a nurse from Watertown, who claimed that Elizabeth had bewitched a child to death. This nurse stated that Elizabeth made much of the child and it was well, but then it changed color and it died a few hours later. On the basis of this witness testimony and other, unspecified evidence, Elizabeth was hanged, despite her own protest of innocence.
After the hanging, Watertown's deputy to the General Court, Mr. Richard Brown, questioned the parents of the child, the Jenningses. This couple told him they hadn't suspected Elizabeth at all. They'd actually believed the nurse was to blame for the child's death, because she had kept them out in the cold. Later, the nurse was jailed for alleged adultery. While there in the jail, she gave birth to a child born out of wedlock. For this, Mr. Brown visited her and told her off, saying, "it was just with God to leave her to this wickedness, as a punishment for her murdering Goody Kendall by her false witness bearing. The unnamed nurse died in prison, and her false allegation was never investigated any further, and Hale did not note what happened to the child that was born in prison.
[00:15:26] Sarah Jack: Here's a couple that should be familiar to you if you've been reading an important history book this past year. Mary Lewis Parsons and her husband, Hugh, were formally charged with witchcraft in Massachusetts. They were featured in our fifth episode with Malcolm Gaskill on his book, The Ruin of All Witches, and will be featured again in our next Massachusetts 101 episode, along with fellow Springfield residents, the widow Mercy Marshfield, another Mary Parsons, and Alice Young Beamon, daughter of Alice Young of Windsor, as well as a few familiar faces from down the Connecticut River.
[00:16:07] Josh Hutchinson: In 1652, John Bradstreet of Rowley was charged with witchcraft and presented to the Essex County Quarter Court. Allegedly, John had been claiming to perform magic and saying he was hearing mysterious voices. These things led to suspicion that he had familiarity with the devil. According to the complaint against him, he said he read in a book of magic and that he heard a voice asking him what work he had for him. He answered, "go make a bridge of sand over the sea. Go make a ladder of sand up to heaven. And go to God and come down no more." The court, reviewing this evidence, ruled that John had not actually committed witchcraft but had simply lied about it, a decision that they would make in certain cases for a handful of men.
[00:17:06] Sarah Jack: I was just gonna say, "wait a minute."
[00:17:09] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, they never did this for women, but men, they would say, "oh, you can't be a witch, you're just lying about it. So you're on a first name basis with the devil, but you lied about that." Whereas women, they just say, "take a hike."
So the court ruled that he just lied about it, and he had also been convicted of lying previously in 1650, so this was considered a repeat offense, and so they ordered him to either pay a fine of 20 shillings or submit to a whipping if he couldn't pay.
[00:17:49] Sarah Jack: A ladder of sand, that's interesting.
[00:17:54] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. This guy was like, "you build me something impossible," and are basically just telling the devil to get lost. And even though he told the devil basically to leave, or whoever the voice was that he was hearing, he told them to leave, but he still got in trouble for talking to them.
[00:18:18] Sarah Jack: Jane Walford of Portsmouth was accused of witchcraft in 1648 and won a defamation suit against her accuser, Elizabeth Rowe, who was ordered to apologize and pay two pounds plus court costs. Eight years later in 1656, Elizabeth Rowe's husband, Nicholas Rowe, and six others brought witchcraft accusations against Jane Walford to the court. This time, magistrates bound her over for 20 pounds as assurance she would attend the next court session.
Nicholas Rowe claimed in court that Jane Walford came to him in bed in the evening and put her hand on his breast so that he could not speak, and he was in great pain till the next day. Witness Susannah Trimmings said that on the evening of March 30th, 1656, on her way home, "she heard a rustling in the woods, and presently after, there did appear to her a woman whom she apprehended to be Old Goodwife Walford. She asked me where my consort was. I answered I had none. She said, ' thy consort is at home by this time. Lend me a pound of cotton.' I told her I had but two pounds in the house, and I would not spare any to my mother. She said I had better have done it, that my sorrow was great already, and it should be greater for I was going a great journey, but should never come there. She then left me, and I was struck as with a clap of fire on the back, and she vanished towards the water side, in my apprehension in the shape of a cat."
That night, according to Goodman Trimmings, Susannah was ill, a condition which persisted at least until April 18th, when the Trimmings gave in their testimony. Elisa Barton said she was there while Susannah was sick, and her face was colored and spotted with several colors. Her eyes looked as if they'd been scalded.
An unidentified witness testified in June that he was actually with the Walfords on March 30th, and Jane was at home at least until it was very dark out.
[00:20:25] Josh Hutchinson: He's her alibi.
[00:20:27] Sarah Jack: John Puddington claimed that three years ago, Jane Walford said that her own husband called her an old witch. Agnes Puddington claimed that on April 11th, 1656, Mrs. Evans came over and lay at her house all night. Around sunset, Agnes saw a yellowish cat, and Mrs. Evans was like, "a cat has been following me all around, everywhere I go." John Puddington then tried to shoot a cat in the garden, but it got up on a tree, and the gun wouldn't fire. Following that, Agnes saw three cats but could not tell which way they went as they exited the area.
Three unnamed witnesses claimed that Elizabeth Rowe said Strawberry Bank had three male witches. They were Thomas Turpin, who had drowned, a second man called Old Ham, and the third was "nameless because he should be blameless."
[00:21:18] Josh Hutchinson: Nameless because he should be blameless. That totally sounds like a Johnny Cochrane court statement. OJ Simpson should be nameless because he should be blameless.
[00:21:33] Sarah Jack: This testimony against Jane Walford did not sway the court. Upon a magisterial review of the evidence, Jane was cleared by proclamation, so her witness was key.
[00:21:45] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, her alibi held up. Susanna Trimmings' statement did not fit, so they did acquit.
[00:21:52] Sarah Jack: In 1659, Jane won a slander case against Robert Couch, a physician who claimed he could prove she was a witch. How was he proving it? This time, she was awarded six pounds.
[00:22:06] Josh Hutchinson: I bet he was going to look at her secret parts.
[00:22:09] Sarah Jack: It's very likely.
The stigma of witchcraft remained with Jane even beyond her death and passed down to her five daughters.
[00:22:18] Josh Hutchinson: Now we're turning our attention to Mrs. Anne Hibbins, who was accused of witchcraft in 1655. Now, Anne had immigrated to Boston with her second husband, William, back in the 1630s, leaving three sons behind in England. After arriving in Massachusetts, William set up a shop as a merchant and also got into politics.
Things were going well for the couple, when a dramatic business error cost William 500 pounds, which was a huge sum of money that people would literally probably have killed for back in that day, because the average person had an estate, probably more in the 100 to 200 pound range. So this is way more than what other people have total.
[00:23:13] Sarah Jack: Unexpected financial devastation.
[00:23:16] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And what brings tension into a marriage more than an unexpected financial burden? And so this is often cited as occasioning a major personality change in Anne. Thomas Hutchinson later wrote that "losses in the latter part of [William's] life had reduced his estate," and this is Thomas Hutchinson saying this, not Josh Hutchinson, "increased the natural crabbedness of his wife's temper, which made her turbulent and quarrelsome." And there's that word again. We've got another quarrelsome dame, yet another one of those themes that pops up. A woman speaks her mind, so she becomes quarrelsome and therefore suspect, because who but the devil's handmaiden would be so damned quarrelsome.
[00:24:24] Sarah Jack: Exactly.
[00:24:26] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. So despite the financial setbacks, William continued to be elected to public office.
They had this financial setback, and then in 1640, the family suffered a different kind of setback. This began as a dispute between Anne and some joiners, who were a type of carpenter, that had done some work on the Hibbins house, and this dispute escalated big time owing probably to Anne's assertive, or quarrelsome, nature, depending who you talk to. Anne didn't like the quality of the work. She didn't like the price that she was charged in the end. So she was very agitated, and once she got going on this, she wouldn't let it go.
The church steps in and tries to mediate, because the joiner that she's arguing with is also a member of the church that she's a member of, which is at the time in 1640, the one, just called the Boston Church. So the church elders, the minister, people are getting involved in this, and ultimately decide that Anne is raising a fuss about nothing, and the men are right, and she should mind her place in society, and shut her mouth. And so they tried to make peace, but she wouldn't accept it. And because she wouldn't accept what the church had offered to mediate, and because she was usurping her husband's authority as the head of the household, she was excommunicated in 1641, even though her husband was this prominent figure being elected to offices. They still kicked her out, said, "you're not welcome in church anymore," and they literally told her, "you can go to hell now." But whatever ill will Bostonians harbored toward Anne, they didn't seem to hold it against William, who was elected an Assistant. This is the upper house of the Massachusetts legislature at the time, the General Court, the House of Assistants, and he's elected to that in 1643 and reelected every year until his death in 1654.
But once William was out of the picture, it didn't take long for the neighbors to come for Anne. The year after he passed, Anne was tried for witchcraft by the Court of Assistants, the very institution to which her husband had belonged for nearly a dozen years.
And here's another theme that we see recurring, widows with money appear to have been more vulnerable to witchcraft prosecution. We see the same thing happen in Connecticut with Katherine Harrison. When John Harrison dies, the neighbors really turn on Katherine, and she ends up being charged with witchcraft, just like Anne here.
She's vulnerable. There's no husband. She doesn't have any male relatives in the colony. Her sons are back in England, remember? So they're not going to be any help. And basically there's no men around who the other men would actually listen to. So the men are just saying, "oh, that, that woman over there, she's been in trouble for years and years. She must be a witch."
And Anne was convicted by the jury. The magistrates actually refused to accept the verdict and instead referred the case to the full General Court, which would include Assistants and the Deputies, and they held a retrial on May 14th, 1656. So this is about a year after her arrest, and she's convicted again. So this time, everybody just consents to the decision of the General Court, and she's hanged June 19th, 1656.
So the decision to hang Mrs. Anne Hibbins was not popular with everybody. There was an element out there talking against this. Bravely, minister John Horton is said to have said, "Mistress Hibbins was hanged for a witch only for having more wit than her neighbors."
[00:29:40] Sarah Jack: You think about these women who were retried. It could have gone either way.
[00:29:47] Josh Hutchinson: The story of Eunice Cole begins in England and ends in New Hampshire, but is mainly a Massachusetts tale.
Okay, so here we've got a prototypical witch. This is your ordinary suspect kind of figure. Eunice Cole has a reputation also for being a quarrelsome dame, she has a checkered past with several arrests for different things, she's older, by the standards of the day, and impoverished. So here's basically this old, grumpy lady, but basically she's past her childbearing years, and she's got no money. She's very vulnerable, a person on the fringe of society.
Rewinding back a while, it's 1637, and William Cole is in the employ of a merchant in London, England. But William, he longs to go to New England, so he makes a deal with his boss, and his boss says, "okay, I'll let you off the hook for future service, and I'll pay for your passage across the Atlantic and your wife's passage, if you agree to send me 10 pounds once you get over there." So they make this deal, they travel over.
In November, 1637, a bill is sent to them, and this still exists today, somehow, remarkably, and states the nature of this agreement. So that's how we have all this information. Another bill, actually a claim filed in court against William Cole 20 years later for the same debt, also exists. William couldn't come up with 10 pounds in 20 years. He couldn't save half a pound a year. That's just either shows you their financial situation, the dire straits that they're in most of that time, or maybe he just wasn't very happy with his old employer, and he didn't want to send him the money. He was like, "hey, I could use this 10 pounds. I got stuff to do."
[00:32:34] Sarah Jack: He probably thought it was going to fall off the credit report after seven years.
[00:32:38] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, exactly. But they're still after him after 20 years, they hire an agent in Massachusetts to pursue this for them. So they're really determined to get their 10 pounds.
Now once they were in New England, the Coles first settled south of Boston in a settlement called Mount Wollaston, which is now Braintree. In Mount Wollaston, William received what historian John Demos describes as a small land grant. Now this town was also the starting point in Massachusetts for the unorthodox minister John Wheelwright, who the Puritans deemed to be an antinomian. Wheelwright uprooted and, along with a lot of his flock, moved to Exeter, in what is today New Hampshire, at the time of the move, was outside of Massachusetts control.
Now the joke's on them, because they get up there, and in 1643, Massachusetts says, "hey, we're making another county," the original Norfolk County. And this consists of basically anything between the Merrimack and Piscataqua and about a dozen miles inland from the ocean. So you've got the towns of Exeter, Hampton, Portsmouth, they're part of this new county along with Salisbury and Haverhill in what is still today Massachusetts.
So William Cole goes up along with Wheelwright and becomes a founding member of this town. They signed a covenant agreeing to abide by godly laws that would be enacted by the town of Exeter, and William signed with his mark. The Coles lived in Exeter for five years, and in 1643, William was elected to serve the community as fenceviewer, which was actually an important job. It sounds odd today to say, "oh, we're hiring you to go around viewing fences." But at the time it was critical in keeping harmony between neighbors to make sure there weren't gaps in fences or loose parts that animals could get through and ravage a neighbor's yard, which going back again to Sarah's grandmother, Rebecca Nurse, pigs got into her garden and she got angry about that, and it's like the one recorded instance out of all the testimony against her where she showed anger, because pigs were eating her garden, and that's her vegetables and herbs and everything that she needs for cooking. Fence viewing was serious business.
For unknown reasons, in 1644, the Coles uprooted once again and moved over to the coast to Hampton.
[00:36:06] Sarah Jack: I really wish I knew why, because this is where things start to get really juicy.
[00:36:11] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, once they get to Hampton, it gets real. Eunice starts getting arrested left and right. Their financial situation really just nosedives. It wasn't very good where they were, but it just bottoms out in Hampton. So in 1645, Eunice was charged with making "slanderous speeches" against some women.
And in 1647, Eunice and William were charged for withholding pigs that were owed to the plaintiff in this case. Apparently they had made some arrangement where they were going to sell or give to this person pigs and they really, this person really wanted their pigs. So the court did rule in favor of the plaintiff and said, "Coles, you've got to hand over these swine."
But the Coles, they decided to fight back and literally. The constable comes over to take the animals. The Coles start screaming their heads off. Eunice is reported to literally just be shouting, "murder, murder," and William is going, "there's thieves in this town. All these thieves in this town." And they're just shouting this. The constable grabs a pig or two, so the Coles, what do they do? They bite his hands. What else would you do? He takes your pigs, you bite his hands. He didn't drop the pigs, so they pushed him to the ground, and then they pulled the pigs from his arms. And after this, they faced more charges, but unfortunately, no record exists today of the outcome of these added charges.
That same year, William is rated on the Hampton tax list, he's in 51st place, income-wise, out of 60 people. By 1653, he is 72nd of 72, dead last in the financial hierarchy of Hampton. He is literally the poorest man in town.
Eunice, again, she went to court in 1651 and 1654 for similar things about mouthing off. And historian John Demos in his work, Entertaining Satan, Demos states that Eunice was involved in even more trials. We don't have records of those to know what they were all about.
So now we get to the year 1656. Hampton has about 350 people. More than three out of five residents are under the age of 20. So they're all kids and teenagers, 62 percent of the population is under 20. So that leaves around 130 adults that are 20 or older. And among these adults and possibly even among the younger people,
[00:39:48] Sarah Jack: Yeah, that just made me think about the influence of children on these witch trials sometimes.
[00:39:52] Josh Hutchinson: We get to some good ones coming up.
So suspicion is building about Eunice, the words getting around, the children have probably heard the gossip, maybe their parents have even told them some things about it, or they've asked, because you hear that Goody So-and-so's a witch, you go running to your parents like, "is she really a witch? Do I have to be afraid of her?" I would have so many questions and concerns as a child.
So this gossip is spreading. For one thing, it's because Eunice is an outspoken woman. Another count against her, she's got no children, so she's the antithesis of the godly housewife and mother that the Puritans expect women to be, and she would have felt that pressure. Even today, women report feeling intense pressure to get married, to have children, to be mothers. But back then, imagine just how intense that pressure would be on her. Everybody would be saying, "Eunice, you gotta have kids. You gotta have kids." And then by 1656, she's too old to have kids. So what does she do? According to neighbors, she was very interested in their children. And we'll talk about that in just a moment.
Eunice often made snappy remarks when confronted, and one time she was bold enough to just barge into a meeting of the Hampton selectmen and demand that they give her aid, because they were giving aid to another couple that was somewhat better off, and yet the town's trying to say, "you've got resources, you have an estate, use that to pay your bills," and she just wasn't having it. So she just went in and told them what the deal was.
Now, a few days later, the man who was receiving the aid lost some livestock. So this follows the same worn, old pattern we see again and again. There's a difference of opinion, an exchange of words, and soon there's an injury or damage to something or someone valued by the person who's the target of the witch's malice.
Now, as a child-free woman, as we've said, Eunice was immediately sus. But when she hung out at the bed of a neighbor's child who later died, many were convinced she had killed the child out of envy. And this child envy theme would feature heavily in her multiple arrests for witchcraft.
But it wasn't only children that Eunice envied. Apparently livestock were also vulnerable to her jealous gaze. A witness testified that they had caught her eyeing their sheep and asked, "what on Earth are you staring at?" And Eunice supposedly said, "what is it to you, sawsbox?"
Another person who testified, Thomas Philbrick said he lost two calves and reported that cole had told him that if his calves "ate any of her grass, she wished it might poison them or choke them," and then they died. So of course it's gotta be her. It can't be a coincidence.
[00:43:32] Sarah Jack: Didn't in America Bewitched, doesn't Owen Davies talk about the cattle getting ill? In the fur balls inside from the grass.
[00:43:44] Josh Hutchinson: oh yeah. Yeah. The hairballs.
So in 1656, Eunice was tried in Boston for witchcraft. A number of witnesses came out against her, representing the full spectrum of the income ranks of Hampton. There were upper class, middle class, lower class people engaged in testifying against Eunice. So in a lot of cases, it's middle class against middle class or maybe lower class against lower class, because it's generally who you're associated with most closely are the people that are actually going to accuse you. Who are you interacting with every day? And generally you don't see someone like a Eunice Cole interacting with the upper crust, and yet upper class residents are coming out to say that she has harmed them with her witchcraft.
[00:44:52] Sarah Jack: It's a really good point.
[00:44:54] Josh Hutchinson: Unfortunately, half of the depositions against her have been lost over the 300 some years since the trial.
Now, Eunice, another thing that she's associated with is animal familiars. We talked about the watching and how they, the animals, imps or familiars would suckle on a witch's teat to get their nourishment. This is just watching her during Sunday meeting. Apparently minister's up there giving the sermon, and a woman named Mary Perkins sees a mouse just pop out of Eunice's cleavage and scurry away. At another service, a witness heard a sound like the whine of hungry puppies coming from under Eunice, very suspicious, of course.
Another charge leveled at this time was that Eunice bewitched the oven of the constable who brought her aid when aid was rendered to the Coles. This person who brought her the food and fuel, apparently he had more bread at home than he was bringing to her, so that's unfair. And apparently she was vindictive because he had more than she had, and she cursed the stove so that the owners couldn't make their own bread at home.
In a loss that has frustrated historians to no end, there's no record of the verdict in Eunice's 1656 trial. So historians debate whether she was convicted or not. Now, she wasn't executed, so John Demos contends that she was likely not convicted, because witchcraft's a capital crime, and you're basically automatically executed if you're convicted. But there's a record that Eunice was whipped and that she was imprisoned indefinitely, so historians, including Carol F. Karlsen, argue that Eunice was most likely convicted but spared death for unknown reasons, because if she wasn't convicted, why was she whipped and committed to jail for life or the pleasure of the court?
[00:47:38] Sarah Jack: But there are no other known accused witches from the mid 1650s that were convicted and jailed.
[00:47:47] Josh Hutchinson: Right. The others all leading up to this that were convicted, we've covered Margaret Jones, Alice Lake, Elizabeth Kendall, Ann Hibbins. They're all executed after convicted. One we'll cover in the next episode, Hugh Parsons, gets convicted, but then he gets acquitted in a new trial, and then he has to leave for Rhode Island.
Whatever the case with Eunice, the 1656 trial was far from the last time that she was persecuted as a witch. Indeed, she would reside in the Boston jail off and on for the next dozen years and would face more courts on witchcraft charges over a span of about 25 years. Now, the man who whipped her was Salisbury Constable Richard Ormsby, and he claimed that when he stripped her shirt off to whip her, he saw under one of her breasts "a blue thing like unto a teat hanging downward about three quarters of an inch long, some blood with other moistness." So here's another document stating that she was whipped, she had been charged with witchcraft, and then she was whipped.
So while she's in jail, maybe in the first year that she's in there, she petitioned for early release on the basis of her age, and especially the age of her husband, William, who was about 88 years old and needed her help. She also bemoaned the plight of her estate, and she promised good behavior if released, but the court's response has not survived, and she apparently remained in jail for a little while, but Eunice may have been back in Hampton in 1658. John Demos points out a 1659 town record that includes a notation of a payment of five shillings to constable Richard Ormsby for expense about G. Cole, presumably Goodwife Eunice Cole. And this entry's marked 58, so presumably it's about 1658.
So now in 1659, the even more aged William Cole petitioned for relief. He couldn't farm anymore, had no children, and he couldn't afford to hire a farm worker. He had received some aid previously from the town in 1658, but one of the problems that he had was that he'd signed over the property to his wife in 1656, and she keeps being in and outta jail, so it's hard to manage her property. She's not there. He's considerably aged and can't really take care of himself the way that he used to. So the general court gets this and they invalidate the transfer of the deed to Eunice Cole. And then they ordered the town of Hampton to take possession of the estate and use the proceeds from it to support the Coles.
Within a year of the 1659 petition, Eunice was back in Hampton, again getting in trouble for unseemly speeches. In 1660, she's charged for this, because she allegedly asked a girl named Huldah Hussey, "where's your mother, Mingay, that whore? She's abed with your father, that whoremaster." And this gets her in big trouble. This is something you don't just go and say to a girl back then.
By 1662, Eunice was back in the Boston prison, and she again petitioned for her release. That same year, William Cole died, May 26th, 1662. And after his death, Eunice was totally destitute. He was already the poorest man in town, and his income gets taken away. Now there's a complicated situation with his will. He, for some reason, maybe because Eunice was in jail, I don't know, he decides that he's going to bequeath his property to another man and so the town of Hampton, which is supposed to control the Coles' property, doesn't like this, so Hampton petitioned the General Court regarding William's will and also the possible return of Eunice Cole that they were worried about that year.
On October 8th, 1662, the General Court met and declared, "that the said Eunice Cole pay what is due on arrears to the keeper and be released the prison on condition that she depart within one month after her release out of this jurisdiction and not to return again on penalty of her former sentence being executed against her." So she's more or less released on parole, and she doesn't stay out of jail very long before she's back in trouble.
By October 1663, the county court had split William Cole's estate between Thomas Webster and Eunice Cole, who received a grand total of eight pounds to take care of her for the rest of her life. And this eight pounds doesn't even go to her, because it's ordered to go straight to the Hampton selectmen so they can provide for her upkeep.
And then, once more, in 1665, Eunice submitted a petition to the general court to be released from imprisonment. So at some point she was put back in the jail. The court this time agrees to release her only if she gave security and left the colony forever. She couldn't pay. She had to remain in jail.
But sometime between 1668 and 1671, Eunice was released, because by 1671, she was back in Hampton, totally broke. Now the town built a home for her. By tradition, it's a small hut. Anyways, they give her the shelter, and they ordered that each family in town would take turns providing food and fuel a week at a time.
In 1673, she was charged again with witchcraft and in court in Boston. This time she's accused of shape-shifting into human and animal forms to convince a girl, Ann Smith, to live with her. Again, this is the child envy thing coming up. She's supposed to be basically a child snatcher. And she desperately wants one of her own and will use her witchcraft to attain what she desires, according to the townsfolk.
She's accused of many other things, acquitted on all charges. However, the court specified that though she was not legally guilty of witchcraft, the court vehemently suspected she had familiarity with the devil.
In 1680, New Hampshire was granted its own status, independent of Massachusetts. That very year, once New Hampshire becomes its own thing, Hampton residents take Eunice back to court, complaining against her once more for witchcraft. And we'll have even more on this 1680 episode, because more people were involved in this than just Eunice. This was a miniature witch panic.
In 1680, the court didn't find enough evidence to bring her to trial. The Hampton Court, like the Massachusetts General Court before it, "vehemently suspects her so to be a witch."
Now, fast forward to 1938. Hampton celebrated its 300th birthday, and one of the things that they did was actually recognize Eunice Cole. At a town meeting, the citizens of Hampton unanimously passed a resolution to clear her name. The resolution stated, "we believe that Eunice (Goody) Cole was unjustly accused of witchcraft and familiarity with the devil in the 17th century, and we do hereby restore to the said Eunice (Goody) Cole a rightful place as a citizen of the town of Hampton." and today, a stone memorial to Eunice stands on the town green, and the town hall houses an urn which is said to contain Eunice's remains.
Earlier this year, a bill to exonerate Eunice at a state level was voted down by the New Hampshire Senate after having passed the House. So now the Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project seeks to have her good name restored by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Eunice Cole deserves to be exonerated and to receive an apology.
[00:58:05] Sarah Jack: The witch hunt victims we have discussed today need your voice. The four innocent people we covered who were convicted and executed in Boston have not been exonerated, and they are not alone. Others were convicted in Boston in the years before the Salem Witch Hunt. In addition, none of the alleged witches of Massachusetts have ever received an apology. Thou Shalt Not Suffer would like to see exoneration for those convicted and an apology for all accused, whether the case was handled out of Boston, Salem, or anywhere else in Massachusetts. Our petition is available at change.org/witchtrials. Sign and share today.
[00:58:49] Josh Hutchinson: We hope you've enjoyed this first episode of our Massachusetts Witch Trials 101 series. And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:59:01] Sarah Jack: Join us again next week and stay tuned for another Massachusetts 101 next month.
[00:59:06] Josh Hutchinson: Please rate and review the show wherever you're listening.
[00:59:10] Sarah Jack: And don't forget to hit that subscribe button.
[00:59:12] Josh Hutchinson: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:59:16] Sarah Jack: And check out endwitchhunts.org. Goodbye.
[00:59:21] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

October 19, 2023

Halloween History and Traditions with Scott Culpepper

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Show Notes

An engaging conversation on Halloween history and traditions, witchcraft, horror films, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, zombies, the Satanic Panic, and more. We welcome back the podcast’s inaugural historian guest, Dr. Scott Culpepper, a historian, storyteller, author and Professor of History at Dordt University in Sioux Center, IA. After listening to this episode, be sure to return to episode 3 where he kicked off our historian episodes last year discussing the Connecticut Witch Trials in depth.

Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to a haunted episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:18] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack-o'-lantern.
[00:00:22] Josh Hutchinson: We're talking about the history of Halloween with Dr. Scott Culpepper.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: Lore and the history.
[00:00:30] Josh Hutchinson: Find out why we do certain things that we do every year at Halloween time and find out where the holiday came from.
[00:00:39] Sarah Jack: What might have they been up to centuries before?
[00:00:45] Josh Hutchinson: What is Samhain? What did they do at Samhain? Did they do human sacrifices?
[00:00:51] Sarah Jack: If this episode was a neighborhood for trick or treating, we hit every house.
[00:00:57] Josh Hutchinson: Full size candy bars for everyone.
[00:01:00] Sarah Jack: All Souls Day, All Saints Day, Hallowtide, Day of the Dead. You'll hear a little bit about everything.
[00:01:09] Josh Hutchinson: Yes! Where do all these different Halloween things come from? Where did we get jack-o'-lanterns from? Who is this Great Pumpkin I've been hearing so much about?
[00:01:21] Sarah Jack: What kind of things do people get up to? Why is Halloween rebellious?
[00:01:27] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Why is Halloween a night you get to act out? We'll talk about the origins of the word Halloween itself. Where did that even come from? We'll learn how Halloween became an American thing.
[00:01:43] Sarah Jack: Even though we're excited about Halloween and exploring its history, you can't talk about much of it without witches.
[00:01:57] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we do talk witches a lot in this episode, and Scott gives some great information on the connections between witchcraft and Halloween, and we talk about the Satanic Panic at the disco.
[00:02:16] Sarah Jack: Did you say at the disco?
[00:02:18] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. We talked about the colors, the candy, the costumes.
[00:02:24] Sarah Jack: Hollywood and movies.
[00:02:26] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, there was some discussion of Halloween favorites. Be thinking about yours when you hear our questions.
[00:02:36] Sarah Jack: It was so great to have Dr. Culpepper back. When Dr. Culpepper talks history, you can picture it.
[00:02:44] Josh Hutchinson: I know you're going to have as much fun with this episode as we did.
[00:02:48] Sarah Jack: We did have a lot of fun in this episode.
[00:02:52] Josh Hutchinson: So grab that bag of candy that you were thinking you were going to give to the trick or treaters and pop some kettle corn, drink some apple cider, and settle right in.
[00:03:06] Sarah Jack: Welcome back, Dr. Scott Culpepper, Professor of History at Dordt University, who holds a PhD in religion with an emphasis in historical and church state studies from Baylor University. He specializes in Europe and the Atlantic world with a particular emphasis on the intersections of politics, religions, and popular cultures. You will enjoy what he has to share.
[00:03:28] Josh Hutchinson: What is your favorite Halloween tradition?
[00:03:32] Scott Culpepper: Ah, I think the whole haunted house thing. I just like to go in as an adult. I like to go into the haunted houses and be scared a little bit, but then I also like trick or treating. It's hard to put that second, but that's up there as well. Two of my favorite traditions.
[00:03:49] Sarah Jack: Awesome. And what is your favorite Halloween candy?
[00:03:53] Scott Culpepper: Ah, Nestle Crunch, which is my favorite candy overall.
[00:03:57] Josh Hutchinson: Okay. So when you're trick or treating, you'd look forward to getting that in your basket.
[00:04:04] Scott Culpepper: Absolutely. Yeah, it was always fun as a kid, and then as a dad, to get to go along, do the ride along, and my kids like Nestle Crunch okay but it's not their favorite, so I was able to assist and then get rewarded with Nestle Crunch. It was always great.
[00:04:19] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, that's perfect. That would be dangerous for me to be assisting anybody with trick or treating these days. We always have enough candy just at the house to give out to the trick or treaters.
[00:04:32] Scott Culpepper: I don't think we ever ate all of ours. We had so much. Not that we didn't eat more than we should, but I can remember it being around in the house for months after.
[00:04:42] Josh Hutchinson: What is your favorite Halloween movie?
[00:04:45] Scott Culpepper: Oh, that's a good question. I think just because it's a classic of classics, Halloween, the original Halloween, and I like it just because of the atmosphere. It is very evocative of Halloween in middle America. And it's funny because, of course, it was filmed in California. We actually went to visit my daughter and we were in Los Angeles, and we went and saw the house, Michael Myers' house that was in the film, and we saw the yard next door, which was supposed to be Laurie Strode's house, the realty house. And it's crazy. It's just like in downtown Pasadena. You go around the corner and you've got California, palm trees all around, but you've got this one little street where they create the illusion of middle America.
[00:05:29] Josh Hutchinson: It's funny how they're able to do that with a place like Pasadena. I know that's used in Back to the Future, Dr. Brown's house was in Pasadena.
[00:05:39] Scott Culpepper: Yes.
[00:05:40] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. So I've been by that one.
[00:05:43] Scott Culpepper: Yeah, it's been so impressive on our trips out there to go to the studios and all that and just see the magic of movie making. You've always known about it, but to actually see how they transform these spaces and just bring you into a very different reality from the place that you're actually in, it's just incredible.
[00:06:00] Sarah Jack: That's awesome. And do you have a favorite Halloween topic?
[00:06:06] Scott Culpepper: That's a good question. Witches, obviously, which is the topic that kind of draws all of us, the associations of Halloween festivals and ritual and lore with people's assumptions about witches and witchcraft and all of that. I like ghost stories, and so that's one of my favorite things, as well. And of course, being somebody who studies the Reformation and the fallout from both the Protestant and Catholic Reform movements, it's fascinating to me how there are very powerful influences, which we'll probably talk about later, stemming from that period into at least the precursors of what we now call Halloween.
[00:06:45] Josh Hutchinson: We are excited to announce the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project, which seeks recognition of all of Massachusetts' witch trial victims.
[00:06:56] Sarah Jack: According to the available research, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth took action against at least 211 different individuals.
[00:07:06] Josh Hutchinson: Past legislation has focused on the 30 convicted during the Salem Witch Hunt, plus Giles Corey, who was pressed to death with stones. Legislation to date has not included 180 other individuals prosecuted by Massachusetts.
[00:07:26] Sarah Jack: The Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project proposes that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts restore to good standing those convicted of witchcraft and issue an apology to all who were accused and suffered the consequences of accusation.
[00:07:41] Josh Hutchinson: This effort follows on the heels of the exoneration of Elizabeth Johnson, Jr. by Massachusetts in 2022 and the exoneration of 34 individuals by Connecticut in May, 2023.
[00:07:53] Sarah Jack: We welcome individuals, schools, and organizations to be a part of making this project a success. Please visit massachusettswitchtrials.org to find out how you can volunteer.
[00:08:05] Josh Hutchinson: Lend your voice and effort to speak for people like Tituba and little Dorothy Good, both jailed during the Salem Witch Hunt, all but forgotten to history.
[00:08:14] Sarah Jack: These memorable victims, and many more, deserve to be formally recognized by name as innocent victims of Massachusetts witch trial history.
[00:08:24] Josh Hutchinson: Sign the petition today. The link is in the show description. Thank you.

[00:08:29] Josh Hutchinson: There doesn't seem to be a lot of knowledge generally about the origins of Halloween. Has the fear of Halloween hidden the knowledge, or is that from some other? Why do you think it's obscure?
[00:08:46] Scott Culpepper: I think so. And not even so much that it's obscure as we have legendary ideas about where Halloween comes from. Probably most people have heard the term Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival, which supposedly is one of the precursors of Halloween. And a lot of people are aware of that, but they have a lot of folkloric sort of concepts of what that is, and rightfully so, because we really don't know much about what that festival was. Yeah, I think that is definitely one barrier to people learning more about the past of Halloween, and the legend that it's primarily a pagan holiday has really obscured the fact that it's got those very strong Christian roots and origins. Especially fundamentalist Christians, they'll go off on the pagan rites, and maybe even Greek and Roman rites if they're a little bit better read, that may have been precursors to Halloween, but they don't acknowledge the very deep roots of the observance in the history of the church and the church's attempt to convert pagan peoples in the early medieval period. So definitely, yeah, I think fear, suspicion, and then just the willingness to accept legends that may not actually have had very little to do with the development of the holiday really obscures people's knowledge of the true origins.
[00:10:07] Sarah Jack: Yeah, I think the legend aspect of things is so interesting. That makes me think about, specifically, Goody Bassett. She's such a legend to her community, and they really love the legend, and they are starting to embrace her as a person, too. But I think that also, Halloween of course is such a massive thing, but the legends are such a cherished piece and some people that, it doesn't matter to them necessarily. It's not important to them to enjoy it, what's historic and what's legend. And I was chatting with my sister briefly about Halloween questions, and one of the things she said was, "what's myth and what's the history?"
[00:10:48] Scott Culpepper: Yeah. And that is such a good question, because so much of what we think we know about the world is entangled with mythologies, and we all have our personal mythologies that we embrace. So it really is, it's a tricky thing. And sometimes the myth is enriching, the myth is empowering, the myth serves a good purpose.
It's always important to try to, as accurately as possible, I think, get to the historical roots, but the mythology has its own impact that's worth appreciating, as well. It's interesting in the history of modern paganism and modern Wicca, modern forms of witchcraft. That's, of course, very different from the accusations that were made during the early modern period. But early on in the early 20th century, you had scholars of folklore, like Margaret Murray, who were talking about legends of ancient rituals, and they constructed this whole framework of what people might've been practicing out in the groves and out in the forest and all that. And a lot of that inspired modern forms of Wicca and contemporary witchcraft.
The reality is probably none of that was actually going on, or at least very little of it. And the people who were accused of witchcraft, as you say often on the podcast, during the early modern period and later, these were people that had no thought of practicing real witchcraft. At the most, they may have been involved in some forms of folk magic or superstition.
So it's interesting in terms of the folklore, the mythology, looking at that duality as well, how you've got this contemporary movement that has really made the concept of witchcraft cool in our culture now, and its associations with Halloween today make the idea something that's more culturally acceptable, but they're grabbing onto, in some cases, the very folkloric stories that led to the accusation of these people that were so violently mistreated in the past.
[00:12:36] Josh Hutchinson: You mentioned Samhain. Can you explain what that is?
[00:12:41] Scott Culpepper: It is. It's an ancient Celtic festival that was practiced around the time of the end of October, about the time that we now celebrate Halloween, and it marked the transition from the days of light to the time of darkness. It seems like in a variety of different ancient religious systems there was an attachment of the religious system to the cycles of agriculture, as you would expect, because most people's lives depended very much on that cycle operating successfully and that ties you to the mystical forces that foster the earth, that whatever deities you believe in, they're expressed through those natural cycles and through natural phenomena.
And so the idea was you're getting to the end of the cycle of growth. You're entering the time of harvest when things need to be as perfect as possible for you to have a good crop to last through the winter. And you're entering the time of darkness. Days are going to get shorter. The nights are going to get longer until, of course, finally, you get to the winter solstice, when you have the very longest night of the year. And so it's seen as a time of death and a time of pending rebirth, so to speak, as you're entering into the winter months.
And so from what we know, Samhain is a celebration of that, an expectation of what's to come and an honoring of what happened in the past. It seems like they were probably ceremonial rituals with bonfires, maybe people bringing some of the produce that had been harvested in those fall months, and just crying out to the gods for a good winter and fruitful times to come in the future.
And so it's very much marking that point of transition. It's one of several observances throughout the year that marks the point of transition. Having said that, that's what we know, but there's so much we don't know about exactly what happened.
And one of our struggles to understand a lot of the ancient Celtic religions of the British Isles is the fact that most of the information we get about them is mediated through other people, particularly the Romans. And the Romans had all kinds of reasons to exaggerate and to misrepresent what was being practiced. People like Julius Caesar, Tacitus, many other Roman historians, they'll write about the people of the British Isles and they'll record the actions of the Druids, who were said to be the priestly class among the Celtic peoples of the British Isles, and they'll talk about human sacrifice. They'll talk about the resistance of Celtic peoples to the Romans. And so you get these very enticing images of Celtic peoples worshiping out in the groves with the sacred trees and all of that, a lot of which probably is based on accurate information to some degree, but then you get a lot of things about ritual sacrifice and all that as well that we're not nearly as sure about.
We do appear to have some archaeological evidence of people dying violently in some parts of the British Isles, and so the scholarly community is very divided about the degree to which there might have been human sacrifice, and if there was, in what way or what context it operated. Most scholars that I've seen would argue that where there were sacrifices or offerings, they typically were animals or they were the produce of the earth, the things that had been gathered during the harvest, more so than human sacrifice. But there is still an ongoing debate about there being pockets where human sacrifice was practiced.
Now, of course, for the Romans, this is the kind of thing that they certainly wanted to magnify and amplify. They're overcoming these, what they would view as twisted cultures, uncivilized cultures. And then with the transition of the Roman Empire to being a Christian empire, you get a lot of Christian leaders who are willing to sign on to those legends, as well, because again, they're Christianizing these people who are uncivilized, who are practicing violence against others. And so it's something that got a lot of legs.
We really don't know all of the specifics, but at least those are some of the things that we know about the traditions of Samhain.
[00:16:51] Sarah Jack: Thank you so much. I'm learning a lot. I knew I was going to. I love it.
[00:16:57] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, and you also mentioned that the holiday has Christian origins. Can you tell us about the origin of the word Halloween?
[00:17:06] Scott Culpepper: Yes. It's very interesting. You've got these different observances that mark not only the transition of the seasons, but also there arises this belief that that period is a very liminal time, because you've got that transition from greater light to greater darkness. And part of that liminality is the idea that the barrier between the living and the dead becomes more permeable.
There were Roman festivals that were practiced around May 13th that sort of venerated the dead, those who had gone before, and even posited the idea that the dead might be in contact that night. Samhain seems to have had an element of that as well, where the power of the ancestors is invoked to try to help increase yields in the future, to preserve the people over the course of the long winter months.
So when you move into the early medieval history of the church, a lot of officials are wanting to reach out in a variety of ways to pagan peoples, people who practice the old religions, and bring them into the Christian fold. And one way they do that is by trying to adopt and then co-opt, transform practices that are very popular amongst them.
And one of the things they'll do is to move that festival that in Roman culture happens around May 13th or May 16th to the end of October. And during that point of transition from the greater light to the greater darkness, they will set aside the observance on November the 1st of what's called All Hallows Eve. And the idea behind that initially was to celebrate the saints, because during the early medieval period, the concept of sainthood is beginning to rise in prominence in the medieval church. And so first and foremost, they set it as a day to celebrate the saints and the way the saints, through their great actions, have set aside treasury and merit for people. That whole sacramental system is developing within the Catholic church.
People are also having a need to acknowledge their own ancestors, as well, not just the sort of super sanctified Christians represented by the Saints, but people that are dear to them, as well. And so they'll also eventually create another day, November 2nd, which is All Souls Day. All Hallows Day is set aside to commemorate the Saints. November 2nd is set aside to commemorate others who have gone before. So October 31st becomes known as All Hallows Eve, the day before All Hallows Day. And eventually it gets transformed from All Hallows Eve or Even to Halloween, the compound word, it gets all incorporated together.
That cycle really becomes popular by the end of the 12th century. It goes through a period of evolution, but we see pretty good evidence that by the end of the 12th century or the 1100s, it's very well established. There were some monks that were headquartered around Cluny in France in the early 900s who began to be very taken with that whole cycle. And so the Cluniacs especially helped to popularize that so that by the end of the 1100s, it's a pretty central part and pretty widely accepted observance within the Catholic Church.
[00:20:25] Josh Hutchinson: Is there a relationship between Halloween and the Day of the Dead?
[00:20:32] Scott Culpepper: There is, and again it stems through the Church, because so many of the areas that commemorate the Day of the Dead, especially in Latin America, Spain, Italy. These are places that are very heavily Catholic influenced, and it's an interesting sort of joining of popular folklore and Catholic tradition.
So definitely, I would say they stem from many of the same roots, and I think you see that, especially in the fact that some of the rites of Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, and Carnivale, in parts of Latin America, they're similar to things that are done on the Day of the Dead. They have a similar purpose, commemorating those who have gone before, especially in cultures that believe in purgatory, praying for those you love to advance through purgatory well.
So yes, definitely there are affinities there, and it's just a great recipe. It's a great mix. As we were talking about earlier, Sarah said the importance of acknowledging mythology and the richness of it. We try to draw these hard barriers, these hard lines, especially in a lot of contemporary cultures, and the reality is it's all a big soup flowing together. It's the Christian traditions, it's the pagan traditions. Once all of that arrives in North and South America, it's the traditions of the Native peoples there, as well. You see like, say, the Virgin of Guadalupe. She is so much an amalgamation of Christian and Native conceptions. In many ways, she's a combination of the Virgin Mary and conceptions of an Aztec goddess forged together. It's interesting how that soup of mythology, folklore, just blends together and creates these traditions.
[00:22:12] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's really intriguing, the connection there and the merge of those two.
[00:22:21] Sarah Jack: And I really love the soup metaphor, just because, thinking of the cauldron.
[00:22:26] Scott Culpepper: Yes. Yes.
[00:22:27] Sarah Jack: but
[00:22:28] Scott Culpepper: I saw a special a while ago, I think it was produced by the History Channel, where they were talking about the legend of the witch, how it began to arise in the late medieval and early modern period. And they noted the fact that these are primarily women who are being accused of witchcraft, and her tools are born of the domestic sphere. And they talk about the ordinary household broom and the ordinary household cauldron that is used for cooking and how that becomes incorporated into the legends as the tools of the witch, because those are the tools that women would have used in that culture.
[00:23:02] Sarah Jack: What is Hallowtide?
[00:23:04] Scott Culpepper: Hallowtide is that whole sort of sweep of events, that whole cycle from the very end of October through the beginning of November. And it's just a time of commemorating death, rebirth, new life, and of course is very central to the background of what eventually is going to become our celebration of Halloween.
[00:23:27] Josh Hutchinson: And when did Halloween come to America?
[00:23:31] Scott Culpepper: It comes pretty early in the sense, and I, to kind of preface that, it would be important to talk about where it stood in the British Isles, especially, but in other parts of Europe, too, about the time that the American colonies began to come together. The Reformation had really affected people's concept in the British Isles of Halloween and how its origins played into current politics and culture. You'd had the reform movements, the Protestant Reformation. You'd had the answering Catholic reform movements within the Catholic Church.
In the British Isles, especially, Halloween is suspect because of its Catholic associations, which is interesting. Now it's suspect because of its supposed supernatural or demonic associations. At the time, it was suspect because they rightly saw it as a very Catholic sort of observance. And of course, Protestants reject the idea of purgatory. And so the entire premise of this in many ways, and also they reject saints. So the whole premise of this cycle of days is a problem for them.
And so they very actively campaigned against it. Protestantism as it comes to the fore in England is somewhat puzzled about how to deal with it. Under Henry VIII, they really didn't do much about it because he was a very pragmatic sort of reformer. With Edward, his son, he tries to ban observances of Halloween, and then of course with his sister, Mary, they go the other way. Mary tries to revive it because of her Catholicism. Finally, under Elizabeth, Protestantism gains control of the conversation, and Halloween is less often commemorated.
But then at the very beginning of the 17th century, in 1605, you get the infamous Gunpowder Plot, where Guy Fawkes tries to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and immediately after that, the year after Guy Fawkes is executed for that crime, you get the birth of Guy Fawkes Day. And so during the 17th century, a lot of the things we associate with Halloween, they're being practiced as part of Guy Fawkes Day observances, and it's an interesting patchwork quilt where you see Guy Fawkes being magnified, the Guy Fawkes Day celebration in some parts of the British Isles. And in those pockets where Catholicism is stronger, you see still Halloween or at least those sort of pre-Halloween observances still practiced.
And it's interesting, because a lot of the customs are the same for both. They'll have their cake and eat it too, so to speak. For instance, one thing that's practiced in the Catholic tradition at the time of Halloween is that poor people would go to the homes of people who are a little bit more affluent, and they would ask for offerings to pray for the souls of those who had gone before, those who are in purgatory. So if you're a poor person, you go to a family and say, "if you give me something, I will give prayers throughout the rest of the year for your family members who have gone on." Of course, Protestants are not open to that theology, but it becomes a way still of gathering alms. And so here you see the incipient origins of the idea of trick-or-treat, the idea of people coming for candy.
So I go into all that as background just to say that it was in a very interesting place in the British Isles. And so when colonists first came to America, they brought that with them. If you had more Protestant immigrants, they're going to tend to commemorate Guy Fawkes Day more in that Protestant tradition. If you're a Scotch-Irish immigrant, you're from the Highlands or whatever, and you're more Catholic in your orientation, you'll probably practice some of those older versions of Halloween folklore, Halloween observances. But it's interesting because some of the customs were the same all around. Looks like it really begins to get a lot of attention from people like Longfellow and Hawthorne in the 19th century. Robert Burns had been writing about it in his Scottish poetry in the late 18th century. It's being practiced, it's part of the custom.
Probably about the mid to late 19th century is when it really starts to get traction in American culture. I've heard some people refer to the Civil War and say that the large number of dead coming out of the Civil War may have given an impetus to this obsession with the dead, with commemorating the dead, with the idea of the veil between this world and the next, as that's also the time when spiritualism is really popular in American culture, probably in part because of all the deaths that were suffered during the Civil War and people's desire to get in touch with their loved ones. So that seems to be the moment when it becomes more popular, although it's a very different sort of celebration then than it's ultimately going to become.
[00:28:19] Josh Hutchinson: What would it have been like around the end of the 19th century?
[00:28:25] Scott Culpepper: Very interesting, very different, but you can see the beginnings, the contours of what we do now in it. You had this whole tradition, of course, of the gift giving, people coming and petitioning for gifts, and that was still a present thing.
There was this tradition of the Lords of Misrule in the early modern period, where people would also play pranks. It was a time a lot like some of the other festivals, too, like Carnival, where you had this inversion of the social structure, where people could pretend to be something else, and you would have people put on masks and basically pretend to be something other than they were. They could dress like a lord or a lady.
And sometimes people would engage in pranks that were quite cruel. They would damage property. There were instances in the early modern period where people challenged each other to go and to mock a witch as a way of essentially trying to control malevolent powers in the area. So some poor woman is going to be beset by people accusing her of being a witch. And a lot of those sort of customs continue, probably carried by Irish and Scottish immigrants into the late 19th century.
You get a lot of pranks during Halloween, and it begins to get out of hand, so much so that by the time of the Great Depression, there are people who are concerned that there's too much vandalism, too much rowdiness, the holiday has gotten very out of control, and so it's during the Great Depression that retailers and other culture producers begin to work to transform the holiday.
They basically set out to tame the holiday, and one of the ways they're going to do that is by making it a more child focused event. They'll take some of these customs, such as coming and asking for favors to be granted, trick-or-treat, and they'll start to encourage the idea of giving candy to those who come, people coming just to seek gifts for nothing in return, as a way to pacify those who might engage in more socially unacceptable behaviors, and this actually came from a custom where people would sometimes pay folks off that they thought were going to engage in rowdy behavior. In the 1910s, 1920s, some people who want to protect their property, they would pay folks off. And so this is a way of taming that, making it more culturally acceptable.
[00:30:57] Josh Hutchinson: And you talked about how Halloween was frowned upon by the English Reformation movement and was somewhat vilified as this Catholic practice. When did it begin to be vilified as demonic or satanic?
[00:31:14] Scott Culpepper: Probably I would say a more modern vintage because in the 1950s and early 1960s, it was a fairly mainstream sort of holiday. American culture had done a really good job of making it a cherished family observance. And that seemed to be very widely accepted. I've seen a lot of people give tremendous credit to the Great Pumpkin episode of Charlie Brown as a way to mainstream Halloween, which I'd never thought of. I watched it every year as a kid and never thought about the fact that this was a very representative presentation of what people do on Halloween to a culture that may not have been as familiar with it as we would think.
Also, they talked about Disney cartoons. Donald Duck had several episodes where he was featured with his nephews trick-or-treating. And so they're mainstreaming these practices through these cultural artifacts, and it seems very innocent and fairly well regarded. You had people dressing up like the Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz, and nobody's really batting an eye.
The hostility seems to have really arisen powerfully during the late 60s and early 70s when you've got this whole series of upheavals associated with the counterculture, a lot of older people's mistrust of young people. You've got things like Anton LaVey founding the Church of Satan and some people having concerns about what that is and how exactly it's going to influence the culture, so it seems that is the point where you have a little bit of a tipping point where you've got concerns about demonic activity.
I'm sure you could find evidence of, especially fundamentalist groups, even as early as the 1950s, are criticizing the idea of people dressing as witches and things like that. That's a perennial thing in American culture, but it really gets legs in the 60s and 70s, anxieties about where culture is going, things changing, some people think too fast. And then these legends that persist that are universal, that have always been there, as well. They're meeting the moment.
Really goes into overdrive in the late 70s, early 80s, with the development of Satanic Panic. You've got Michelle Remembers, Michelle Smith, and Lawrence Pazder released this memoir where she claims to have recovered memories of satanic ritual abuse, which were later demonstrated to be completely false. And so you get this whole movement concerned about satanic covens in the hinterlands practicing satanic ritual abuse.
You get things like in a 1982, this Tylenol scare where you had several people that actually did die from tainted Tylenol in the Chicago area, a case which is still open. It's still never been solved, and, associated with that, you started to get accounts of Halloween candy being tampered with. There may have been one or two instances where that actually happened, but as one historian said, we don't know if it's a case of the chicken or the egg. We don't know if somebody did that at some point in one isolated case and it started something or if that was a reaction to the legends that grew. And where there has been demonstrated evidence of any tampering with Halloween candy, it was in the case of a family member doing that to children in their family because of issues they had because of problems in the marriage and just a lot of emotional issues, and so it's within that family. It's not someone setting out to do this to strangers, but the legends really grew during the eighties, and that's when you get this full-fledged belief among at least a minority of the population that Halloween is a demonic time, a time when Satan is at work and evil things can happen and evil people are trying to harm the innocents.
[00:35:12] Sarah Jack: And is that about the time that the theories about the witches' Sabbaths became inaccurately passed and affected legends around alleged witchcraft in the modern period?
[00:35:26] Scott Culpepper: To some degree. They've always had their cycles. They are very prominent at certain times. As you so well know, the early modern period, which was the big age of very intense witchcraft hunts in Europe, and then the cycle in America with the Connecticut witch, trials with the Salem Witch Trials, and that never absolutely goes away at American culture.
It goes into hibernation. But as you talk about all the time, it's still there. It's always in the background informing and creating accusations and false understandings of who people are. Like we said earlier, Margaret Murray's work, the folklorist in the early 20th century, did a lot to prompt people to speculate about whether there weren't actual rituals going on on which the witchcraft accusations were based.
For a while, people were really intensely into studying that possibility, and it was a big fixture in academia. And that's a great illustration of the fact that academia is not perfect. We struggle towards the truth. We try to understand the evidence as best we can. Sometimes that means eventually we have to let go of pet theories. And that was one of the ones that was let go of pretty much by the early seventies. Most scholars would acknowledge by then there's no real evidence of any major organized movement that would have rightly been identified as even a revival of what was perceived as ancient pagan worship. That's all mythology, but the cycle of belief in it, it just ebbs and flows.
It's very powerful in the early 20th century, very powerful in the 60s and 70s and 80s. And what's so interesting is the interplay of different groups. This is not just the creation of fundamentalist Christians, although they certainly are going to thrive off of it and they're going to incorporate it quite a bit. But Hollywood's obsessed with that, as well. You've got Rosemary's Baby. You've got lesser known films. When Sharon Tate was killed tragically by the Manson family, one of the things that some outlets showed were stills from a picture that she was in called Eye of the Devil a few years ago, and they alleged that Sharon Tate was involved with a satanic cult. She wasn't. She had been in this movie, and they were stills from that movie. The Exorcist, which William Friedkin just died this week, that was the director of that film. The Omen. Just a lot of interesting cultural artifacts that connected with those fears and anxieties and then connected with Christian theology, as well. And some groups just really use those to highlight.
And so the template they've got for like the satanic groups and Rosemary's Baby, the satanic coven there in the uh, apartment building where she lives, the practices that you see on TV, they're crafted and shaped by those legends. It just grows like a snowball.
There's a scholar named Joseph Laycock who has done some work on Dungeons and Dragons, and he's done some work on the Satanic Temple. He's got a book coming out later this fall that he wrote with someone else. I'm not sure who his coauthor is, but they are looking at how Hollywood films have shaped religious practice in American culture, and they're looking at films like The Exorcist, and they're going to look at The Conjuring series, and they're talking about how the exorcism ritual in the Catholic Church changes in many ways, and people's expectation of what it can do and what it is, changes because of The Exorcist, because of this cultural product that is created by Hollywood entrepreneurs that are just wanting to entertain people but has a very real impact over religious practice.
And so I see those legends of witches sabbaths and all that as serving the same role. It really through those different forms of media conditions what we expect, how we see the past and the rituals of the past.
[00:39:24] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it's amazing how pop culture can influence people's behavior.
[00:39:30] Scott Culpepper: Yeah, it's incredible. And both positively and negatively, because on the one hand, you've got the continuation of these terrible misconceptions about what women may have been practicing in earlier times and this idea of the witch as a malevolent figure. But then you get to the 90s, especially the late 90s, and you get this whole collection of media products that are celebrating the power of the witch.
Even in the 60s and 70s, the notion of the witch or the liberated woman is transformed into this idea of a woman who has power, a woman who has agency. And that's probably part of the kickback against the notion of witchcraft and Satanism, as well. People who were threatened by second and third wave feminism, they often linked witchcraft, especially modern witchcraft like Wicca to women undermining the system or whatever. And in their attempts to do that, of course, they often misrepresent contemporary practitioners of Wicca by using the old tropes. They associate them with the old, legendary behaviors of witches in the past. But you get a refurbishment of the image of the witch, you get Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Willow, and you get movies like The Craft, and increasingly Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and it becomes something that's actually cool in American culture.
And it's a double-edged sword. You guys have talked about this really well on the podcast in the past. On the one hand, it's created this new religious tradition, and it's very empowering for many women who are part of practicing it. On the other hand, it does muddy the waters when it comes to trying to assess the harmful legacy of witchcraft trials, because you never want to accept the illusion that was cast by their persecutors that these women were guilty of anything. And there is a tendency within those revived pagan religions or neo-pagan religions to want to find connections to the past and want to say these women must have been proto-Wiccans or whatever, which, as we all know, does a disservice to their memory, because more than likely they were not guilty of anything but just being different sometimes in a society that didn't tolerate difference well.
[00:41:50] Megan: Hello everybody, this is Megan, and welcome to Tea Time Crimes, the true crime podcast that explores women's stories under the lens of murder and mayhem. Each week my co-host Alana and I delve into the psychology of killers, the strength of survivors, and everywhere in between.
[00:42:07] Alana: Wait, what? I thought this was a tea podcast.
[00:42:09] Megan: Oh yeah. And Alana is left completely in the dark for each episode. So join us every week for a fascinating case with Alana's fresh perspective and a comprehensive yet accidentally comedic tea review.
[00:42:21] Alana: I bring the tea, and she brings the crimes.
[00:42:24] Megan: Find us wherever you listen to your podcasts.
[00:42:27] Alana: Tea Time Crimes, out.
[00:42:31] Josh Hutchinson: It's amazing how few references there actually are in the colonial witch trial records to actual magical practices. The appearance, at least, is that of all the people accused of witchcraft, like a very small minority were doing some kind of magic, and the rest had probably nothing to do with it at all.
[00:42:56] Scott Culpepper: And it's amazing when you look back at those kind of practices. Those women are noted for doing that because they ultimately get involved in these witchcraft accusations. But how many other people were doing things like that? That was not as well documented. What kind of folk superstitions did people practice every day that just didn't attract the attention of the authorities, because they weren't on the margins or they didn't fit the profile?
[00:43:20] Sarah Jack: Yeah, and I've had a question recently and some of this conversation is clarifying it for me, but it I feel like interested in understanding in the last 300 years or less, how did we as a American culture forget what those ancestors, six, seven, eight generations back, what their symbols of protective magic were that they had hidden in their home? Like, how did we become confused about images? I also think about how Hollywood or fears associated with the devil vilified specific symbols, like really boldly for generations and generations, but the actual, historical protective magic that many people had passed down, we are surprised now when we're finding them in these historical buildings and during research.
[00:44:20] Scott Culpepper: Yeah, symbolism has changed so much through the centuries. You look at something like the swastika, which was a part of Hindu belief at one point, and then it became incorporated as a Christian symbol, and then reversed and transformed, it becomes the symbol of antisemitism and Nazi Germany, and of course, very rightfully becomes so notorious.
The pentagram is now so tied to occult activity and Satanism in American popular cultures, but there are times it was incorporated as a Christian symbol. There've been times when it was used simply to highlight the elemental forces of nature in alchemical beliefs. So yeah, the transformation of those symbols is just incredible, and it is amazing how we lose contact with their meanings even within the span of one lifetime, much less over the course of decades or centuries.
[00:45:11] Sarah Jack: There's other things that have just endured for centuries, but other stuff falls away.
[00:45:18] Scott Culpepper: Yeah, and there's a temptation to want to tie that to institutional sponsorship or protection, and that is some of it, especially Christianity. The Christian church has been a very powerful preserver and negator of cultural elements, depending on the need. But at the same time, you get these interesting symbols that survive despite that, ones that have been suppressed and others that have been pushed forward have gone by the wayside, so I guess the institutional sponsorship or protection is part of it but it's not the whole story. It's complicated.
[00:45:53] Josh Hutchinson: I want to talk about Halloween symbolism a little. And part of that is I'm wondering about things like the origin of the jack-o-lantern and where we got the colors for Halloween. It's generally orange and black, maybe a little purple thrown in. Can you explain some of the origins of those traditions?
[00:46:16] Scott Culpepper: Yes, definitely. There was a custom during the nights when the bonfires were lit and people were doing these commemorations for the dead of putting a light in the turnip so that people could walk along and light the path as people are progressing through the woods or whatever. And that evolves into jack-o-lanterns in the early modern period as a more durable and a bigger sort of product to carry that light in. There was a legend about a guy named Jack who was so bad that he went to hell and the Devil decided he didn't want him in hell and so he ejects him from hell and condemns him to walk the earth. And he gives him, as a small comfort, a light to light his way as he walks the earth, and supposedly that's in a pumpkin. So that was one of the folklore streams that fed into the origin of the jack-o-lantern, as well.
The colors, black obviously from the darkness of the night, and associations with the supernatural, maybe even the malevolent supernatural. I think the orange probably arises from the continuing central place of the jack-o-lantern in the celebrations. And so black and orange just naturally arise from the incorporation of those symbols. And then the purple, I don't know, it's not quite as easy to say. It matches well and that may be one aspect of it. And that seems to be a more contemporary addition, the purple and sometimes the green, as well. You're seeing like some green, which I assume may have something to do with the stalk of the jack o lantern.
Those have been incorporated more recently. It's worth noting that a lot of that different innovation has come in the last 30 or 40 years, where you have Halloween lights, which has led to a further embracing of those colors of Halloween. And part of the reason for that is because the kids that enjoyed Halloween in the 50s and on through the eighties, they have now become the adults with kids of their own. The holiday has become a very adult holiday once again. It's come full circle. It's still very kid friendly, but it's very adult focused, as well.
It's like a billion dollar industry now every year. And a lot of that is adult costuming, not kid costuming, and the lights and all that as well. So I think part of that's commercial. The colors have become embedded, and then they've expanded on them, as well. They become a little more creative with the palette so that they can create better products.
[00:48:44] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I remember as a younger adult how important Halloween was as just a festival and a time to have a party, and everybody dresses up. The adults all embrace the costuming very much. And yeah, then you just do the traditional Halloween things, but in an adult setting.
[00:49:09] Scott Culpepper: That draw to be someone else, to be something else for just a little bit, it's pervasive in our culture now. We see it not just at Halloween, but cosplay, things like Comic Con, Renaissance festivals, and the LARPing that's associated with those now, just that pull to be able for a little bit to be somebody else, to be somebody we admire or to be the monster. I heard one historian say it's fun to put on the mask of the monster, because the idea is if you're the monster, then the monster can't hurt you.
[00:49:41] Josh Hutchinson: A thread that's come up in this episode so far has been the subversive nature of Halloween, flipping things on their head. You talked about the power structure being inverted and people costuming to be the wealthy, but there's also that costuming to be the scary, and yeah, it seems like almost a night that you want to get a lot out of your system.
[00:50:09] Scott Culpepper: Yes. And that's not only tied to Halloween, but that's tied to the Guy Fawkes traditions, as well. As you probably know, one of the things they have done is burn a figure in effigy, and it started out as Guy Fawkes. Now it's everybody. You're not really somebody significant in British politics if you haven't been burned in effigy on Guy Fawkes night. Almost everybody gets that treatment at some point.
And yeah, in American cultures as well, we see masks that look like our political leaders or look like pop culture leaders, and people like to dress up like them. And sometimes they'll do it in a mocking sort of way. It's an inversion. I get to be this powerful figure for a night, either as a show of admiration or as a way to poke fun at them.
[00:50:54] Josh Hutchinson: And now Halloween's become the the fall version of Christmas, in regards to, you talked about the lights being put up and the decorations all over the yard. It's a very Christmassy almost co-opted a holiday. I can't think of too many holidays where you go that all out to decorate.
[00:51:17] Scott Culpepper: Absolutely. It is, what is this, August 10th, the day that we're recording, and I just went to what formerly was a very well cherished store that sold products for bath and for smelling good and all of that at one point. Rest in peace. And literally, rest in peace, because now it is a Spirit Halloween, and I just went on August the 8th, so they are already open, and they are active. Like you said, it's like the Christmas season, it starts, it's a three month affair now, at least.
[00:51:51] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we saw people celebrating Summerween this year.
[00:51:56] Scott Culpepper: Oh, wow.
[00:51:57] Josh Hutchinson: Doing, like it was the middle of the summer, dress up and do jack-o-lanterns and things like that.
[00:52:04] Sarah Jack: It's a jack-o-watermelon, wasn't it?
[00:52:07] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, they were doing watermelons, yes.
[00:52:10] Scott Culpepper: Oh, that's great.
[00:52:12] Josh Hutchinson: Summerfy, or whatever.
[00:52:14] Scott Culpepper: I interact with a lot of horror movie fans and a lot of agents as well that do, they try to represent horror novels and other works for publication. When they get to October 1st, they'll release their schedule of the movies that they're going to view that month. They've got all of their favorite Halloween films and 31 days, 31 movies. It's amazing how many people are doing that now.
[00:52:39] Josh Hutchinson: Wow. Yeah, I've actually found myself starting earlier and earlier in the year to watch the classic horror movies and the new horror movies. It seems like by Labor Day, if not even earlier than that, people are getting geared towards Halloween.
[00:53:01] Scott Culpepper: There's this email service that I think operates out of Substack. It's called Dracula Daily. Yeah, Dracula famously is an epistolary novel made up of letters and journal entries. This service sends you an email for every day there's a dated entry in Dracula. And so you start with Jonathan Harker's journal, which starts in early May, and they'll send you an email throughout the summer. And so it covers the whole story, Jonathan's experience, the voyage of the Demeter, and all of that. And then it picks up with Mina and other characters. And pretty much from early May until early November, they will send you an email every day there's an entry in the journal. And so you're following the story in real time throughout the summer and into the early fall.
[00:53:47] Josh Hutchinson: Wow, that's like half the year.
[00:53:50] Scott Culpepper: Yeah.
[00:53:51] Sarah Jack: I love that.
[00:53:53] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we love the dedication that we see among Halloween fans.
[00:53:57] Scott Culpepper: Yeah. It's neat.
[00:54:00] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah.
[00:54:02] Sarah Jack: I've been curious, the last three years or so was so affected by the pandemic and sickness and that first fall when towns were canceling the trick or treating. And then I loved some of the creative ideas people had, shooting candy down these long pipes down their stairs and I think some of that's gonna stick around and it's so fun to, you know, have your bag at the bottom and it comes shooting down but I'm wondering, you know, are people going to have like just so many parties they can't get to all of them this year, and what other ways is it possibly going to surge larger because we're not being held back as much?
[00:54:49] Scott Culpepper: Absolutely. I think we're seeing what a huge community gathering place it is, that it is a great moment for bringing people together and fostering community and, yeah, I agree. I think we're going to see even more of that. And it was really cool to see the creative ways that people tried to deal with it during the pandemic.
We left candy out for people where they could drive up and just take it. And that's not quite the same, but it was neat to see the resilience of people overcoming those horrible barriers that we were dealing with.
[00:55:21] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. And I know that last year was a record year in Salem for October visits. They had over a million people come in the month of October, and it's a town of 40,000 or something. And yeah, I could see it getting even bigger this year. Seems like as many people as will fit in Salem will go there.
[00:55:48] Scott Culpepper: That is Oh My Bucket List. I may be crazy because it sounds really busy, but I would love to go to Salem and Halloween at some point. That sounds like a lot of fun.
[00:55:59] Josh Hutchinson: I was there in October probably seven years ago. And yeah, it was just this whole carnival atmosphere to the whole city.
[00:56:10] Scott Culpepper: That's another of those strange aspects of all this. I've had some people, as I've been working on the Satanic Panic book that I've been researching, who have said, you've been really good at highlighting the dangers of this kind of thought, and the terrible consequences, but don't forget that one of the reasons why this became such a cultural phenomena is that for some people, it was fun because they enjoy being scared. And that's one of the interesting things about the whole Halloween mythos and all of the mythologies that go into it, as well. As some of it has caused great harm and there's no doubt at the same time, we love it. We love to scare ourselves, and I think sometimes even the people that act most offended in culture and do some of the terrible things, there's a part of them that kind of likes being scared. They like the notion that they're engaged in some great crusade, light versus darkness or whatever, and so you see that really in those festivities, in those celebrations. We, even those of us who know that these dark legends are not true, we still enjoy scaring ourselves with them this time of year.
[00:57:16] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I really buy into the movies when I'm watching them. You can't help but get caught up in the emotions, and the fright is part of that. Why do you think people are so attracted to horror?
[00:57:33] Scott Culpepper: At one point, I was reading this book by a lady named Judith Flanders, a scholar named Judith Flanders, called The Invention of Murder. And she was talking about why we love murder mystery so much. It seems contradictory because we're reading stories about violence being done to somebody, and why is that comforting for us to read on a rainy night? And for her, she said, there's some comfort in it because it's happening out there. It's not happening right in front of you. It's a fantasy world that you can go to where these terrible things are happening, but at the end of the day, you can come back to your normal world, your normal life.
And I think there's something to that. I think we like the thrill of it. It's the same reason why people love roller coasters. We like to live on the edge, but in safe ways, we like to experience a little bit of that adrenaline rush, but in a way that preserves our life and limb, that's not dangerous to us.
I've always loved ghost stories, and I'm not a believer in ghosts, but I enjoy the mystery, the thrill. It just really pulls me in. That's probably my favorite type of horror story is a good ghost story. M. R. James or Edgar Allen Poe or whoever, it just really just enjoy the fascination, the gothic settings that it just transports you to another world.
[00:58:54] Sarah Jack: Yeah, I agree. I'm also a ghost fan, especially ghost children, if they're good or bad. I just love that element. When they're meddling in, whatever the storyline is for good or bad in one of my favorite films that may have that in it, is The Devil's Backbone, if you haven't seen that.
I really enjoy that one. I think another reason people enjoy reading and watching horror, it can be for that ending. Sometimes it isn't great, but sometimes you see the villain defeated or you see the person who's been running or suffering come out on top or win. And that's one of the things I like about it, but I'm a zombie fan.
[00:59:42] Scott Culpepper: Oh yeah.
[00:59:42] Sarah Jack: My very favorite thing to start the Halloween season with would be the original Night of the Living Dead and then follow them all through. There's someone's going to survive, maybe, there's that chase. Yeah, that's me.
[00:59:57] Scott Culpepper: It's worth mentioning, I just heard about this summer, the papers of George Romero are now at the University of Pittsburgh, and they're developing a whole wing of their academic library devoted to the study of horror. We're gonna see some good things hopefully come from that, the study of the horror genre.
[01:00:14] Sarah Jack: That's great.
[01:00:16] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I like that. Yeah, there seem to be more academic conferences. We see things on the artist formerly known as Twitter that, different academics posting conferences about folklore in pop culture and horror in pop culture, doing, starting to do studies around that.
[01:00:40] Scott Culpepper: It's funny, connected to what Sarah said about the way that pop culture both reflects and shapes what's going on the ground. It's funny to me, some of the strident Catholic opposition to movies like The Exorcist and The Conjuring series, because the Catholic Church never looked better. You do have that whole conflict of light versus darkness, and nine times out of ten in those stories, a Catholic priest is the one who's coming to save the day. And so it's funny the discomfort that some Catholics feel with those films because there's never been a better sort of vehicle to make Catholic leaders look more heroic and Catholic ritual look like a symbol of light and hope.
[01:01:23] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I'm thinking based on what you and Sarah have said, I'm getting, horror as it's this safe outlet where you can watch what is your worst fear, and then somebody's overcoming that fear, and that's rewarding.
[01:01:41] Scott Culpepper: Yeah, I really love the ability of horror to make such profound social commentary. Just like a Night of the Living Dead, or Psycho, or you name it, there's so many horror films that are so much deeper than just the surface level story, that really make some profound social commentary about the human condition, or current political trends, and you really see that reflected when you go watch some of these films and then you put 'em in their historical context or books or whatever. I really appreciate that fact that you create these fantasy worlds where you do have these horrors that people are facing and they end up saying something about real life as well, that whole concept that J R R Tolkien talked about of escaping to reality, escaping to a fantasy that teaches you something about real life.
[01:02:32] Josh Hutchinson: You've mentioned a number of books during this conversation. Do you have any others that you recommend our listeners read to learn more about Halloween?
[01:02:43] Scott Culpepper: I think there's some really great ones out there. One of the best. It's published by Oxford Press, and it's one that I actually looked at a little bit for our conversation. It's by Nicholas Rogers, and it's called Halloween: From Pagan Observance to Party Night, which is a fantastic title, and it's an Oxford title, so those are usually very high quality scholarship. And there are a lot of others that you can find, as well, that are written at a more popular level, but get at the story behind the story, as well.
[01:03:17] Josh Hutchinson: I've been reading that book, and it's very fascinating insights into the origins of Halloween and how we got all the traditions.
[01:03:27] Scott Culpepper: Someone else who's really good at almost all the holidays is a scholar named Stephen Nissenbaum, and he's written extensively on Christmas, on Halloween, and he's written some of Witch Trials as well, so the audience would really enjoy his work.
[01:03:43] Sarah Jack: That's a really good suggestion. And when you start to use the lens that we're using today to look at Halloween, just across all the types of observances and seeing the influences and the individuals that were influencing and what was influencing them, that's so important, and that carries over to looking at the witch trials and the documents, how those were formed, what was informing those people. It's all really important to start dissecting and looking, what was shifting through these times and impacting the beliefs and the fears and.
[01:04:25] Scott Culpepper: It really is a neat form of detective work. I mean, you're sort of like a historical detective reading all these different layers of tradition and folklore, historical record, and then trying to discern the reality of what was happening and not just the reality of what actually transpired, but the reality of what people thought about what was transpiring as well and how that affected their actions.
And I think Thou Shalt Not Suffer is a great vehicle for Thank you. Putting people in contact with those primary and secondary sources, as historians call them, like giving them the chance to look for themselves. And one of the great things about the world that we're in right now is that so much of it is being digitized. So it is really awesome to go to an archive, there's nothing quite like it, and actually touch a document that historical figures touch. So I would definitely recommend that if anybody ever has the opportunity, but also if you can't do that, so much of it is at our fingertips, and even more so every day. So it's an exciting time to be interested in any form of historical study. And in this field especially, because it's just taking off right now, the study of the past of witch trials and coming to grips with that history. It's a really good time to explore the facets of that history.
[01:05:44] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we had the opportunity this last spring in May to go to Connecticut to what was known as the Connecticut Historical Society at the time, I think it's now the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History but we were able to see Reverend Samuel Parris sermon book the original book with his handwriting in it, and that was so amazing, and we saw a couple other documents from Connecticut Witch Trials, the originals, and yeah, there's nothing like that experience.
[01:06:19] Scott Culpepper: That tactile contact with the past is just incredible. That I touch something that these people touch that you've been reading about. Just, yes, it's just a great experience. I'm glad you had a chance to do that.
[01:06:33] Josh Hutchinson: It was so exciting. Just, I was stunned when I saw what they had out displayed for us because we met, it was basically a delegation of us and Dr. Leo Igwe went there to get some information on the Connecticut Witch Trials. And the people there had put all these things out on display just for us. And it was, when I saw Samuel Parris's notebook and they told me what it was, I about fainted.
[01:07:04] Scott Culpepper: Wow. That's amazing.
[01:07:07] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it was so cool, but I like you talked about how these things are also available digitally so anybody from anywhere can access, say the records from the Salem Witch Trials. There's a lot from Connecticut Witch Trials online also. So I encourage readers definitely read the primary sources, and if you want to know how to find a primary source, just get in contact with us and we'll let you know.
[01:07:37] Scott Culpepper: That's great.
[01:07:39] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Next, I'd like to talk to you about what you're working on right now and what's next for Scott Culpepper, beginning with what are some of the courses that you're teaching this year?
[01:07:55] Scott Culpepper: I teach a wide variety, because my institution's a fairly small college, so you do a lot across the spectrum, but this fall, I'm teaching our basic introductory civilization course, and then I'm teaching a course on Latin America. Next spring, I'm teaching the second part of Civilization, and I'm teaching a course that used to be called Renaissance and Reformation, but I got my hands on it, and I've changed the title to Witch Hunts, Wars, and Reformations, and so that one will be very heavy on witch trials. We'll do a witch trial simulation and be looking into that history, so I'll be teaching that one.
And another one that is really going to be fun. I've done it one time before, but we're going to make some tweaks to it. It's like an immersive simulation course where we do three historical simulations. There's a consortium, a group of people that works out of Columbia University and Barnard College in New York called Reacting to the Past. And they create these large scale historical simulations that play out over the course of about three weeks. And I'm going to do that class. I haven't decided what three simulations we're going to do. I know one of them is going to be India on the eve of independence in the 1940s. Last time we did something on the Wanli emperor succession crisis in China and something on Rwanda during the period of the genocide. So that was a really good class for just immersing people in the history. We may do it a little bit different. It may not be just international topics. So I'm looking forward to that one as well. That's what I'm going to do over the course of the next year, as far as teaching.
[01:09:29] Sarah Jack: That's exciting, powerful stuff.
[01:09:32] Scott Culpepper: It's a lot of fun. I enjoy exploring it, and students are great. They really get engaged with it. As far as writing and research goes, I'm still working on the Satanic Panic book, and I am talking with and working with an editor at a publisher. I shouldn't announce yet who it is, because everything hasn't been signed and sealed yet, but hopefully I'll know something for certain about that soon. And he has been really good to help with that and to open new avenues of exploration. So I'm pretty excited about that.
And I'm interviewing a lot of people connected to that, both historians and scholars of religion who have worked on the topic before, and also people who are actually involved in it. That's really getting underway. I'm doing more of those in connection with the work.
So at some point, I'd like to take those and package those in either a podcast form or some other outlet. Podcast is what I'm thinking. Maybe do some of these interviews and cut them and put them out there for public consumption. Because like we were saying earlier, so much has already been done that people are not aware of. So it would be great to put some of this information in a forum that was accessible to people if they have an interest in exploring this stuff, that's something I'm thinking about as well.
[01:10:47] Josh Hutchinson: That sounds like a really interesting and informative program.
[01:10:53] Sarah Jack: I can hear from what you're saying how you had a vision of what you wanted to be able to review, research and give, and you're seeing how there's these other layers and bigger ways to get it out there. That's exciting. Absolutely
[01:11:09] Scott Culpepper: It's opened up a lot of worlds that I didn't even know were there. And one thing I want to try to do, I've been trying to be more conscious of this as I've been working the last month or so, is to document the process as well. Like you were saying, it's really fun, and it's really interesting how this comes together, and I don't know that a lot of people really know much about that process from conception to your finished idea. You just see these books spring forth fully grown. So one thing I'd like to do as part of the road to publishing this is release videos or audio connected with the process and maybe write some blog articles as well about how I did this and what I thought about it in the beginning and then, like you were saying, the ways in which that was reshaped and changed as I got deeper into the research. So hopefully it can do that. I've started putting aside those tidbits so that anybody who's interested can see the ingredients that went into the mix, as well.
[01:12:07] Sarah Jack: It'll really maximize the outcome and the influence of the work. That's great.
[01:12:12] Scott Culpepper: Hopefully so, definitely.
[01:12:15] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, definitely be listening and watching whenever you put anything online, especially if you're interviewing people that have been involved in the Satanic Panic, that just really, intrigues me.
[01:12:30] Scott Culpepper: Yeah, the people that you can get to talk have got really interesting stories to share. And there are some people you have to let it go because they will never speak, but it's surprising who will. And it's fun to get some of those insights.
[01:12:45] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:12:49] Sarah Jack: Join us next week if you dare.
[01:12:52] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:12:55] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:12:58] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends and family and trick-or-treaters about the show.
[01:13:04] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end with Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:13:09] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

October 12, 2023

Owen Davies on Grimoires, Magic, and Witch Hunts
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Esteemed Historian, Folklorist and Author Owen Davies talks about his upcoming new book release: Art of the Grimoire: An Illustrated History of Magic Books and Spells available Oct, 10th. Every culture and every period has magic. Learn about the global history of written magic and how it has evolved in conjunction with religion and science. This episode continues the message and questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

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Owen Davies, Professor at University of Hertfordshire

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October 5, 2023

Omens with The Ordinary, Extraordinary Cemetery Podcast

The Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery Podcast

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Happy Halloween has begun on our show. Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast hosts The Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast in a conversation around death and omens. Guest podcasters Jennie Johnson and Dianne Hartshorn share their research around burial rituals and animal signs. We discuss how omens and signs are interpreted in different ways by different cultures. Why is death feared by some and celebrated by others? Join us for our first haunted talk of the 2023 spooky season.

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Transcript

[00:00:06] Josh Hutchinson: Hello, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:11] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:13] Josh Hutchinson: How's your fall going, Sarah Jack?
[00:00:15] Sarah Jack: I am so excited it's here.
[00:00:17] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, you ready for Halloween?
[00:00:20] Sarah Jack: Yes.
[00:00:21] Josh Hutchinson: I'm still working on putting my costume together. How are you doing in that department?
[00:00:28] Sarah Jack: I have all of it. I'm going all out for Sally this year.
[00:00:33] Josh Hutchinson: Sally?
[00:00:34] Sarah Jack: The nightmare before Christmas. She's not a witch, but she does have a bad vision, and she needs to warn Jack. So it actually goes with this episode, because she's sees this vision of Christmas and then it goes up in flames.
What do you have to get together for your Halloween costume?
[00:00:59] Josh Hutchinson: I decided this year I'm going to go as both a pirate and a witch and be a pirate witch. So I need a pirate ensemble and a witch hat and a cape and like a wand and a cutlass and a zombie parrot.
[00:01:19] Sarah Jack: That's awesome.
[00:01:21] Josh Hutchinson: So now I'm actually thinking of maybe becoming a space witch.
[00:01:26] Sarah Jack: Oh,
[00:01:27] Josh Hutchinson: honor of Starfield. I definitely want to do something witchy this year. And speaking of Halloween, we're so happy to speak with Diane Hartshorn and Jennie Johnson from the Ordinary, Extraordinary Cemetery Podcast.
[00:01:43] Sarah Jack: I had followed their podcast for a year before I had any idea that I could possibly be podcasting myself. So they're one of the first podcasts that I followed on social media.
[00:01:57] Josh Hutchinson: That's great. We'll be talking with them about omens, signs, portents.
[00:02:04] Sarah Jack: Welcome Dianne and Jennie, co-hosts of the Ordinary, Extraordinary Cemetery, a podcast that explores old cemeteries and the stories of the people buried in them. It's history. It's spooky. And they share great photographs and extra history on their wonderful social media. Be sure to find them today. We're so happy to have you guys visiting with us today. I'd love to hear more about you.
[00:02:30] Dianne Hartshorn: I'm Dianne Hartshorne, and it, we've been doing this for two, two, three years on the 8th of October, and how we got together was by sheer accident. Jennie and I were both in this Facebook group in regards to a tombstone restoration class that was going to be taking place up in Leadville, Colorado, and we just started chatting back and forth, but the class got canceled, and this was right at Covid October of 2020, and she just reached out to me and said, "Hey, would you like to do this with me?"
And I'm like, "oh my gosh, I have never done this before. I don't know." So I asked another friend, I go, "what do you think?"
And she's, "if it doesn't work, you can always not do it."
I'm like, "oh, okay."
And then, so I don't wanna sound cliche, but the rest has been history.
[00:03:25] Jennie Johnson: That's okay. She sounds cliche. I know. I completely threw her off when I had asked her to do our podcast with us, because I didn't even know what I was doing when I first said, "let's do a podcast." So I just wanted to be able to put out more information about cemeteries. I love digging up the stories of the people that are buried in them, especially people that aren't famous. There's a lot of like TikTokers and Instagrammers and stuff that do famous graves, and they talk about who those people are. And so that's easy to find, but there wasn't really anything out there for the stories about just the everyday people, but they had an impact on their communities or their families.
And that's what started our podcast. I had been doing a bunch of research about the cemeteries up near Central City in Colorado, and I, so I had all this research that I had done, and I didn't know what to do with it, and I didn't want to write a book about it. So I said, "let's just do a podcast." And because Dianne has a lot more preservation information than I had at the time, and she'd been doing it for a long time, I wanted her to join me so she could talk more on that part of the subject on how we do the preservation and taking care of headstones. And because I was just starting to learn that at the time, so I needed somebody that had more experience with that. And that was Dianne. So that's how we got together and started the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery Podcast.
[00:04:49] Dianne Hartshorn: Yes.
[00:04:50] Jennie Johnson: And yeah, we're super excited.
[00:04:52] Sarah Jack: I'm so glad that all came together. You're filling a really important need.
[00:04:57] Jennie Johnson: Yes, it and interestingly, like Dianne said, we started our podcast in 2020. It launched in October, and there was one other podcast out at the time that was doing cemeteries, and that was Tomb With a View podcast, but Liz has a different approach generally to how she covers cemeteries. She does a lot more with the architecture, stone carvers, not quite as much about the stories like we do. So we've actually, both podcasts have covered some of the same cemeteries, but from different viewpoints. So that's been really interesting.
But, with the exception of that podcast, there weren't any others out there about cemeteries that weren't paranormal related. And I was looking for something that wasn't par I mean, I love a good ghost story, don't get me wrong. And I watch ghost hunters and I watch kindred spirits and all of that, but I wanted something that had more of the history and the real stories about the real people. And since it didn't exist, I decided I should create it. So that's how we got into the whole world of podcasting, creating what wasn't there, which I think you guys have done very well with your podcast, too. There's definitely podcasts where they've done episodes on witchcraft here and there, or they've talked about the same, like we've talked about the Salem Witch Trials, but like the fact that you guys really delve into so many of the stories about witches and all of that is fascinating to me. And you created what wasn't there.
[00:06:20] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, there's definitely no other show like it in the States. There is Witches of Scotland. That's the only one that's really, like our format kind of that does witch hunts specifically.
[00:06:39] Jennie Johnson: And you've covered some stories that are lesser known, too, for the witch. I mean, you've covered some more well known ones, as well, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of witch stories out there and witch hunting that happened that people don't always realize was part of history, and you guys have covered some of those really brilliantly, which is great because again, it's something people want to know more. I think there's a lot of people that want to know more about it but don't know where to find that information. And you guys have done an excellent job presenting that information.
[00:07:10] Sarah Jack: Thank you so much. There was even more out there available for us to share than I had any comprehension of. So I'm so glad, though, that we've created this catalog of experts and researchers, and if someone does want more information, there's just so much. They probably don't even know where to start at this point, 'cause we have so many. But yeah, I'm really glad that all the information has come together and new stuff comes to us every week. I'm sure you guys experienced that as well.
[00:07:41] Jennie Johnson: Oh yeah.
[00:07:41] Dianne Hartshorn: Yeah.
[00:07:41] Jennie Johnson: Dianne has said it time and again, we've learned so much from what we thought we knew when we started, to the things that we've learned, especially from our guests and things.
[00:07:50] Dianne Hartshorn: And just.
[00:07:51] Jennie Johnson: Blows our mind.
[00:07:52] Dianne Hartshorn: In American history, there are so many stories that when we first started this, it was like, I didn't learn this in school. I didn't learn this in school. And it's and it seems and Jennie's really good at finding those stories that we basically weren't taught in school. So we, they're, they're fascinating. It's so much better than what we have been taught. And that's why we love sharing that, because there is just so much more out there that we need to know.
[00:08:21] Jennie Johnson: They're nuggets, they're like little gold nuggets that we find and then we can expand on those and, hopefully, our listeners have learned some things, too, but I know, and I know, and I've seen it even on stuff that we post on our social media, because I will post stuff there that doesn't make it into our podcast episodes, but just other interesting tidbits about stuff, and I've had plenty of people comment, "oh my gosh, I never even knew this, didn't know this was there, or I've been to that cemetery, but had no idea that this person was buried there." So that's always a lot of fun to see the impact that what we're sharing with everybody has on them.
[00:08:59] Josh Hutchinson: I like that you emphasize the real stories of real people. It's important for people to be remembered for who they really were.
[00:09:10] Jennie Johnson: Yes, and it gives us, I think sometimes. And again, this was where the paranormal ones get away from it. And in those podcasters and sometimes shows and stuff, you forget in a cemetery when they're trying to make it creepy and scary and all that, you forget that those people that are buried there lived like lived real lives and they had emotions and they had children and they had jobs and they had good things happen to them and bad things happen to them.
And I think people forget that sometimes when they just want to tell a good ghost story and that you lose sight of, what I say, the humanity of it, but these were all real people and I, if we can find their stories and remember them, I think that makes it so much better. And you can still have the ghost story there, too. That's fine, but just put the humanity back in these cemeteries. And when people go to visit, then hopefully that makes them stop and think when they're looking at particular graves about who that person might have been when they were alive and what they might've been doing in their lives. That and certain things that parallel our modern lives, too. So I like having that comparison.
So today we brought for you guys, and I was so excited when you reached out about this. So the reason we get to be on your show today is because you had reached out about a post I had made a while back that had a crow in the cemetery, and I had quoted the movie The Crow about crows leading souls to heaven or something. I don't even remember the exact, I should know the exact quote, I've seen that movie a million times, but that's how we got here today.
So we did some more digging into death omens, and this was actually good timing for us, because we had talked about doing something similar on our own podcast with this for October, because we do get a little spookier in October than we do the rest of the year.
But I went into digging up some omens and some taboos that are somewhat connected to cemeteries, more often connected to death itself. But death means different things around the world. Every culture has its own connection with death, and some cultures actually celebrate it, others fear it.
Like, it's interesting when you start to dig into death and burial rites and those kinds of traditions, how different cultures treat death. And then the omens that have come about, which a lot of them, or at least the ones that we looked at for today with you guys, we were able to connect to, in a lot of cases, witchcraft and witches, and that's how certain stories have happened. And then you end up with the big witch trials, especially the further back in history you go.
But so we thought we'd start out by defining an omen. I actually went and looked up the actual definition of omen and the actual definition of taboo. So an omen is an event regarded as a portent of good or evil, and it has prophetic significance. So that's an omen.
And then a taboo is a social or religious custom prohibiting or forbidding discussion of a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing. Like I said, the one that had interested you was the one about crows, and crows and ravens together, in different cultures, they almost cross over as far as what they signify, but crows often in a lot of cultures can mean illness or death is coming if you spot so many of them together, they're in a certain configuration or whatever, but there are other cultures that think of crows as guiding souls to heaven, like the souls can, or whatever heavenly body. And with ravens specifically, so there's Norse tradition that ravens delivered messages to Odin between the dead and the living. So they And Odin was their biggest god out of all their gods, and so ravens had that significance, but you see it in other things, but the other reason crows and ravens and even vultures get a bad rap, especially when you see them in cemeteries, is because they are scavengers, that's how they eat, so they're attracted to any place where there's going to be dead bodies, because that's going to feed them, and I think a lot of their like scariness of people attached to it is because you've seen them on battlefields after in the past, especially you have all the dead from the battles and those birds come almost immediately and start helping themselves. And cemeteries, I'm sure they can smell things that, even though the bodies are generally buried or in the crypts or whatever, they can still smell death. So they tend to hang out in those places. So they get a bad rap, I think. Unfortunately.
[00:13:53] Dianne Hartshorn: And do you think through literature and the gothic romance era that, with our boy Edgar, that he that sort of just warped maybe more of the I don't want to say maybe more the spiritual connection with the crow and then that crow became that omen, that spooky creature that is bad and instead of good. And because in some of the Native American stuff, a crow is not looked upon as evil or foreboding.
[00:14:24] Jennie Johnson: Yeah. Especially Native American cultures, crows are generally a kind of a revered animal. It's more of a, from like an English and Irish.
So this day and age with people having so much access to the internet and being able to look things up, I think this is where cultures cross sometimes. You get omens that seem really scary or significant from one culture that crosses over to another culture. And I think people will look at that and go, "Oh, that's really interesting." So that's what started all this was the crows.
[00:14:56] Dianne Hartshorn: Then you get our precious little black cats in there as well, too, as being omens. And Jennie and I personally know that black cats are freaking awesome. And I think the other thing with death omens and that is learning and respecting and appreciating different cultures and their death and burial practices, because Jennie mentioned here, the Navajos and the Native Americans, they would have their own very specific rituals involved with, death and that. And then since, unfortunately, that some of their practices may have been looked upon as being pagan or primitive, it wasn't really respected by the people who came to settle this land and actually they would take the body and bury it away from living areas. And in a way we followed that, where cemeteries started moving from the churchyard out away from the community. Next, I think a lot of that had to do with, that was valuable land.
And I think a lot of it is when we learned a lot through, like, archaeology and all that with burial practices, but then I think when people do that, they have taken away the sacredness when they discover things and then they don't quite understand maybe what was left there that may be looked at as being very primitive, where from the Native American's perspective, it might've been something very, very sacred at now lost because we didn't understand it.
[00:16:41] Sarah Jack: Such a devastating point because you mentioned, you know, the lens of the settler, the European settlers, here was we don't understand their culture and their practices, so it's witchcraft or it's evil. Their practices were very sacred to them. It's so unfortunate when cultures don't recognize what is sacred to other cultures just because of fear.
[00:17:05] Jennie Johnson: And you have to think, too, so going back like to the Navajos specifically, they actually, and I think it's still true today for, especially for those who've really been able to go back to practicing their own traditions again. They have a fear of death, because they, and it's more, it has to do with like your spirit or your soul getting trapped here in, on earth, rather than moving on to where it's supposed, wherever it's supposed to go afterwards.
And so a lot of their burial practices have to do with making sure that soul gets contained or gets sent into the right place, because you don't want that, because if the soul gets trapped, it's not going to be the kind, loving, respectful person that it was in life. It becomes something very twisted and dark.
And so you don't want that trapped soul here. So they, one of the things they do that I know the European settlers found very odd and weird, when somebody died, if they died inside their hogan, which is their traditional sort of house, if they died with inside the hogan, they would actually burn the hogans afterwards. Nobody else was allowed to move into them or live in them, because again, you could be trapped in there with an angry spirit that didn't get to move on to where it was supposed to go. So that's one of those kind of practices. And there were other tribes that did that.
The Apache did that, as well. If you had somebody who died inside of a place, you got rid of the place, you didn't keep it, you didn't move on and use it again for somebody else, which again, from the European standpoint, when they came, that just was like mind blowing to those people because you would inherit things, and you would move on, and you would move into those places, but that's not how that those cultures thought of that. It became very sacred to help that spirit not be trapped and to move on and go where it was supposed to go, so I find that interesting.
But at the same time, there's other cultures. So there are the Malagasy peoples, they are from Madagascar. The Malagasy is like the big term for all these tribes that are in the Madagascar region, and they have African and Asian heritage mixed together. That's what the Malagasy are, because of where they're located, but they have a practice called, and I'm hoping I don't butcher this too much, because it's a kind of a tricky word, but it's Famadihana and it's, which translates roughly into the turning of the bones.
Every five to seven years, they have this practice, where they open up their tombs or their vaults, and they actually remove their deceased ancestors, they redress them in fresh burial garbs, and they have them out, and they eat and drink and dance and have this whole ceremony, because they're honoring their ancestors, and then they put them back inside their tomb, but they put them upside down in their fresh garbs. They put them back upside down, so like on their heads quite literally, because it closes the cycle of life and death when they do that, and then they close it all up for another five to seven years, and then they'll do it all over again.
But they have a very strong belief that they're the deceased ancestors are that connection, those physical bodies are sort of their connection between the earthly realm and the spiritual realm. And they have a lot of practices that border on Christianity and other practices, because they took up with some Christianity. So they have certain beliefs that they follow a very Christian thing. So they do believe in like God and stuff, but then some other practices can go beyond that. And so this is one of those things where I know people from other cultures would be like, "why are you dancing with your dead relatives?" But it's because they're intervening on their behalf. Those dead relatives are intervening with God on the behalf of the living, and so they have a very close connection with death, and they don't view it quite so fearfully or negatively as like other cultures do.
So it's similar to what they do, you know, for Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead celebrations that they have in parts of Mexico and parts of South America where they're honoring their ancestors and the love and the life that they had. It's that same sort of celebration. So again, depending on where you're at in the world, the connections to death are very different. But I think it's really cool.
[00:21:28] Dianne Hartshorn: Yeah, because what was, you know, Halloween, became All Souls Day. All Saints Day, we have lost, I think we've lost a lot of that, because I believe All Saints Day and All Souls Day, or I may be saying it backwards is more of a Catholic ritual belief. So when trying to get away from that, then they made that stuff evil, and sort of, I don't wanna say they warped Halloween because, and then I think here in the States, especially with death and mourning, we want to forget it and get over it so, so quickly 'cause and not even put out there that we are in mourning or this you know, whatever around that. Because I have a friend who's, who grew up in the Philippines, and when her mother died, they don't bury in big, elaborate, expensive caskets and that, and her mom was placed in a shroud into a crypt. I mean, she has since moved her mom to another cemetery and that could be part of the reason, but what was interesting was when she was flying back home, and I think, and I didn't know how this came about or how she got her or anything, um, she had mentioned to the stewardess or somebody, it could even have been before that she was, you know, returning home after her mom's death, and somehow she ended up being given a black pin that she could pin to her blouse.
So basically it was like you know, going back into the Victorian age of how it was almost an elaborate display of mourning. I don't want to say they turned it into a trend, but you know, it was just like everybody, it was very, I don't know, I don't want to say romantic, but they sometimes took things to the extreme, where I mean, my friend was able to wear that pin home, and they signified that she was in mourning,, and I think she was supposed to wear it for 40 days and she signified that she was in mourning so that way she didn't, people honored that and I think with some of these omens and that they have been warped because either we don't understand them, or we don't, we try to push death so far away that we forget it's basically, unfortunately, an everyday part of life.
[00:23:57] Jennie Johnson: Yeah, there's, especially in Western cultures like ours, death is more feared than it is revered. And that's a little scary to people. In creating some of these omens, when it relates to things that people see, to the animals that are around, to all of those things they, I think it tries to help people maybe process death a little bit differently and either to use it as a warning to be like, "hey, stay away from the cemetery, stay away from sick people, stay at whatever, because you're going to die, this could be bad."
And then again, a lot of things go back to our fear of witches and witchcraft, especially European cultures, because in Europe, witches were horrible for centuries. Like we were after them for forever. And so there's all these things that relate back. And now I think in a more modern age, I think a lot of people look at these things, and they laugh it off, and it's not as scary or upsetting anymore, but for a long time, that was the warning of if you see this, if you see the crows and the ravens hanging out in the cemetery, you're going to be the next one to die type thing. And there's a lot of those kinds of omens, especially related to animals, which I find interesting. The birds, owls are another one that a lot of cultures are afraid of. It's interesting because with owls, a lot of the fear around those for the omens comes from a lot of South American cultures. If you hear it, if you're hearing the owls hoot, that could mean death within your household immediately. Like if an owl comes and sits on your rooftop and starts hooting, that's an omen of death, like, headed in your direction, which I find so fascinating, because I love when the owls come and hoot.
But also, you know, black cats, if they cross your path, you're supposed to die.
And well, I would be dead so many times over at this point, because I've had black cats forever in my house. And, uh, that omen has never come true for me, so.
[00:25:59] Dianne Hartshorn: No, they're the best cats. I'm sorry.
[00:26:02] Sarah Jack: One of the things that popped into my mind is how the finality of death is, like, immediate for a lot of the Western culture here in America, and we're, like, trying to shut the door and move on, mourn privately. We're all still trying to figure out the stages of grief and where we're at, you know. We don't have these practices that walk us through those, and then what I'm learning from you is that a lot of these cultures, it's just like a new phase of the relationship, and they continue their connection to them, even in death. They're not shutting that door.
[00:26:36] Jennie Johnson: There's a lot of the cultures, life and death are very intricately connected, and most cultures have some sort of a belief in some kind of afterlife. And it's, and even Christianity, the goal is when you die, you're going to go to heaven or you'll go to hell or where there's somewhere you're going to go and continue on, but a lot of cultures have that sort of afterlife belief or a reincarnation belief is another one that they have. So even if your physical body is no longer being useful, you still have a soul or spirit that's going to go somewhere. And I think for most cultures, the beliefs that they built around that was to help people through the grieving process and not to shut it out and say, "yes, you can be sad that physically this person no longer sits next to you at the dinner table, but we know they've continued on into this other world, and they're doing the things in this other world that they did in life."
You go back to the ancient Egyptian cultures and the way they buried their dead with all the grave goods and things they were going to need to continue living their life in the afterworld. They gave them their food and their dishes and their clothing and all those things in the thought that you're going to need it in the next life, and so I do think we as Western society became more fearful of death and a lot of that goes back to certain things, too, like all the different plagues that ran through Europe and the way people died horrible, tragic deaths. The black plague was a nasty disease and it was very scary to watch people die. And it would happen so fast. Somebody would get sick and be gone within a day or two, and it was very terrifying to watch people die like that. And so I think a lot of our traditions in Western culture then stem from things like that. Like we've become fearful.
And then there came a time where all of a sudden we had to be very stoic and serious about death. And even still, as you mentioned, people are uncomfortable with the idea of death. And when somebody dies for somebody else, like people don't necessarily know what to say, feel like they should say something or what to do, because there's not necessarily something you can say or do to make somebody feel better about a loss of a loved one. There's not always words there, or there's very empty words. So then people get uncomfortable, then they don't want to be around the person who's just lost somebody because they don't know how to act or what to say. And then the person who's actively grieving then goes into this, "oh, I have to just put it behind me, and I have to move on, because nobody's going to understand this."
And again, by creating omens or taboos about death, then in our brains, it gets stuck there that this is, this is wrong and we can't think like this. And we have to just move on, even though we know logically grief can last a very long time. It can take years to get over losing somebody, and there shouldn't be a time limit for how long somebody grieves. You should just be allowed to be sad and still live your life.
But if you can make a connection with your deceased loved ones in some way, I think that's very helpful to a lot of people. And like you said, there's a lot of cultures, they, death and life are interconnected and you have to have one to have the other.
So yeah, I was having fun researching some of the other ones. So some of the other omens that we came about that have to do with animals, I thought this one was interesting cause I'd never heard of it, but white horses, especially in Europe, this was especially European, but if two white horses are pulling a hearse, hearses when horses still used to pull hearses, a death will occur in the town within a month. Also, if you saw a white horse at night, that could be an omen of death coming for you.
[00:30:24] Dianne Hartshorn: I wonder if it's from revelations, because it talks about the white horse.
[00:30:30] Jennie Johnson: Oh, it could be. That's true.
Snakes are another one that people have a lot of weirdness around when it comes to, because snakes creep people out anyway.
[00:30:40] Dianne Hartshorn: Yeah, they don't have to have omens, they're just creepy.
[00:30:42] Jennie Johnson: They're just creepy, but a lot of that relates back biblically, though, since Lucifer is said to present himself as a snake, and then, of course, that got tight, so then snakes can bring death and sickness and other curses, and they can be used by witches to do their bidding and be horrible and nasty, so snakes are another one, and bats were the other. Bats I thought were interesting, and of course there's the association with bats because of vampires and Bram Stoker himself is the One who really was like, our vampires turn into bats. That's how they fly around and get around without being noticed. But they've been in other cultures where vampires aren't necessarily a part of their culture. Bats are still considered to be bad luck, especially if you see them flying around in the daylight. Because they're nocturnal creatures. So if you're seeing them during the day, that, oftentimes it means somebody's going to die right away in those kinds of cultures. It's more likely the bat has rabies at this point, or some other illness that bats can get.
[00:31:46] Sarah Jack: Did you, in your research, did you see any ways that people believe that they can get out of a bad omen?
[00:31:54] Jennie Johnson: You know what? It's weird, because I was trying to look that up, and I wasn't finding a lot on that. There are a few cultures that do have you can cast a counterspell and things like that, or you go visit your shaman or your witch doctor, and they can be the ones to cure you of that omen.
In those cases, you have to have some form of payment, though, oftentimes, or something for trade, again, depending on the culture and where you're at. But that's, those were the only ways I was coming up with that could counteract these bad omens. Otherwise, most of them are like, yep, this is going to happen, so prepare yourself. Be prepared. You're dying, or somebody is dying, and I'm sure a lot of that also stems back, you could have seen a bat flying around during the day 300 years ago. And somebody probably died within that week, because people just died more often and at younger ages, because healthcare wasn't as good, so they started making those connections like, "oh my gosh, I saw a bat on Monday and now my grandma's dead on Tuesday, because that bat was flying around in the daytime." But yes, there are a few cultures where there are ways to fix it, but you usually have to have some form of payment or something to get that fixed.
[00:33:07] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I was really curious about that, because we've talked about countermagic before and protective magic, how people use amulets and rituals or put things around the house to ward off this and that. But I guess it depends on how you interpret the origin of an omen. I was thinking if an omen is a sign from the gods or God, then you probably can't do a whole lot to counteract God's will through a prayer or something, but maybe for in certain cultures, where you sacrifice to appease a God, maybe that's a way to get out of an omen.
[00:33:50] Jennie Johnson: And that does come up in a few of them. The other thing that you'll find more often is what you've mentioned is protective charms. And so there's a lot of charms that people have come up with over the centuries, things to wear, foods to eat, herbs and stuff that you put around your home or across your threshold, using salt is a big one that goes back to a lot of things. Salt protects you from witches and bad spirits and demons. And salt is highly functional for that kind of stuff, in addition to making your food taste better. So there's a lot more of the protective type of charms to prevent things, bad things from happening if you happen to come across one of these animals or whatever.
But yeah, it's more of the protective thing rather than the once it's happened. Like you said, if it's the god's will, whether it's the Christian God or any other god, then that's, you just have to prepare yourself and be ready to do what, whatever that god was wanting at that point. They make themselves well known for that.
[00:34:51] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we were reading about omens and portents in colonial New England. In Puritan society, everything basically was a sign of God's favor or displeasure, and if God was angry with you, you're supposed to take your medicine, and, uh, correct whatever you were doing.
[00:35:17] Jennie Johnson: And with the Puritan belief in predestination, where God has already decided whether you're going to heaven or hell, you don't know that, God knows that. But yeah, it made it very hard to break away sometimes from the idea of certain things. If you were going to go to hell anyway, why be good? Or, if whatever, but I do find that belief really strong and they did, everything was assigned from God in the Puritan ages.
And that, during all their various witch trials, when they, when the accused were being accused, a lot of them had, part of that accusation was whatever familiar that they had. And a lot of times it was either some sort of a bird, a cat, rats were another one I think you would quite often see. So then, those just over time, and even once those beliefs got put aside and we got more scientific about stuff, those types of stories stuck with us as humans. And we, and then you have like our Victorian authors, like Edgar Allan Poe, who used all of those in their stories and in their writings. And so again, in our psyche, that all now sits in our brains as being very scary and dark and or ritualistic, depending on, again, what it is. And we see a lot of that.
[00:36:37] Dianne Hartshorn: Especially had those strong beliefs, and they had the the control of church, they, even if it didn't make any sense whatsoever, people couldn't question it, because if they questioned it, then they probably would be accused of being a witch because they questioned it. So it just was easier to perpetuate the story that continues. So yeah, it's easier sometimes just to go along and not say anything than try to make real sense out of some of these omens.
[00:37:10] Jennie Johnson: We were talking about protection and stuff, and this kind of goes back to some cemeteries. So something some people would do in cemeteries, and even before cemeteries became cemeteries as we think of them now, trees held a big belief for, certain trees held certain types of beliefs of protection, especially. And so graves were put under certain trees or near certain trees or trees were planted on top of graves for the very reason of protecting against all these other omens that are out there.
Yew trees are a big one, willows, the silver birch, all of those trees have a lot of important symbolism in protecting against the evils of death or evil spirits. Yew trees are specifically like a symbol of immortality. And for a long time in European customs, a lot of times they would carry yew branches on Palm Sunday to church instead of having, like now we use palms, but a lot of times they would use yew branches.
Or they would carry them during a funeral too. It was part of the funeral ritual. They would have them. In Ireland, yew was the coffin of the vine, wine barrels were often made of yew because it imbibed the wine with good juju, it was good. I don't know if it actually made the wine taste better or not, but it apparently helped protect the wine from bad things. And so they used yew for that.
The willow tree, which is one of my favorite trees, it's gone back and forth being a good tree and a bad tree. It depends on the season, a lot of times the Victorians, actually slightly before the Victorians, they started using yew trees as a symbol of mourning, and you will see them a lot on graves and headstones, because they are sad and they're weeping and the weeping willow is what we get from that.
But it can also be like, there's other traditions, and if you've ever read any of the Lord of the Rings books, the trees have a lot of issues in there, but the Willow, Old Man Willow in the first Lord of the Rings, in the Fellowship, he's quite sinister and evil and dark and has a dark spirit within his tree, so willows, like I said, they've over time have gone back and forth from being a good tree and a not so good tree, but they are very often associated with death, and you will find them a lot in cemeteries or burials will have been put beneath them.
And then the other one I really thought was fun was the silver birch tree, which for a lot of, if you're Wiccan, a lot of them look at that as the Goddess Tree or the Lady of the Woods. And it's associated with light and new beginnings, love, and fertility, so it has a very good symbol. It's a tree that can protect against evil spirits. So you'll find that one sometimes near graves, because it's protecting the deceased from the evil spirits who might come to, to, claim those bodies. And it's a much happier tree than the willow tree. And I didn't find any evil connotations connected with the silver birch tree, other than they used to like to use birch branches for like whipping your children and stuff. Or they would whip, if whipping became your punishment in town for something, because they believed that using the birch branch would help drive out the evil that was making you be naughty.
[00:40:30] Sarah Jack: Wow.
[00:40:30] Jennie Johnson: I thought was interesting. I do have some stuff about insects. I always think it's interesting, because I know a lot of people will see like butterflies or dragonflies as a good omen, you know, when somebody's died, and then you see it land on their headstone. Or even if you're out somewhere and you see one and somebody has recently passed, a lot of times we will associate those particular insects with like the soul of the person coming back in that.
But butterflies, again, this is culture to culture, so different. Some cultures, butterflies, especially if they're black or they have a lot of black in their wings, represent trapped souls that have been trapped within the butterfly, which is not necessarily a good thing to them.
But then other cultures look at it, because of the way a butterfly transitions into a butterfly and their cycle of life with the cocoon and going from the caterpillar all the way up to the butterfly. A lot of other cultures use that as a representation of death. The same way our life was sort of our caterpillar phase and then death becomes your butterfly phase, and your soul is free and it can fly away to heaven or wherever as a butterfly. And I thought that was a very beautiful, more poetic way of looking at it.
[00:41:48] Dianne Hartshorn: Cause the omens have all been taken as something as being evil for whatever reason, I'm sure it had its purpose at the time for whoever came out with what the omens signified. But what if we took those, all these evil omens, turn them into something positive, like the butterfly? I could see in a way that it was black and that but when I have seen butterflies at the cemetery, it's a sign from the person that has passed. So it'd be interesting to change, to flip the omens into something, but then they wouldn't be omens anymore.
[00:42:24] Jennie Johnson: Moths kind of have the same thing. It's funny, cause moths freak a lot of people out more so than butterflies, even though they're related. But they're seen as rebirth, resurrection, changing. And because moths are drawn to light, like actual moths are drawn to actual light, there's a lot of associations where the moth is leading a soul from darkness into light. So the soul, they're like saying, "okay, follow me. Don't get away from the light. Follow me into the light."
Unless you're in Latin America, and then they're bad, because moths come out only at night type thing. So then they're a bad omen down there, but a lot of other cultures look at moths as a more positive thing. And, it's, again, the transformation from one form to another when you die. And so I kind of like the whole leading it, leading your soul into the light and it's that guide so you don't get lost along the way.
When I was doing our research for this, things are passed down word of mouth, grandparent to grandchild. And a lot of times, because a lot of cultures do revere their elders, like their elder elders, they're the ones that had the wisdom. So these, whether they're omens or whether they're signs of protection or whether they're a good sign, like they help it. It's the older generations that held that wisdom and made sure that it got passed on to the next generation. Their hope was that somebody within that generation would continue on with those beliefs and pass them down again. And of course they change over time, too.
[00:43:49] Josh Hutchinson: I was thinking about how there are good omens and signs that people embrace, things like rainbows. I was thinking, and this might blur the line between what's an omen and what's good luck, what's a lucky break, because finding a penny might be interpreted as good luck, or finding a four leaf clover, but, or it could be a sign that, you found this four leaf clover, is that a sign of something? I don't know, but I think we still have a lot of those in our society today.
[00:44:29] Jennie Johnson: Oh, for sure. Yeah, and like finding the penny, finding it face up is better luck than finding it tails up, that type of thing. When it comes to coins, there's actually a lot of coins that get left on graves. Most of the time it has to do with the military significance. Each one of those coins has a significance, like if it's a penny, you're just saying thank you for your service. If it's a nickel, you knew the person, and the higher up you go, if it's a quarter, that means you served with them during combat type things. So they have those representations, and so there are a lot of times, especially in military graves, you'll find those coins and it's a sign of respect to leave them.
So don't steal the coins off the graves, because then that becomes a bad luck sign if you take the coins away from the graves. Same thing with rocks. Rocks are more of a Jewish tradition. Leaving a rock on a grave symbolizes you were there to visit them. But I have seen plenty of rocks on graves that are not Jewish, because I think a lot of people like that. It's a comforting thing for them to say, "I was here, and I want you to know I was here." Whoever the deceased is, it's your way of saying, "I was here." So again, not removing the rocks that got left on graves. I know it bothers some people, but leave them, leave them.
[00:45:44] Dianne Hartshorn: It's a sign of respect. When you know what it is, and you've like laid the coins on the military headstones, or, rocks placed, it's just something, I keep using the word sacred, because for me, a cemetery is sacred, and that's why we don't do paranormal stuff.
[00:46:04] Josh Hutchinson: I wanted to point out that we've been back to Salem and at the memorials there, people leave coins, flowers, of course, rocks, crystals, seashells are really popular. Because we don't know where most of those people are buried. So because they weren't allowed in the cemeteries. So people leave these tributes behind.
[00:46:32] Jennie Johnson: We had a guest on who was telling us about the cemeteries in Galveston, and there's one particular grave, the woman who's buried there, she was murdered on Mardi Gras, during a Mardi Gras celebration, and it's become the tradition after their Mardi Gras parade, a lot of people will go visit her grave, and they leave all their beads, so her headstone is covered in the beads that people have left over the years, and Kathleen was, our guest, was saying the only time they remove them at this point is if they break, like the actual beads break or whatever, they'll clean up the broken beads, but they pretty much leave all the other ones that get wrapped around her headstone there because it became, and this happened back in the 1880s, but it's been a tradition since then to visit that grave and leave all those beads for her, which I think is really special. Yeah. And she doesn't get forgotten this way.
She had come to America from England and married a not so great guy. And she was actually granted a divorce, because the judge was like, yeah, you shouldn't be married to him. He's horrible. And she actually ended up getting custody of his two daughters that were not even hers biologically. And unfortunately his jealousy got the best of him, and he was the one who murdered her later on. But her story could have been one of those that kind of got lost and forgotten, but because of when it happened and where her grave is located, nobody, people go in and they respect it, and they visit her and they say, "hey, we're still thinking about you for 150 years later. We haven't forgotten her."
So that is one of the good things about cemeteries is you will see a lot of stuff on and around graves, because people are trying to remember. There, if the Central City cemeteries here in Colorado, those were, the majority of them were mining families or whatever, and there's a lot of children's graves, and there's a lot of people who still, they may not have any actual connection to them, they may not be descendants or whatever, but I will see, especially on the children's graves, people will still leave a lot of toys and other little knickknacks for the kids, because they're just so sad about the idea of losing a child, and so those graves, if you're ever up there wandering around, you'll see a lot of little stuffed animals and toy trucks and things that have been left by people who have zero connection to the families there, but they just are touched by the fact that it's a child's grave and they want to honor that child's short little life, however long it was, which I always find very sweet.
[00:48:50] Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary.

[00:49:01] Mary Bingham: Imagine someone living in colonial times who learned differently and simply could not follow the status quo. Imagine the life of Jacob Goodall, Giles Corey's healthy, robust servant who's only downfall was that he was considered to be simple-minded. Instead of exercising patience with Jacob, one fateful day, Giles beat him with the thick end of a stick, striking him harshly about 100 times. A shocked Elijah Kibbe, who witnessed the event, ran to Giles and told him to stop.
Not only that, but Giles' son in law, John Parker, struck Jacob with the side of a bed. Soon after, on June 28th, 1676, Jacob Goodall, being bruised and swollen all over, succumbed to his injuries. Giles Corey was not charged with murder, because Jacob did not die right after the initial beatings. The only punishment Giles received was to pay a fine and reimburse the witnesses. What a slap in the face for Jacob, to say the least. John Parker received no discipline by the court for his atrocious actions towards Jacob. Though he may have learned differently or may have other mental health issues, Jacob did not deserve to die such a cruel death. No one does. Rest in peace, Jacob Goodall.
Thank you.

[00:50:39] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:50:41] Josh Hutchinson: Now, here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[00:50:51] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update. Thank you for following along on our weekly news. How's your advocating going? Have you found your platform to share about the modern day witch hunts and sorcery accusation violence crisis happening today in your world? You can start being an advocate by sharing witch attack victim news articles, research, or social media posts. Share your favorite international advocate episode with your circle of influence today. Go back and listen to any of our informative international advocate episodes and then write a post on your social media in your own words about what can be done to help end witch hunts. Keep getting more comfortable with the subject by sharing it and talking about it.
Congratulations to writer Laurie Flanigan-Hegge, director Meggie Greivell, and puppet artist Madeline Helling of Light the Match Productions on the new play production Prick. Prick, inspired by the Witches of Scotland campaign, will now be premiering in London this January. This creative play tells the story of folks who were witch trial victims in Scotland. Prick traverses magic and memory, fact and fiction, past and present. Give them a shout out on social media and help spread the word about this exciting news. If you missed it, go back and listen to our conversation with the creators of Prick on episode 47, "Prick, A Play of the Scottish Witch Trials." Congratulations, friends.
Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. Learn about the projects. To support us, make a tax deductible donation, purchase books from our bookshop, or merch from our Zazzle shop. Have you considered supporting the production of the podcast by joining us as a Super Listener? Your Super Listener donation is tax deductible. Thank you for being a part of our work.

[00:52:40] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:52:42] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:52:44] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:52:47] Sarah Jack: Join us all spooky season.
[00:52:50] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and drop us a review.
[00:52:55] Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:52:58] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell all your friends and family and everybody else you meet about Thou Shalt Not Suffer.
[00:53:06] Sarah Jack: Support our effort to end witch hunts, visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:53:11] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today, a beautiful tomorrow, and a happy Halloween.

September 28, 2023

A Year of Talking Witch Hunts

Mrs. Krieger, Vermont’s Only Witch, The Looking Glass

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Show Notes

Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast, Anniversary Special. This episode was recorded live and unscripted at the Podcast Movement Conference in Denver, CO. With the anniversary of their first episode fast approaching, cohosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack take this rare opportunity to discuss their favorite things and reflect upon the past year and the experience of producing a podcast. This is the story of how Thou Shalt Not Suffer became what it is after in 12 months.

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Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

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Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Hello and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:27] Josh Hutchinson: Hello, Sarah Jack.
[00:00:29] Sarah Jack: I'm good.
[00:00:30] Josh Hutchinson: We're actually together for the first time recording in person with each other. We're at Podcast Movement in Denver, and we're having a great time, aren't we?
[00:00:40] Sarah Jack: We are.
[00:00:41] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Learning a lot.
[00:00:43] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:00:44] Josh Hutchinson: So far. Off to a good start. In a change of pace, I'm going to start by getting to know Sarah a little better.
[00:00:54] Sarah Jack: Oh, dear.
[00:00:54] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, Sarah. What's your favorite movie?
[00:00:58] Sarah Jack: Jaws.
[00:00:59] Josh Hutchinson: Jaws? Why is that?
[00:01:00] Sarah Jack: Jaws.
[00:01:00] Josh Hutchinson: Why?
[00:01:01] Sarah Jack: I love anything with a chase and an attack. And the book.
[00:01:06] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, and you love the book also.
[00:01:09] Sarah Jack: I did. Yeah.
[00:01:10] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Okay.
[00:01:12] Sarah Jack: The characters.
[00:01:13] Josh Hutchinson: Characters. Yeah.
[00:01:16] Sarah Jack: I've watched it hundreds of times.
[00:01:19] Josh Hutchinson: I love the sheriff guy. What's his name? Brody?
Yeah.
Yeah, Brody. He's pretty cool. And the Richard Dreyfuss guy.
[00:01:30] Sarah Jack: Yeah, it's, as many times as I've seen it, I can't think of the name.
[00:01:35] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. That other guy.
[00:01:37] Sarah Jack: This is a very different feel than the normal.
[00:01:41] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, doing a podcast together in person. We're recording in a booth with a glass wall and people are walking by and we're just not used to the distractions. I know I'm not, but
[00:01:54] Sarah Jack: What's your favorite movie, Josh?
[00:01:57] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, my favorite movie is Dumb and Dumber and that's just because it's hilarious. And it stands the test of time. It's just a classic. Came out when I was in high school, so it was one of those movies that I went to attend without my parents that was a little bit raunchy at times but just mostly the slapstick humor, and that really is something I'm a fan of, I'd say.
How about a TV show?
[00:02:33] Sarah Jack: The Walking Dead.
[00:02:35] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah?
[00:02:36] Sarah Jack: Or any of its spinoffs.
[00:02:38] Josh Hutchinson: Many spinoffs of that show now.
[00:02:41] Sarah Jack: There's even a new one starting next month. Can't wait.
[00:02:44] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, what's that new one?
[00:02:46] Sarah Jack: It's got Daryl. I don't remember what it's called, but I just finished watching the first season of Dead City, which was a spinoff on two of the characters.
[00:02:54] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, Dead City. Okay.
[00:02:56] Sarah Jack: It was great.
[00:02:58] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah.
[00:02:58] Sarah Jack: One of my favorite zombie situations of the whole series was in this season.
[00:03:05] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. What attracts you to the Walking Dead universe?
[00:03:10] Sarah Jack: The survival and relationships and making choices and the survival.
[00:03:19] Josh Hutchinson: Okay, great. My favorite TV show is Psych. And if you're not familiar with it, it's a detective comedy about a man posing as a psychic and starting a psychic detective agency with his best friend, who's a pharmaceutical sales representative, and it's just a lot of comic hijinks, and, I'm about the same age as the lead actors in that, so they were, I was at the same stage of life when the show aired, and I really saw myself in Sean, the lead character.
[00:04:00] Sarah Jack: That's great. Today we're learning how to do this on the spot, in person, but what have we learned this past year about podcasting?
[00:04:11] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, we have learned so much, it's been a full year. This is the end of that, and we're contemplating what we've learned and how far we've come since then. So much has blown my mind about the experience. It's, we do the full production ourselves. So end to end, getting a podcast made every week is challenging and doing all the edits and stuff, but it's been opportunity for growth, getting new skills, new technical skills, and just the people that we've met. Been amazing.
[00:04:56] Sarah Jack: Yeah. Yeah. There's the pace has been fast, putting one out every week, but that those deadlines keep us moving even when we weren't exactly sure, throwing ourselves out there and trying the next thing.
[00:05:12] Josh Hutchinson: And we have tried different things. We do usually an interview, but we've also done our own 101 episodes. And we've interviewed such a variety of guests, the academics, the artists, the advocates, it's been quite an array. And just wonderful meeting people from all these different walks of life.
[00:05:40] Sarah Jack: It has been amazing. And so we've got that learning curve going on, while at the same time, we're starting to learn more about witch hunts past, witch hunts present.
[00:05:53] Josh Hutchinson: The witch hunts present, that I would say has been the most impactful lesson of this whole thing for us. It prompted us to start a nonprofit called End Witch Hunts. We learned the reality, the sad reality that many hundreds, if not thousands of people are being tortured, banished, and or killed each year in occurring in at least 60 nations that there've been reports from. And it's just so prolific and widespread, when we learned about that, it just touched our hearts right away and we knew we wanted to amplify the message of those advocates who are doing the great work in these various countries struggling with this problem.
[00:06:50] Sarah Jack: Yeah, we, I've looked at the work that we were doing as before educational, telling you the information, telling you what's happening, but there's another part of that and that is finding out what needs to be done. So we hope that you learn what's happening, but also hear what you need to be doing to help stop it.
[00:07:14] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. And our path to where we are now, that's been so enlightening and revelatory. We started off with that interview of Damon Leff about South African witch hunts. And then we had Leo Igwe talk to us about Nigeria, and those two interviews brought us along really far, but what we've done since then is maintain relationships with those guests, and we've had the opportunity to meet Leo in person and help him with a speaking tour in New England this past May. Just that relationship with him leads to continued growing, and now our colleague, Mary Bingham, has reached out to advocates worldwide, and we're meeting so many people from so many countries that, continuing us on this path to wherever we're going, trying to eliminate this violence.
[00:08:29] Sarah Jack: The witch attacks are violent, and they're in more communities than you would imagine, and learning from the history, looking at the research from academics and those who've been out in the field where these attacks are happening, looking at all of it is really important to understanding the bigger picture. Sometimes we hear that people don't quite understand those historic witch hunts, and if we don't understand what was happening then and we don't understand what's happening now, we're not going to find solutions.
[00:09:03] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. That's why we got into the podcast, I think, in the first place, was to educate people primarily about historic witch hunts in Connecticut and elsewhere. We've launched the podcast with that education in mind because when we started the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, we were just getting weird looks from people anytime we mentioned that Connecticut had witch trials in the first place. People just weren't aware of that, and we thought we'll use every form of media that we can, and podcasting just seemed a natural outgrowth of that.
And I'd say that's why we got involved was just to educate, but what we're learning is there are so many connections between the past witch trials and the modern witchcraft persecutions that learning about one helps you learn about the other, because if you can understand what happened in, say, 1692 in Salem, you can understand what's happening in 2023 in any of these nations that are affected by this and vice versa, if you understand what's going on right now, you understand the same suffering that happened before. So I think continuing to educate about both of those aspects is what lies ahead of us in the future. Yeah.
[00:10:46] Sarah Jack: One of the things that I didn't expect when I started was how much Research I was going to be doing to be prepared for our episodes, for the guests that were coming, and that we're continually being informed by our preparation. Were you surprised at how much preparation we do for each episode?
[00:11:06] Josh Hutchinson: I was, yeah. The research is constant, continuous, every day, seven days of the week. Research It basically fills in every hour that we're not doing the production tasks, we're doing the research tasks. So these are full days and doing a 101, especially, it's really takes nearly a week to do the, just the research and write out what we're going to talk about and how we're going to present it.
So yeah, the research. It's, it's been so beneficial, that's probably what surprised me more is just the amount, the number of different topics that we're reading about. Because we can be reading in the same week, as we were recently. We're reading a novel, we're reading a screenplay, we're reading research and learning about witch hunts in India.
At the same time, we're learning about witch hunts in Scotland. And we're learning about witch hunting at Salem. Just that variety of what we're learning has been, I just, I adore it, really. I like the research, because I'm that history nerd. And I'm just so curious about the current situation and what's going on and how do we solve that? So constantly reading is a great benefit.
[00:12:47] Sarah Jack: One of the things that I love the most is as I'm reading and thinking about talking to our guests, I know that I'm going to get to have some questions clarified. Even though the podcast episode is literally a set of questions and conversation that comes from that, I know that I don't have to read something, look at something that I'm reading and wonder. If I need something answered, I'm going to get a moment to ask the question, even if it's not part of the script. So I've really loved that direct access to the people who've created the information. And the other thing that has come out of the variety of the topics is we, when we hear from our listeners, and we do, which we love it, we hear all sorts of different ways the show's impacting them. Sometimes they share research that they've done to update us on something. Sometimes they ask questions. A lot of the times it's just, "Hey, we're so glad you're doing this." And one of the, one of the things that came out of our week with Leo Igwe this May, if you listen to his episode that we did directly after that, he talked about that he hopes that next time he comes through the United States, there's more, "hey, what can I do to help?" and less "you're kidding me. I had no idea." And I really feel like people are understanding that they need to inform themselves more on the modern crisis, and there's a lot of information out there to do so. I'm feeling really hopeful about that goal.
[00:14:27] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. I'm really excited about the advocates that we're meeting and getting more of them on the podcast is something I look forward to, but you also made a good point about that direct access to ask questions. It's quite a privilege to be able to speak with these esteemed professors and other guests who've written about the witch trials. Many of our guests are people whose books I've been reading for years. And so it's been really something to now be talking with them in, I say in person, but it's, we do our recording remotely because Sarah and I are in different states and our guests are all around the world. But having that access you talk about to directly to the brains that have all the information, whatever questions arise in our research, we're able just to ask the experts.
And so that's really something.
[00:15:42] Sarah Jack: Yeah, it's really great and another thing that's exceptional that has come out of this is our community is there and has grown. When we've reached out to our previous guests, all, they've all been so willing to answer other questions or help with new ideas. Yeah, I guess I'd like to thank our guests directly, each of you, because so many of you have communicated with us on the side afterwards. We're starting to bring back some of our guests. That's really exciting, but that's a huge component, the ongo the conversation is ongoing with our guests after their episode is complete.
[00:16:21] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, and we do thank all of you guests. We appreciate you very much all of your help and just giving us your time and allowing us to pick your brain. We really appreciate that and hope that this message is starting to get out to people around the world and yeah, I look forward to continuing to grow.
One of the big moments in the podcast for me was landing our first, all of our first guests, and talking the first time to a university professor was a really big moment. When we had Scott Culpepper on, that was big. And Danny Buck was the first international guest we interviewed, plus the first thesis we read. Talking to Malcolm Gaskill was incredible, because I'd read so many of his books. Several, can't number the books, but, once that happened, guests just kept wanting to come on and the positive response that we've had from the academic community is something that surprised me.
[00:17:46] Sarah Jack: Yeah. And we couldn't, we could not have done this without them.
[00:17:50] Josh Hutchinson: That's very true.
[00:17:51] Sarah Jack: Yeah. And then I think back to our very first episode, it was our exoneration project team members, Tony Griego, Beth Caruso, Josh, and I, and then we did a piece of the conversation with Mary Bingham. We just kicked it off with ourselves, but Scott came next, because he had been working on, he was giving, he was teaching on Connecticut witch trials and Governor Winthrop, Jr., and that was like a really great second springboard for us.
[00:18:24] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. And then since then we've interviewed so many people who have literally written the book on the subject that we're talking about, like the book. So many of our guests, you look at early authors that we had on the show, Marion Gibson, Mary Craig, they literally wrote the book on the subject that we talked to them about. And people like Emerson Baker and Margo Burns and so many others have written these excellent books that I highly recommend, and one way that listeners can support us is by buying those books through our bookshop.org, bookshop.org/endwitchhunts. Thank you very much.
[00:19:20] Sarah Jack: Yeah. It's really fun to look through those books in there. And it, when you look through all of the titles from the guests that we've had, it's amazing to know that that much information and research has been a part of what has come together. And when you listen to these episodes with these authors who have written the book, you're getting to hear more straight from the author. I love that part.
[00:19:46] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And most of the time our show is serious in nature. But we've been able to record some fun episodes. We've got a really fun one coming up with Katherine Howe That's actually about pirates, so for one week, we will be the Witch Trials and Pirates Podcast. And that was just such a blast, because that book is such a fun ride.
[00:20:16] Sarah Jack: Yeah. A year ago, we were so excited about Ruin of All Witches. That book is so important and also a fun ride. And I think it's so great that here we are a year later, we're looking at another exceptional story, so what's next year? I'm thinking about that. Which of our guests or who are we going to find that has something like this exciting coming out?
[00:20:40] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And Katherine Howe is somebody that I've followed for many years who now we talk to, and it's just an amazing privilege, perk of the job, that I've got to pinch myself sometimes and say, yeah, we're talking to these people. We're talking to people who are heroes in their own countries doing the advocacy that is dangerous because if you advocate against witch hunting, people might interpret that as advocating for witches and they, there can be serious consequences when, if you yourself get labeled that way.
[00:21:24] Sarah Jack: Yeah. And we've really learned too about the definition of witches and, how does all of this affect people who are practicing Wiccans or Pagans and their discrimination that they face and how it's different. Yeah, we're just learning all these different layers of the witch and I remember when we, early on, I'm just thinking, man, it's like peeling an onion, it's like peeling an onion, and then there's just the, all these layers and there's been all these different ways of referring to the layers and the complexities and...
[00:22:02] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. So many layers to learn about. And one thing that I like about our podcast, in particular, is we're able to take these deep dives. When we did our Connecticut 101, it ended up being a six part series, so we're able to explore the details of the events that transpired. We're able to review an entire witch hunt from start to finish, because we're taking that time to do that, where a lot of shows, especially that are interview only, you're not able to explore that far, you're able to explore things at a high level, which is really important also, but to be able to do both and do a mix like we've done. And then to do follow up interviews and interview other people about similar, maybe this, we've talked to multiple people about Salem. We've talked to multiple people about Connecticut. We've drilled into those pretty extensively, but we've also approached those from the high level to see what caused those witch hunting events and what helped to end those witch hunt events, which is, both are key to our understanding what's going on now and how does it end? It ended for Europe and North America to the most part, for the most part. Organized witch trials aren't happening any longer. So what was it about that point in time when those witch trials ended in those regions? What was it about that point in time that they were able to overcome centuries of persecutions. And how do we apply that to the modern day? So I love getting the high level, but I also love being able to drill into, and we've got some more 101s coming up, and we've also got some really exciting Halloween content, don't we?
[00:24:30] Sarah Jack: We do. Yeah. We got to bring Scott Culpepper back. And we talked about the origins of Halloween, and I'm really excited for that episode.
[00:24:40] Josh Hutchinson: I'm so excited for that one. It was a bit of a fun episode. We talked about some fun things while also tying everything back to the portrayals of witches, things like that. I'm also really looking forward to talking with Maya Rook about witches in pop culture.
[00:25:02] Sarah Jack: Yeah, I'm looking forward to that again. It coming, through a year and getting to speak with some of our first guests a second time is exciting. And I'm excited to discuss the pop culture aspect of witches with Maya. It's something, throughout the year, I think that topic comes up as a layer, but we haven't really got to spend much time really discussing that, its impact on women, on culture, on society, on the arts. So it should be really enjoyable.
[00:25:42] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. And we have another episode coming up that's going to be a real blast talking Halloween history with Sean and Carrie from Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie. That's one of our first real crossover kind of episode that we're doing with another podcast and they're just so much fun on their show. I know we're just going to have a ball doing that.
And then what else do we have coming up for Halloween, Sarah?
[00:26:14] Sarah Jack: The Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery. They travel and they talk about cemeteries, and one of the topics that we're going to discuss with them is omen, signs.
[00:26:27] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. That's going to be very interesting. And again, that speaks to the variety of content that we've had on the show. I wouldn't have expected to be doing an episode like that when we began. We began with a relatively narrow focus and have broadened into so many different areas.
One thing that I'd like to touch on is, Sarah, we talk about a lot of really heavy stuff, a lot of deep topics and our guests give us so much information that sometimes it's a little hard to process everything that's going on and to deal with really challenging subject matter at times. So how do you, would you say you get through those challenging moments?
[00:27:31] Sarah Jack: I really try to go ahead and, put myself in the shoes of those people that were in those stories. Even though it's really hard to look at some of the horror, if you humanize it and really think about what was that personal journey like for that person? Who wasn't that much different, if they are at all, from us? So I think that's one way that I do.
[00:27:58] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I like to repeat, we have this little mantra in our organization that is just "mellow vibes" and so when things get heavy, I just remember to keep mellow vibes and be chill about stuff, basically. But at times it's challenging because the subjects are so ponderous, the talking about the modern witch hunts, especially, learning what's actually happening to the victims, which we don't always share all the details, because they're really gruesome. But we're seeing videos and images of victims and that can really weigh on you. But I just find a lot of motivation in that and turn it around to just use those images to inspire me to push harder and keep doing what we're doing with the show and with the nonprofit, End Witch Hunts. By the way, visit endwitchhunts.org.
[00:29:12] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:29:13] Josh Hutchinson: Learn about our organization. We started as a continuation of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project. The board consists of four of the founders of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, plus the wonderful Jen Stevenson as secretary.
We have multiple projects running. We're excited that we get to probably talk to you about more of our projects coming up very soon, but we're working on memorialization in Connecticut right now. That's one thing that we're working on, and we're working on this world advocacy now, as well, largely amplifying other voices from these countries that have these issues.
[00:30:11] Sarah Jack: Yep. And there's still some exonerations that need to be looked at in the United States.
[00:30:15] Josh Hutchinson: There are other exonerations and so our show and our nonprofit organization we're doing, basically trying to honor the memory of past victims, educate about the past trials and of the many lessons that we can learn from witch trials, and inform people about the modern crisis. And then our other kind of branch or activity that we get into is advocacy, which is trying to inform world leaders about the situation and the options on how it can be resolved.
[00:31:07] Sarah Jack: Yeah, we've learned through the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project that community leaders are a critical part of moving forward with education and change around witch hunts. We are so grateful to Jane Garibay, House Representative Jane Garibay in Connecticut and Senator Saud Anwar. They worked so hard to get support from the other legislators, and when I say work hard, they were doing, navigating through their jobs and how they see bills through the process, but there, there was a lot of, some of it new information to them, and they were so attentive as we gave them more layers and more layers, and by the time the bill was on the last vote at the Senate floor, the modern witch hunt crisis was being mentioned. We'd had so many yes votes from the House from all political parties, and so when that final vote happened in the Senate and everyone voted yes but one politician, that, that really was a testament to the work that had been done into the project.
[00:32:20] Josh Hutchinson: And now that the exoneration has been done, the work of memorialization has begun.
[00:32:29] Sarah Jack: It has. We're excited about it. There's lots of community members and community organizations talking together, brainstorming, looking for that route, and you are welcome and should be a part of this.
[00:32:45] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, you can join us. Go to ConnecticutWitchTrials.org. There is a volunteer form on there you can fill out, if you'd like to help out with planning and executing this project to get a memorial built. And I want to talk a little bit about why a memorial and what a memorial might be. We're looking into doing a two pronged memorial, where there'd be one state memorial to all of the victims. We'd name all of the indicted, as well as those who were executed and honor all, so that would be 34 individuals.
And in addition to the statewide memorial or monument, there would be a state trail that called something like the Connecticut Witch Trials History Trail. And that would involve stops in each of the towns that either had witch trial action or were the hometowns of the victims, so you might start in Windsor, the hometown of the first victim, Alice Young, and travel through the state, you go through places like Farmington, Wethersfield, Hartford, Wallingford, Stratford, Fairfield, Bridgeport, New Haven, Old Saybrook, and there's even a stop in, on Long Island at East Hampton because that used to be part of Connecticut and while it was part of Connecticut, one woman was tried for witchcraft by a Connecticut court.
[00:34:42] Sarah Jack: Yeah. And over the last decades or more, there have been people working and providing and researching their local witch trial in their town in Connecticut, and having this trail, having the memorial, it's an opportunity to bring all the work that's been done to, to connect it so that Connecticut has a clear picture and it's, each of the efforts won't be so siloed, there's just so much that has actually been done, but some of it isn't reaching the whole state. The whole picture isn't being told yet, and so I'm excited to see more of that shown, how the work has been done on the local level in many of the communities.
[00:35:33] Josh Hutchinson: It's exciting how the local communities are embracing the history and they're willing to take it on. It's a challenging moment in history. A lot of people look at it and feel shame and guilt for that. So it's not the easiest subject to broach that hey, we hunted witches here. But we need to learn those lessons and you learn them very well by going to these locations where trials were held, where executions took place, where victims lived their lives and accusations arose. You get to go to physical locations now in some of these locations. There's the Goody Knapp Memorial in Bridgeport dedicated to a woman who was executed in that area. It's so great to see these communities, and we know of others that are working on getting memorial markers placed similar to what was done with the Goody Knapp stone with the plaque on it dedicated to her memory.
You'll start to see those in these other locations, and we're starting to see historical societies and museums really take an interest in this part of the past, and so there will be lots of stops on the trail, but the basic premise is you go to a memorial and then for more information you go to historical societies, museums, and libraries in that community, and they'll have answers to your questions about what happened there. That's our vision for the trail, for the memorial. We've talked about our advocacy, we've talked about amplifying other advocates voices. What haven't we talked about?
[00:37:49] Sarah Jack: And just like all of that came out in less than a year, but there's one other thing that I was thinking while we were sitting here talking is this wasn't our first podcast to have a conversation on. No.
[00:38:00] Josh Hutchinson: What was that?
[00:38:01] Sarah Jack: People Hidden in History.
[00:38:03] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, that's right. We had a conversation on the People Hidden in History podcast with Kathleen Langone a month before we conducted our first interview for this podcast. And so that was an informative step and we really appreciate you, Kathleen.
[00:38:24] Sarah Jack: We do. And if you haven't heard it, she did a followup conversation with us after the exoneration went through and that also a great episode.
[00:38:34] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. So a year apart, there's the two episodes of us, what we wanted to get out of the exoneration in the first episode, and then what it was like to experience the process of getting the resolution done.
[00:38:51] Sarah Jack: And we also, we had our first invite as Thou Shalt Not Suffer to have a conversation on another podcast to talk about witches.
[00:39:02] Josh Hutchinson: Witches, yes. That was a big one. And then you were invited to be on the NPR show 1A.
[00:39:13] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:39:13] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah.
[00:39:14] Sarah Jack: Having the opportunity on Extreme Genes with Scott Fisher and David Allen Lambert that, that's their podcast. That really helped me realize, hey, I can have some of these impromptu conversations. I can speak to what I've been learning.
[00:39:30] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And in addition to the podcast, going through the process on exoneration, we had so much interaction with traditional media. Everybody had questions about what are we doing? Why are we doing it? And learning, getting comfortable answering journalists questions, I think, really also benefited our podcasting.
[00:39:58] Sarah Jack: Yeah, and so many of them were able to get what we were saying through the editing and into the article. There's some really great articles and quotes out there this past year from those interactions.
[00:40:13] Josh Hutchinson: The stories about the exoneration were picked up by literally hundreds of news networks and outlets. We got to see us in the Associated Press, Sarah was in the New York Times, there's been, we've been in The Economist. Some really big organizations have covered our story, CNN, the BBC, all of them, basically.
[00:40:48] Sarah Jack: And I hope what you're hearing, we haven't spoken much of the descendants. There were lots of descendants involved wanting this exoneration. They want the memorial. We have a great episode where we talk to some of the descendants, but the, there was such a collaboration of descendants and authors and advocates and politicians and the local museums. It's really been great to see. It's not just one reason that the exoneration.
[00:41:18] Josh Hutchinson: That's right. And just looking through, there were something like 34 written testimonies submitted to the General Assembly in support of this resolution, and 11 people gave in-person oral testimony.
[00:41:39] Sarah Jack: I got to be one of those people.
[00:41:42] Josh Hutchinson: Sarah got to be one of those people. And she ought to be asked some difficult questions, we'd say. And there were young people also involved in that with William and Catherine.
[00:41:57] Sarah Jack: It was Catherine, 14, stood up, spoke to the history, answered some tough questions.
[00:42:04] Josh Hutchinson: Brilliantly.
[00:42:05] Sarah Jack: Yeah, and William.
[00:42:07] Josh Hutchinson: And William.
[00:42:07] Sarah Jack: Exceptional for 9, I believe. Yeah.
[00:42:10] Josh Hutchinson: Nine years old at the time.
[00:42:12] Sarah Jack: And you could hear he and his mother speak on one of our episodes. That's a really great episode, too. Jennifer Schloat was a great guest.
[00:42:19] Josh Hutchinson: That was a really great episode to do with the two of them. And just to hear a 9 year old and a 14 year old speaking to these issues, and they both came from different perspectives on how they got interested in the topic. I think one was compelled for, by his interest in human rights issues and the other was really propelled by an interest in women's issues and you see all of those things coming together.
[00:42:57] Sarah Jack: Look at the story we just told. It's a very layered podcast and podcast year, and we couldn't do it without our supporters.
[00:43:06] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we thank you for listening. Couldn't do a podcast without having listeners, that would be awkward. We really appreciate you interacting with us, and subscribing to the show and getting involved in the ways that Sarah presents.
We haven't talked about the news piece and Minute with Mary. Those are two important segments of the show and those will continue to be important going forward. The news, every week Sarah asked the audience to participate in the advocacy. You can do it just by telling somebody that you know about what's going on. Just get that started, post something on social media, share something that we post. Now, so thank you for your involvement. I hope you have a really great today and a very excellent, happy tomorrow.
[00:44:16] Sarah Jack: I was going to say, "Hey, let's say your final tagline together."
[00:44:19] Josh Hutchinson: Okay, let's try it.
[00:44:20] Sarah Jack: All right.
Have a great today
[00:44:24] Josh Hutchinson: and a beautiful tomorrow. We said it together.
[00:44:30] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:44:30] Josh Hutchinson: So that's a first too for us saying things and we're sitting on a couch and in this booth here and in person.
This was fun.
It took us like six months to meet each other.
[00:44:47] Sarah Jack: And now our friend Mary Bingham is here with this week's Minute with Mary.

[00:44:58] Mary Bingham: What does it mean to gaslight a person? As a verb, it means to manipulate someone so much that the person being manipulated questions their own reasoning. Most of us have been on the receiving end of this extremely cruel treatment.
According to Aaron Mahnke and the podcast titled Unobscured, Hannah Stone certainly was a victim who paid with her life. Hannah was the daughter of Ann and Andrew Foster of Andover, Massachusetts, British America. She married Hugh Stone in 1667 and started to bear him children when their first son, Hugh, was born November 24th, 1668. According to author Richard Hite, Hannah bore six more children through 1686.
Between 1680 and 1686, life must have been pretty tough for Hannah. Richard Hite says in his book, In the Shadow of Salem, that Hugh appeared before the quarterly courts three times for being drunk. The two times I found him listed, he seems to man up before the judges, saying that he is sorry. Even Nathaniel Saltonstall believed Hugh was repentant when Hugh voluntarily stepped before him. That Hugh turned himself in could be because some were ready to testify against him. Nathaniel determined that Hugh should pay an undisclosed fine. I wonder if this public displays of misbehaviors, though unsavory as they were probably masked the horror that was really going on in the Stone household.
Hannah must have feared for her life. What could she do? How could she escape? How could her family help her? They couldn't. Hannah was pregnant when Hugh murdered her in broad daylight and in public. Ann Foster lost her daughter. Hannah's children lost their mother. The generational trauma would become evident in just a few short years.
Hugh was sentenced to hang. His final words at the gallows were that Hannah's family caused him, at least in part, to murder his wife. He gaslighted his in-laws to the end. What a stab in the stomach that must have been to Hannah's mother and her children. Please listen to the episode in this podcast titled The Andover Witch-Hunt with Richard Hite. You won't be disappointed. Thank you.

[00:47:39] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:47:42] Josh Hutchinson: Sarah has another insightful edition of End Witch Hunts News.

[00:47:54] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a non profit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update. Witch hunt memorials and commemorations now take many forms and serve as enduring, tangible reminders. On September 16th, 2023, a historic and poignant event took place in North Pownal, Vermont, as the community came together to dedicate the Legends and Lore Witch Trial Marker.
This significant occasion was made possible through the collaboration of the Vermont Folklife Center and the William C. Pomeroy Foundation, with the invaluable support of the Bennington Museum and the Pownal Historical Society. Attendees heard the captivating narrative of the widow with many names, a story that has been passed down through generations. While formal documents about the witch trial have yet to be found, the marker commemorates the Krieger family, who resided in North Pownal, and the remarkable woman who became known as Widow Krieger in 1785.
The dedication ceremony featured a heartfelt reading by a Historical Society member who has dedicated years to researching Widow Krieger and her family. During the reading, they shared their personal reflections and wondered what it would have been like to live as Widow Krieger's neighbors in the 1700s. According to student staff writer Eva Dailey of Southern Vermont College Media, The Looking Glass, in the article, Vintage Vermont Lore 5: Mrs. Krieger, Vermont's Only Witch, quote, "though an exact year is not given, as only a brief record of the incident exists, clues are available to those who dig deep enough. According to town records, the Kriegers, a Dutch family, first settled in Pownal in the early 1700s and are mentioned in the original town charter of 1760. Her accusers asserted that she possessed extraordinary powers. According to Vermont's lore expert, Joe Citro, Mrs. Krieger was thrown into the Hoosic River, still iced over by winter, to see if the devil would hold her afloat or not. The story goes that her accusers dove in to rescue her when she sank."
At the marker ceremony, it was shared that, unable to own land as a woman, the widow was ultimately forced to leave Pownal, Vermont, and return to her birthplace, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Margaret Schumacher Krieger rests in Westlawn Cemetery in Williamstown, Massachusetts, alongside her husband, John, her son, Peter, and her granddaughter, Elizabeth.
To learn more about this memorial marker and the event, go to the Pownal Historical Society Facebook page. Pownal is spelled P O W N A L. Links to the Facebook page and the referred article are in the show notes.
Thank you for being a part of Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast community. We have enjoyed this last year with you. We appreciate your listening and support. Keep sharing our episodes with your friends. This podcast is a project of our nonprofit called End Witch Hunts. It is dedicated to global collaboration to end witch hunting in all forms. We collaborate and create projects that build awareness, education, exoneration, justice, memorialization, and research of the phenomenon of witch hunting behavior. End Witch Hunts employs a three pronged approach to the problem, focusing on knowledge, memory, and advocacy through our various projects. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn about the projects. To support us, make a tax deductible donation, purchase books from our bookshop, or merch from our Zazzle shop. Have you considered supporting the production of the podcast by joining us as a Super Listener? Your Super Listener donation is tax deductible. Thank you for being a part of our work.

[00:51:27] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:51:28] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:51:30] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer.
[00:51:34] Sarah Jack: Join us again for another year.
[00:51:37] Josh Hutchinson: Once again, have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow and a totally epic next year.

September 21, 2023

Diana Helmuth on her Memoir The Witching Year

Witches of Islandmagee Commemoration Project

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Show Notes

Learn about one woman’s passage into witchcraft, the fastest growing self directed faith in America. Author Diana Helmuth is releasing her second book, The Witching Year: A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft in October 2023. In this author interview, we have an unreserved conversation about the year she spent journeying into modern witchcraft practices. She offers a heartfelt discussion on the successes and failures, the ins and outs that her upcoming memoir details.

DianaHelmuth.com

International Alliance to End Witch Hunts

Advocacy Against Witch Hunts, South Africa

Advocacy for Alleged Witches, Nigeria

Stop Sorcery Violence in PNG

The International Network

Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World: An Exploratory Analysis

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Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Hi, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: We're eager to bring you this interview with Diana Helmuth, author of The Witching Year: a Memoir of Earnest Fumbling through Modern Witchcraft.
Sarah Jack: Today you will learn about one woman's journey, Diana's, into witchcraft, the fastest growing self directed faith in America.
Josh Hutchinson: Diana spent 366 days learning how to practice the modern craft.
Sarah Jack: The Witching Year is an honest trip through her successes and failures as she learned the ins and outs. [00:01:00] Here's Diana Helmuth. She studied cultural anthropology at UC Berkeley and American University in Cairo. She is a nonfiction author, freelance writer, Silicon Valley startup veteran, hiker, producer, and cupcake baker. Her first book is How to Suffer Outside: A Beginner's Guide to Hiking and Backpacking. And her new book, The Witching Year, is available to pre order now.
Josh Hutchinson: We begin with a reading from The Witching Year by author Diana Helmuth.
Diana Helmuth: In the spirit of better planning, I am trying to come up with a list of what I'm now referring to as significant pagan locations where I can spend Lammas. I don't want to be locked in my office with a cardboard box again, and unfortunately pagan sanctuaries continue to elude me. I've already emailed five in California and received no response. (I'm assuming they are ignoring me because of COVID, but that might also be me just trying to protect my ego.)
Diana Helmuth: I text both Emma and Lauren about this [00:02:00] problem, asking their advice.
Diana Helmuth: Lauren replies, "have you thought about going to Salem?"
Diana Helmuth: And this gets me excited, because I have been waiting for an opportunity to spring into my speech. "Salem?" I reply. "But those women weren't even witches. In fact, they were insisting they were Christian the whole time they were being indicted. Isn't it pretty ironic to build a witchy homeland on their legacy? By doing so, aren't we committing the same offense as their captors and denying the wishes of the falsely accused? How did Salem become a place where actual witches connect?"
Diana Helmuth: "You have given this some thought," she replies.
Diana Helmuth: I have. Salem is the home of witchcraft because witchcraft in the modern zeitgeist is a community of weirdos bonding about abandoning Christianity.
Diana Helmuth: She taps back, "there is no homeland. So we made one. It was easy to put it there."
Diana Helmuth: "But isn't the place where Christian women insisted they weren't witches and got burned anyway for being witches a pretty dumb place for a witchy homeland?" I retort.[00:03:00]
Diana Helmuth: "Nobody actually got burned in Salem, she replies. They were hung. As for Europe, women were burned for witchcraft whether or not they were witches, and most weren't. They just owned land or were Romani or just happened to be someone's least favorite washerwoman. But those women became symbols for the persecution of women, and witchcraft is about reclaiming female power, so you end up back at square one."
Diana Helmuth: I grumble. I can't plan a trip to Salem on this short notice, but I wonder about Samhain, the witch's new year, also known as Halloween. I switch over to Emma, who lives in New England, and ask her what Salem is like in October.
Diana Helmuth: "Hell," she replies. "You do not want to come here on Halloween. It is goth Outside Lands. There's trash everywhere. You can barely get through the crowds. I thought I was going to have a panic attack just walking around."
Diana Helmuth: "I see," I reply, a bit disappointed.
Diana Helmuth: "But as for a Wiccan sacred place," you know, "you've already been going there, [00:04:00] her text bubble reads. It's nature. I don't know if you're aware of this, but your favorite hobby has been, for some time, pretty damn witchy."
Diana Helmuth: She's right. I know she's right. A deep connection with the earth is one of the few things that witches seem to universally agree is important. At the same time, I know a lot of witches I would lovingly describe as "indoor cats"-- tarot-throwing, tea-sipping, pentacle-wearing cat moms without so much as a potted mint on their windowsill. They have their kinks, but putting everything in a bag and getting spanked by nature for three days isn't one of them.
Diana Helmuth: "Hiking and backpacking isn't sacred for every witch," I tap back.
Diana Helmuth: "No," she replies, "but that's the great part about witchcraft. Everyone connects with nature in their own way. You get to make it your own. It's pretty obvious you've felt pulled by nature for a long time. So just keep going."
Diana Helmuth: I briefly consider telling her about my failed experiment with the oregano and then change my mind.
Diana Helmuth: Backpacking, while being a favorite hobby, might [00:05:00] also help with meditation. Roderick encourages people who have trouble meditating in stillness to try slow, mindful walking. What's more, walking doesn't hurt my back. It's stillness that is causing me issues. When I'm moving, nothing hurts. I began prepping for my first pilgrimage.
Sarah Jack: Thank you.
Josh Hutchinson: You've published two books now, right?
Diana Helmuth: Yes, the first one was called How to Suffer Outside: A Beginner's Guide to Hiking and Backpacking, which was a kind of a tongue in cheek approach. I like to think of it as a permission slip that I, someone had written for me when I was younger and figuring out backpacking for myself. The idea was allowing people to feel like even if they feel incorrect or like they're doing something wrong, or that someone is going to make fun of them, that they still deserve to go into nature, they can still engage with this hobby, perfection is an illusion, and the [00:06:00] whole thing is pretty goofy and painful in the first place, so just lean into it and fall down a lot, and it's fine. You still belong, you still deserve to do this, which sort of was the energy we took into The Witching Year, even though The Witching Year is not, it's not a how to. It is not prescriptive. It's just a memoir of me falling down a lot, trying to become a witch.
Josh Hutchinson: What was occupying your time before you started writing?
Diana Helmuth: I was, like most writers, like most artists, I think you do your art as often as you can while you're doing the other things that make you money or make you feel like a responsible human, taking care of other people and getting your bills paid. But I started to lean more into my writing while I was an operations and marketing assistant at a robotics company, Silicon Valley.
Diana Helmuth: I went to school. I wanted to [00:07:00] be a diplomat. I wanted to work in the Foreign Service. I was studying Arabic. I wanted to create intercultural communication bridges between the West and the Middle East. And a long story short, that didn't end up happening. I got jaded with some of the processes there, but we don't need to have that conversation.
Diana Helmuth: I worked in Silicon Valley startup land. I grew up in Northern California. I graduated from college right when the startup scene was booming in San Francisco, and I got swept right up into it. And I don't have any regrets about that, actually. I learned a lot. And I got to work with some really interesting, really smart people in a very interesting and funny time in San Francisco's history.
Sarah Jack: What led you to begin your year long spiritual quest?
Diana Helmuth: When is a good time to decide you want to try and become a witch? What happens? Crisis and the desire for something [00:08:00] interesting. I have two answers to this. The first is, I grew up in Northern California near a lot of the 1960s kind of hippie movement witchcraft started.
Diana Helmuth: These were the people who took Wicca, and you have Starhawk with the Goddess Movement, and you have Oberon Zell-Ravenheart working with all these neopagan groups, and all of these folks are percolating, Zsuzsanna Budapest starts Dianic Wicca, and all of this is happening in the 60s and 70s and 80s, and I'm born in the 80s. When I grew up, kids in school weren't just reading Harry Potter, they were reading Harry Potter and learning tarot and reading each other's star signs, and a lot of them were reading Silver Ravenwolf and Scott Cunningham and were saying, "I'm a Wiccan. I am a witch. And this isn't a joke to me. This is actually serious."
Diana Helmuth: I think I knew as many witches in high school as I knew Jewish people and actual Christians. And I think that is just very unique to where I grew up. I don't think most people in the country experience [00:09:00] that. So I knew witches growing up, and I thought it was interesting. I went to some rituals in high school, I dabbled, but I never really felt it in my bones in a very serious way. I never engaged with it in a very serious way. Like I also went to church with some of my friends and I think sermons were interesting and I didn't think Christianity was for me for a few different reasons. I always had a pleasant time when I went to church. I get the appeal. I saw the pull of inspiration and community and love that is at the root of a lot of religions that draws people in.
Diana Helmuth: But why did I decide all of a sudden at 35 to start to become a witch? I had been dabbling with it for years again, and I actually had some friends, I had two friends who are characters in the book, Meg Elison and Lauren Parker, who are both witches and also authors themselves, and they've become [00:10:00] my mentors throughout the year. And I got in an argument with Lauren one night while Meg was in the room. It was over Zoom and we were arguing about astrology and I said to her, I just got really real.
Diana Helmuth: And I said, "listen, astrology is bullshit. And it's bullshit because it is precisely antithetical to the goals of self empowerment that it peddles. It's like, how can you have this whole pseudoscience that is designed to get people in touch with who they are when it's entirely prescriptive and unchangeable based on when they were born? This is a crime."
Diana Helmuth: And she, she's, "that's not what astrology is, you're being narrow minded, it's not that scriptive, it's a path to discover the self."
Diana Helmuth: We were just buttheads and butting heads, and finally Meg intervened and she said, "do you know what the funniest thing in the world would be? Is if you got your chart professionally read and then tried to live it for a year and [00:11:00] saw what happened."
Diana Helmuth: And then Lauren said, no, it'd be, I might have it backwards. One of them said, "you should try living astrologically for a year." And then the other one said, "no, you should just try being a witch for a year," because the astrology conversation, the fight had, was born out of me saying, "I don't think this is what the occult is about."
Diana Helmuth: And Lauren said, "the fuck do you know the occult is about? Do you really know?"
Diana Helmuth: So we were in this fight about the occult and she basically said, "what do you know?"
Diana Helmuth: And I said, "nothing, but here's why I think too much of it is ironic. And I think too much of it encourages you to practice the opposite of what it is preaching."
Diana Helmuth: And she said, "you should try living as a witch for a year, because I think this would be hilarious."
Diana Helmuth: And I was looking for another book idea, and I pitched it to my agent. And she said, "oh, this sounds really funny. Okay. Yeah, do it."
Diana Helmuth: And originally, it was supposed to be a comedy. Is not a comedy now. We were spoofing off of A. J. Jacobs' Year of Living Biblically. I'm [00:12:00] very honest with that. I used his journey as a foil for my own, and he's quite funny in that. He's very glib. I found it harder to stay as glib as the year went on. I think parts of it are very funny. I am told parts of it are extremely funny, but it is not a comedy. It quickly became not a comedy as the year went on.
Sarah Jack: I could really relate to, I don't, wouldn't even call it sarcasm either, when you're having your experiences and you're talking, even at the beginning with just your intro, but when you're talking about the day that you're in and there's something funny about it, the way you present it is super relatable. Those moments where I think, okay, I'm either going to laugh right now or I'm going to cry. There's like some of that, like where you try to find the humor and just what could really be upsetting or frustrating. So I think you're really good at doing that.
Diana Helmuth: Thank you. Yeah I think some of this stuff is just... It is funny. [00:13:00] It's not supposed to be funny, and that's precisely why it's hilarious. It's supposed to be very serious. This is religion. This is spirituality. We're tapping into divinity. We're invoking gods. This is intense. And then it gets so serious. It's like when someone looks you right in the eye. My mom does this to my niece all the time, especially when she's in a really cranky mood and she goes, "whatever you do, don't smile." And it's, she can't help it. She erupts and giggles. And that's started to feel every time I sat down and actually tried to be a serious witch.
Diana Helmuth: And then quickly it was depressing, like I'm not doing it right. Cause I'm actually trying, really trying, I'm trying to do this right. And then, eventually, not to give the book away, but I don't want people to think this book is a dunkathon on witchcraft, because it isn't.
Diana Helmuth: But some breakthroughs happen, and when they happen, they are actually ecstatic. And you are laughing, but you're laughing for a different reason. You're laughing because you're happy. You're laughing because you feel like you made it to the top of the [00:14:00] mountaintop, and you never understood before, and it's, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Diana Helmuth: So I did want to talk about the honesty of the pitfalls of going on a spiritual journey, but there are also moments where I hope it's apparent that the rewards were savored.
Josh Hutchinson: That definitely came across with your gratitude for those moments when things went more as expected. But you write, and I like that you're very honest about your experiences and when things weren't working, you talk about how it didn't work, but you kept going. So how did you manage to keep going through all the setbacks?
Diana Helmuth: Ah, that's a great question. All completely honest, I think if I wasn't on a contract and getting paid to do this, I probably would have thrown in the towel three months earlier, which I am a creature who needs a lot of [00:15:00] accountability. I think witchcraft is an autodidact's dream religion.
Diana Helmuth: You could argue if it's even a religion. Of course, a lot of people would say it's not. I'm not here to fight with them. It doesn't have to be, you don't want it to be. But for other people, it is. And I think that's fair, too. But the mentors are helpful. I think just sitting and reading your books, and this is something that happens to me throughout the year. I am alone. It is COVID. It wasn't supposed to be. We thought COVID was going to wrap up at the end of 2021. It sure didn't. So COVID basically became a character in the book. We changed the whole roadmap of what the year was going to look like.
Diana Helmuth: I was supposed to go to all these events. I was supposed to do all these fun things, attend these festivals, attend these conventions. Very few of them actually happened. Most of the book is me in my house reading, talking to Lauren and Meg and interviewing some folks in the community, but for the most part, I am alone, which on the one hand, I think is a bad way to learn and on the other hand, I think reflects the experience [00:16:00] of most people who are dabbling in witchcraft now. So hopefully there is some relatability there.
Diana Helmuth: But near the end of the year, I also do start to, as the world opens up, I start to reconnect with other witches and just things get solved for me so quickly. I have amazing conversations with people that are so educational and productive and healing, and I would say, again, the book's not prescriptive and I'm not going to teach anyone how to be a witch, but if you were going to dabble, I think like any major undertaking, it's good to have some accountability and some voices outside of your own head. Get a group, man, get a coven.
Sarah Jack: And you really had a variety of voices in your story. I love that. The different conversations and encounters you're having and your inquiries. You're getting personal experience and opinion from the different individuals, and it feels like you're collecting, that you're [00:17:00] in the field collecting research and looking. I really enjoyed that piece of the journey, too.
Diana Helmuth: Yeah. We initially when I turned in the first chunk, my, one of my editors said, "this reads like a dissertation. Can you? Can you chill a little?"
Diana Helmuth: And I was like, "I want to make it clear I did my homework."
Diana Helmuth: And she was like, "remember, this is entertainment. No one is giving you a PhD at the end of this."
Diana Helmuth: There's a long bibliography. I wanted to make it clear that I had endeavored to educate myself and present the education that was relevant and fascinating. But yeah, we did have to tone some of it down a little bit, but I'm glad that came through, some of that research came through. Really nice to hear, actually.
Sarah Jack: My tie to witchcraft is the witch trial history, because I descend from two women that hanged in Salem, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty. And then I had another family in my tree that stood trial, but they survived.
Diana Helmuth: [00:18:00] I think it's really interesting that you descended from these women who were accused in this whirlwind of hate, basically, and then suffered and then died. I think it's interesting that both of you were, and something that I, in the book I talk about this, but I do go to Salem, and I'm bitter the whole time I'm there, and I, even though Salem is actually a lovely town, and everyone I met there was extremely nice, and the reason that I was a little bitter about it is because I thought it was, again, I thought it was a little bit ironic that this has become the home of modern witchcraft, because all of the women there who were accused of witchcraft wouldn't have said they were witches. So I think it's a little twisted and macabre to then build this celebration of this thing that they rejected, probably until their dying breath, basically. There's something a little [00:19:00] twisted about it. These women said they weren't witches. They were killed in a hate crime. And now we're here being like, "we're witches, yay." And we know they didn't sign up to be the symbols for this. When I bring this issue to Lauren, one of my mentors in the book, she says, "witchcraft needed a homeland and it was easy to put it there because, after 200 years, there's an evolution."
Diana Helmuth: So maybe in the soil of Salem, there is some kind of reclamation about how at the end of the day, you end up back at square one when you're talking about the persecution of witches and the persecution of women because the women and, the man, but the women who were largely accused and harmed on the charge of witchcraft. Even if they weren't, you're really looking at a hate crime against women, and witchcraft is a lot about the liberation of women and female empowerment. So again, you end up back at square one, which I suppose is fair. [00:20:00] I'll give it that. It just always struck me as a little strange, but at this point, I think Salem is here to stay. I think it's only growing. I think the more people who think about neopaganism in general is a good thing. I don't think Salem should shut down tomorrow. I'm not advocating for that. I just think the building up of Salem into what it is today is a little bit of a funny story, but you know what, so is the existence of the United States. So what are you going to do?
Josh Hutchinson: I think it's beautiful the way it's come like full circle. It built up this infamous reputation because of the witch trials and had this reputation as being an intolerant place. And now it's the scene of religious tolerance, tolerating the neopagan faiths, which certainly there's been a lot of intolerance towards that, so it's good that there's like a safe haven. Yeah.
Diana Helmuth: Yeah. I like that. I really like how you phrased that. I think [00:21:00] that's absolutely true.
Sarah Jack: I think that the people who go to Salem are seeking empowerment. There's a lot of opportunity to learn the history, too, when you're there.
Diana Helmuth: I went in the off season, it was actually quite lovely and the snow is very pretty, but everything was closed. I mean, when they say off season, they really mean off season. There was a museum we didn't even get to because they were just like, we don't open until April. I was like, Oh my bad. I came in February for Imbolc. I have heard during Halloween, it is probably depending on your personality type, a rowdy, vivacious, magnificent party or an absolute hellscape but I didn't manage to make it out there during Halloween, but it's quite pleasant in the off season if anyone ever wants to go, recommend it, actually, just make sure everything you want to see is actually open, but yeah, it was nice.
Josh Hutchinson: One of the things that I liked about your approach to the book and to your experience is that you sought information from different traditions. [00:22:00] You didn't just say, I'm going to do Wicca by the book, or I'm going to focus on being a particular type of witch. So I thought it was very interesting that you have all these multiple perspectives coming in.
Diana Helmuth: Yeah that was the hardest part, actually, was the methodology. A. J. Jacobs has the Bible, which, granted, there's a lot of different versions, and how do you interpret? I'm not saying the Bible is like a clean path or anything, but it is a book. And witchcraft does not have an equivalent.
Diana Helmuth: It does not have a pope. It does not have anything that formal or hierarchical, not really. So I thought, okay, how am I going to do this? Because I simply cannot read every book and every website and listen to every podcast episode. There's just so much content in this landscape and some of it contradicts itself and some of it is very old and some of it is very new and it's [00:23:00] hard to even know what qualifies sometimes.
Diana Helmuth: So I looked up all the books with Wicca in the title or the subheading were the best sellers for the past hundred years. And I bought them all or the top 10 or 15 or something. And I said, "okay, this is it. This is my canon." That was the best methodology I could actually think of. And then of course, there's been in the United States, it's a growing trend in younger witches away from Wicca. Wicca I think is starting to be seen as a little bit stuffy, a little problematic, a little doddering, even though Wicca has absolutely permeated the American witchcraft landscape and largely, I would say, of the entire West. People throw in different flavors, but it's, you can't, Wicca is everywhere. I think people are accidentally doing it all the time, even when they think they're not. Oh, did you know that practice was borrowed from Wicca? They might not even know who Gerald Gardner is, but they're like doing stuff that he recommended in a book he wrote in the 1950s.
Diana Helmuth: Granted, Gerald [00:24:00] Gardner took a lot of that stuff from older traditions. I'm not saying he invented them but I think that some people get really upset with Wicca. I'm not quite sure why. It gets a little, it gets a little funny to me because I think it comes out of a fear of religion and you can't be religious or you'll be stupid. It's everybody just breathe. I'm not saying Wicca's perfect, but I think there's a lot of good in it. And I think we should acknowledge how much it has influenced modern witchcraft.
Diana Helmuth: But anyway, so I get to November and Meg says to me, Meg is a Gardnerian Wiccan. She tells me, "what are you doing with this reading list?"
Diana Helmuth: And I say, "I wanted to stick to Wicca because it had structure and I felt like I needed structure and it seemed a little more just organized and considering how much of modern witchcraft is influenced by Wicca, it just seemed like an easier path."
Diana Helmuth: And she was like, she just looked at me and she said, "you are keeping yourself in the dark with this reading list. Like you need to branch out now or you're [00:25:00] kidding yourself."
Diana Helmuth: So I went back to the drawing board. She was right, of course. I went back to the drawing board and said, okay. So let's just focus on witchcraft. Wicca is small. Witchcraft is way bigger. Witchcraft is a spirituality. Wicca is a religion. And again, that can be debatable depending on the person. That's what I personally think. But I bought the top 10 to 15 books on witchcraft, and threw those into my cart, bought them all, and then started devouring them. And there were some interesting trends. There were some things that changed, but what's funny is most of the books that I bought, and this is why I say what I said earlier about how I think when people are practicing witchcraft and pretend it's so different from Wicca, unless they're doing something really specific like Hoodoo or Conjure or Voodoo they're, if they're doing like European defensive witchcraft, it probably has a [00:26:00] lot of Wicca in it because if they're reading these popular books, these top books that I read, every single one of them was written by a Wiccan. I thought I was going on this whole new magical journey and really, I was just basically hanging out in Wicca. The sole exception was Juliet Diaz's book Witchery. And she's written many books since, and Juliet Diaz, of course, is a bruja.
Diana Helmuth: But there is even a lot of Wiccan flavor in her writing, and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's just there.
Josh Hutchinson: It sounds like witchcraft, broadly speaking, offers something for every personality type. If you want the structure, you can choose the structure. If you want to practice independently, you can practice independently.
Diana Helmuth: Gardnerian Wicca is very structured. It has a lot of rules. It has a lot of formality. It really follows in the tradition of someone who is seeking something, someone who is seeking religion. And by that, someone [00:27:00] who is seeking order and community and clean paths to connect with other humans and the divine together. And I think there's nothing wrong with that. You have to be initiated. It's secretive. I don't, I wouldn't necessarily call it a closed practice. Solitary Wiccans of course exists. Scott Cunningham wrote a beautiful book about it, because he said Wicca is too beautiful for people to continue to just have it be a, this closed door thing, and you have to know someone to get you in, and he was like, fuck that, I this should belong to everybody, I refer to him as the Bernie Sanders of witchcraft, you know, because he threw open the doors and was like, everybody get in here, we're not doing this anymore, come on, this is too good.
Diana Helmuth: And I, I always, I will always love Scott Cunningham for that. Some of his writing is problematic. I like to think if he had lived longer, he would have gone back and corrected some things. But unfortunately, he died when he was very young, so he never got the chance.
Diana Helmuth: Witchcraft, on the other hand, is [00:28:00] much more free form. Who decides if you're a witch or not? Unless you're part of some organized coven, which a lot of people are. There's so many witchcraft traditions, but a lot of people today are just eclectic, they're just picking up stuff online, things are resonating with them, and then they're following them, and I do think that's a good thing, also, because so much of modern witchcraft is essentially therapy and self empowerment in every sense of the word, and it is not just for women.
Diana Helmuth: There is so much here for men. Like, whenever I meet a male witch, I'm like, good on you, king, holy shit, tell the brethren please we need so much, we need so many more of you. Yes, witchcraft is about women and women's empowerment, because it's usually women who are getting persecuted, if you look at the history books. But... Oh my god, there's so much here for every gender. I really just want every guy I know to get into witchcraft so badly. I think the world would be such an amazing place if that [00:29:00] happened.
Diana Helmuth: But yeah, I, witchcraft is very open, it's very freeing, there are very few rules, and subsequently I think we just fight a lot about what is correct or not, but at the same time, they're all on the same team because we all just want to feel safe and connected, and we're all fighting for the same thing.
Diana Helmuth: And I often talk about witches being truly the perfect example of sisterhood. You can be fighting with someone really viciously, and then 10 minutes later, like sharing Skittles with them. That, that is sisterhood, and a lot of witchcraft is like that, which I like. It's a safe place to spar ideas, knowing that you guys are ultimately on the same team as each other. I really like that about the witchcraft community and I think that's true even across traditions, like not just with European Wiccan style, but with, brujas and other sects. I really think there's this larger sense of we're all working towards the same goal. It's really beautiful.
Sarah Jack: [00:30:00] I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about, you have such a bond and perspective with nature and our climate, and then of course witchcraft has so much nature in it. You have your own personal relationship with nature and then now this journey probably brought a new dimension.
Diana Helmuth: Trying to be a witch for a year turned me into a rabid environmentalist. And I was always very left in my politics. I believe in climate change. I want politicians to help us reduce our carbon footprint. I believe in preserving the forests that I play in. And I think nature is a good thing and should be preserved. And the more nature we have, the better the planet will be and the better we will be with it, on it. But with that said, there was something about, I think, meditating on the interconnectedness of things, just [00:31:00] going outside and just staring at your garden for 20 minutes. Okay, you don't have a garden, maybe you live in an apartment. Okay, going outside and just like looking at the tree that's down the block from you, that boring ass tree. It like is a pathway to the universe. I know how insane that sounds.
Diana Helmuth: There was something that happened during the year where I got almost eco anxiety, actually, because the earth is a sacred thing in witchcraft. And I was writing about that a lot and meditating on that a lot. And I started to have anxiety around buying things in plastic containers and everything I wanted to do to help protect the environment just felt so impotent. Oh, I can vote and recycle. Oh, what? No. That's nothing. I'm the smallest of drops in a very dry bucket and we need so much more than that.
Diana Helmuth: Which in a way I think was a good thing. It motivated me to be more active in my political life in these efforts, but at the [00:32:00] same time, ultimately, it was very depressing because I think when we as individuals think about things as massive as climate change, it's very difficult not to get just horrifically depressed and especially with wildfires that are going on across the West Coast every year. I mean I weep over them. I really do. I take it very personally. These forests don't bounce back super fast. People say that they do, they don't. They will, but it doesn't happen in a year or two or three or five or even 10 in many cases. Yeah, I guess being a witch increased my eco anxiety.
Diana Helmuth: Nature is beautiful and powerful, but also is not your friend. Nature is a process. You are a part of that process. That process is not always kind. Backpacking will teach you that very quickly. To romanticize nature is to put yourself in danger, and a lot of witchcraft does romanticize nature, but I think what I actually learned is that it [00:33:00] doesn't mean, witchcraft doesn't mean going outside and thinking that nothing's going to hurt you and that everything is for you and talking to you. I think it's more like going outside and realizing that everything is connected and you're a part of that connection. And wow, doesn't it feel so good to be part of something so big and to feel plugged in like that? That's more what it is, I think.
Josh Hutchinson: The realization that you had during your journey when you realized hey, we're all the same atoms from the same distant stars and everything. We're made, literally made of the same stuff. So you know, that's just seemed like such a beautiful realization.
Diana Helmuth: Thank you. Yeah. I am worried a lot of my atheist friends are going to read this book and think I am insane now, but that's just the risk you take when you go on a spiritual journey. [00:34:00] We'll just see how it shakes out. Hopefully, I'll still have friends.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. As one atheist here, opinion, I. I don't feel that way. I think what you did was great. And I have nothing but respect for that. And if I were to choose a religion, I think that something that valued nature would be what I would do. I'm a guy who once spent two years camping.
Diana Helmuth: Two years.
Josh Hutchinson: living among nature is. All around the country. I just drove campground to campground and I'd stay for a week or two and then go to another one. And then after a year and a half of doing that, I decided to spend the next half year doing a hike. So I started on the Pacific Crest Trail. And
Diana Helmuth: Yeah. Wow. I want to read your book about the camping. Oh my god.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you.
Diana Helmuth: that sounds, I bet you've had some pretty [00:35:00] intense realizations about that. Did you ever read Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey?
Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
Diana Helmuth: I'm actually in the middle of it right now, and he is articulating so much. When I was a teenager, I felt like I would go into nature and I would have these experiences that really felt like quasi spiritual and profound.
Diana Helmuth: I didn't want to say the birds, it's not like the birds were talking to me. I just felt like I wanted to merge my atoms into the rock and become one with the rock. And wouldn't that be the best thing that could ever happen to anybody? And it was very romantic and very strong and very intense. And I don't know, it was probably just high on puberty hormones.
Diana Helmuth: And I started to lose that as I got older and it honestly breaks my heart, but I'm reading Edward Abbey right now and he's articulating it. And he's this like salty old dude and I'm like, okay cool. If he can do it, I can get it back. Yes. Yes. It wasn't just puberty, man. It was real. It was real. So yeah I'm loving it so far. It's like changing my [00:36:00] life in a really good way.
Josh Hutchinson: I had this one experience on the hike where I wasn't talking to birds, but the bees spoke to me, and I listened to them because bees tend to hang out around water sources.
Diana Helmuth: Yeah.
Josh Hutchinson: Really, you realize that instantly thinking about bees, you think the hive and hanging from the tree and whatever, but they're down where the water is. And so they led me to water on two occasions. And
Diana Helmuth: Thanks guys.
Josh Hutchinson: I don't know, just listening to nature was very helpful for me.
Diana Helmuth: Yeah. It's connection to land is something I tried to talk about a lot in the book and very quickly back, it's tricky. If you're white, do you live in America? Tricky is a mild way of putting it. There was definitely a part of the year where I also really had to work through a lot of white guilt. And I was reading a lot. I was reading a lot of authors that were helping me [00:37:00] process guilt and hidden racism and what it means to be an ally and what land back really means and all of these things. And not the book. And initially I turned in 160,000 word manuscript. They wanted 80,000 and they were like, buddy, we don't have the ink for this.
Diana Helmuth: And I was like, okay, so we cut a lot. But I do hope the sections of the book where I do write about that, they were really hard to write, because I was really afraid of saying the wrong thing. And I think there's an opportunity to do justice. And when you have that opportunity, you really don't want to fumble the ball.
Diana Helmuth: But ultimately, I hope some of the things I did in the book inspire other people, especially white people to like inquire a little bit internally around their own possible repressions and ancestry and complicated feelings about where I belong in the world and what my ancestors did to get me here. [00:38:00] Obviously that's a very personal journey, but I do think the more we talk about it probably the better. Probably the better. And maybe even my own hesitance is just white fragility, but probably is still working through, but I think it's a good thing to try, because ultimately it's all for justice and justice is always a good thing at the end of the day and should feel good, not hard.
Sarah Jack: We have an interview that's coming that we just had with a professor named Owen Davies. If you haven't read his book, America Bewitched, it's really good. It's so informative. And it really plainly shows that the trials ended, but the hunting increased, it continued. We don't have the story from 300 years ago and then, Oh, how did this keep, how come this is happening over in these 60 countries right now? America got it right [00:39:00] at some point. Maybe we got the legislation right and prosecution but it was still happening in communities, and he talks about how the mentality of witch fear within your family or within your community transferred over into, to indigenous cultures that were here. Their fear of witches was the outsider and it became the insider. And that's a tragedy.
Diana Helmuth: If anyone asks me if I'm a witch, I will say who's asking and why? Because the word witch means so many different things. It could mean a girl upstairs in her room playing with crystals and journaling about her shadow, or it could mean a woman being burned to death in Nigeria. I'm thinking about Martina Itagbor, this happened like a month ago, right? She was burned, I think, semi alive in the street [00:40:00] because people accused her of being a witch. And the thing that drives me crazy, I have read so much about her story, is, I'm like, I don't, I don't think she was. I don't think she would have said she was. I don't think, I think she would have said she was a Christian. And then of course, there are Christian witches, there's folk Catholicism and all that jazz, so that the, sometimes that either even the same word in English drives me bonkers because here I am, this, this girl in the West Coast, like who grew up where everyone could be whoever they wanted.
Diana Helmuth: And I'm writing a book about being a witch, and I feel pretty safe. There are some evangelicals who are going to come for me, and I'm a little nervous about them, but I'm not like, oh god, should I knock on wood if I say I'm not worried about being burned alive.
Diana Helmuth: And then of course in history, it's just anyone who was practicing a religion that wasn't the colonizer's religion was a witch. Any power that was not the colonizer's power was a witch, and of course in America that was Christianity, right? Indigenous practices for witchcraft and, I don't know. I know you [00:41:00] know. I don't need to tell you this.
Diana Helmuth: But that's also why I feel a little weird donning the name sometimes because I'm like, that's a lot to take on. It's a lot to compare myself to that doesn't feel entirely justified, which is why I think I feel more comfortable calling myself a neopagan because I am and I like neopaganism. I don't know if there is a more layered word in the English language. Maybe fuck. That's about it. It's witch and fuck. Those are the two most loaded words in English.
Josh Hutchinson: I think that's such a good point about how you define witch really depends a lot on your own background and perspective and understanding of what a witch is. But there's so many different versions of the witch over the thousands of years that witches have existed. I bring it down to like intentionality.
Diana Helmuth: Yeah.
Josh Hutchinson: The intentional [00:42:00] witch who wants to be practicing and is practicing. And then there's the like more reviled witch, that's the evil one who the actual person that's accused isn't usually practicing any magic or what they're doing is totally harmless, but they're being accused of harming somebody. It's put on people as a forced label, but then it's also available to embrace as a label, and that's, one of those is very disempowering and one is very empowering.
Diana Helmuth: And that to me is how the witch becomes the symbol of female empowerment, because in many parts of the world today and in the past, a witch is a woman who has too much power and is displeasing, right? So then you have this group of feminists who are saying that's exactly what we're going to fucking be, man, and we're going to wield our will. It's all about willpower. The connection there, it's just, [00:43:00] then I did have a lot of moments when I was writing this book, like, wow, I'm so privileged that I can just casually talk about how I'm trying to be a witch and there are women in the world who are literally still getting murdered in the street because other people are accusing them of being witches and they're like, "bro, I'm not." I just feel like sometimes they should be different words, but I guess they're not because the root of it is misogyny.
Sarah Jack: Yeah.
Diana Helmuth: Which is the collective struggle. There's probably a scholar who can articulate this a lot better than me, but I think we're under, we're all understanding each other, we're all understanding each other.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. And our listeners can relate and they would like to jump in the conversation right now. I'm sure when they're listening to this, it's a conversation they want to have with people. So in its conversations, they can listeners, you can have these conversations. We, one of our very early episodes that we recorded. We're what's the [00:44:00] crew that is doing the Last Witch film documentary about one of the gals that was exonerated late from the Salem Witch Trial era. And that was such an interesting conversation. But one of the themes of that conversation that came out was having the conversations, have conversations with new people, with people with different backgrounds, and go talk to them and find your connections and see the humanity in each other.
Diana Helmuth: I do love talking about this stuff. So I have, I'm on social media and stuff. If anyone wants to talk to me about this, if you are dabbling in witchcraft, I really like to hear from other people who are doing that. Because I, cause I genuinely think it's just fun to talk about this stuff. It's endless, it's boundless and it's important.
Sarah Jack: I'm excited for your book to be in hands. I think it's something that people who would embark on such a journey will enjoy, [00:45:00] but I hope those who have someone in their life that is starting a similar journey could find encouragement and guidance in your book and not guidance in witchcraft, but guidance and understanding what a journey is like for somebody and supporting them.
Diana Helmuth: That is also my hope. That is also my hope is that's what this book could be, not so much a guide, but more like a friend. Not Gandalf, but Sam. Or something like that. Yeah.
Josh Hutchinson: It's not an instruction manual, but it's like a helping hand, a friend you can reach out to and support you while you're doing the same thing.
Diana Helmuth: Yeah. Hopefully, there's something that's relatable that will make you feel less stupid. If you ever did. Maybe you never did. But if you ever did, hopefully this book will just make you feel [00:46:00] like it's okay.
Josh Hutchinson: The book's message is also one of just tolerance and mutual respect for each other. And you can differ about how you go about your spirituality or faith or religion, but humans are humans and we should respect each other.
Diana Helmuth: Yes. That is something I think witchcraft will teach you very quickly is about tolerance and patience with yourself and with others. And the more tolerant you become of yourself, the more tolerant you become of others. The more patient you are with yourself, the more patient you can become of others.
Diana Helmuth: I, again, I feel simply lucky, privileged, grateful that I grew up in an area where there was a lot of tolerance. It wasn't perfect. Definitely not for everyone, but I think compared to most parts of the world, it was extraordinarily tolerant. And [00:47:00] that I got to just do this there without fear of literally anybody killing me because I was doing something different, hopefully tolerance will increase.
Josh Hutchinson: It was good for me, at least. I can only speak from my own experience, but reading it really answered my questions about what goes on in the practice. What's it like living that way? I just want everybody else to have that same kind of experience to realize this is an acceptable path.
Josh Hutchinson: And I'd say for anybody who still has any reservations, maybe just from upbringing or your own religious background, if you have reservations about witchcraft, read this book and a lot of that'll be taken away. You clear up misconceptions. You talk about the value you're getting out of what you're [00:48:00] doing. So back to that tolerance thing again.
Diana Helmuth: Yeah, it's normal. Well, depending on who you ask. Don Martin, who wrote The Dabbler's Guide to Witchcraft, I've heard him say this before on social media. He's, witchcraft really is mainstream at this point. Like it's not really what it was in the eighties and nineties. A lot of people are playing with this stuff now. It's just how deep you are in the water. And I think he's right.
Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary.

Mary Bingham: My heart breaks for men and women who suffer from Alzheimer's disease. It is cruel. In my dad's case. It has taken him from a vital, active, well-loved citizen of his community to a man who cannot remember to do what he needs to care for himself. Many, like my dad, live in a community where he will receive the quality care that he deserves so that [00:49:00] he can live out his remaining years with dignity. We, his family, love him and our mother. We are their number one advocates and will do anything to make sure the wonderful facility where they live continue to do their best. For our parents, we, on our part, do our best to educate ourselves on his disease for his sake and to be a listening presence for hers.
Mary Bingham: However, unlike my dad, many in other communities have not received quality care. Here is a recent quote from our friend, Dr. Leo Igwe, director and founder of Advocacy for Alleged Witches, and I quote, "family members abandon them and make them suffer painful and miserable deaths. Advocacy for Alleged Witches urges the public to stop these abuses and treat people with dementia with care and compassion," end quote.
Mary Bingham: Sarah Jack says almost [00:50:00] every week in the following segment, End Witch Hunts News, that education is key. Spreading the word regarding ongoing witch hunts is also key. Please listen again to Dr. Leo Igwe in the episode "Deadly Witch Hunts of the 21st century" and Damon Leff in the episode "Witch Hunting in Modern South Africa." Then share these episodes on your social media channels. Visit our website, endwitchhunts.org, to discover how you can help to save a life.

Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update.
Sarah Jack: Advocacy for Alleged Witches has made a stand to help and rehabilitate elderly victims who have suffered from [00:51:00] violent witchcraft accusation attacks in Nigeria. Last year, hearts were shattered when Pa Justin was unjustly accused of witchcraft and subjected to a horrific act of violence. He was set a blaze in his own village in Nigeria. This month, Advocacy for Alleged Witches took a crucial step by accompanying Pa Justin back to his village. The community members asked Pa Justin to return.
Sarah Jack: Quote, "this is an exercise in social experimentation. AFAW will be closely monitoring the case of Pa Justin for some insights for future use," end quote, Dr. Leo Igwe.
Sarah Jack: AFAW advocates have also initiated an outreach and sensitization campaign within the community. AFAW is teaching that the elderly deserve dignity and care. Elderly members of society should be revered, cherished, and cared for, not unjustly accused of causing harm with witchcraft.
Sarah Jack: Witchcraft harm accusations are a deeply rooted problem, not only in many African communities, but in [00:52:00] nations across the globe, leading to devastating consequences for innocent individuals like Pa Justin. Witchcraft and sorcery accusation violence advocacies represent many countries and have an unwavering commitment to End Witch Hunts. They are taking legal action, educating community members and leaders, rehabilitating victims, and addressing how victims and communities can move forward.
Sarah Jack: Our organization, End Witch Hunts, also firmly believes that every individual and community can live free from fear and harm. We support advocacy organizations that are helping affected communities fight for justice against this gross violation of human rights through grassroots efforts. Please help spread awareness by talking to your circle of influence about modern witch hunt violence occurring across the globe. Please go to our show notes and see links to the advocacy groups that are actively working to stop the violence. Consider making a donation to AFAW, End Witch Hunts, or any of the advocacy groups listed in our show notes, and volunteer your voice to support their initiatives. Your conversations and [00:53:00] donations are making a significant difference in the lives of those affected by witchcraft accusations. Engage with local leaders and community members to advocate for policies and practices that protect the rights and dignity of vulnerable individuals like the elderly, widows, and children. Report suspicious cases. If you come across any incidents of witchcraft harm accusations, report them to the appropriate authorities and organizations like AFAW. Together, we can put an end to this injustice. Let us stand together, not just for Pa Justin but for all those who have suffered and continue to suffer due to witchcraft accusations.
Sarah Jack: Thank you for being a part of Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast community. We appreciate your listening and support. Keep sharing our episodes with your friends. This podcast is a project of our nonprofit called End Witch Hunts. It is dedicated to global collaboration to end witch hunting in all forms. We collaborate and create projects that build awareness, education, exoneration, justice, memorialization, and research of the phenomenon of witch [00:54:00] hunting behavior. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts. org to learn about the projects.
Sarah Jack: To support us, make a tax deductible donation, purchase books from our bookshop, or merch from our Zazzle shop. Have you considered supporting the production of the podcast by joining us as a Super Listener? Your Super Listener donation is tax deductible. Sign up today. Thank you for being a part of our work.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Find all of our episodes at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell your friends about the show.
Sarah Jack: We appreciate your support to end witch hunts, visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:55:00]

September 15, 2023

Irish Witch Trials with Andrew Sneddon

Witches of Islandmagee Commemoration Project

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Show Notes

This episode on Irish witch trial history takes a close look at the 1711 mass witch trial in Islandmagee through an illuminating conversation with Dr. Andrew Sneddon of Ulster University. We discuss what took place and learn about why there may have been fewer witch trials in Ireland than in other countries during the early modern period. We cover critical aspects of the witchcraft accusations, like Demonic obsession and possession, and address the similarities between Islandmagee and witchcraft accusations in Salem, and other New England witch trials. Dr Sneddon and his colleagues have launched a historic multimedia Islandmagee witch trial history commemoration project that opens September 9 in Northern Ireland. Find out what you can experience in person and what is available to experience online.

Dr. Andrew Sneddon

Advocacy Against Witch Hunts, South Africa

Stop Sorcery Violence in PNG

The International Network

Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World: An Exploratory Analysis

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Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Hi, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we speak with Dr. Andrew Sneddon about witch hunts in Ireland.
[00:00:34] Sarah Jack: This episode is full of Irish witch trial information.
[00:00:40] Josh Hutchinson: We'll learn about the Islandmagee Witch Trials, Ireland's largest witch-hunt.
[00:00:48] Sarah Jack: There were eight women imprisoned and one man, a father and husband, likely executed.
[00:00:57] Josh Hutchinson: The victims were Janet Carson, Janet Latimer, Janet Main, Janet Miller, Margaret Mitchell, Catherine McCalmond, Janet Liston, and Elizabeth Sellor. And the man who likely was executed was William Sellor.
[00:01:17] Sarah Jack: Dr. Sneddon and his colleagues have rolled out an exceptional exhibit with the Carrickfergus Museum that is hosting it September 9th through November 16th.
[00:01:33] Josh Hutchinson: This exhibit's got it all. It's got images, video, virtual reality, a video game, a graphic novel, an animation, and a play? It's got it all.
[00:01:52] Sarah Jack: A historic play from 1948, couple years before The Crucible.
[00:02:00] Josh Hutchinson: Before the Crucible, there was this play.
[00:02:03] Sarah Jack: Witches in Eden,
[00:02:05] Josh Hutchinson: Witches in Eden. Check it out.
[00:02:09] Sarah Jack: The Ulster University Research Project was led by Dr. Helen Jackson, Dr. Victoria McCollum, and Dr. Andrew Sneddon. There's also a range of objects from the Carrickfergus Museum's own collection, plus loaned items from the National Museums Northern Ireland and the National Library of Ireland and Belfast Central Library.
[00:02:30] Josh Hutchinson: Sounds exciting. Count me in.
[00:02:32] Sarah Jack: It's amazing what is available on the website to be able to look at and learn and enjoy. But, getting to go in person. It's a historic presentation of witch trial history, so what an incredible opportunity. If you can go, you need to go.
[00:02:52] Josh Hutchinson: You do. And for those of you who can't, w 1 7 1 1 .org, w1711.org, is the place to go to check that out. They've got videos you can watch and images to look at and history to read up on, including all of the transcripts of the trial records from the Islandmagee Witch-Hunt.
[00:03:19] Sarah Jack: So spread the word. Let your people know that this is going on. Get them online looking. If they're in the area, send them over to go experience what's available.
[00:03:31] Josh Hutchinson: Be there.
One thing you'll notice at the exhibit and in this episode is how similar the Islandmagee witch trials were to many of the other witch trials that we've heard about, including those at places like Salem. And there's this element of a possible diabolical possession, and we talk about how there's a fine, flexible line basically between possession and bewitchment, basically comes down to who the victim blames. Does the victim say that the devil is affecting them directly, or do they blame it on a witch?
[00:04:24] Sarah Jack: And there's some great comparisons in the dialogue today, right out of the Salem history.
[00:04:32] Josh Hutchinson: Out of Salem, out of Connecticut, out of so many places, there are these cases with afflicted persons behaving very similar to how people behave when they're possessed by the devil, according to the set down traditions that we have from this time period.
[00:04:58] Sarah Jack: We are so happy to have Dr. Andrew Sneddon here today. He's the leading expert on the history of the Islandmagee Witch Trial of 1711 and has published widely on Irish witchcraft and magic. He has spent the last decade taking the untold story of the Islandmagee Witches and Irish witchcraft to a new, diverse, international audience. He has worked with numerous libraries, archives, museums, community, educational, and women's groups. He's the president of Ireland's oldest professional historical Society, Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies.
[00:05:34] Josh Hutchinson: What sets the Irish Witch trials apart from others?
[00:05:38] Andrew Sneddon: I think the lack of them, probably, you start with a negative, Irish witchcraft. There was only a handful of trials now in the early modern period. Now there's a lot more trials after, ironically, the witch legislation is repealed. And they're involving witch accusation at some level, but they're not witch trials per se. But during the early modern witch hunts there, there's very few of them.
[00:06:07] Sarah Jack: The Witchcraft Act was enacted in 1586, but not repealed until 1821.
[00:06:14] Andrew Sneddon: Absolutely. So it's actually a copy of the Elizabethan Act of 1563, which I know that you've covered before, in other programs. This is part of the Elizabethan colonial rollout of legislation to, Uh, Ireland and did the roll out the Witchcraft Act as well. You're right, it's there right until the early 19th century. And it's almost, by that point, it rolls out of the imagination of the elites and it is just an administrative cleanup, I think Ian Bostridge said it was at one point, but that doesn't mean that popular witchcraft belief isn't everywhere, or that all elites don't believe in witchcraft anymore. But definitely of that legislative level after the Irish Parliament is away it's repealed.
[00:07:05] Josh Hutchinson: Can you quantify how many witch trials there were in Ireland?
[00:07:11] Andrew Sneddon: There was many accusations and formal accusations, but there were usually coming from Presbyterians and Presbyterians coming from Scotland with their own witchcraft place where, as you know, it was really bad. So they're coming after 1660, so most of them are not going to trial.
So there's loads of accusations that we know of, and some of them get to court, but don't go anywhere. So there's actually only two trials, two main trials. There's some trials before the 1586 Act and obviously ones after it, but there's only two main, one of Florence Newton in Youghal in Cork in 1661 and Islandmagee Witches in County Antrim in what is now Northern Ireland in Ulster in 1711, and this is nine people.
We don't really know what happened to Florence Newton, if she was executed or not. Some people think there are, but the, I've transcribed the, all the documents. It doesn't tell you what happened to her. And we know that the eight Islandmagee witches were not executed and, the, they missed out that, just, a legal nicety and on the day of the trial, and they were imprisoned under the 1586 Irish Witchcraft Act for four times in the pillory on Market Day, as well. And the one male witch we think might have been executed
[00:08:28] Sarah Jack: How do you think he would've been executed?
[00:08:32] Andrew Sneddon: Well, do you remember what we were talking about, the rolling out of the Irish witchcraft legislation was just a rolling out of the English witchcraft legislation? Again, by 1600 the older Gaelic systems of law, the Brehon law and systems of legal prosecution are being replaced at a county level in the 32 counties, at least with the English system.
So what you know about the English witch trials and how they were actually like governed, just put that in Ireland. So you've got justice of the peace, you've got magistrates, you've got the grand jury of 23 men. You've got the assize court. So all the things that are keeping witchcraft prosecution low in England, which it was quite hard to get somebody prosecuted for witchcraft in England, are operating in Ireland. So same legal administration, same courts, same law. And it's coming from Scottish Presbyterians. That's where the accusations are coming from. So it's very weird. It's a Catholic country with Presbyterians making the accusations, mainly that we know, and an English court system
[00:09:45] Josh Hutchinson: So it's a jumble of three different sets of beliefs and rules and traditions. Four.
[00:09:54] Andrew Sneddon: Four 'cause what we haven't talked about is a mass of the population. So you start getting Protestants coming in after the Reformation. Even before that Ireland has a colonial past from the 12th century, but they're in increasingly coming in after the 16th century and the plantation, and the people who are bringing them with them strong belief in witchcraft are usually coming from England.
So if you go back to Youghal, that is a puritan settler English place. It's in Cork. And so you will see familiars, and you'll see swimming. You'll see tropes that are in English witchcraft there. And then if you go up north, if you go to Islandmagee, you will see more Presbyterian and tropes.
But the fourth one is the mass of the population. The kind of, at this period, 80% of the population, they still Irish speaking, Irish Catholics, population and they are not making formal accusations. Now, in the past we would argue that it was because they didn't want to go to Protestant courts, but we found out that they did for other things, so they might have for witchcraft, it's still a permanent argument perhaps, but we've looked at, Ronald Hutton and myself, and we've looked at belief more, and we would suggest that they just, it's not that they didn't believe in witches. They just believed in a witch that was less threatening, that attacked agricultural produce, stole milk and butter.
Now, you get this in Poland and places where they do execute witches, but the threat level is higher there, because they have a higher demonic input to them. There is no demonic input to these beliefs. These witches are women. They shapeshift into hares to steal milk, and you get that more in the folklore, or they use a sympathetic magic to transfer the goodness from their own crops to elsewhere.
Now you will see this in Isle of Man, you'll see it in Wales, and you'll, as I said, you'll see in other countries. But when it starts to become a wee bit demonic or it becomes more of a problem, then that's when you start getting, I think, the prosecutions of witches. And you don't get that in Ireland, in this period, anyway. So the mass of the population have a low threat level of witchcraft. They have a witch figure, or it's nothing.
[00:12:16] Josh Hutchinson: So the people accused of witchcraft, generally, they weren't killing children and causing people to be sick, that kind of thing?
[00:12:26] Andrew Sneddon: Yeah, I, and they weren't actually formally accusing them. They might have been doing it, probably don't know, because we just don't have their records. They're, they were an Irish speaking population, and we don't have, we don't know quite frankly. We know very little, we know about the beliefs usually transmitted through English, unfortunately, rather than, there is very little in Irish and it's mainly legal and political, and that has survived in manuscript form and nothing about witchcraft. It's usually transmitted through, as some people would say, the colonial gaze through English.
But let's go back to Islandmagee and let's get back to Youghal. What they're shared is, they're very similar, in fact, to Salem, the start of Salem. They're very similar to what you're getting in Lowland Scotland in the 1590s and the early 1700s. They are witchcraft trials involving demonic possession, where the main is demonic possession. Now, I know that there's controversy over whether there was demonic possession in Salem at the beginning, but definitely like the tropes are all there, the similarities, the fits, and the young people and blaming other people for that, blaming witches rather than blaming the devil himself, which would, indicate some sort of, sinfulness in their own parts. So they blame witches for their symptoms, so you get spectral evidence, although unlike Salem, it's not kicked out, it's the main one in Islandmagee, and it's the main one that's used in Youghal, as well, although witness testimony, as well.
And they actually in Islandmagee bring forth the vomited objects. That's why, we'll talk about it later, but that's why we've represented them in the VR. There's a material culture there. Yeah.
[00:14:27] Josh Hutchinson: But the demonic was unusual for Ireland, even the type of possession that was occurring was that unusual?
[00:14:36] Andrew Sneddon: It wasn't unusual given who it's happening to, so you're getting demonic possessions in the late 16th century and early 17th century in England. And then lo and behold, you'll see it in Cork in 1661 among the same people, the settler populations. And then you're seeing it increasingly in the north of Ireland in Ulster from the people who are coming from Scotland.
I know that Brian Levack in a great book on witch-hunting in Scotland argued it was the Calvinist Network, the British Calvinist Network.
[00:15:09] Josh Hutchinson: Sarah and I were talking about demonic possession yesterday, and there was really like a fine line between what's demonic possession and what's bewitchment. So yeah, so sometimes hard to say.
[00:15:27] Andrew Sneddon: It is hard to say in some circumstances, but you can see when they're talking about the devil made me roll about or the devil will not get me, and when they're in their fits or their convulsions, as well, when, you know, the witches are visiting them, is it that's what's causing the convulsion or is it the devil or? It's much more clear cut when you go to certain places in Europe, when you're getting whole convents are demonically possessed.
But it is direct demonic possession, rather demonic possession via witchcraft. It starts to get a bit gray when you, when it's involving witchcraft, but I think in some clear cases that is clearly not your normal witch trial.
[00:16:09] Josh Hutchinson: It's easy for things to get out of hand. You mentioned Salem and Islandmagee starts with this possession or affliction, and then you bring in the spectral evidence. It's really easy for things to start getting outta hand.
[00:16:25] Andrew Sneddon: What I argue in my book, Possessed by the Devil, it was 2013, it was a long time ago I wrote. I'm writing a second edition as we speak, but what I suggested was what was key here. And especially when you're looking at 1711, within the grand scheme of things, it's a period of decline, perhaps not in belief, that's a tricky one, but definitely judicial skepticism and a drop in trials, different times, different places, different reasons, different rates of decline. We know that. But there definitely is trailing off. And what you need, a committed central actor. And again, Levack would argue they're following a cultural script here that's easy to learn. You need a central actor who's keeping it going all the way through that you can focus your attention on.
Now she is Mary Dunbar, she's 18. She's educated, she is visiting a family where there has been demonic obsession and the matriarch has died in suspicious circumstances. Now, she is as I said, educated, biblically sound. The male authors of the sources tell you that, at pains, that she's good looking and she's trustworthy and all this stuff, and they're always demoniacs, demonically-possessed people are always showing themselves to be paragons of virtue, and I think she does that.
Contrast against the eight women that she accuses, first of all, who are tried at 31st of March, 1711. They are visually different. They're disabled. Two of them have lost an eye, one has fell on a fire and is burnt down one side, she has a crooked hand, one has, in the parlance of the time, a club foot. They're a small pox scarred. And the idea that everybody was small pox scarred, , I don't think is true when you read diaries at how people are affected by their visual change.
So they'll look different, but they're also act different. They challenge patriarchal norms, they drink strong alcohol, wine, they smoke, they resist arrest. They don't follow the prosecution process. They try to evade it at every turn. And even when they have no idea what's going on at the trial, they still plead guilty and deny their innocence, right to, so there, there is resistance and there's agency, but these are marginal women. They're poor. They have dubious reputations. Some of them could have been practicing at some level popular magic. The contrast is really palpable between believable witches, marginalized people, and the believable accused. So they're believable witches and she's a believable witness. And it's a heady combination.
Then Mary Dunbar dies three weeks after the first trial. We don't know why. And it took me going through every newspaper in 1711 in Ireland, and I found it. And basically, yeah she died and, but she'd already been accusing a final witch, William Sellor. Janet Liston was his wife, and his daughter was Elizabeth Sellor. Basically, it went from a misdemeanor to a felony, because she had died in the time that she had accused him. And he went to trial in 1711. Like we do a lot of the time in Scottish trials, we are assuming that he was executed.
[00:19:58] Josh Hutchinson: So the eight women, they're tried first, and then Mary Dunbar dies, and then William Sellor is tried with the enhanced charges?
[00:20:08] Andrew Sneddon: Yes. And that's it. There is no more under the 1586 Irish Witchcraft Act. There's one, an interesting one, in 1807 where the person could have been prosecuted for witchcraft. Mary Butters, she's a cunning person. She's a magical practitioner or a service magician, if you want to use that parlance, and she tries to cure a bewitched cow, just like we were talking about there, and ends up killing everybody in the house. Her magic goes wrong and she kills them by carbon monoxide poisoning by burning sulfur in a house to where everything has been sealed up.
She could be done under the 1586 Irish Witchcraft Act, but isn't. And it just shows you there's no, at a judicial level, anyway, by that time to try people for witchcraft under the witchcraft act, so it's a dead letter in that sense. Doesn't mean belief has went anywhere.
[00:21:06] Sarah Jack: Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about what that means, that she was a cunning woman?
[00:21:12] Andrew Sneddon: If you look at the main historians, but the parlance, maybe it's changing. Some people don't like cunning folk because it's, it is anglophone. But and I want to widen the, the parameters of it, but there are among many magical practitioners, and I'll no go through them all, there's so many different ones and the borders between them are very different. But a fortune teller, for example. But a cunning person, I would say, is a multifarious magical practitioner. That is somebody who's commercial who usually charges money or goods in kind and usually perform more than one magical service. Now, this can be thief detection. This can be a counter magic, which is bread and butter a lot of the time. And that means detecting, thwarting, or bringing witches to the authorities. But they also can do some magical healing using herbs or spells or whatever that is not caused by supernatural means, that are natural means. And there's some divination in there, as well, as I said, lost or stolen goods, but also thief detection and that sort of thing. So they're remarkably consistent, cunning folk, that particular type, I think, from the early modern period, right through in the modern period. And you get 'em all over Europe, and you get them in America as well, right up to the late 19th century, possibly beyond.
[00:22:35] Josh Hutchinson: When people were accused of witchcraft in these few cases in Ireland, how were they tested?
[00:22:45] Andrew Sneddon: Yeah, this is the thing, spectral evidence, by this time, they haven't used it after, I think, is it 1655 in England? And obviously, it's overturned in Salem and this is 1711 we're talking about. So they know there is ultimately question, so they, they do blind tests, almost pseudoscientific the, because a demonic possessed person will get worse when the person approaches them or touches them.
And they actually did that in some trials. I think they did that in the Bury St. Edmonds, one in 1645 in England. And they get the person to touch them. That could be said, oh, they're just seeing the person that they want to get executed and acting up. So they get them and bring them in silently and get them to come in behind them so they can't see it. They also get a lineup. They bring 30 people, from everywhere, 30 women from everywhere and line them up. And she has to pick out the witch. She says she's never met them before. She only has met them when they attack her spectrally.
[00:23:48] Josh Hutchinson: A lot of that sounds so familiar with Salem and other witch trials that we've talked about on the show before. In Salem, they did the touch test, the exact same thing. I wish they would've done a lineup, because that could have eliminated some of them who, the witnesses who were accusing didn't, like you said, they'd never met a lot of these people that they were naming beforehand, and so they would name somebody in some far off town and have no idea who they were when they saw them, except that they were the only one that was brought in. So by process of elimination, they're like, oh, that's Goody Sandwich or whoever it was.
[00:24:39] Andrew Sneddon: The problem there is that Mary Dunbar says she had never met them before, but she's able to pick them out every single time. Every single time.
[00:24:47] Josh Hutchinson: So she knew them somehow?
[00:24:49] Andrew Sneddon: Yeah. I argue in the book that she's got an accomplice.
[00:24:51] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We know in some of the testimony in Salem, there's accounts given by like defense witnesses that say we heard that afflicted accuser ask somebody, "who is that lady who's up there, who's the prisoner at the bar?" And they would get information from the crowd. But yeah, she must have known somehow. You don't get a hundred percent right.
[00:25:19] Andrew Sneddon: No, and you, the public spectacles. The house was absolutely full, and you could argue if it's demon possession case. It's a chance to see the devil in action. You are basically touching the other world through this person. And yeah, there's no tv, This is something that's happening in a community in a peninsula that is eight miles long with 300 people in it. You can see why everybody's interested in it. And you're right, there could be all sorts of things that, that are happening that are culturally transmitting this to her. The idea that is a cultural script, that she's actually following a script, but she's also reacting like every good actor to the audience.
This is why I think their symptoms change in demonic possession cases. Now not all of symptoms are simulated. They can start off simulated and then become unsimulated. They can be suffering from some illness. Now, I couldn't, I went through all the types and I couldn't see, and they usually would bring this up at some point. And they did before in other occasions in Ireland, but they didn't, here. I think it was simulated to some extent in Mary Dunbar's case.
[00:26:40] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I have some theories about that too, about how in Salem, at least, the afflicted persons, there might've been some illness, there might've been just a genuine fear that they were bewitched and like you alluded to, with the touch test, they get near the person that they think is afflicting them, they're gonna act out somehow just because the fear is gonna overwhelm them.
[00:27:08] Andrew Sneddon: They know what's expected culturally, there's a cultural script. They know how to react in a demonic possession case. They know where it is and that's when, we've always tried to, I've tried to do is that the idea of these people live in a magical moral universe where spiritual essences are constantly interfering in your world, everybody believes that some sense, not everybody, but a lot of people, the accused and accusers would believe in witches and witchcraft and the possibility of demonic possession. But then again, you've got quite a lot to gain. We've talked about the forces, the patriarchal forces, that brought the eight women to the fore, those patriarchal forces were also constraining Mary Dunbar. She's in a tight, clerical family. She's not considered in Ireland an adult. Doesn't matter if she's 40 until she's married. Even then, I understand the agency, I understand resistance, and understand the ways that you can overturn patriarchy and the forces that cut through patriarchy, but it still limits your options. And so you could see it in that sense as well.
It's a reaction against are very strict, gendered, patriarchal upbringing. You are able to swear in the minister, punch 'em, spit on them, rip up bibles, cavort, and roll about in beds with young men without any damage to your reputation. You can move from the margins of adult attention to the center stage of a drama of your own creation. Now, this is James Sharpe who put words to this and Philip Almond, when he was studying mainly English demonic possessions. But I think it's, I think it's a good explanation. I don't think it's total explanation in all demonic possessions, but I think it works here.
[00:29:00] Josh Hutchinson: It works in so many cases that we've heard about of this kind of thing it's these young women who have the pressures to get married and be good Christians and good mothers and wives, and they're acting out against the system that's squeezed them into that role.
[00:29:24] Andrew Sneddon: Absolutely. And so that's why, accuser and accused, and putting pejorative spins on both, I think is a mistake. I think you have to understand the situation they're in.
A community itself is under pressure because the Presbyterians are being basically turned against, they, they help to defeat the the Catholic uprising and they help bring William of orange to power and then they're abandoned by the Church of Ireland.
They're trying to shut down their schools. They're trying to enforce old laws. After 1704, they force 'em out of local government. So they feel that they're their whole raison d'etre is under threat. Their whole religion and religious freedom are under threat. And that's the Presbyterians in 1711. Now, you get economic downturn and then you get famine, and then they all go, like whole communities from where I'm sitting, just go to America. Just, we're talking a minister and 300 families, they just go to America.
There's pressures there and communities under crisis. All these things make whatever problems you've got worse. We've all lived through covid. If you were having anything, any problems in Covid, the wider situation made them worse, and I definitely think you've gotta look at that when you're looking at Islandmagee, as well.
[00:30:51] Josh Hutchinson: We've heard about this almost formula of this confluence of all these tensions that has to occur to put the pressure on the community so that they start seeing witches, things like the warfare and the crop failure and religious conflict.
[00:31:13] Andrew Sneddon: Absolutely. Yeah. It's a whole load of things. Not all the time, but it's a whole load of things going wrong at the same time when you get a mass trial.
And this is a mass trial, nine people. So it is.
[00:31:26] Josh Hutchinson: Out of a community of 300, that's a lot of people. We've talked about the demonic possession. In Islandmagee, there's also a talk about a demonic boy. What can you tell us about that character?
[00:31:42] Andrew Sneddon: He is part of the demonic obsession. It's like it's a precursor, it's where the demon, and you'll see it quite a lot of the time in Presbyterian Ulster, where they get the elders from the Presbyterian church and they get a minister to come and investigate instances of this, where a demon is basically wrecking the house. Fast forward 150 years and it's a poltergeist, but at this point it's demonic obsession, and the demonic boy seems to be at the core of this. And he a appears to old Mrs. Haltridge. Now old Mrs. Haltridge owns the house. She's the widow of a Presbyterian minister and that's where Mary Dunbar visits, 'cause she is the niece of Anne Haltridge. After that, she's died in mysterious circumstances and that's when it all kicks off.
The demonic boy visits old Mrs. Haltridge and threatens her and grabs a Turkey cock and tries to kill it with a sword and smashes windows. But do you remember I was talking an accomplice? One of the persons who see this is the servant, Margaret Spear, and she is around a lot when this happens before me comes and then she's around that when a lot it happens, 'cause this behavior continues. They only, I think, Mary Dunbar only sees the demonic boy, once or twice. Now the demonic boy is obviously, a demon and it's recognized sometimes it's called a spirit. And this is the popular imagination. Sometimes specters and demons, there's a porous boundary between them, they're always coming up against it. You've mentioned it already, the unstable meanings all the time when you're dealing with witchcraft. And I think that is definitely one of them. The demonic boy. He is dressed in black. He's got everything that tells you he's a demon.
[00:33:43] Josh Hutchinson: It sounds like he was a little prankster or something to me.
[00:33:48] Andrew Sneddon: Or it's fantasy.
[00:33:50] Josh Hutchinson: Either one.
[00:33:51] Andrew Sneddon: The demonic body wasn't seen by many, but a lot of the witnesses saw the other stuff, right? So they saw a big bolster pillow about two foot high walk across the floor of the kitchen. They saw a petticoat just twirling. This is like horror movie stuff, twirling in the middle of the floor. You've got lithobolia everywhere, getting pelted with stones and other classic demonic obsession possession thing. Cats, there's some demonic cats in there. If you wanna see something similar, look at the trial of Jane Wenham in 1712, a year later in Hertfordshire loads of people have written loads of good stuff on it. But you can see some of the politicization happens in 1711 in Islandmagee, as well. You see it becoming a party political tool between whig and Torries, only it's reversed in Ireland. The Torries want to let the Islandmagee witches off, and the Presbyterians want to get her prosecuted.
[00:34:50] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we have a couple of these stone throwing demon cases in New England, also. There's one we're looking at in Massachusetts right now, the Elizabeth Morse case, with her grandson that comes to live with her and then all the weird stuff starts happening with the bed moving in the night and stones coming in the chimney and all these things. So that sounds like it was the demonic obsession playbook.
If you want to talk about the 19th century, what happens then as far as witchcraft accusations?
[00:35:27] Andrew Sneddon: They don't end. I have argued elsewhere that witchcraft belief, there is people who publicly deny it and then what they do actually suggests that they do believe in it, right? So they say they don't believe in witches, but they will put up witch stones to protect their houses or they will maybe accuse somebody of witchcraft or they will not go somewhere or something, it'll affect their behavior.
And then there's people who say they believe in witchcraft and this and accuse people of witchcraft and follow through it even to the court, and you're getting this in the 19th century in Ireland. So by the late 19th century we were talking about kinda polarization between Gaelic Irish Catholic belief and Protestant settler belief. I think they come together in a kinda perfect storm.
So the Protestant belief, you get more of this kind of dairy stealing seeping into that. And you can see it even when it goes to some, go to the church courts, the Presbyterian church courts. You can see it by the late 1700s and again, I think on the other side, Gaelic Irish communities, what you'll see is by the 19th century definitely is witches can harm human beings more. And itself, the act of, especially after the famine in the 1640s that stealing produce and in rural areas becomes a bigger problem and something, especially among the communities where these accusations are happening.
So people are accusing, again, accusing their neighbors, usually co-religionists. There's usually not Catholic v Protestant, it's usually Catholic against Catholic, and they're accusing them of killing cows, stealing butter, stealing, even transforming into hare, sometimes, but usually just stealing butter, using the evil eye on their cows, using charms, buried on their land, things like that, and they're accusing each other, but they can't really take them to court because after 1821, there's no act to do it by, and whether they want to anyway, but what they take things into their own hands, so you'll get accusers just like in England and just like in 19th century America accusers grabbing them and swimming them and, you know, beating them up. But in Ireland, it's usually rather than mobs doing it as an England, in some places in America in the 19th century, in Ireland, it's usually individuals.
So what you'll do is you'll think somebody has been stealing the milk produce from your cows using sympathetic magic. And you'll get cases where they shoot them, they hit them with shovels, they hit them with reaping hooks. There's one murder. And Will Pooley again is doing some brilliant work in France showing that this is happening in France as well.
And so you're getting accusers taking it out that way, but they're also using the lower courts that are rolled out after 1840s, the petty sessions. And so what they're doing is they can't prosecute somebody for magically stealing their milk or their butter or killing the cow, but what they can do is they can do them for theft. They're, you know what they think they've magically stole their milk, but they're just doing them for theft.
The people who are accused are also using the law to accuse their accusers of slander. And sometimes they're finding themselves in hot water, because what they're doing is reacting to the accusation by beating up the accuser. So they're doing the same thing and or slander in the accuser, so you're getting flooded after 1840s up to the end of the 19th century of these accusations, usually in lower courts, but sometimes they go to the higher courts, like the quarter sessions or the assizes when some serious, when they're slashing people, and it's not just like a factional violence, this is violence it targeted to, against something you think has bewitched you or the other way around. And so you're getting that right up until the end of the 19th century. I think that the last one that I came across, it tails off in the 20th century, and the last one's in 1946. The last big one is 1927, so it's tailing off definitely in the 20th century. Courts are just turning their backs, especially when the island of Ireland separates into Northern Ireland and the Republic in 1921, but the belief's still there and you're still getting it in rural areas right up to the end of the 20th century, belief, especially in witches who can harm cattle or steal produce and occasionally harm humans.
[00:40:15] Josh Hutchinson: 1927, huh?
[00:40:18] Andrew Sneddon: Yeah. And you'll see as well, if you look at the material culture, if you look at some of the objects that survive, and this is a real one, a witch stone, hag stone. You'll see these in museums in Northern Ireland and they're hung in buyers or sometimes wee ones around the necks of the cows to protect them.
So they, they do take it seriously. They're used against fairies sometimes, as well, and also, yeah, I think it's important to look at doubt and to look at saying one thing and doing another. But I think it's very important to understand as well, in the Irish context, at least, people are believing in witches, they're frightened of them, and they're doing something about it for a good party in the 19th century.
[00:41:00] Sarah Jack: I don't understand, like that's less than a hundred years ago. How did so many of us forget and we don't understand what these protective things are just a century later? How did that happen?
[00:41:17] Andrew Sneddon: Just like cultural memory and social memory, there is a great book by Guy Beiner called Social Forgetting. And I've argued in a book in 2022 called Representing Magic that you've got all this kind of popular belief, right? But the books and sermons written by male elites are saying they're using enlightenment rhetoric. They're in the 19th century.
But the idea that we are enlightened elites. We are enlightened. This land's enlightened. We are moved beyond the ignorance and the bigotry of the witch hunts. Look how great we are, and they use it as an example to place distance between them and themselves. And it's easier in, in Ireland 'cause there's so few of them anyway, it's the same rhetoric you'll see in England and you'll see in North America as well.
The historians will talk about historic witch trials in the 19th century and the antiquarians, and completely ignore the fact that all this is happening around them. And you'll see it in the cultural representations, as well. Ian Bostridge and Owen Davies were saying that witchcraft is history, basically. And it's the same thing. It's, it is when you deal with witchcraft, you deal with the historic example. So when the 19th century, they love talking about Islandmagee, they love talking about Youghal. They don't discuss the fact it's happening all around them. And what they also do, they, and invest it with gender ed language as well. By the 19th century, the end of the 19th century, is weaponized by the newspapers. And so what they start talking about, again, some of the same newspapers as reporting the crimes at another part of the newspaper are saying, "oh, there is some belief, but we're past that." But still, it is still there.
And the historians, as well. And the newspapers are gendering it just as female. Now as we, we saw 1711, there was a male witch, but also in the 19th century, a lot of these people who are accused are actually male, as well. I think it's something like 40%. I can't remember the figures off top of my head, but I think Will Pooley's finding this in France as well, that there's a far greater proportion of men, so their gendering it as female. They're just saying it is something that's passed and that has been reproduced in newspapers and then it's been reproduced in culture and poetry and paintings and drama. And I think that's where it is, and you'll find that in Ireland.
And you know what they'll say why are you doing witchcraft? And I was told by hundreds of people, even historians, what are you doing, because there wasn't any in Ireland. I think part of that is a problem that it was remembered at a local level 'cause people in Islandmagee for two centuries after it remembered it, but there's a discursive silence around it as well.
When we are saying about this kind of, almost discursive silence, that's, if you're looking at kinda official sources, you're looking at sermons, you're looking at male elites. But if you take on board folklore and material culture, if you go beyond the kind of, you don't know, almost the official to the vernacular, whether it is in Irish or English, if you go to the folklore, then you will find, I think this more and more, and that's where I have went as well to learn about witchcraft. And it's something that Guy Beiner argues as well, that when he was talking about the 1798 rebellion it's forgotten in certain spheres, but kept alive in others in different ways, in, in different contexts. And I think it, it works for the Islandmagee trial as well.
[00:45:00] Josh Hutchinson: Talking about the material culture, what were some other forms of protective magic that might have been employed?
[00:45:08] Andrew Sneddon: The big thing you know, would be, especially, and in Ireland would be protecting the churn. So you would put hot embers into the churn when you're churning. You would maybe have something roundabout the churn. You would make sure that people didn't say things or do things, you wouldn't have anybody looking at the churn. With children as well you have a lot of, especially when they were young, a lot of rituals and sometimes objects used to protect against witchcraft.
But just like in everywhere else, you get written charms are held close to the body, especially in soldiers. You get personal amulets all those sorts of protective magic. And you get, it's used in Islandmagee, as well. She first goes to a Catholic priest who, she's a Presbyterian, but it just shows you the cross boundaries of popular magic, because he's meant to have the best charm. So she goes to him, it doesn't work, and then she goes to a Scottish man, and he has one that works, but it makes her worse. So they cut it off, and it's a magical string that she uses , but they also use herbs as well. Especially this is something that's probably argued more by Ronald Hutton. He would say that witchcraft belief wasn't taken up as much because the Gaelic Irish believed in fairies and a lot of the things that fairies did were blamed on witches but use a lot of vervain and other plants were used, foxglove, all the kind of stuff, and mountain ash as well. You all the ones you see elsewhere would be used either to cure or as protection, but they're limitless. I could go all day on the different types.
[00:46:50] Josh Hutchinson: The commemorative project and exhibition, can you just explain that in a nutshell to begin with?
[00:46:57] Andrew Sneddon: This is a commemorative an a memorialization. The first plaque to Islandmagee Witches was erected this year. That was something outside the project, something we were involved in, but something that was outside this project. No. And we have taken it forward with this exhibition.
It's the first exhibition of an Irish witchcraft trial. And it's happening here. As far as I know, it's the first one. And it comes out of a project called the Islandmagee Witches a creative and digital project. The website is, and I'm sure you can put it up in yours, w1711.org, and all the outputs are there.
And what we wanted to do was to take this to another level. I have a practitioner of public history. I've done TV and podcast, but it mainly radio and TV and talks. And I took it all after it broke in 2013. I took this everywhere. I was talking about it a lot. This is creative collaboration of public history where the historian is actually helping to create a history as well.
So the outputs are that, so we are wrote with a local graphic artist from Derry, Londonderry, a graphic novel about the trial. We also wrote with it, the project I'll say is led by me and Dr. Victoria McCollum, but it involves a whole load of people from Ulster University as well, and a lot of funding from Connected and AHRC and things like that.
But the VR was with Dr. Helen Jackson. And that makes you become demonically possessed. And we're trying to get across what it's like to be demonically possessed, but also what it's like to be accused in a kind of way to deal with intangible cultural heritage in a very immediate and immersive environment and let people engage with the story that might not otherwise engage with it.
So the VR there, but we've also got a prototype of a video game. Again, it's a kind of serious video game where you go into the shoes of the accuser. And it's just trying understand the moral choices and why people accused, not just to understand the accused, but understand the accuser and why these things happen. So that's the video game.
And then there's a bespoke animation. We got a local all women animation studio in Belfast to create a 14 minute animation, which I scripted on it. And that is actually in the VR app, but I think you can access that through the website, as well. And the graphic novel, as well. And we got local people, and we got staff and students Adam Melvin and Brian Coyle and Sabrina Minter. They were working on the computer game. And Adam was working on the score, so he has come up with an original score for the VR.
Lastly no, we're doing a lot of workshops as well. So we're doing creative writing workshops, we're doing printing workshops, but we're also putting on a play called Witches in Eden. And this is produced by Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick, Ulster University, Victoria and myself.
And it's involving staff and students, and Witches in Eden was written in 1948, just before The Crucible, and it actually contains a lot of the tropes of The Crucible, by Olga Fielden, who was a Belfast based playwright. And it's never been put on since I think 1951. And I wrote about that in Representing Magic, the 22 book, as a kind of idea of exploring the cultural representations and the afterlife of the Islandmagee trial. But, Victoria had a great idea. Why don't we put it on and, so it'll be on, in the Riverside Theatre at the end of October in Coleraine in Northern Ireland. The exhibition is in Carrickfergus, and that is on the ninth, and it runs to the 16th of November, 2023. There's a big launch in the 16th.
The great thing about it, so the exhibition space right, is across the road from where the trial happened. Touching distance.
[00:51:10] Josh Hutchinson: Wow.
Wow.
[00:51:13] Andrew Sneddon: So, yeah. And you can see more about it on the website. We're working with other people who work in memorialization, as well, the University of Highland and Island working with RAGI and other people who, who have worked on, how to memorialize in different ways, not just through plaques, but through digital and creative technologies and storytelling.
[00:51:34] Josh Hutchinson: It's such a creative way to present the story to this generation of people. Use all the technology that's available and it's like you've covered every form of media that you can, basically.
[00:51:53] Andrew Sneddon: It is been quite thorough, but it was organic. We didn't go right. We're doing everything right,
[00:51:57] Josh Hutchinson: yeah,
[00:51:58] Andrew Sneddon: but, but we work in a university with such talented people like Brian and Adam and Sabrina and Victoria and Helen and Shannon Devlin and the history department, as well, and Lisa Fitzpatrick, all these people who are so good at what they do. And if they come together and we work as a team, it's amazing what you can achieve.
[00:52:18] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I'm hoping it serves as an example for other locations where there were witch trials.
[00:52:25] Andrew Sneddon: Yeah. And so you don't go down the Disney World of war, aspect, you know that some places are, over commercialization, certain that with respect, and the historical aspects we respect as well, that there were real people with descendants that are still around.
[00:52:44] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Speaking of the commercialization, you were recently in Salem actually, weren't you?
[00:52:51] Andrew Sneddon: Yeah. I've been before and to be honest, the first time I went I was more kinda whoa than the second time, yeah, I was doing a kind of tour, so we went, Victoria and I went Steilneset Monument, monument in Vardo in Norway in winter, which was mad at the Arctic in winter.
[00:53:12] Josh Hutchinson: Wow.
[00:53:13] Andrew Sneddon: and that was absolutely beautiful and, in the snow and in it, so well done, just look it up if you don't know about it, is to 91 people executed in that region, Finnmark in the 17th century, mostly women, some indigenous people as well, and then going to Salem as well, where the history, you've got the kinda big set pieces of the memorialization, but the history otherwise is fighting to get out.
[00:53:45] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:53:46] Andrew Sneddon: So you're, you are looking for the history, and I love them in memorials. And I and I like the most recent one, is it 2016? That was erected. I didn't see that the first time I went, but I've seen that and I think the all got their, the all get their they're good points.
I do think the memorialization is very good and I do like them, and they're very important, especially in that context, you've got a statue to Samantha from Bewitched.
[00:54:13] Josh Hutchinson: Oh yes. There's a statue of her, just like a block or two away from the first memorial to the witch trial victims. Yeah, it's interesting juxtaposition there, the history and the modern.
[00:54:31] Andrew Sneddon: Yeah. That's why I haven't tried, a disentangle, and we just discussed it there, the kind of, what happened and the way it's been represented and the way it's used, and I think that you can be creative with it. And I think you can, I don't think you, you can, you have to say the historians just know the the story because we've read the documents, now on the website, I've put every document for the Islandmagee trial. I've digitized them. They're all there for you. But it's more than that. And we've included them in the exhibition as well.
But it's more than that, and that's why we've got the workshops, the storytelling, and the printmaking. People can make their own histories, and we shouldn't try to have ownership completely as historians of these stories. So that is not what I'm saying. I'm just saying sometimes the representations that you know are not all positive, and and the commercialization aspect that are not all positive.
[00:55:27] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, but a lot of those attractions, they do get people's attention. It's just somebody has to come in and say, set the record straight at some point.
[00:55:40] Andrew Sneddon: The thing is as well, what happens is what, 2,500 executing Scottish history and 38 in American history, but most popular consciousness would say, what's the big witch trial? What do they think of Salem And that, I was talking to somebody the other day when we were actually launching something and yeah, they were absolutely gobsmacked. And I says, yeah, there was more people executed in one car park in Perth in Scotland than the whole of Salem. And that has only been righted now in the last two years with this new kind of campaign. And for the, I didn't, I'm Scottish I'm from Glasgow. I did not hear of any of this growing up. I didn't know there was any witches in Scotland. But I think that's changing as well. That kind of, and then that's the power of representation. That's the power of cultural representation and what a leaves out and what puts in.
[00:56:32] Josh Hutchinson: It's remarkable that you can grow up and not hear about these things. And there were just so many in Scotland. We hear that from people in places like Connecticut in the US where there were witch trials and people just don't know that they happened. You grow up, you go to school there, and they never talk about it. But for a whole nation like Scotland to just turn its back on the memory. That's really something.
[00:57:03] Andrew Sneddon: Yeah. Again, forgetting, so it's we're putting it behind us. It was a bad time. We were one of the first enlightened countries in Europe. We were the home of moral philosophers and Adam Smith, Glasgow University, and Edinburgh University, and St. Andrews. We're not all about witches. The people who were writing history in the 20th century perhaps, no interest in that either, 'cause it's ordinary people.
[00:57:30] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we saw that with Connecticut. A lot of the antiquarians in the 19th century wanted to show the state in a good light, and so they would poke fun at Massachusetts and say that we never had anything like that here. They did.
[00:57:47] Andrew Sneddon: That's exactly what was happening in Ireland, yeah. Putting distance between I, Owen and Davis does it brilliantly in America Bewitched, is putting distance between, the past and ourselves, and using it as an oppositional tool regionally, as well. look at.
[00:58:00] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. They did that in the States with Salem before the American Civil War. The southern states were poking fun at the northern states for having witch trials. And yeah, you just use it as this political thing later on, and then today, of course witch-hunt has become just a real political metaphor that's used, I would say way too often.
[00:58:30] Andrew Sneddon: You've had Marion Gibson on talking, and she brilliantly showed the kind of misogynistic aspects of The Crucible. And arguably, the Crucible brought forth that idea of the witch-hunt as politic, getting rid of your rivals, and it's used a lot of the times, I think, misogynistically today by men who you know are accused, of all sorts, but accusing his accusers using that, which is doubly insulting, I, I don't like modern appropriation of the word witch-hunt, because as your whole podcast shows, it's so complex even to appropriate it at all. It's so reductive. But to appropriate it in that way is particularly bad, I think.
[00:59:14] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. And there's still people dying in literal witch hunts. And then you're gonna use that as a political thing and say, no, I'm a victim here. You're not.
[00:59:26] Andrew Sneddon: Yeah. And it's usually the worst type of people who are using it.
[00:59:30] Josh Hutchinson: Yes,
[00:59:30] Andrew Sneddon: I'm.
[00:59:31] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. The ones who are guilty as sin. Yeah.
So I definitely encourage everybody to go check out that exhibit. I really wish that I could be there to see it myself. It sounds amazing. So many different aspects coming together to really immerse people in this.
[00:59:56] Andrew Sneddon: Absolutely.
[00:59:57] Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary.

[01:00:07] Mary Bingham: For me, the most important reason to memorialize is to remember. We memorialize a loved one or an event through the preservation of memories, perhaps sharing stories, looking at a scrapbook, listening to a compilation of that person's favorite music, erecting a burial monument. Creating a celebration of life ceremony.
No matter what we do to memorialize a person, group, or people and or event, we keep their legacy alive. When I first started to roam Essex County in search of my ancestors, I looked for their burial sites to visit their graves, to pay my respects, and to thank them for their decisions which caused me to be alive today. I still do that from time to time. Then they wanted to find where they lived, how they lived, where they walked, discover their experiences, funny, odd, different, wonderful, and sad. It was during this part of my journey, which led me to stand where some of my ancestors were hanged to death in the area of Proctor's ledge at Salem Mass in British America, 1692. A simple, beautiful, and important memorial was built and dedicated at that site on July 19th, 2017, so that the area would no longer be lost to history.
Now, descendants can visit from time to time to pay their respects. Another beautiful memorial was dedicated 25 years prior to Proctor's ledge in 1992, and is located in Salem abutting the Charter Street Cemetery. 20 beautiful stone benches are attached to a stone wall lined with beautiful trees and historic homes for descendants and many visitors to sit and contemplate the lives of those whose names are engraved on each of those benches who were executed in 1692.
However, my favorite memorial to the victims at Salem is the monument that was also erected in 1992 and is located on Hobart Street in current day Danvers, Mass. The beautiful life-sized stone monument is in two parts. The front displays the Book of Life with a replica of the iron shackles that accused would have worn while in prison. The back displays the Puritan Minister. The one thing that stands out is that this is the only monument that lists the 25 names of the people who died as a result of the Salem Witch Hunts that year, the 20 that were executed and the five who died in jail. Not only that, but also engraved are the powerful statements that the accused said during their pretrial examinations. It is a wonderful way to contemplate their lives, offer a glimpse into their horrifying experience, and share lessons on how we can learn from history.
And here are all their names. Infant daughter of Sarah Good died in prison before June. Sarah Osborne died in the Boston Prison May 10th, Bridget Bishop hanged June 10th, Roger Toothaker died in the Boston Prison June 16th, Sarah Good hanged July 19th, Susanna Martin hanged july 19th. Elizabeth Howe hanged July 19th. Sarah Wildes hanged july 19th. Rebecca Nurse hanged July 19th. George Burroughs hanged August 19th. George Jacobs, Sr. hanged August 19th. Martha Carrier hanged August 19th. John Proctor hanged August 19th. John Willard hanged August 19th. Giles Corey died under torture September 19th. Martha Corey hanged september 22nd. Mary Esty hanged September 22nd, Mary Parker hanged September 22nd, Alice Parker hanged September 22nd, Ann Pudeator hanged September 22nd, Wilmot Redd hanged September 22nd, Margaret Scott hanged september 22nd, Samuel Wardwell hanged September 22nd, Ann Foster died in prison December 3rd. Lydia Dustin died in prison March 10th, 1693. Rest in peace. You'll never be forgotten.
May those who suffered a similar fate at Ireland in 1711 also rest in peace. Thank you.

[01:05:08] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:05:10] Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[01:05:20] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update. Witch-hunt memorials and commemorations serve as enduring tangible reminders. They provide comfort and solace and education. We can touch the cool, solid surface of a monument like we are reaching out and connecting with witch trial victims of the past, even though they're no longer physically present. Tributes like historical fiction, coffees named in honor of a witch trial victim, stone and metal monuments, and arts that teach and commemorate, like Salem by Ballet Des Moines, the play Prick, the play The Last Night, the play Saltonstall's Trial, the play Witches in Eden, the Echoes of the Witch photographic documentary, and multimedia museum and online exhibits like w1711.org, are a lasting witness of the impact these lives had on the world. You can listen to previous episodes to learn more about each of these projects. I hope the w1711.org project brings you to reflection, contemplation, and advocacy action.
September brings cooler temperatures, crisp, warm colors in nature, and a season of anticipated festivities, like fall festivals that hold meaningful rituals, well-planned get togethers and individual and group celebrations across the earth.
We are moving into the final quarter of the year and considering and planning for what lies ahead after December. What lies ahead for thousands of vulnerable world citizens is experiencing unjust violence due to excited sorcery accusations inside their communities. When individuals are branded as a witch and blamed for causing harm with witchcraft, their actual safety and life is in danger, and it often comes at the hand of their own families and neighbors. Please learn more about the advocacy that is happening around the world by going to our show notes and finding links to advocacy groups.
Thank you for being a part of the Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast community. We appreciate your listening and support. Keep sharing our episodes with your friends. This podcast is a project of our nonprofit called End Witch Hunts. It is dedicated to global collaboration to end witch hunting in all forms. We collaborate and create projects that build awareness, education, exoneration, justice, memorialization, and research of the phenomenon of witch hunting behavior. End Witch Hunts employs a three-pronged approach to the problem, focusing on knowledge, memory, and advocacy through our various projects. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn about the projects. To support us, make a tax deductible donation, purchase books from our bookshop, or merch from our Zazzle shop. Have you considered supporting the production of the podcast by joining us as a Super Listener? Your Super Listener donation is tax deductible. Thank you for being a part of our work.

[01:08:07] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:08:09] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:08:11] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:08:15] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[01:08:17] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:08:20] Sarah Jack: See what's going on at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:08:23] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends and family and everyone that you meet about Thou Shalt Not Suffer.
[01:08:31] Sarah Jack: Support the global efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:08:38] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

September 7, 2023

Witch-Hunting in India with Dr Govind Kelkar

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Show Notes

This conversation is our podcast’s first inquiry about witch hunting in the nation of India. Our guest, Govind Kelkar, holds a PhD in Political Economy of China and is Professor and Executive Director for GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation in India. She has authored 16 books and numerous scholarly publications. This episode introduces us to the impact of witch-hunting on indigenous societies, women, and about variations between matrilineal and patrilineal cultures within the broader patriarchy in India.

We ask: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Culture, Capital and Witch Hunts in Assam, by Govind Kelkar & Aparajita Sharma

Culture, Capital, and Witch Hunts in Meghalaya and Nagaland

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Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Hi, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:27] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:29] Josh Hutchinson: We are so excited to bring you this interview with Dr. Govind Kelkar about witch hunting in India. This is our first time visiting that country on the podcast, and we're going to learn about some of the concepts and different occult roles that are available either by choice or by other people's labeling. It's not just about witches and sorcerers, there are also healers and diviners, and we learn about tiger people and snake keepers and all kinds of interesting stuff.
[00:01:23] Sarah Jack: A lot of what we learned today comes out of the academic study that she did on communities in two northeast Indian states.
[00:01:32] Josh Hutchinson: She focused on indigenous communities and studied both matrilineal and patrilineal cultures.
[00:01:43] Sarah Jack: Enjoy this discussion today and also take time to pull this study up to read it for yourself. We will have this specific research linked in our show notes, and you need to read it as a follow up.
[00:02:01] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we hear straight from an expert who's been working in this field of study in India for 25 years and has a lot of field experience, as well as professorial experience. Just done a lot of hands-on research in communities that are affected by witch hunting.
And another important aspect that we discuss with Dr. Kelkar is how to go about ending witch hunting in India. So she talks about the roles of healthcare and education and things like that to help alleviate the crisis.
[00:02:58] Sarah Jack: Dr. Govind Kelkar holds a PhD in political economy of China. She's a professor and executive director for GenDev Center for Research and Innovation in India. She has authored 16 books and numerous scholarly publications. She has recently completed two co-authored studies: "Culture, Capital, and Witch Hunts in Assam" and "Witch Hunts, Culture, Patriarchy, and Structural Transformation." She has previously taught at Delhi University, the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand. There she founded the graduate program in gender development studies and also the Gender, Technology, and Development Journal, published by Sage and now by Routledge, India.
[00:03:47] Josh Hutchinson: So this is our first time for our listeners to visit India. What should our listeners know about the situation with witch hunting in India?
[00:03:59] Govind Kelkar: There is a general kind of ignorance about the witches. Once in a while, the article, a newspaper article appears, and from particular indigenous areas, and this practice does exist in rural areas also, but it generally it is ignored. Oh, this is their practice. So othering of the problem is one thing, and second is that it is forgotten, as if it doesn't exist. So this is generally kind of thing. And whenever there is a presentation I have made in Council for Social Development, where I'm affiliated, then or any other organization and they think, oh, this is not a general problem, this is only confined to indigenous people, which is very painful. We have quite a sizeable number of indigenous people, but it is very painful to know this kind of attitude.
And the so-called kind of is considered uneducated people living in forest and they are not uneducated by any means. Those who consider this kind of problem are uneducated, really, about their own society. I have been part of the women's movement and feminist movement in India, and we also did not take into consideration for quite late into the violence against women.
And it still, it is not the mainstream of discussion in the violence against women. I have a bit of critique of our feminist movement also. Now, there are a couple of filmmakers and people who talk about it, but very few.
[00:05:38] Sarah Jack: Can you give us a definition of a witch in the context that happens in India or tell us how a witch should be defined to understand who's getting attacked?
[00:05:53] Govind Kelkar: I would define the witch, which we discuss this, and when we wrote the book I have a co-authored book, as I was telling you, published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. And that is one thing that I thought that it would be. One day we will ask the question that, who do you consider the witch?
A very brief and crisp definition is a woman or a man, sometime it is men also, but supernatural powers who cause harm to their own or to her community people. So it is not that she causes harm to other people, but within, to her extended family, to her close family, to her community. Somebody falls sick, somebody has the crop loss, untimely rain, which destructive, all these kind of considered a kind of something which is caused by the witch, with the exception of Covid, which happened. There was a large number of people who were denounced as or branded as witches during that period. But Covid was not considered as a witch phenomena, maybe because it came as a tsunami or it has came a kind of a, or affected everybody. So that is the reason that if it has happened in certain parts, then probably this would've been also one reason.
[00:07:15] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:07:17] Josh Hutchinson: And so the allegations, they're usually coming from people who are close, either kin or neighbors?
[00:07:25] Govind Kelkar: Unfortunately, very close. It would be husband's brother, his nephews. In most cases they would be the people. Sometime it is close neighbors extended who are likely to get hold of some property by extension the woman has. And normally these would be unsupported women, either where the husband is weak, either physically has some ailments, or he's not there, or the sons are working.
It's very patriarchal society, okay, with the exception of Meghalaya. So either sons are away and they visit only once in 6 years or once in 12 years. And then the woman would be harassed by the husband's nephews, which are, who are her nephews, because they will get that property.
The question one raises what property it has, I think even a kind of tattered house for utensils, whatever in that context, the property there, they will get hold of that. So if the woman is driven out or killed, then this would be the case. Sometime neighbors also do, if there is a child dies, then probably the neighbors also would join together.
I recently visited about three months ago, I was in the field in a state of Tripura, and I went to see a case, which has happened only two weeks ago where a woman was buried alive and her husband and seven others, close relations of the husband, they were party to it. And I was surprised. I was in the village. I did not know before that where the husband was also party to it. So I asked the mother-in-law, I said, who are the people who did it? And she said people in the village, close relatives. I said, where is the husband? Because the son who was eight year old, he was wearing those funeral kind of clothes, white clothes, not sleeping on the cot, but sleeping on the mat. So he was carrying that to sit on that so that he did not sit either on the ground or on something else. So I said why this little boy is doing this white clothes and all this. And they said, oh, because it is our custom.
But I said, where is the father? Says that he has gone to market, but actually he was in the police custody. They were arrested. So even this kind of incident how the people are saved or they lose face in telling the outsiders.
[00:10:00] Josh Hutchinson: Are the perpetrators often arrested?
[00:10:04] Govind Kelkar: Wherever there is a law or the person is killed. The accusations or branding as a witch, that there is no arrest for that, even when the law is there, which is very unfortunate. She's harassed for months. She is driven out. Only when she's killed, then there would be arrest. So it is the case of the murder then. They see that.
So there is the Indian penal code. In seven states of India, we have the law against witch hunts, but they're also really the, they call it prevention witch hunts kind of thing. But police acts only when the woman is killed. Being driven out, being harassed, being branded as a witch, there is a whole process goes on for quite some time before she's killed. Nothing happens during that period. Although they are supposed to do that legally.
[00:10:57] Josh Hutchinson: So it sounds like authorities could step in before it gets to the point of murder, but they're not doing that.
[00:11:06] Govind Kelkar: Yes, if you see the laws of these kind of where the state has been passed, highest number is in the state of Jharkhand and then followed by Assam. These are the, we call them states, what is called the provinces in the earlier kind of thing. And then it is in Mizoram, and I have done work in all three these areas. And one finds that the law is very, Mizoram doesn't have any law. Assam has these laws recently passed. And they're really toothless, very lame laws kind of thing, including in a ridiculous, the first law that was passed in 2005 or something, it was two thousand fine for this kind of thing.
So court treats this as a part of the belief system. They say it was done as a kind of under the influence of the belief, although legally it is, this is not so in the law, but this is the treatment of the code. Police is generally from this caste society. And even when they are part some indigenous people are there, they also get influenced because they are in a smaller number. They don't raise the voice. And then also you see that this is treated as the kind of part of the belief system. This crime is not treated as seriously as the other crimes would be treated. So harassment, although they say for some laws that I recently passed, like in case of Orissa State harassment is part of the law, but it is not implemented.
Nobody reports about it. They don't go to the village. They don't know. The woman also doesn't know that she has to go to the court because she finds court very useful. First thing, there is a general fear. You don't know the language that lot of women have not familiar with Hindi or English, which is the language of the law. And the result is that they are not taken serious. They don't have the confidence to go also, that is the, to go with the lawyer or to the police. So there is a lot of gap between law and the what actual happens in the practice.
[00:13:18] Sarah Jack: Can you tell us how the gender systems are diverse?
[00:13:23] Govind Kelkar: In indigenous areas, we have two kind of varieties by and large, two major kind of thing. One is the matrilineal state, which is the, where the, it is not matriarchy, but it is matriliny in terms of the lineage, property rights that the land rights, they are with the women, they are even spiritual heads, in terms of making decisions in some community. Within the particular state, also, there are communities. So somewhere they are spiritual heads. So for example, the Khasi society, they are the spiritual heads, but not in Garo.
But they are not there in the decision making. All the decision is made in these matrilineal systems by men. So not a single woman would be there in the, either in the local body, which is called durbar, village level or onwards till the state level. So political matters and decision making, these are considered as the male role. And the male preserver a male domain. And the women's domain would be cooking, cleaning, agricultural work, managing the household, providing for the family, taking care of children, and also property management. Youngest daughter inherits the property. Whether it is a management or it is the ownership, in both cases, the youngest daughter would get it. So this is one system of the matriliny.
Then the rest of the societies, by and large, are patriarchal, where it happens. In the patriarchal, women don't own any land. There is total economic independence on men. They don't make any decisions. They, what else would be of course, cooking, cleaning, all that kind of division of labor, gender, division of labor, which is by and large universal kind of thing, except some changes happening now that is there in these patriarchal societies.
And in these societies also, there is a kind of very high level of brutalization of women, unlike in the matrilineal society. But there is one thing that needs to be really noted that even in this matrilineal society, there is a movement of men for taking control of the property. Somewhere they have succeeded also. For example, in case of Nagaland, nokma, which was the village head, that was the position, N O K M A, nokma was the title of the village head, that these village heads were women.
And the, when she got married, then the husband would assist her. So he would be called traditionally as nokma's husband, but now it is the other way. As soon as the nokma gets married, the entire kind of responsibilities and authorities, powers, they are taken over by the husband, and he goes around, and he makes the decisions, and nobody even knows really, except the village itself, that the nokma is the woman, not the man, only that kind of village. I was surprised. I was three days in this village. Third day I came to know that woman was the nokma, and I was interviewing with the husband as the nokma, he was introduced. And this was the general pattern. This is happening in Garo society, particularly, which are the matrilineal.
In Khasi society, you find that there is a movement of the men. There are two organizations like that. One organization called the equal rights of property division that to boys and girls, they should inherit both. And second is saying that no, we should follow what is happening in the rest of India. We are not progressive. We are backward. Progressive means here, not in terms of ideology and ideas, economic development, but they use the word progressive. So we are not economically developed or so-called progressive, because women are ruling here.
These are the kind of gender systems, the kind of, but even in matrilineal kind of thing, what is important? No decision making powers with women except when a woman is involved kind of thing. But even then, within that, there is a kind of less number of cases, a woman being denounced as witches or brutalized, that kind of thing. Once or twice a case happens, there is actually there more attack on men. This is surprising.
There, which I have found that men are considered as a kind of doing the, if we same take the definition of the witch, which I told you that they are causing harm to others as the thlen keepers. Thlen is the biggest snakes. So that is they worship the kind of this big snake, giant snake, or we can call it dragon, but they call it the serpent.
So this serpent, which is known as thlen, the household known as the thlen keeper, and thlen keeper are the people if you make money, all of a sudden. That's why I consider capitalism also responsible. So suppose you are working outside in Delhi and you send remittances and you have a good house and you don't associate so much with your community, then probably there would be a initially no interaction with you or with your family, because it's supposed to be, if you go there, then your blood would be sucked. Nobody knows kind of thing. And they say, oh, the thlen changes the shape, sometime he is as as a string of a thread, so nobody sees it, but he is supposed to subsist on human blood. The saying goes like this, that even this family employs some men to collect the blood from the fingernails. So the distrust is there that if any kind of unknown person comes to the village, he's threatened with his life. There have been some cases, and particularly young boys have been killed. I think about two years ago, five young boys were killed because of that. Three in one case and two in one case.
[00:19:39] Josh Hutchinson: And that's because they were outsiders?
[00:19:43] Govind Kelkar: They were outsiders. They were having some free time and they wanted to go around and they did not tell the families and they were outsiders. So they were.
[00:19:52] Josh Hutchinson: Okay. And you mentioned that accumulating wealth causes suspicion, as well?
[00:20:00] Govind Kelkar: That's precisely the kind of thing. This is happens in both matrilineal and patriarchal societies that if you are rich and the rich, better off, economically, much better off than the rest of kind of thing, than rest of the household, then it is considered that you have some mystical powers. And then through a, those kind of exploitative means that you have become rich. So I visited one area in matrilineal society where the ojha or the healer was killed, the ojha or shaman, why the shaman was killed, and by his own nephews, because the nephews kept asking him, why don't you teach me how you have become rich?
He didn't say clearly. He said, of course, I just treat others and I don't do anything. He said no, you must have some mantras, some kind of powers you must have. So you have become rich. He has much better house than the cousins have, or the brother's sons have. And then he couldn't give them anything because probably there were not. And one night, 11 in the night they came, this is about a year old story and Garo Hills in the matrilineal society. And these three brother Sons they came, nephews. And these nephews just beheaded him.
[00:21:22] Josh Hutchinson: For the listeners, I just want to let everyone know we recently read your study titled Culture, Capital, and Witch Hunts in Meghalaya and Nagaland. We'll put a link to it in the show description so people can see what we're talking about.
The ojha or shaman that you spoke of, they also are involved themselves in finding witches?
[00:21:50] Govind Kelkar: That has been their role that when something happens, the villagers go to ojha to the shaman. They have different names. Sometime they are kabiraj, that is the healer and the one who treats others some. So because the person gets sick, then they go there also. Now he first probably tries to find out what is the diseases has caused kind of thing. And then he finds out, oh, it is a difficult disease if in case there is fever, persisting fever, like typhoid or something. Then he tries to really tell them that somebody has caused this problem. Now he doesn't name the person. But he indicates enough that person is that direction, third house from that house.
And there is a general kind of process. So that who would be the kind of person who would be identified? So without even naming, precisely naming the person, the whole village or that part of the village knows who is going to be affected. So this is the identification. Now, these ojhas, after where the law has been passed, these ojhas have now underground practice.
So they consult each other. Almost every village has a ojha. But now two, three villages would have one ojha, because the practice is little bit on decline. And they also is scared of the legal system, because the system of ojha is illegal in the states where the law has been passed. In Nagaland and Meghalaya, there is no law.
So they are the thlen keepers, and I have given some photographs also, and they're a ritual kind of thing. And where they put a hot, iron rod in the bubbling, in the bottle. And if the bubbles come up, they think it is the witch kind of thing. So I made a video out of this and he allowed that. He says, okay, because there is no law, he was not think that this can be at one point illegal, but it's not illegal. So then he will find out who's the thlen keeper, which household has the thlen? And if the household is very powerful, somebody in the government or somebody in this, then they leave that household. Otherwise somebody from that household would be affected and um, less killing in that household, because that generally these households are powerful but no interaction. It is the communitarian way of life, but they are ostracized, that household. So they are not invited for any ceremonies, any village functions.
And you live there or they are asked also in some parts that you please leave the village, if they are very poor, similar kind of thing. So they don't have the power really to report to the police or report to do something. And also when you are socially boycotted, there is no kind of action that you will report to the police also for that.
So that kind of, you live in a society which is ostracized. Their children also would carry that. So the, in the school, when the children goes, I interviewed one woman who has said that how she was really harassed while she was in the school, because the little girl, that household was known as the thlen keeper household. And oh, it was declared by the ojha.
And what did the system goes that you cut a piece of hair, girls have long hair, or you cut a piece of cloth that's a scarf, and this is, they say, then it offered to the serpent, it turns into blood and the serpent drinks, that kind of thing. So nobody's going to sit next to you, thinking that you might cut little piece from the flowing hair and the long hair, or you, or from the scarf, you can cut it kind of thing, and then you would be affected, you would die as a result of that. So total kind of boycott or, eh, total lack of interaction or isolation.
[00:25:53] Josh Hutchinson: Nobody feels safe interacting with that person or being close to that person?
[00:25:58] Govind Kelkar: That's right.
[00:25:59] Sarah Jack: It sounds like the thlen keeper families for generations, they would be viewed as the thlen keepers.
[00:26:14] Govind Kelkar: The only way that unless they made it so much in the system, because from, I know two thlen keepers family where one woman has married a UN official. So she definitely upgraded one. Her sister was a police officer. I met out of seven, only two. So that family could survive, but no interaction. Villagers would not interact with them. But they were able to live, they were not driven out.
And the other family I know who was a professor in Delhi. The girls are the supporters of the family. So she was professor and she also has written about it. So this is the only way out, that you made it in the system. Then you can really get rid of this. Then you will get married, not in your community and some other community out of, I mean it would be the so-called self-arranged or love marriage. It'll not be in the traditional system, the village or the surrounding villages.
[00:27:17] Josh Hutchinson: How does someone become an ojha?
[00:27:21] Govind Kelkar: One way is to dream. Somebody getting a dream that is and in different ways, in different kind of things. So one way was the dream that you, and in lot of cases it is from father to son that is the kind of practice. He learn.
Interestingly I met an ojha, who was, whose picture also I have given and who was very frank in discussing this kind of thing. He was a truck driver earlier, and he tried to become ojha. And I told him, how did you become? And he said he was being treated and nothing was working. That ojha was not. So he thought he would practice. And so that's how that he learned. And he, I said, how much time you took to become ojha, and he said about one and a half year.
So it is also learning from others. Sometime you become ojha, they have the kind of assistant also. Initially you watch, you help the kind of thing. You heat the fire, you put the fire on, and you boil the water. And so that is how you learn. And then you set up your own practice. Sometime dream, dream is very convenient. They strongly believe it. And since I'm a nonbeliever, so I say it's very convenient, but they believe that they had the dream and this kind of thing, and this dream can be sometime like that you dreamt about a word entering into your body or some other objects entering your body, and that is seen as this is a kind of God's wish that you become a healer kind of thing, that you have become the treating others as your duty to the community.
[00:29:05] Josh Hutchinson: And then how does someone get associated with keeping the serpent?
[00:29:11] Govind Kelkar: Keeping the serpent. Nobody has seen it. It is normally the rich families. I'm using their term as the rich, better house, children going outside, better clothes, acquiring car. In such a way that you are called within your community as much economically better off, much better off than others.
And then they think that it is the thlen worshipers, they are known as the thlen worshipers. That serpent must have blessed them. And thlen lives on the human blood as I explained earlier. So that's why people don't go to the house. But they, in most cases, they are not driven out, because of their economic power.
[00:29:54] Josh Hutchinson: Speaking about the economics, you talked in the study about the emergence of the accumulative economics, where before it was largely communal economics, and what impact is that having on witch hunting?
[00:30:16] Govind Kelkar: Either we call it market forces or we call it accumulative society, or we call it a capitalist society. So this is one of the thing, so the accumulating household, that means who are in their perception accumulating household. And really they are become the, they are much better off than the rest of them. There is a mystical belief that how they have acquired the wealth and we have not acquired? Or for example, if I fields and then that it would be considered how your fields are fertile? I have also fields, I'm also working, but my fields do not produce as much as your fields produce, so there must be the kind of some kind of mystical means. So this thlen is considered that you must be worshiping, thlen must have blessed you. The thlen is like a kind of god in this sense, the spirit, and that that has blessed you and that's why you have become like this. So that is one thing in Meghalaya, the matrilineal state.
The other society, Nagaland, this is the tiger. The human takes the form of the tiger, and they go on robbing others. And that is very kind of a system has become like that. They have council of tigers, tiger men, and nobody can blame them for this kind of tiger men, because they are not human when they attack them, when they rob others.
The first thing they do it in the night, and it is supposed to be that these are the tigers who are doing it. Tiger men, they call it tiger men who are doing it. And it is really not those our neighbors who are doing it. Yeah. Or the villagers, our villagers are not doing this is the tiger spreads that make them. So no reporting against them, no appeal against them. They take anybody's cow, anybody's pig, anybody's chicken, and they subsist on that. And of course this is a scot-free.
They also molest women, and that was very meekly discussed in a kind of that they go in the forest where there is a drinking, there is a feasting because somebody has, who has got this by other tigers within the village, outside the village. And there would be the, a woman who is collecting, gathering things from the forest, she would be normally subject to their attacks. The sexual attacks I'm talking about.
[00:32:45] Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
[00:32:46] Govind Kelkar: The tiger possessors, they are not really driven out of the village, because they are considered tiger. And it goes like that tiger and humans are brothers. On the one hand that even if the real tiger comes, animal, they would not kill that tiger because that is considered as the brother has come, and of course there are studies also sometime for random at the Burmese border, Burma, and Mizoram border. There are some people who in order to terrorize I was in one interview was I was told that there is a random shooting of the human beings also. So that it would be the, and of course there is also that human flesh eating or cannibalism that was also reported. From earlier period of headhunting, it emerges from there, but now they don't talk about that much, but they say that tigers have this urge to eat raw meat. That is the time that they go on robbing others.
I met a tiger woman also and a tiger man, and they discussed their kind of thing. Woman has retired from the government service, and I was surprised all her life from the childhood till now she was being blamed as the tiger woman. Tiger girl, tiger woman. And when I had a dinner with her, and I asked her that, how did she herself probably started, because I didn't have the courage to ask whether you were branded as a tiger woman, but probably she could know that why I was meeting her all of a sudden coming from Delhi.
She said that she had preferred to work in the night. And that she was sleepy during day in the school. And as a result of being sleepy, she was not able to pay more attention or the focus attention or she will look like this here and there. That was also his, and they said that because she's active in the night, she's a tiger girl. And this tiger girl, she kept studying, but they kept saying that kind of thing. And of course you don't say the girl, you would say that she's a tiger girl, but when she becomes a woman, she starts kind of thing. You don't start talking to her as that. Are you a tiger woman or not? So everyone talks about you, but nobody says things on your face.
She gave some information to her brother-in-law, who was in the deputy inspector general of police, who were looking in that area. She gave some information because she happened to gather some forest produce, and her brother-in-law, in fact, informed me that I have a sister-in-law who's a tiger woman. Would you like to meet her? I met this retired police officer. That's how I met her. So even the brother-in-law confirmed that she was, and a police officer, highest ranking police officer in the state, confirmed that she's a tiger woman.
I asked him, where are the other tiger men that you are talking about? And he said they are in the lot in the police force, a lot in the army. So I was surprised to see that, how matter of fact, he, of course, he gave me very frank interview that I was doing the research that he understood well. But I was also surprised to know that how this system is prevalent, belief that they change the form in the night. They become tigers, these human beings, and then go and take resources from people.
[00:36:19] Sarah Jack: These interviews are so important. The information that you gather firsthand from the individuals seems very important.
[00:36:31] Govind Kelkar: Thank you. I also thought, because I have been associated with the indigenous studies for, I don't know, over two decades and that time I studied in Central India and these two states, Jharkhand and all this, this system was not there. So this is also diversity kind of thing. The tiger were not there. Witches were there, outright witches. And killing them was only to getting rid of them. And you ask them that, what is the number of the witches would be there. And they would say that their, every village would have two or three witches, women. And they are either old, most of them are old. Sometime you do find young women also, but they would be unsupported, sometimes single, sometime unsupported and sometime they assert their right. I got a call, I think last year a woman ward member, ward is the panchayat, which is the local village kind of thing.
She's a considered important person to deal with the local affairs. So a woman was a ward member, and she was very effective, and she was told you step down, otherwise we'll call you a witch, and we will treat you like that. And her husband was there, but he could not protest. And the child was also young. Two daughters, one son. So it is the normal family, but it was not by single, by any means kind of thing. The single women now are supportless women. Everybody was there, but because she was asserting her right? So patriarchy is another factor. You should be where you society has kept tradition, has kept you subordinate to men, economically dependent on men, and do your kind of work that has been assigned to them, household. Don't attempt to do things. So that is also factor besides capital, besides accumulation, these things are also there.
[00:38:32] Josh Hutchinson: And how do you make changes to improve the situation for women?
[00:38:39] Govind Kelkar: Very important question there. The government of India recently in the last two, three years, have recognized three women for fighting the witch system. They were denounced as witches and one in central India in Jharkhand state, one in Assam, and one in Mizoram. They were labeled and they fought or they fought this kind of thing.
So government gave them a kind of award called Padma Shri, so I interviewed this Padma Shri woman I said, how you have become so important. You were able to fight the system. You didn't care. One point was that, of course, it was not easy fighting the system, was not easy.
What I gather from that discussion that you have raised, that women's agency is very important. Capacities and agency is very important. I don't care if you call me a kind of tiger woman or you call me a witch. Okay. So that becomes very important capacity of the household. If of course, if household is supportive kind of thing. In one case, this woman, her husband has denounced her as witch. She took the support from other women who were, some organizations have come, NGO support, and she left the house and she went there because that's how she was able to survive. Supportive structures within an outside community is very important. That is one is strategy is important.
Second is law is also important. If you have, wherever there is a law, these ojhas and shamans, they are no longer as active as they used to be. They are underground. They are working very stealthily, but they are not they would be arrested if they know that they are ojha. Then particularly if there is witch killing case, then ojha also would be arrested because he would be the person who has identified. So he's scared for that. So law is important, but law by itself is not enough. Law has to be strict, more kind of punitive and punishment for this action, and punishment has to be not only in terms of when she's killed, but punishment when she's branded, because that is a state that would be there. So the law has to look all kind of things.
A general neglect of the indigenous people I also feel in the legal system. Oh, this is their part of the belief. And some people also, I also feel felt a bit of resistance and it is state like Meghalaya. They say you are, this is the part of our sacred culture. So indigeneity or kind of identity movement, which is coming, that needs to be really a cushion that in, your identity as a group, as a community is important, but this identity has to be the human rights respecting culture.
So the cultures have to be really, and there is no harm in taking good aspect of the culture from any other part. There has to be good kind of aspect of culture, because I give them example of India where the sati system was there. I don't know if you're familiar with sati. Sati was the, S A T I, sati was the system where the woman was burnt alive with the death of the husband, which was outlawed. And this was considered as a part of the Indian culture. So I gave them that example that how these things have been eliminated. Treatment of the women or burning of women in Europe, witches thing. So this so that, so this is the second law has to be effective by capacity building of women and it has to be Good punitive with good punitive measures. It doesn't have to be larger sphere of the sake of it has to be implemented. Third has to be really the case, which is more important, strike at the belief system. So throughout the campaign, the discussion, research-based advocacy would be important against this kind of practice. So women's agency, effective legal measures. Third would be really the good kind of research based advocacy at the community level, advocacy at the state level, because we normally think everything you do to the government, it is solved. No, here the community is also involved.
So we are not attacking the cultures, but we are attacking some aspect of the, I have a lot of respect for the indigenous people's culture in their communitarian way of life, in their conservation of the resources, water conservation, forest management, the very kind of good practices. But along with good practice, you have unfortunately this practice. So that is important that somehow it is not a attack on their culture. It is only one part of the culture that needs change like untouchability cast system in India that needs to be changed. Whatever the good kind of part would be of the Indian culture. That would be the one of the things. Or like racial situation in the US or treatment of the indigenous people. So in any society, we have these kind of belief features and they need to be changed. So that is one thing that repeated kind of dialogue with the indigenous people with their community, that has to continue and till they take their in their own hands so that, because there are some women group that has come, there are some individuals, one or two organizations. And film would be a good source for this.
And most important was a woman who was a kind of awardee, this Padma Shri awardee, in Jharkhand, whose husband has denounced her as a kind of witch. She said the proof is very important, and in the European history also, if you see that proof was required. Show me how I have caused harm. So it is not really that I did something to make somebody sick. There has been concrete evidence, concrete proof. So once if the judicial system is start asking for the proof or the legal system start asking for the proof, the community asking for the proof, because first the cases go to community before they go to the court, then the proof is very important. If I am witch, then show me what I have done to your child, kind of thing.
Healthcare is also considered, good healthcare. So these are the five strategies that I think would be useful to address this kind of system, because there has been a PhD work on somebody did a research on Chhattisgarh one state, and there used to be in the 19th century cholera witches, because people were dying of cholera, children were dying of cholera. And that time it was that they were called as a cholera witches. That means that somebody has caused some kind of poison the child through some means, and she was known as the cholera witches. Not much earlier, not now. This brand of cholera witches completely disappeared after this kind of became that what you need on the dehydration, rehydration kind of thing in order to avoid the cholera. And you could survive.
So I think decentralized, effective healthcare also would be important. So then people won't go to ojha. These states are also literate states but out of belief, they will not go to a doctor, they'll go to ojha for treatment. So if you go to fever, so that, that is also needs to be changed. And I think this will be changed through the community dialogue.
[00:46:32] Sarah Jack: I have a question. How does the education of children work in these communities?
[00:46:42] Govind Kelkar: Very educated, very articulate in English, very articulate in other subjects. But there was a young man who was recently for me, local researcher. And he was studying in very elite College of Delhi. I asked him, because he was my local, I said, do you believe in the witch system? He said, not in Delhi, but when I go back home, I believe. I said, how do you believe? He says, I'm fearful that something might happen to me, somebody might cause something. I was so surprised. Then I said, this is the study that is not there in that kind of thing, but hopefully soon you will be able. I'm writing that study. So I was surprised, because I thought a person who is comes very articulate, very knows things, and he is acting as my research assistant, so we have discussed the thing. But he also said that while I'm Delhi, I don't believe in, that's nothing would happen to me, but back home, something, somebody might do something.
So how this kind of in socialization kind of thing, socialization does internalization also, we we internalize many things without knowing, and there nothing as education that attacks our internalization. It is the other way, in fact. If we are questioned for something, then we become very defensive. So that is one of the things that education is not, that's why I didn't refer to education. 86. 6% and 90% people are educated. Much better kind of educational figures than you have in the other parts of India. But they have these practices.
And there is nothing in our textbooks. And sometime media, it seems very popular in terms of television shows talking about how the witches are there and how would this source of kind of so-called entertainment their feet are towards the backside and upside down feet and they don't touch the ground. All these kind of promoted as a part of the entertainment, but they enter our mind for this. So they further reinforce the belief system.
So in this young man, then I gave him the assignment that he interviewed about 21 young people, youth, and out of 21, and they were all in the college and the doing the BA. Out of 21, only one did not believe in the witch system. Others, including he himself, everyone believed in the witch practice. So this is the education that is the role, how we can see that. Probably education is important, but what kind of education we are, we question that.
These things should be included in the textbooks, in the primary school itself kind of thing. Then education works. That definitely education works. This is our attempt, but I don't know when we will be able to effectively address this. That in the education really it should be kind of part of the thing and that need to be addressed. But we are going through a difficult phase in terms of with our political system. So let's hope that someday, change would come. That kind of education is very important that with the real education, I would think and parents also need to be educated probably. We stop saying that. Oh, stop crying. Otherwise the witch would come and take you. Huh? So that also happens. Many families. Many families.
[00:50:23] Sarah Jack: That could happen in any culture on any continent. That warning, for sure.
[00:50:29] Govind Kelkar: Yes. These are the lingering kind of things that continue with their cultures. Yes.
[00:50:34] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:50:35] Govind Kelkar: Yeah, that is very important, really how effective kind of thing it can be. That is because here it is the kind of vengeance, vendetta. As soon as somebody child dies, particularly child dies, and then they are looking for somebody to attack. And they know that child may has been having fever or something, but even then they are looking at that, start looking what somebody must have done something.
So along with the healthcare, availability of the healthcare, this kind of measure also needed, training of the healthcare workers, ASHA, we call them, this would be important at local level. There is a healthcare worker, ASHA, a training of ASHA in this regard would be very important.
[00:51:19] Sarah Jack: When you were talking about the asking for proof, the requirement of proof, that's the beginning of critical thinking and questioning. I know when we heard from Dr. Leo Igwe with witch attacks in Nigeria, one of the things that they're trying, the Advocacy for Alleged Witches is really trying to implement critical thinking curriculum in the elementary, young pupils, and just getting them to question things.
[00:51:55] Govind Kelkar: It would be important probably. There is some beginning is being made here also in terms of questioning. In Jharkhand it has happened both among the supportive structures outside the community and within community. But in northeast India, which is more literate and more as a kind of, these seven states together, what kind of thing, as all are indigenous states and all are highly educated people, and I think 60 to 80% are Christians converted to Christianity. They are also very well educated because one of the things for Christianity was the education and doing kind of thing there.
I did not find this kind of questioning. That is what comes as a surprise to me. And one of the things was also that limited research has been done and anthropological researchers that have been done earlier, they have done really like a state of affairs that is this is happening among these communities. Why it is happening, what kind of impact it has, whether it need to be changed, this was not questioned. So this othering of the people, othering of the problem, that is the only thing that kind of is available in the literature that is on the society that is there. Our attempt here in this alliance that they are like us and we are like them, whatever the way we can put it.
And every society has some problems, so it is not really that, and we need to address this problem. We need to question that problem, because both caste system and sati which I gave these two kind of very bad examples, or even female infanticide, we are still working on these kind of things. Somewhere it has changed, somewhere has not changed. But it has come with much kind of after long struggle kind of thing. So I think this thing is also going to change. I am a strong with optimist that this is also going to change. The laws have been passed in some states. We are trying our kind of effort to pass a laws in other states also. And central, some people were thinking that there should be one laws from the center. And probably there is need for it, but we need specific laws from a state level also, because there are special characters of this problem.
I define witch, thlen keeper is also witch, because it causes harm to the community that kind of furthering or the tiger person. So that's why I call them in ritual attacks and witch hunts kind of thing. This is hunting of these people, witches, going on within that largely women because they are at a weaker place in the society. So 80% or 85% would be women only. Some men would be denounced. These are the figures that come.
I have a case study. This has been qualitative study, so case studies about one. 1 63 people, 110 from Jharkhand and the other kind of thing, 14 plus the, FG D'S focus group discussions. So I've not included them, so probably that would be an important thing. That's why I am trying my best to write in these kind of, small monograph or small papers like that. They can be sent to these states, and they can be subject of discussion, but they can be in English because everybody knows English. The language is English. So that is what, but where it is not, probably it can be translated in local languages, also. So that will be the next step that I am aiming at, or we are aiming at the part of this society.
[00:55:45] Sarah Jack: I'd be interested in understanding a little bit more about the struggle and the work for the human rights around the gender inequalities.
[00:55:59] Govind Kelkar: Gender equality and in this kind of sense also, both are sustainable development goals are very important. And there the all states have signed. So it is not really that it is the imposition of North on South that south is very much responsible for the, and a state of gender inequality is very high. India is known for kind of gender inequality. Yeah. Women don't have land rights. Land, I am saying property rights. But land is very important where it's still 63% population is in the rural areas, you will take land as the one kind of factor. So land, house, other property. So this economic dependence of women on men, unless this is addressed, this is the fundamental part of the kind of their inequality.
Second is about the kind of socialization process. Care work, not being recognized as work. This is another part kind of thing that is, which really feeds on all of us, and these are done at. You know how educated these people are. You sit in the UN system and then you or the economist doing this kind of thing that not a woman does work from morning to evening that goes, and that work is not recognized as work. And so eight hours or six hours you work in the office and that is recognized as work.
So these are the struggles that are going on in the whole feminist movement or gender movement. Economic rights in terms of the real property rights and in terms of the care work, these are the important kind of thing and social norms. How do you question the social norms? Social norms inhibited these laws that have been passed. We need to question our social norms everywhere kind of thing. That would be important. The dress, the hair, the kind of whatever that we want to do. We can do this thing. I'm not taking anarchic position, but I'm taking really the rights based position that we have signed human rights, we have signed human rights declaration. Since 1948, we have been talking about these things about that no discrimination based on sex, class, creed, but these are continuing kind of things. They go back, they come back, some changes made kind of thing. So this is the inequality and that gives us hope, that witch question is also part of this?
How much violence is there women within home and outside in public spaces, and we are all civilized people, that kind of thing. So this is not really that we kill, we call gorillas from somewhere and they are doing it. No, we are doing within our own society. I don't want to blame only indigenous people or indigenous societies or some rural areas for these kind of practices. We are so much engaged in these kind of practices both North and South. South is also North is also a struggling. Women in the North is so struggling against for recognition of their work for maternity leaves.
I studied the University of Michigan five years was there. And it is not really that women , has any maternity leave as a producing child is the private thing. If you stop producing children, what happens to the human society? Huh? That is the otherwise we talk so much of human resource development, but production of the human resource is not considered, given any value. And how do you maintain support that kind of that work is not even recognized, and there is no recognition of this kind of thing. So of course we come from a historic past where the women did not have the even the right to vote. So in kind of European society, what is the Switzerland got in 1971 or something that is as late as that. So inequality is so much ingrained. Gender inequality is so much ingrained in our social systems.
These norms need to be changed. And this also applies to a whole question of the witch hunts, that also norms should be changed.
[01:00:08] Sarah Jack: And how are the women as far as fighting for this change? Even getting women to the point where they can say, this isn't fair. There's probably so much work to do there.
[01:00:26] Govind Kelkar: We are doing so much work, both in terms of advocacy, in terms of writing, in terms of protest. Doing a lot of work. There is a very vibrant movement in India, also, both women's movement and feminist movement, but atrocities also are committed against women. But we are also not taking it lying down. We are protesting, we are questioning the government system. We are questioning the judicial system. So both are happening, but when you don't, you are not in the positions of power, then it becomes very limited change that you can bring about. So women are not there in parliament. They should be in the parliament in 50% numbers. We don't have 30% kind of thing. And how long this law has been that 30, this is the goal that has been 33% women. So that is, they should be there if, except in the Scandinavian countries, we don't find this kind of number coming up. US doesn't also have, so this is the global situation that we're talking about.
Globally women's movement also very vibrant in the US. And also in India, also in China. China is supposed to be a very controlled society, but within China also there is a very kind of strong women's movement that is happening. But besides this, there is a kind of this strong movement and the repression is also a strong. So those who are in the positions of power, they also want to maintain their power, whether they are men or women, but in this case it is men who are in the positions of power.
[01:02:04] Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything that we haven't talked about today that you want to be sure to get across?
[01:02:11] Govind Kelkar: Not as a question, but as a kind of as a solidarity statement that was, I was thinking that at international level this is a big progress. You in the US and Miranda in the Pacific or that part of the world and I in South Asia. Coming together and discussing this itself is a very important step.
We are not really living in our comfort zones, having the kind, we are talking of the social transformation when we are discussing these things. But I don't want to treat this as the exceptional kind of exceptionalism of indigenous people. That has to be the kind of thing it is.
We have also similar situations in Europe, in US, and in Pacific, much worse. Violence is very high in Pacific. We have racial question in the US. My daughter is there, so I'm familiar. I studied there. So I'm familiar. In India, caste system and in a neglect of indigenous people by and large, that prevails all over. We have a solidarity to work together towards this.
[01:03:21] Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary.

[01:03:32] Mary Bingham: Elizabeth How was a woman in her late fifties described by her friends as a devoted Christian and wife, everything a good Puritan carried in her heart. In fact, Elizabeth sought membership with the Ipswich Church in 1682, which she lived in Colonial Massachusetts, British America, but was railroaded by Samuel Perley, who at that time believed that Elizabeth bewitched his sick, 10 year old daughter, Hannah. Hannah remained sick with an illness the doctor could not diagnose. She remained in ill health for three years and blamed Elizabeth for her illness until her dying day.
So now Elizabeth was considered somewhat of an outcast by some with anger and vengeance rearing their ugly heads. Eventually, Elizabeth was formally accused of witchcraft 10 years later, and the Perley family were soon to testify against her recounting stories from 10 years prior. The only thing that Elizabeth could do as she waited to be hanged at Proctor's Ledge in Salem was to stand to her truth until her dying day, which she did with grace and dignity.
Let's fast forward to 2012 in the country of Papua New Guinea. A beautiful 20 year old woman and mother of two, Kepari Leniata, was accused of witchcraft when a young neighbor became seriously ill and died at the local hospital. Due to the continuing strong beliefs in others using supernatural harmful means when a sudden death occurs, his grieving parents and relatives blamed his death on sorcery. Two women originally hunted down by the family pointed the finger at Kepari. Kepari was forcefully removed from her hut, dragged through the streets to the local landfill, and was burned alive on a pile of trash with onlookers watching, not helping to save her life. Kepari, like Elizabeth How 320 years prior, stood firm to her truth while she was violently and brutally murdered.
Please listen to Sarah Jack inform as to how you can become involved to end violent deadly witch hunts. Thank you.

[01:05:53] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:05:55] Josh Hutchinson: And here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[01:06:05] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update. Thank you for being a part of the Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast community. We appreciate your listening and support. Keep sharing our episodes with your friends, have conversations with them about what you are learning and how you want to jump into end witch hunts with your particular abilities, influence, and network. Community development that works to end witch hunts is an ongoing, long-term, collective effort for all of us to participate in.
I wanted to share about a special email I received this week from Connecticut. The email was from a local coffee shop that will be featuring an original drink concoction on their upcoming fall menu, honoring their local witch trial history. Stay tuned to our social media to see photos of the drink and find out which town and coffee shop is remembering this victim. What a meaningful gesture to recognize the story of this victim. A menu item created as a tribute to one of the victims named in the recent Connecticut General Assembly bill, HJ 34, is a thoughtful act of memorialization. Those accused and tried for witchcraft crimes in the American colonies were innocent of all witchcraft charges. We are so pleased that Connecticut leadership voted to clear the names of all 34 witch trial victims who are known that were indicted, arrested, or hanged. We'll be continuing advocacy work to see that the remaining known victims in the American colonies witch-hunt history receive exoneration in their states, as well.
That's two cliffhangers I'm leaving you with today: a coffee surprise, and you just found out you'll be able to join us in continued witch trial victim exoneration efforts in... you'll find out soon. Well, if you follow our social media, you may already have a hunch.
This podcast is a project of our nonprofit called End Witch Hunts. It is dedicated to global collaboration to end witch hunting in all forms. We collaborate and create projects that build awareness, education, exoneration, justice, memorialization, and research of the phenomenon of witch hunting behavior. In 2022, while we were working on the exonerations for the Connecticut Witch Trial victims of the 17th century, volunteers from the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project founded End Witch Hunts. This organization directs our current and future initiatives such as collaborations for more education and a memorial in Connecticut, exoneration efforts in other states in the U S A where witch trial victims remain guilty for supernational crimes, as well as growing the podcast and our international partnerships with witch-hunt advocates in other nations. When we say that we are working with others to end witch hunts, it means just that. End Witch Hunts employs a three-pronged approach to the problem, focusing on knowledge, memory, and advocacy. You can learn more by visiting our websites and the websites listed in our show notes for more information about country- specific advocacy groups and development plans in motion across the globe. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org.
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[01:09:15] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:09:17] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:09:19] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:09:23] Sarah Jack: We look forward to talking to you next week.
[01:09:26] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe, rate, and review the show wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:09:32] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:09:35] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, acquaintances, neighbors, and coworkers about the show.
[01:09:41] Sarah Jack: Please continue to support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:09:47] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

August 31, 2023

Prick: A Play of the Scottish Witch Trials

Prick, a new play by Laurie Flanigan Hegge, directed by Meggie Grievell

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Show Notes

Writer Laurie Flanigan-Hegge, director Meggie Greivell, and puppet artist Madeline Helling speak about their new play production Prick. Prick is inspired by the Witches of Scotland campaign and tells the story of folk who were victims of the terrible miscarriage of justice of the witch trials in Scotland. The story of Prick traverses magic and memory, fact and fiction, past and present. This special conversation is a reflection of the evocative, poetic, and satirical way artistic work can deliver a relevant and critical message about our history and human experience.

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Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Hello, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: Today we're here with the makers of the play Prick, which is now showing at Edinburgh Fringe. We are talking to writer Laurie Flanigan Hegge, director Meggie Greivell, and puppet artist Madeline Helling.
[00:00:46] Sarah Jack: Prick is a satirical play about Scottish witch trials.
[00:00:50] Josh Hutchinson: Features stories of three witch trial victims, including an unknown woman, Marioun Twedy, and Isobel [00:01:00] Gowdie.
[00:01:00] Sarah Jack: There's difficult topics dealt with in the story, like pricking and shaving and watching of the alleged witches, and it's really an important part of understanding what thousands of women went through a few centuries ago.
[00:01:19] Josh Hutchinson: Puppetry is employed throughout. The art of the puppets is masterful, and how they're used in the scenes really brings life to the settings, and the puppets help make uncomfortable topics more comfortable. It's a quite enjoyable play. There's dark comedic elements to it, and it's got the devil himself.
[00:01:48] Sarah Jack: Laurie, Meggie, and Madeline have a great conversation with us about how this play came together, the significance.
[00:01:59] Josh Hutchinson: A [00:02:00] lot of the themes of the play are very relevant today, including the ever present element of misogyny in the witch trials and in women's lives these days, also. And so you learn about the double meaning of the name Prick, why they chose that name.
[00:02:25] Sarah Jack: In this conversation, they share some things that you're not gonna get from just attending the play, so this is a really great opportunity to understand the layers. Here is a special conversation about Prick, which was written by Laurie, directed by Meggie, with puppets created by Madeline.
[00:02:48] Josh Hutchinson: What brought your creation team and performance team together?
[00:02:53] Meggie Greivell: So I reached out to Laurie last summer with [00:03:00] the hopes of writing a play about the Scottish Witch Trials, because it had piqued my interest since I moved to Scotland in 2021. I found out about the North Berwick Witch Trials, and I was very shocked and angered. And I'm graduating with my master's in directing soon. And this project is my directing thesis. I needed a play that was a new work, and I reached out to Laurie, because I'd worked with her before at the History Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota. And I really loved her writing. And she said yes, she was interested in writing this play, and that's how we began. And Laurie, do you wanna take it from there?
[00:03:43] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: It was interesting, because when Meggie asked me to do it, it was at a point where I had been, is the word fallow? When you don't have, you haven't been writing or like it, it had been a very fallow time for me, and I was just so happy to have a project to explore, but [00:04:00] I didn't know how to get into this project at first. The subject was so huge, and once I started researching, I felt pretty daunted by kind of the scope of it and a little bit nervous about the fact that I'm an American playwright who has, at that point I hadn't been to Scotland and I didn't really understand the history.
[00:04:21] And then as things clicked along in my research, things started coming together in my brain. My introduction to this piece was through listening to modern media, which is podcasts. I was listening to your podcast and Witches of Scotland podcast and getting to know all of the amazing writers and historians and researchers through their own words.
[00:04:49] And as time went on, I got more and more immersed in the understanding of the witch trials and how things connected. And I'm still right now [00:05:00] working on understanding what's happening in the modern world, which I was just saying, Sarah, that I had listened recently to your episode about Papua New Guinea, and it was, came for me at a very timely moment in my own understanding of just how our modern world is expressing this same horror that the women in this play lived through. But you'll notice in the play that media and the, kicking off with news of Scotland and my little kind of twisted take on that it is directly related to my relationship to media and the subject of the witch trials and the spread of witchcraft through the modern world.
[00:05:40] Sarah Jack: And did you guys plan on incorporating puppetry?
[00:05:45] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Yeah, I would say right out of the gate I knew that I had the title Prick before I had anything else. When I heard about witch prickers I was, I said, "Meggie, I'd like to call it Prick." And she said, "yes, please do." And I knew that I wanted pricking [00:06:00] and the pricker to be a theme of the play but that I did not want to ask any actor or audience member to be subjected to seeing any kind of torture or harm inflicted on a body on stage.
[00:06:17] And so from the gate, I said, I'd like to incorporate puppets. And by the way, my neighbor across the street is a puppet artist that I've been dying to work with. That's Madeline Helling. She's with us today. And I told Meggie I wanted to use puppets. She gave me a wholehearted endorsement and Madeline was immediately part of the process. Madeline, do you wanna say anything about that?
[00:06:41] Madeline: Oh yeah, just Laurie said, "I have this project, it's about the witch trials." And I, yeah, it was an easy yes, easy thing to say yes to. The theme and working with Laurie and then doing this in Scotland was very exciting. Yeah, and Minneapolis is a really vibrant puppet community, so [00:07:00] I've had a lot of amazing experience working with a lot of amazing people here. That helped me gain some skills to do that.
[00:07:09] Josh Hutchinson: That's interesting. I didn't know that about Minneapolis.
[00:07:13] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Yeah, it's a hotbed actually. There's a large puppet community and the, so the vocabulary of using puppets is something that I'm really familiar with as a theater artist, and I think, because of that vocabulary, and Meggie has lived in the Twin Cities too. We know, we all understand like what a puppet can mean in terms of emotion and how evocative a puppet can be. It's like a musical element. Does that jive with what you would say, Madeline, that there's a lyricism to using puppets?
[00:07:41] Madeline: Yeah, I think it's just a language understood the world over and it's a street language that like, it's just, it's a cheap art form that is, there's roots in it all over the world. And in that way it has this sort of universality to it. And there's this way that [00:08:00] puppets, like everything they do has to be articulated. And in that way it can draw a little more focus and attention on certain elements, physical elements like breath is an action in a purposeful way, which is, I feel like for this play, for Prick it makes so much sense to have puppets in it.
[00:08:22] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: We also wanted to incorporate aspects of the world, of the other world, the familiars. and. When I said to Madeline, "I'd like a fox, a jackdaw," immediately that was possible and shape-shifting is possible. And it did organically change. My first draft, I think, Meggie, I said that there were puppets attached to bodies on stage, and that was just my first thought about it. And it evolved into the design that Madeline brought to us. But yeah, Meggie, I don't know. What did you think when I said puppets right away? You never seemed to fight that.
[00:08:55] Meggie Greivell: I jumped right in. I was gonna say puppets are also [00:09:00] having, I think, a golden age in theater right now. In the UK they are, I think in the US they are, too. But in the UK, especially, with shows like a Warhorse that was, took over the West End and the Life of Pi right now has just won so many Tony Awards. The puppet artists and the tiger won a Tony Award. It was the first ever puppeteers to win a Tony Award, the seven actors that play the tiger.
[00:09:28] I'd never done it before, and I thought this sounds like a great opportunity to learn and for all of the student actors to learn, as well. And also I knew that it would help tell our story that we wanna tell, especially with The Accused puppet and not wanting to show a woman being tortured on stage. But also The Accused has become this really powerful symbol for women not having control over their own bodies during the witch trials.[00:10:00] And I think puppets bring magic to the theater. Like they belong in the theater and on the street, as you say, Madeline.
[00:10:09] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: It's interesting that we discovered the disassociation that people experience when they're experiencing trauma is personified by having the characters in our play talking about what happens. But it's embodied by The Accused, our puppet that we call The Accused. And so that was a very organic discovery that felt totally right. When we observed what that disassociation looked like on stage, it felt, like, oh my gosh, yes. It just felt really central to the whole premise of the piece. And we were working really quickly in conceiving and creating this piece. It was a beautiful discovery that felt completely in alignment with what we were trying to do with the piece.
[00:10:49] Meggie Greivell: And all of the audiences have been responding really strongly to all the puppets, and they understand the symbolism of The Accused immediately. [00:11:00] We've had really, really powerful responses about that and the familiar puppets as well.
[00:11:08] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: So in the piece we have three different women who are called into what we call a liminal space, and when they get there, they are conjured into the space by the ensemble, and they are facing off with the pricker character. And in that space, The Accused appears. And so when the women are conjured and they are representing their own, this kind of core character, The Accused is with them.
[00:11:35] Meggie Greivell: The Accused represents all three of the women, but also each of them individually, as well.
[00:11:42] Josh Hutchinson: Can you talk about what pricking is?
[00:11:46] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: ah, pricking.
[00:11:47] Meggie Greivell: Yes.
[00:11:48] So pricking in Scotland during the Witch Craft Act, there were witch prickers who were employed to prick and torture the women. So there, there [00:12:00] actually were witch prickers. But the play also has a beautiful double entendre. Pricking symbolizes women being pricked with misogyny, as well.
[00:12:12] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: So the witch picker would use an instrument or a tool to search for a spot on the woman's body that wouldn't bleed. Witch prickers weren't part of every single trial, but they came and went in the Scottish Witch Trials, and they were sometimes charlatans, brutal. Women would be shaved, stripped, and searched and pricked with an iron rod, looking for a place on their body that wouldn't bleed. And if it was found or falsely found, it was stated that was where the devil's mark was.
[00:12:47] Meggie Greivell: And they were paid very well to do this, and they're very respected in the community.
[00:12:55] Josh Hutchinson: I would say for our audience, a [00:13:00] similar thing happened when they would have a group of women, a jury of women search a female suspect the body looking for witches' teets. That's what they were looking for at Salem and other American trials, and they didn't use the torture method of pricking along, but if they found an insensitive place, sometimes they would stick a needle through it to see if it drained any fluid. And yeah, they would just check for insensitive locations that stood out as unusual.
[00:13:41] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: To think that a person would be touched in this way. And I, I think it's interesting that prickers in Scotland and the witch trials had their eras. It wasn't consistent throughout, but prickers would show up.
[00:13:57] One of the characters in our play, Marion Twedy [00:14:00] was pricked and actually that I found her in the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft database. And it so happens that she had two really interesting, compelling things about her case, one that she was pricked and one that she never confessed. But in her pricking, they did discover the devil's mark. We don't know what that was, but we know that she was pricked and that without a confession, the mark that was found on her was enough to end her life.
[00:14:31] Josh Hutchinson: Terrible. We, Sarah and I have ancestors who were examined that way in the Salem witch trials, not with the pricking but with the close inspection of their secret parts. And teets were found, and they said, "get some more experienced women over here." But for the pricking, it's just extremely invasive and misogynist to have a man doing that to a [00:15:00] woman. That just is so brutal. I can hardly imagine it.
[00:15:04] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: The fact that sometimes the pricking instrument was a fake instrument that was enough to condemn a woman was that's not something we addressed in Prick. There was a lot I couldn't address just because the play is a one act play, but it did give a character a line, "you're pricking me now with every word," and to me that is that is the thread that Meggie was talking about earlier about the misogyny piece. Not every woman was pricked, but we all know what it feels like to be pricked in some way. And I'm not suggesting that the kind of pricking that these women underwent was in any way comparable to the pricks I felt in my life, because it's not the same, but that kind of image is resonant for all of us, I think.
[00:15:51] Sarah Jack: Absolutely.
[00:15:52] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: I asked Madeline to create different size prickers, too, so that each character is met with an [00:16:00] instrument that gets bigger and bigger as the piece proceeds. So it starts out as a normal size, and then she plays with scale. So by the end, we see that this pricker is like the boogeyman is holding this pricker, and it's a little bit more universal.
[00:16:13] Josh Hutchinson: Such a powerful image.
[00:16:16] Madeline: And you just wonder at one point the person instigating or physically doing the harm disassociate themselves. So when we were like working through that piece in the show, that pricking object, like we just worked with the power that object held a bit, which was an, I dunno, it's just an interesting exercise, those elements and objects of torture.
[00:16:49] Josh Hutchinson: It's amazing to me that anybody made it through without confessing.
[00:16:55] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Zoe and Claire on the Witches of Scotland podcast, they talk about that a lot and [00:17:00] the whole thing about Scotland doesn't torture. It's like there was no torture in Scotland. It's just such a ridiculous thing to suggest that's not torture. I would've confessed for sure I wouldn't have been able to take that pain. That's how I think. Maybe I'm wrong, but.
[00:17:14] Meggie Greivell: And Marion Twedy, did you, I can't remember if you said this earlier, but the character, Marion, our play, she did not confess, and we have that in the play. She's one of the women who did not confess, which is just so unimaginable to think about that.
[00:17:32] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we have cases where the interrogation itself was intimidating enough to get a confession without the added physical duress, and it's just a marvel to me that anybody got through that process and even lived to be tried.
[00:17:56] Sarah Jack: Does the play open with a strong start [00:18:00] or do you ease the audience into things?
[00:18:02] Meggie Greivell: I would say it opens with a strong start.
[00:18:05] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: It opens with it well, some audience members have described it as a chant or an incantation. But it starts with a list of communities around Scotland and one of our actors, she's from the Isle of Skye, and she said, "oh, this sounds like a walking song," and she came up with the song to go along with it. So it comes across as this really beautiful kind of chant, and then it's followed by an incantation welcoming the women into the space.
[00:18:33] Meggie Greivell: It's a very haunting song. And we were using, Laurie wrote a heartbeat into the script and we organically discovered this, I found this very large stick at a store called Pound Savers, which is like the dollar store. And in the rehearsal room we discovered that it made a really great heartbeat sound, and that's in the song [00:19:00] and throughout the play, as well.
[00:19:02] But it's become a symbol as well for a broomstick, as well as other types of domestic things, like a butter churn. And we also learned this was a happy discovery, coincidence, but also works really well with the play that in Scotland, a lot of the ministers and commissioners that were involved in the trials, they used questioning sticks. In the opening song, it sounds almost like a sea shanty or like this haunting folk song. And Laurie's written all these really beautiful words and incorporated in the Scottish cities where the witch trials happened into the song.
[00:19:42] Josh Hutchinson: What stood out to me about the opening song is just how long the list of those cities is, the communities where witch trials happened. It's dozens of places.
[00:19:56] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: And yet it's still not comprehensive, right? That was my fear. What did I leave [00:20:00] out? And even now as I'm talking about things that are happening, as I'm trying to wrap my mind about where things are happening in the world, I feel like, again, not comprehensive to understand where modern witch hunts are happening. Just everywhere yet in between is how I got through that as a writer.
[00:20:19] Meggie Greivell: And that's one of the lyrics in the song as well.
[00:20:22] Josh Hutchinson: You talked about one of the women who's a victim who's in the play. Who are the other main characters whose story's being told?
[00:20:33] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: The first is an unknown woman, which was very intentional. I was really struck by the sundry witches and all the people whose names are lost. And so she was really the first woman to be conjured in my mind and also to be conjured into this world of this play. And she doesn't know who she is, which is part of her journey.
[00:20:59] [00:21:00] She arrives in on the scene and is confused. She's come back, because she's looking for her baby, her bairn, and doesn't find her baby there. And she tries to leave, and they pull her back in. And we call her the unknown woman. She's an individual, but she represents many of the sundry witches who have no stone, no memorial, and no way of knowing who they are, erased by time.
[00:21:27] Meggie Greivell: And Laurie writes very beautifully into the unknown woman's language that she has no stone. That's a through line throughout all of her scene.
[00:21:39] Sarah Jack: So many elements of this work are just so incredible. I was so thrilled to see this aspect that you put into the story, because the unnamed, for the reasons that you just mentioned, but there's so many we don't know their name. You think about like with this specific [00:22:00] unnamed woman, she didn't know who she was. It's so striking, because before they're accused and examined, these women felt very confident, possibly some did, from testimonies you read, they're confident they're not a witch, they're confident that they're clear before God. And there's other historical unnamed individuals that are memorialized.
[00:22:26] And then I think of when we were working on our exoneration legislation in Connecticut this past year. There is an unnamed person in some records, but the politicians didn't include it in the final draft that individual who could have represented so many, who could have been a symbol for these women like your unnamed is, she was removed from that legislation, and that was so disappointing to me. I [00:23:00] am so thrilled to see that a part of your message.
[00:23:04] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: That's heartbreaking. The fact that we don't know who she was doesn't change the fact that she existed. I think this is what's so important about memorialization, too, is that marking someone's life acknowledges, it's like how we all wanna feel seen, right? I wanna feel seen. You wanna feel seen. To be unseen and to be invisible is another insult. And then for, I think for these women who were Christian women, to not be given a Christian burial, at least in their own understanding of the world as they know it, they're not seen in the world, in the afterlife, in the way that they wanted to be seen. That's an aspect for her, too, that she's stuck in purgatory or whatever it is, the liminal space.
[00:23:45] Meggie Greivell: And Laurie used the Scottish Witchcraft database to get information for the three accused women in the play. And we learned that there are thousands of unnamed in the [00:24:00] records here. So it's a lot really.
[00:24:04] Josh Hutchinson: I found the line in the play about the and sundry witches were killed so powerful, because it shows how little these women were valued. You don't even deserve to have a name, like you're just erased entirely.
[00:24:26] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Yeah, I think we included the definition. Our version of this play has three men who play various roles, and then three women who play various roles, plus each having their own individual women. But the chorus of men says sundry witches confessed. And one of the women says, "sundry: definition, various items not important enough to be mentioned individually." And that's what it comes down to. It's you're not important enough for us to know who you were.
[00:24:51] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Our listeners here will be familiar with a lot of the women who are just known as Goodwife or Goody, [00:25:00] because their first name, nobody bothered to record that. They just recorded that they were the wife of so-and-so and the man mattered, but the woman who was the actual target, her name didn't matter. So yeah, it's very moving.
[00:25:20] Sarah Jack: I also think it's a recognition of the modern victims that we're just getting to know. We know of such a small fraction of the individual cases. So here today, there are unnamed victims.
[00:25:36] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Yeah, and I think it's hard for people when you don't have a name or a story to attach to something to actually hang their understanding on what happened. If it's oh, this woman, this happened to this woman or these women, versus knowing the names of people who are going through this trauma, that's a completely different thing. It's like a personification in a way. [00:26:00] Sundry objectifies people. It makes them into just another witch, when it's an individual who has a story and a life and a history and a family and a living, breathing identity.
[00:26:11] Madeline: It is incredible the power that language has here in dehumanizing. That's actually like what my college thesis was about, our language and use of the words torture and terrorism around like torture tactics used, created by the US government, used in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. And dehumanization that happens to each of those individuals and the things that are defined as torture and those that are not, and those are, that are defined politically and have ramifications of teeth attached to them. It's really interesting what happens when certain words are attached to things and then a whole people become numb to the realities of what that means, of the people behind those [00:27:00] things, or the victims.
[00:27:00] Josh Hutchinson: And there's more than just the pricking in the play. There's also the watching, which was another form of torture. Can you talk to us a little about the watching?
[00:27:13] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: That's really interesting, because one of the things that we discovered in the writing of the piece was that the cast was really interested in kind of understanding what it meant to be watching, too. And you may have noticed that a character who is just a general farmer becomes a watcher, and he has this really beautiful arc throughout the piece.
[00:27:36] That's, those are his words. He was talking about how he felt about playing this role, that his character had an arc. He went from being an accuser to a watcher to the spouse of a victim and essentially a nonbeliever at the end in God or the devil. But that watching piece, people were paid to [00:28:00] watch women, keep them awake, keep them from falling asleep. Sleep deprivation was a a form of getting a confession, and they, the people who were, the women and their families were paying for the candles that the watchers were using. They were paying the salaries of the watchers. This is another weird aspect of the economics of it, is that it got turned back to the families at the end. You, this is your bill for what your witch costs our community.
[00:28:28] You were just asking about the watchers, but it's a bigger answer. We were really curious about what it was like to be responsible for inflicting this on someone else. Our watcher walks into the room and sees his wife in a witch's bridal, which was a way of keeping a woman awake, keeping her tongue from being able to talk and a terrible torture device. And that's bridal is on our puppet, the accused. And I think people respond to that in a way that's really shocked. [00:29:00] Even though you know it's not on a person. It's very evocative.
[00:29:04] Josh Hutchinson: So the watching we're talking about, you would sit a woman in the middle of a room and have somebody keep them awake for days on end, and they're looking to see if a familiar or imp comes to feed while they're watching, so the witnesses can confirm that the suspect has had a contract with the devil.
[00:29:33] And they did that also in England. Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, is known for doing that. And there's at least one case in New England that's documented of Margaret Jones of Charlestown. She was watched in this way.
[00:29:49] But in your play, I know the characters are awake for untold hours and days, [00:30:00] and at that point, you're just delirious, and who knows what you're seeing even to get a confession out of you at that point, doesn't seem like it might be the most accurate confession that you're gonna get, but it's what they wanted to hear is what the person would say.
[00:30:18] Madeline: Important to note that in Scotland at the time, torture was illegal and known to produce inaccurate information. So there was that piece of recognition there, on the books in Scotland as the official way of the land. And then the reality of the witch trial.
[00:30:38] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: And what do they say? It takes 48 hours before you start hallucinating when you're sleep deprived. Or I hope I'm getting that when I was just in Edinburgh last week, somebody was talking about that, that you are not a reliable witness after being awake for 48 hours. And there is records of a lot of these people being kept awake for days at a time, like you said.
[00:30:59] [00:31:00] I took the perspective that a person who was kept awake like this would do anything to make it stop. That is part of this piece, as you mentioned, but it's a thread that goes through every single trial that we read about the sleep deprivation.
[00:31:13] Meggie Greivell: And it was often the accused family members or friends or neighbors who were doing the watching, which I find like just so incredibly harrowing. That's with all of the witch trials. I know that was something that happened where neighbors had to be complacent, and that's the something that just really disturbs me so much, and I think Laurie wrote that so beautifully.
[00:31:41] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: These really small communities, everybody knows each other, right? They're accusing people they know, they're watching people they know, and they're executing people they know.
[00:31:49] Meggie Greivell: Yeah.
[00:31:51] Josh Hutchinson: And you do see that with the modern day witchcraft persecutions, as well. The [00:32:00] accusation often comes from within the family, and it's just so extra tragic that it's somebody that you know and you trust turns against you.
[00:32:12] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: The third woman that's conjured into our space is probably the most famous of all the Scottish witches, Isobel Gowdie. And she was the last character to come to me. What we love about Isobel Gowdie is how much agency she has in her confessions, or seems to have in her confessions and what she means to people now, that she represents somebody with power.
[00:32:37] And as we were creating this piece, Meggie asked for a powerful character to come into the, this realm. And she was the obvious choice. I wanted to be really careful about how I present her, because I know she has so much meaning to so many people, right? And there's a lot that's unknown about her, [00:33:00] but her confessions are long and interesting and curious and awesome in a way.
[00:33:07] They're just such interesting documents, but we really don't know how she got to those confessions. We don't know if she was pricked or not. There was a pricker in the area, and yet there's no record of the pricker being part of her trial. There's nothing sure about whether she was watched or kept awake. We don't have that information, but we know what she said and it's so interesting. So she was fun to write, and she's, I think Lisa McIntyre, who plays her in this production, really enjoys the power and the fact that she's a bit of a baddy. She gets to speak truth to power and own her own story in a way that the other characters don't, Isobel.
[00:33:49] Meggie Greivell: Laurie and I talked about how we made the choice to give her power back because Laurie was saying, we don't, [00:34:00] nobody knows why she said all things that she said, or if it was really just the ministers and the investigators putting words into her mouth or making these things up or if it was from sleep deprivation.
[00:34:12] But we've made the decision to have her kind of take her power back and say, "no, I did do these things. I did turn into a jackdaw and attacked the pricker."
[00:34:24] Josh Hutchinson: What are some of the other things that she confessed to?
[00:34:28] Meggie Greivell: Part of it though, is she did turn into a lot of different animals.
[00:34:33] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: She did say she did a lot of shape shifting. So Isobel Gowdie, her confessions are pretty remarkable. She says things across a huge gamut, like she's confessed to mixing the body of an unchristian child with nail trimmings, grain, and colewort. I'm reading this right now from the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, but she said she chopped it all up and used it to take away the fruit of a man's corn. Just think about that, [00:35:00] chopping up unchristian child with nail clippings.
[00:35:02] It's ah this flying in a straw broom was a thread that we see the witch on a straw broom. That was a, an Isobel Gowdie kind of a one of her biggies. She talked about elf shot. She would fly around and use elf shot, flick it with her thumb, and kill people to send a soul to heaven, but the body remained on Earth, according to her confessions. Talked about meeting the queen of the fairies, taking away milk, doing things in the devil's name. She said she um, destroyed, let's see, she made an image of the laird of Park to destroy his children, and she went into great detail about how she did this. She confessed a lot to shape changing jackdaws, cat, hare, and we really play with that shape changing aspect in our show. I could go on and on, but she's got a lot of really specific things. And she had four, I think four sets of interviews or [00:36:00] interrogations, and she got more and more specific with each one.
[00:36:02] Sarah Jack: I was thinking about some of the New England witch trials, and there's actually some of the afflicted girls either in Connecticut or in Massachusetts had very detailed accusations. I don't know if there's anything quite that detail coming out of New England in the record from an accused.
[00:36:24] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Yeah, incredibly detailed. She talked about her specific ritual acts, shape changing, using magic, things she did at the Kirk of Auldearn, communal sex with the devil. That was one. He had sex with her whole coven. And meeting and dancing with her coven. She talked about the fairies. She hit the greatest hits of everything. And she gave them all the information that they wanted to have.
[00:36:53] She explicitly said that the devil rebaptized her as Janet, that she had sex with him, [00:37:00] and that his member was great and long, and that younger women had greater pleasure in sex with the devil than with their own husbands. The idea of sex with the devil was really important to the Scottish witch trial confession logs that they would put together. And we also play with that a little bit in our show, that whole thing of this obsession with sex, which is fascinating to me, but also just strange.
[00:37:27] Sarah Jack: We learned of some of that this fall when we talked to Mary Craig, that was really where I was introduced to what a big part of that history it is.
[00:37:43] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Your interview with Mary Craig was one of my favorite interviews. She was a great resource.
[00:37:47] Sarah Jack: You had a couple lines that the devil said that I loved, and the first is, "I get the credit and I don't have to do any of the work." And [00:38:00] I also, I thought it sounded just like him to say, "I've been here a while. You were nay paying me mind."
[00:38:06] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: It was fun to write for the devil. It was fun to write that character. And I have to be reminded that for in this world, that the devil was absolutely real. The fact that I personally don't believe that the devil exists doesn't matter. These characters believed that the devil existed, and it was a great and real threat. And that's the first thing that when I'm talking to modern people about this play, that they're like, "oh, really?" But the devil was a threat.
[00:38:36] Josh Hutchinson: They didn't just believe in the devil. They believed that he was roaming around physically as a person and luring people over to his side to sign contracts with them, which I found interesting in the symbolism in Scotland of someone [00:39:00] becoming the devil's with the touching of the head and the foot. I found that to be very interesting also.
[00:39:08] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: And claiming everything in between.
[00:39:10] Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
[00:39:11] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Yeah, I believe that was in Isobel's confession, as well, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:39:18] Josh Hutchinson: I think that I read that in that scene. Where she says she's be been baptized as Janet. Yeah. Which I love the Janet and Janet show, because those names, I've listened to all of Witches of Scotland, and Janet and Jonet just come up again and again in the Scottish witch trials.
[00:39:40] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Yeah, that's where I got that.
[00:39:43] And it was also a happy accident that our actor who plays Janet in the Janet and Janet scene plays Isobel Gowdie and says, "no, I am Janet. You'll call me Janet." And so that was just another kind of discovery of another added layer of something cool.
[00:39:58] Josh Hutchinson: Another [00:40:00] theme in there is the labeling of women as quarrelsome dames. And you took that from the reality.
[00:40:11] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: There was a lot to mine. And I think that as a woman of my time, I relate to that a lot. And as I get older and feel like, yeah, I'm gonna take up as much space as I want in this world, I see how some people respond to that. We take the quarrelsome dame mantle pretty proudly. Would you say Meggie?
[00:40:37] Meggie Greivell: Definitely, we are quarrelsome dames.
[00:40:41] Josh Hutchinson: Yay.
[00:40:42] Meggie Greivell: embrace it.
[00:40:43] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I'm so happy to hear that.
[00:40:46] Meggie Greivell: I think, yeah, as women, we've all experienced times where we've been told that we're too loud, too rude, too bossy, too something. That's an aspect right there that we still have [00:41:00] so far to come with in terms of misogyny. The accused women were called quarrelsome dames then, and now we're just called something else.
[00:41:09] Josh Hutchinson: Now we see a lot with women politicians still getting labeled as witch.
[00:41:16] Meggie Greivell: Yes, definitely like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren and here in Scotland no, Nicole Sturgeon, the former Prime Minister of Scotland. She has been called a witch several times.
[00:41:33] Josh Hutchinson: I've seen some of that, and it's just very inappropriate. It feels like men feel threatened when a woman comes into her power and can't just share responsibilities with women. You gotta feel threatened. They're taking over your job or something, but they're not, so [00:42:00] chill out dudes.
[00:42:01] Meggie Greivell: Exactly. As a female director, I've encountered that over my career, as well, with being in a position of power in what is still male-dominated industry. Some pushback definitely.
[00:42:17] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: It is interesting to write a piece that's like blatantly naming what most women agree is an experience of being responded to or being pricked by misogyny. It's interesting to encounter what that's like for an audience member who doesn't feel comfortable with that. I think that I'm comfortable with someone being uncomfortable with this piece.
[00:42:46] And part of the reason why I infuse comedy or dark comedy into a subject like this is because that's one way that I can acknowledge that this is a I, [00:43:00] we all know what we're seeing here, right? We know what we're seeing. We're getting what we're seeing here. And it's just a way of acknowledging something that but just putting it into a vessel of communicating that is not a victimized place. That's a more of a an owning the power of what it means to be having this conversation at all.
[00:43:25] Madeline: I think the way you wrote it, Laurie, with the kind of time shifts to the modern platform with like comedic elements allows us to take in the gravity of the reality of the situation. And I feel like in many ways, like comedy, is it the element of that is necessary in this piece. It's not like we're just diving into some disaster tourism situation, like we're getting into something that's relevant and related to now, and you give like those little plant the seeds so people are [00:44:00] making connections. So like why does addressing this thing that happened a long time ago matter now, and how is it still happening, and what are the ways that even in the same place, even in, how is that still showing up?
[00:44:14] Because all of those pieces are still very much alive. And then there are other places in the world where like the reality perhaps even looks similar. But there's also that piece where like this history is a part of our history. And yeah, I feel like it makes it more accessible in a way to have the juxtaposition of that, of the conversation going on, like within the piece.
[00:44:40] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Madeline, something you just said about the disaster aspect. Like I didn't, that's another thing I didn't want, I didn't want it to be torture porn. That's a terrible word, but I didn't want everybody, everyone to come and see a piece that lives in a place where women are being harmed for an hour or more.[00:45:00] That color and that kind of gut punch, that's not interesting, and it's abusive. It's an abusive thing to do. I wanted people to be able to come in and out of this space and our characters and their cast to be able to come in and out of this space, have a conversation that needs to be had, raise a voice that needs to be raised, and by the grace of something, let them exit that space and move, shift into something else.
[00:45:24] And that, again, was a discovery along the way. But I felt it was important to lean into that as it was unveiling itself to us in the process. And our cast is doing a great job of navigating the kind of different colors of this piece. It's hard to describe, though. It's hard to explain, a piece about witch trials that has comedy in it. It seems a little hard to explain, but.
[00:45:50] Meggie Greivell: The piece really does lift up all of the women and gives them their voice back. And I think that is the most powerful [00:46:00] part of this. And the last word in the play that Laurie wrote is, "and the rage." So we have that whole aspect of it. It's giving the voices back to these women.
[00:46:11] Madeline: Also wanna add that in the process, like the week that we were over there, Laurie and I were over there working with actors. She was like, "I want you guys to tap into this and then I want you to tap out, like physically, do hands up. Okay, I'm getting into this role. I'm putting this on for a moment. But we're not like doing this to each other. This is we're agreeing right now." There was just this like little element of consent exercise that happened, like for the actors. It was like this facilitated thing that was, it was just nice to come in and out like that as a cohort.
[00:46:44] Sarah Jack: I just think undertaking this topic as a visual and audible presentation. It is such a layered undertaking, just like the history is, and you used the word [00:47:00] unveiling. It's an opportunity to unveil what we can't get everybody to acknowledge. I just keep thinking about the complexity of the reality, but then also, when I was reading through the script, there's just, all, Meggie said the double entendres, and then the iconic symbolisms, and you even got an apple in there with the devil, and the catchphrases, but then the puppetry and everything about it was just, I think it's such a remarkable piece of art. And thanks for putting it out there. It's important. It's so important.
[00:47:41] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: I really appreciate that. I was really nervous about kind of the tone shifts right out of the gate, and so I really appreciate that feedback. And if something didn't work, I would wanna know that too, right? Because I feel like this subject and these people and just the larger conversation needs to be right, [00:48:00] like the history needs to be correct. The level of respect needs to be correct, and I'm serving a bigger thing, which is why I'm so pleased to be working on this project.
[00:48:12] Sarah Jack: I was gonna add, too, that whole comedy element, it's in the history. There's so many times where we're looking at these dispositions or different things we can read that were happening or people were saying, and you just are like, this can't even be real. It's sadly hysterical, and so I think that's a really great thread to be able to weave in to the storytelling, too, like you did.
[00:48:37] Meggie Greivell: It was all so much about fake news being spread around, which Laurie has written that in so well into the play, as that's so relevant today.
[00:48:47] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Honestly it was my, weirdly my way into this piece, 'cause I would say, I don't know how I'm gonna get into this piece, I don't know what my way in, I don't know what my way in is. And then it was, fake news. I was like, that to me, that was the [00:49:00] hook that got me started writing in the first place.
[00:49:03] I typically write musical theater pieces, and so when it came to the monologues that the women were doing, I didn't really know what to do. So I said, okay, I'm gonna treat this like it's a lyric. And if I were writing a lyric, I would just be brain draining all of my ideas about things that could be in a lyric. And then I would take that kind of dump of writing and find kernels inside of it to craft into a lyric.
[00:49:27] But I approached it in that way and I realized, oh no, this is the same approach, like they are having this moment of expression that is simply for their a mining of their emotional life at this moment of time when they're being when they're being interrogated. And it It felt the same to me as a song moment where it was, we call it sometimes in, in crafting musicals, theater, in crafting songs, a vertical expression instead of a long horizontal line. It's what is your thought? We're gonna go deeply into [00:50:00] this thought. And for me, it had a lyrical element in working it. And I think that's what I love about working with the puppets, too, is that the puppets to me have a lyrical element, too, because their movement is so expressive, and it's like the actors are singing the puppets alive.
[00:50:18] Madeline: I'm curious now. I haven't seen the script in a long time and probably haven't seen the things until it was like puppet does something here. And then Laurie would come to me and be like, "so what can I do?" So it was fun, I was building even as we got to Scotland and was building the week that we had with the actors.
[00:50:38] I'm curious what it says now when you're reading it, Sarah, because I'm like, oh, that, like we developed those things together and like we didn't really know what it was capable of until we're like figuring out what it's capable of doing. Yeah, just a funny curiosity thinking like, how does that look on paper now?
[00:50:59] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: I don't think I [00:51:00] changed it in the script. I think the script just says, "the fox comes through" or that, yeah. But to Madeline's point about working collaboratively, I knew who the cast was before I had written a word of the play. So I was setting this piece onto this cast, and I was writing for the actors that I had, which is a really a luxury when you're a playwright to be able to write for actors that you know who they are. It's the best case scenario, I think.
[00:51:25] Madeline built The Accused, this woman puppet, which is gorgeous. And she built a fox, a cat, a jackdaw, and then a flock of jackdaws, a flock of 13 jackdaws. And the script, it just says that they sweep through, and some actors use them throughout the entire play, and they're just beautiful.
[00:51:50] Sarah Jack: I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to read something from the script.
[00:51:55] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: Yeah, I'd love to. Would you like to hear the Unknown Woman or from [00:52:00] Marion Twedy?
[00:52:01] Josh Hutchinson: I vote for Unknown.
[00:52:04] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: This is an excerpt from the Unknown Woman. So in this monologue, by the time we get to this place, she's realized that there's no stone. No one knows who she is. She's been wiped off the face of the earth, for all practical purposes. She explains that she understands why she was accused, that she doesn't blame her accuser, but that she didn't do what she had been accused of.
[00:52:30] And she's completely vulnerable at this point. So we hear the crescendo of a heartbeat, and she's alone.
[00:52:40] "Let me die, I think. I will tell them whatever it is they want to hear. If only I can get some rest. Only, but there is no rest for the wicked, they say. Am I wicked? I was baptized. I'm a Christian. My bairn was baptized, had a Christian burial. [00:53:00] How did it come to this? I'll tell them whatever it is they want to hear, I'll tell them, yes, no, whatever I'm supposed to say to make this nightmare end so I can sleep, so I can hold my bairn again. But there is no rest for the wicked. Let me die, I think. I want to die. I think. I think I'm dead, for here I am here in this purgatory. Is this purgatory or is this someplace worse? Some kind of purgatory with no hope of escape? Is this hell? There's no rest here, no bairn, no breath. I do not lay in consecrated ground. I have no stone. Ah, that explains it. That explains why nobody visits me. Nobody comes to weep or laugh or make a pencil rub or write a poem or mark a holiday.[00:54:00] Will I my soul, will my soul ever be allowed to be at peace? Will I ever hold my bairn again? You damned me to an eternity of what, what you damned yourself, they said. How? How? I made a charm the way my mother taught me, the way her mother taught her, the way her mother taught her. They said I danced with the devil. If I did dance, that's all I did, dance. I don't know what I did. I don't know anything anymore."
[00:54:33] I didn't use Scottish dialect. I'm not gonna pretend to be Carys Turner, the beautiful performer who does that in our play.
[00:54:42] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much.
[00:54:44] Sarah Jack: Thank you so much.
[00:54:46] Josh Hutchinson: Wonderful. I just want to talk for a moment about how people can see the play. Can you tell us about how it's playing right now and any future plans that you have?
[00:54:58] Meggie Greivell: Yes, so [00:55:00] it's right now we are on until the 25th at the Space on the Mile at 11:15 AM on odd days. We are hoping, really hoping, that it gets picked up for a tour in the UK and Scotland. We've had a few producers, so fingers crossed on that. And it will be filmed professionally on the 21st, so we will have it archived, and so we will have a film version of it, and we hope to bring it to the US, as well. Laurie hopes to bring it to the US, as well. So we just are right now, our fingers are just crossed that we can get it on a tour.
[00:55:41] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: If anybody's interested in reading the play to produce a version of it, feel free to reach out to me, and I'd be happy to send a copy of the script.
[00:55:50] Josh Hutchinson: It's such a powerful story that needs to be told. So I wish you all the best of luck getting it picked up for tours.[00:56:00] It's so good to give voices to the voiceless. So that's something that we want to do with the podcast, as well, is tell the stories of these people, even the unknown person that Sarah was talking about earlier, they need their story told. So I think you, I think that theater is an excellent way to introduce the story to audiences.
[00:56:29] Sarah Jack: Is there anything else you wanted to be able to express today?
[00:56:34] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: The people who were prickers were individuals, and in our world they're represented by this kind of boogeyman character who's a pricker, not a specific individual.
[00:56:47] Meggie Greivell: And he represents all of the men of the time who are abusing their power.
[00:56:52] Madeline: I maybe wanna add that there was a lot of deliberation that kind of went into landing on doing one woman puppet, [00:57:00] and we talked about making specific puppets for each of the actresses, of their like particular faces, sculpting off of their pictures. And yeah, it was just a vibrant conversation and we landed on this, but in a way also just thinking about honoring the larger experience, I think landing on one woman.
[00:57:21] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: I would say that people respond to seeing that one puppet as a very universal creation and see themselves in it. I the feedback that we've gotten from people is that was the right thing and that it really is very resonant. I also wanna say that this piece is still alive, right? So it was created super collaboratively and quickly and generously by all of the collaborators that were involved. Meggie brought the idea, Madeline was part of it from the very beginning, and the students gave us a lot of feedback in the process of writing. First time that they saw a script, it was just [00:58:00] the first 30 pages. That was the first time we said, "okay, how do we feel about these tone shifts? How do we feel about the fact that it moves through time and space?"
[00:58:09] And we were all in agreement. As I went forward writing pages for them about what that would look like, they would come back to me and say, "we wish that the devil would come back."
[00:58:21] "Okay, what does that look like?"
[00:58:23] "We wanna see King James again."
[00:58:25] "What does that look like?"
[00:58:26] "What if the watcher in the next scene is the farmer watching his wife?"
[00:58:30] "Oh, that's a great idea. Let me see what that looks like."
[00:58:32] So those, and it's still a new work and I suspect that the next production will have edits, like a new play does when it goes into another iteration. So I'm really excited to see how this play continues to grow. And I would say that if anybody does wanna do this piece, that they should hunt down Madeline Helling to work on the puppets with them.
[00:58:52] Madeline: Well, and I'll say too on that note, like there was a lot of changes. She'd be like, "oh, I met with the cast. So this whole part has changed." Like every [00:59:00] time there was like a Zoom, there was like both of you could attest that there were many changes that were made. So on my end I kept being like, "okay, you're not ready for that part, so I'm just gonna hold off or build this thing and then change it." And just given our time constraint and like what I needed to craft, it was like, okay, I'm just, I was just like crafting at a pace that went with the ebb and flow.
[00:59:22] Laurie Flangian-Hegge: I'm just grateful to Meggie for having this idea and bringing it, she, she actually, when she first in invited me to this piece, she said, "I just got back from having dinner at The Witchery." There's this restaurant called The Witchery in Edinburgh. It's a fancy, beautiful restaurant, but she said it's a restaurant called The Witchery on the grounds, essentially of where the witches were burned. And that felt off to you, would you say, Meggie? That felt.
[00:59:50] Meggie Greivell: Yeah, that's how this all started. The first time I went to North Berwick too, when I'd never been there before, and I learned about the North Berwick witch [01:00:00] trials, and I was completely floored and disgusted. There was just a tiny little plaque in this old church by the sea about it, but nothing else.
[01:00:10] And then from there I kept getting even more enraged. Like Laurie said, I went to The Witchery and my family, and it's this beautiful restaurant with exquisite dining options. But yeah it's where the witches, the women were burned. Not the witches. The women, or the women were burned.
[01:00:29] And I also went on a tour, a ghost tour about a few months before I approached Laurie, and they pulled out thumbscrews that they, I replicated thumbscrews. I don't think they were real. And they took, were asking for volunteers to put them on, and I think they put them on me, and everyone was laughing and I was just disgusted this isn't funny but that's a problem with Edinburgh. It's very exploitative of the witch [01:01:00] trials and I know it's like that in Salem, as well. I just thought this is a story that needs to be told, and theater is what I do, so that is going to be the medium for it. And I reached out to Laurie on a whim, and I got lucky.
[01:01:18] Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.
[01:01:22]
[01:01:29] Mary Bingham: Recently I suffered a situation which resulted in my feeling anxious, heartbroken, and most sadly not wanted. Luckily, I have a wonderful community of family, friends, and social services in which I can tap into if needed until I get back on my feet. I am grateful.
[01:01:49] This is not the situation for those women of Ghana accused of witchcraft. They are accused for causing sickness to their neighbors, weather [01:02:00] conditions to cause crop failures, among other things. Those women who are not beaten and burned alive for this crime they did not commit, were sent to one of six witch camps where their living situations were abhorrent at best.
[01:02:15] I cannot begin even to fathom their feelings of total abandonment and betrayal at the hands of their neighbors and family members. Yes, family members. I shouldn't complain. I will survive. Some of these women will not, but there is hope. In 2005, ActionAid started to infiltrate these camps with basic life necessities. The advocates also educated these women and children, informing the women of their rights. In 2011, the women were thus able to stop the Ghana government from closing the camps the following year. Quick closure could result in homelessness [01:03:00] and possibly death by those wanting these innocent human beings dead. They spoke loud and strong using every media and social service at their disposal, increasing benefits for themselves to survive.
[01:03:15] For me, I look forward to the day when my living situation improves. However, I look more towards these women who survive circumstances I will never understand. They are the heroes along with the advocates who risk their lives to save the many for whom they advocate. Thank you.
[01:03:34]
[01:03:42] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:03:43] Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[01:03:47]
[01:03:53] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update. We must continue to educate [01:04:00] against witch-hunt behavior and provide communities with the resources to feel safe together and to work together. If you are in the position to positively impact the communities that experience witch-hunt behaviors, stand in the gap with active advocates now.
[01:04:14] Today, the victims of sorcery accusation related violence must not be nameless and disregarded. We may not know the names of men and women who were attacked today, but we know what is happening. We can speak about their stories and their innocence. We can continue to educate the world about which hunting today. We can acknowledge the crisis. Know that the victims have names, that they have lives, that they have plans, that they want their beautiful tomorrow. If you are in the position to positively impact the communities that experience witch-hunt behaviors in which attacks, stand in the gap with active advocates now.
[01:04:46] I am descended from two well-known accused witches, one whose name was used in the iconic play of The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Rebecca Nurse is a name that is familiar with everyone who knows even a little about the Salem witchcraft trials. She said on the record, the [01:05:00] world will know my innocence. We do know her innocence, and we can name her as innocent by name. Rebecca Nurse
[01:05:06] was not a witch. Some of the trials on record have accused identified only by their husband's surname as Goodwife or Goody. Goody Knapp, Goodwife Bassett. We do not know the given name of these women, but we do know that they were innocent of causing supernatural harm. Goody Knapp and Goodwife Bassett were not witches.
[01:05:24] In the American colonies, we have primary sources indicating that at least one unknown person was accused of witchcraft crimes in Connecticut. Unknown was not a witch. Unknown was innocent. Although some names are recorded, the names of thousands of other imprisoned and executed alleged witch across Scotland are unknown. They were innocent. They were not witches.
[01:05:45] When we hear the name of Rebecca Nurse, Marion Twedy, and Isobel Gowdie or other named, executed witch trial victims, may we always see their unnamed sisters, the unknown victims standing there with them in history, unforgotten. Today, 70 years after The Crucible, [01:06:00] the play Prick is memorializing the thousands of women who suffered and died as unnamed alleged witches. This play recognizes them. It is a memorial to the unknown. We must remember them. Thank you, Prick, for honoring their memory in a significant and beautiful way, and for educating the world about witch trials through creative art.
[01:06:18] You are part of Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast community. Your listening and support is part of the work that keeps the critical conversation on ending witch hunts alive and expanding. When you share episodes with your friends, you are making an effort against violence. Having conversations about what is going on is an easy way that you can jump in to end witch hunts. Advocates worldwide are using their particular abilities, influence, and social network. And when you also listen and share, you are part of strengthening that network. It takes every mind, every voice, every small effort. You are a part of the world network that succeeds because of collaboration and collective efforts. When you speak up about sorcery accusation related violence, you will get questions [01:07:00] about the issue. Questions regarding violence against alleged witches can be scary, but we have your back. Not only have you garnered the answers by listening to the conversations on Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast, you can direct anyone to the program for more information. You can reach out to us with your questions and comments anytime. We are on all social media platforms and have a contact form on our website. Let us know how the conversation is going for you in your sphere of influence. We want to know. Reach out.
[01:07:26] Visiting our websites and the advocate websites listed in our show notes often is another way to stay up to date and support the work. To support us, make a tax deductible donation at endwitchhunts.org. Your support funds are witch trial history and advocacy education projects. You can purchase most of the books discussed on Thou Shalt Not Suffer episodes in our online bookshop, or you can buy it directly from the guest. We sell End Witch Hunts, Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, and Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast t-shirts and coffee mugs online in our zazzle.com shop. Make a purchase to support us.
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[01:08:13]
[01:08:19] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:08:21] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:08:22] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:08:28] Sarah Jack: Join us next week for another important episode.
[01:08:31] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:08:34] Sarah Jack: I hope you're visiting us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:08:38] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[01:08:42] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:08:48] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:08:51] [01:09:00]

August 24, 2023

Dry Tinder with Author Janice C Thompson

Author Janice C. Thompson website, and Dry Tinder book purchasing

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Show Notes

Meet author Janice C. Thompson. Her debut historical novel, Dry Tinder tells the story of Sarah Towne, aka Sarah Cloyce. We share an interesting conversation with Janice about the book, the characters, the meaning behind the title and the founding of Framingham, Massachusetts. She shares her experiences researching and writing historical fiction and self publishing. You will sense her love for local history and fascinating, character-driven stories as we discuss Salem Witch Trial events and individuals. Drawing from her metaphor of a tinder box ready for a spark, we address reasons why we witch hunt, how we witch hunt and how we stop hunting witches. Dry Tinder is out now, order your copy today. Purchasing link is below.

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[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Hello, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: Today's guest is Janice C. Thompson, author of the historical novel Dry Tinder: A Tale of Rivalry and Injustice in Salem Village.
[00:00:37] Sarah Jack: Dry Tinder is a chance to step back in time and use your imagination to be with the Towne family and their experiences.
[00:00:49] Josh Hutchinson: That's right. We're gonna learn about the Towne Sisters.
[00:00:53] Sarah Jack: Learn about the daughters of William and Joanna Towne, Rebecca, Mary, and Sarah.
[00:01:00] Josh Hutchinson: Especially Sarah. We'll also learn about the Putnam's and Thomas Danforth.
[00:01:09] Sarah Jack: A magistrate we don't often hear of or talk about.
[00:01:13] Josh Hutchinson: Who was at the examination of Sarah Cloyce, the protagonist of Dry Tinder.
[00:01:22] Sarah Jack: And who also founded the town that some of the refugees from the Salem Witch Trials reestablish themselves in.
[00:01:31] Josh Hutchinson: We learn about the founding of Framingham, Massachusetts, where Sarah Cloyce and her husband Peter settled after the Salem Witch trials and changed their last name to Clayes.
[00:01:46] Sarah Jack: There isn't much there historically to tell the story, but there is a road named Salem End Lane.
[00:01:57] Josh Hutchinson: And one thing that we keep encountering is just how much people care about the legacy of the Towne sisters, even people with no relation. And we know that there are quite a lot of descendants. The Towne Family Association is very active and regularly does trips back to Salem and Framingham.
[00:02:22] Sarah Jack: Yes, there are individuals who have contributed to the preservation of the history, the physical history of the Towne family, as well as, making sure the story is told.
[00:02:38] Josh Hutchinson: One thing that really interested me in this interview, as a writer, is we got to talk to Janice about her experience as a first time author and first time writing a historical fiction work and the challenges involved in that and the self-publishing process.
[00:03:02] Sarah Jack: And now you get to hear from her, Janice Thompson, a writer and also the co-founder of Harpswell News in Harpswell, Maine. She's a lover of local history and fascinating character-driven stories. Her first novel, Dry Tinder, is based on the true story of the Towne sisters-- three innocent, godly women falsely accused of witchcraft in 1692. As told through the perspective of Sarah Towne, the story becomes personal.
[00:03:28] Josh Hutchinson: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
[00:03:32] Janice C Thompson: Sure. First I have no relation to the Towne family, to my characters. People are thinking, they call me cousin, the Towne family descendants, which is cute.
[00:03:43] Josh Hutchinson: I just wanted to mention that Sarah and I are both Towne descendants.
[00:03:48] Janice C Thompson: Oh, nice.
[00:03:49] Josh Hutchinson: I'm a Mary Esty, and she's Mary and Rebecca.
[00:03:53] Janice C Thompson: Okay. Wonderful. Well, A lot of people are, and I thought, why am I so obsessed with this story? So I actually, I did that genealogical. I'm like, I must, this blood must be in me. But it's not, but I feel like I'm an honorary Towne at this point
[00:04:11] Sarah Jack: I love that. There tends to be this draw and protection towards those sisters from even outside the family. And it always means a lot to me to see that. I think that's really amazing.
[00:04:25] Janice C Thompson: I play in the local concert band. I play trombone. And there is a Nurse in the band, and I gave her the book at the end of the rehearsal last week, and I was in tears. I'm like, "you really need to have this book." So it's meaningful to me, too.
[00:04:42] Josh Hutchinson: You said you've been working on this book for 20 years. How did you come to write this?
[00:04:47] Janice C Thompson: In 2004, my then husband and my two year old child moved into a home in Ashland, Massachusetts, which is about 25 miles directly west of Boston. It's a bedroom community for Boston, a commuter town. And it abuts, it's right next door to Framingham. Most people know of Framingham, not Ashland. It's between Framingham and Hopkinton. Hopkinton is where the Boston Marathon starts, so people know that and they know Framingham.
But anyway, one of the things that really sold us on this house is that it abutted 800 acres of conservation forest with marked trails. Actually, there was a trailhead, like a trail spur that went right into our yard. So we'd often see people come out, they're like, oh, we shouldn't be here. But anyway, just very quickly, after we bought the house, some neighbors came over and we had some coffee, and they said, "oh, have you been to the witch caves out back your house?" And I said, "I don't know what that is." And they said, "oh, yes, it's, the witches escaped from Salem during the trials, and that's where they lived. They hid out in those caves." And I'm thinking, "that's weird because I'm 30 miles southwest of Salem and Salem Village, Danvers, and why would they do that? That seems really weird."
So I looked into it thinking that it was probably an urban legend. Come to find out there was some truth to it, that the story goes that Thomas Danforth, who was the deputy governor the year before, during the trials, good friends with Samuel Sewell, oversaw Sarah's initial examination. This was before the Court of Oyer and Terminer. He oversaw this and put her in jail. And as we all know, Mary and Rebecca were hanged, and Sarah survived just because it was good timing, as we know how.
Anyway, so she was let go, and then the next thing, she and her extended family, so there were some Bridges and there were some Nurses and there all the names that we know left Salem Village and they settled this wilderness to the west of Boston that was owned, these acres, thousands of acres were owned by Thomas Danforth. They had been granted to him by the colony, but he was the treasurer of Harvard. So he was always a Cambridge man. He never settled the lands. So these people came, and they settled the place. They built a meeting house, they had a burying ground, and they ended up incorporating the town of Framingham in 1700. And they called it Framingham because Thomas Danforth was from Framlingham in England. I also found out that these people had built their homes and farms along a road that still exists that's called Salem End Road. And that's the reason why, because they were from Salem.
[00:07:50] Sarah Jack: Is there anything about the experience of writing a first book that you would like to share? What that is like?
[00:08:01] Janice C Thompson: It's really hard. It's harder than I thought. And part of it is because I really wanted it to be authentic. I'm a reader. I love historical fiction. And what my pet peeve is that someone might say, oh, I'm gonna set this story in New York City in the 1880s, say, and then the characters all speak like we do. And you don't really get that sense of place and time. And so I really wanted to be authentic. And as you might have seen in the appendices, I did take liberties with some of the characters just because I can't write about people having 12 kids and having 12 characters. You know, I just can't do that.
It was hard, because I was struggling with the truth of it but also having a book that people wanted to read that was accessible. I remember showing it to Margo early on, and she said, "Janice you can't have your characters talk like they actually did, because it's very off-putting, it's not accessible."
And then I was also trying to figure out, like we have, we're in the 21st century. We have this cultural and social perspective as a result of being in the modern society. And I count myself as a feminist and I fight the man and all of that. But if you are in, if you're Sarah and Mary and Rebecca, and you're in that society in that time, would you even question anything?
Now we know in the fifties and sixties women were starting to say, "no, I don't wanna, I don't like this. I don't, I wanna live a different kind of life. I'm unhappy. I'm unfulfilled." But if you're out 300 plus years ago, and you're in the wilderness, and you don't know if you're gonna make it through the winter, and you are also in this very patriarchal society, would you even complain?
So I really wanted Sarah to be this rebel. But I also wanted it to be authentic. So I was really trying to add more nuance to all of their characters, because nothing in this story, as you probably know, is black and white. A lot of people say, "oh yeah, these girls were evil." I think that they would have PTSD, and they were suffering too. It's not black and white. And you see that all the time in movies and plays, and I just didn't wanna write that kind of book. And I also really wanted to set it up, this context, starting 20 years before that sets up this tinderbox.
And that's actually one of the reasons why I self-published, because the literary agents who were interested in the story said, "I'll take this on, but you have to cut out everything except for just the drama of what happened in 1692. That's what people wanna read. And it has to be accessible. It has to be mass marketed. It has to, you have to sell a lot of copies."
I would love for this to be a bestseller, of course, but I also wanted to write the story I wanted to write. So it was very difficult to say to these professionals, "I think I know better about my book than you do," especially as a first author with a first book. Who am I to do that? So yeah, it was fraught. It was really fraught. I'm starting to write another story that was like set in the nineties in Boston. That's not historic at all. That is so easy. You just say, woo. "What do I want my character to say right now?" It's like I could just make it up. But here I didn't wanna do it, so it was hard, and I don't think I'm ever gonna do it again, not this kind of story. Because I just was so engrossed with it, loved it all, but yeah ready to get it out there into the world.
[00:11:50] Josh Hutchinson: I can relate to a lot of that. I started writing my first novel towards the end of 2008, and I haven't got it ready for publishing yet. Other things keep happening and
[00:12:05] Janice C Thompson: Oh yeah.
[00:12:06] Josh Hutchinson: then you've gotta start over.
[00:12:08] Janice C Thompson: That was one of the issues too, 'cause I've always had to have a full-time job. And I have this notebook this thick with my notes, but you're right. You let it go, and then you have to start all over again. You have to say, "who are these characters? I have forgotten."
And then you get really into it, but then life happens, and you can't focus on it anymore. So that's the reason why I really didn't wanna work at a day job. I wanted to just get to it. That didn't happen. Since we've been up here, I haven't had a full-time job, so I did have more time to focus on it.
[00:12:41] Josh Hutchinson: That's great, and I'm glad that you did it. And I really like the attention to detail in there. And you talked about, you started the story 20 years beforehand to give the background and I think that's so important, because a lot of people just don't understand why the Salem Witch Trials happened.
[00:13:04] Janice C Thompson: Yes.
[00:13:05] Josh Hutchinson: They try to look at things like Margo's favorite thing, that ergot, and it's not that simple.
[00:13:10] Janice C Thompson: love to be in the room when someone asks her about that, because she's very good at hiding her disdain as she responds to that. But yes, and I also find that, in the various depictions and throughout the ages, it's like, it's an anomaly. It just happened and it was mysterious and, yeah, maybe there was poisoning, we don't quite know. But, and then it just disappeared into thin air.
The whole cover of the book is the map of this disputed territory. I actually started it 40 years before, but I did have to cut it down a little bit. And I focused in the original version, I focused more on that boundary dispute, but, I remember it was Marilynne who said, and she read the beginning of it too. And she said, "Janice, you and I are fascinated by this sort of stuff, but it gets very complicated, and I don't think a lot of people would like to know this much detail." So that was one big edit that I did. I cut out like maybe 50 pages. That was painful 'cause I liked the 50 pages, but I did want people to get engaged in it right off the bat.
And so when I had this scene come into my head, and it was very clear to me, a nice spring day, Sarah's walking along the river with a baby. And once that hit, once that got into my head, I'm like, okay, this is where I'm going to start. But yeah, it was difficult. And also if my eighth grade creative writing teacher could hear you, that would be very lovely because I just remember he used to say details, throw in the details, make the reader feel and hear what these characters are doing. So I learned that in eighth grade.
[00:15:01] Sarah Jack: As a descendant and a, possibly because I'm a female as well, the beginning really did pull me in a very nostalgic way, because you meet Sarah first, her motherhood, she's by herself looking for a little wiggle room from the what's pressing in on the women in that society, just in her own outfit and her hair. And then I got to listen to her and her sisters have a conversation in a kitchen. How amazing was that? I was so fascinated. I loved that I could picture Rebecca, Rebecca taking Hannah, Mary working, Sarah trying to relax from the situation that had just happened with her beverage. I just loved it.
[00:15:50] Janice C Thompson: Oh, thank you. I myself have four sisters. I'm in the middle, like Sarah, and this is probably one of the, one of the reasons why I resonated with her, because I'm very close with my sisters. We're a very tight-knit family, and they're a lot different than I am. For example, they're very religious and I'm not, so I was inhabiting Sarah at that point when she said, "why can't I be more like my sisters?" That's an experience that I've had for a very long time. So you have to walk that line between intense love and devotion and frustration, and that's what I wanted to bring out and even in that initial conversation, because Sarah was getting annoyed with them, when they chastised her for taking off her cap.
[00:16:39] Josh Hutchinson: That whole episode with the cap is so indicative of the kind of details that you put in there that really ground people in the time. So I think it was very important how you give a subtle explainer of what life is like in the 17th century for women without just doing a big data dump.
[00:17:03] Janice C Thompson: Well, and that's why these resources were so helpful. Like I have books, you probably saw in the bibliography, I think there were a hundred listings there, but some of them were like life in the Colony in the 1600s and that's what I really wanted to see. I really wanted to find out.
You know how they have those huge fireplaces with the iron thing across it that they hung pots from? I didn't know what that was called, and I didn't wanna say, oh, that iron thing that goes across, so I did a little bit quick research, and it's a crane, it's called a crane. So I'm like, "and so Sarah hung this pot on the crane." And for example, like how did they get around? Did they have a wagon? Did they have to hire a wagon? Did they have horses?
Going up to the Rebecca nurse homestead and just being able to sit there and absorb that house, which we're so lucky that it's still there. All of those resources were enormously helpful. And it was fun. I used to like it. It's, "oh, I don't know that. So let's do a little bit of Google research and figure it out." At one point they're doing like, I was wondering about games, for example, did they even have games? And then I learned about this glyphs that it's like the tongue twisters that we have, that was a, that was like what they did in the 1500s. And so I want all of those things I wanted to add into it to just add layers to it.
[00:18:34] Josh Hutchinson: It gets you into the world, so you see what the characters are experiencing, what they're up against, and yeah, it's very helpful. So you mentioned that you start the novel early. What years does the novel cover?
[00:18:50] Janice C Thompson: It starts 22 years before, so that was 1670. So that was just about the time when William died. And then I play up the whole thing about Joanna being thought of as a witch and it was known that witchcraft it would go from mother to daughter. And I was thinking what was that about?
Some scholar had traced that actual scene about when the minister drinks too much ale and that went to trial, and so when, in my book, when they're at trial, some of that is lifted verbatim from that transcript of that particular trial. That's one of the things that I then grabbed onto. It's okay, I wanna make Joanna be a rebel as well, but I wanna also explain whether, if people thought that she was a witch, why didn't she get arrested for it?
And in my book, it's because she went inward and she's I'm not gonna deal with anybody anymore because I'm so upset. So I wanted to bring that out. But William had died, and so I figured maybe she went a little bit bonkers in grief, maybe she changed her own personality because now he's gone. And I envisioned that he was a, an evening factor for her but without him she didn't know how to act anymore. So I wanted to bring that in. So I started at 20, in 1670 when, so Sarah is married to Edmund Bridges, and she has just had her first baby, Hannah.
[00:20:38] Sarah Jack: I think that is a really relatable time in a family's life that people can connect with. When the head of a family is gone, it's a huge adjustment for the widow, for the descendants. So that would've already started a transition in their lives.
[00:21:01] Janice C Thompson: yeah. I was trying to trace all of the, that went down through the years, the uncertainty and the fear, and when people live in that kind of environment, which by the way we're living in today, people make bad decisions, and they act out of fear. And yes, you're absolutely right, when it's this close-knit family and the patriarch has died.
And I think of this family, this extended family, as a very close family that's a little bit different than other families, because they just kept having babies because they needed to people to till the fields and all of that. Children were seen and not heard. But I envisioned the Towne family as somewhat different than that. Again, totally fabricated. This is the fiction part, that how do they do that and still be in this very rigid society? But I do think that William's dying was a catalyst for at least Joanna getting into trouble.
[00:22:06] Josh Hutchinson: And I wanted to ask what's the significance of the title, Dry Tinder?
[00:22:12] Janice C Thompson: Yeah. When that, it's funny because whenever I do marketing all the time, and so I'm always thinking of designs and headlines and when we do an appeal for the annual fund, or we're doing this kind of brochure or we're doing this e-blast and whatever, and usually my creative process with that is it just comes to me. It'll just, like, all of a sudden I'll be like, "okay, I want this." We're working on a booklet now. It's a tasting book for an event that I'm doing. And it's okay, I know what it's supposed to be. Throughout the entire writing of this book, the title wasn't coming to me. And I always said, it doesn't matter, because I'm so far away from publication that I don't care.
But when I thought of Dry Tinder about a year ago, and I, it really caught on because I'm trying to describe a tinder box. So in the appendices, I say something like a carelessly lit match to dry tinder, the conflagration that follows is not a surprise. So that's where it came from.
That said, I had to struggle with it, because one of the many misconceptions about this story is that these people were burned at the stake, and Dry Tinder connotes that. But I was so married to the title that I just decided to do it anyway.
[00:23:36] Josh Hutchinson: I think it's apt for the way that the conflagration of the witch trials happened. Starts with little spark and then it just, the flames fan out everywhere.
[00:23:50] Janice C Thompson: And I tried to pepper the whole thing with oh, she, the anger that ran through her felt a flame or I tried to bring that theme in a couple of little, a little places. But yeah, I do think that that's the thing that fascinated me the most, because I've been fascinated with this story for whatever reason my whole life.
And so when I started doing that research, I researched it back to England in the 1620s. In the beginning, I even had like backstories about William and Joanna when they were just meeting in their church, and because I kept going back, and I kept going, 'cause I can see the thread, but I just figured I have to stop somewhere.
In fact, I'm not gonna do this, but it would be fun to to do a prequel to about William and Joanna and where they came from. The whole Thomas Danforth, I cut 50 pages outta that backstory. I had the whole thing about how he grew up in in Framlingham and about his parents and all of this. So there is more on the cutting room floor than is in the book right now.
So that's the thing that fascinated me. It's duh, I could've, in hindsight you could see, yeah, something's gonna happen in this society that's not gonna be fun. Makes me worry about today, I have to say. Like, where is this all gonna lead to?
I was actually not as interested. The trials were like the same. Every single one was the same. They'd say, "oh, why are you hurting this girl?" "I'm not." "Obviously you are." It, how many times can you write that? How many times can you write it so that it's different every time?
That's the reason why I didn't go into the three trials, 'cause they were the same. Some of it had some twists. Like Rebecca, they said she was fine, she was innocent, and then they said, no, go back and try again. So there were little things that were different. But I really didn't, I didn't wanna write that. It bored me.
[00:25:49] Josh Hutchinson: We've talked about the Towne sisters. Who were some of the other main characters?
[00:25:57] Janice C Thompson: The, so they're the sisters, and then of course there's the Putnam clan. And I set it up, even though we know there are a lot of other people who were living there, I set it up as a rivalry between the Townes and the Putnams and who were their fans or their friends or whatever. So those were the main characters.
But then, and this was another choice too, I really wanted to write about Thomas Danforth and Samuel Sewell, because I know that Samuel Sewell is famous. You could read the apology that he's famous for giving a public apology many years later. In fact, I used to work at the Boston Athenaeum, which is right across the street from the State House, and you can see a portrait, a painting of Samuel Sewell in the State House giving that apology.
I was so intrigued with what I first found out about, like, why did Thomas Danforth invite this family? I really wanted to talk about Danforth. There's not a lot written about him. And when I was at the Athenaeum, I remember talking to the curator of paintings and sculpture, and he looked into it and he said, "yeah, Thomas Danforth doesn't have a formal portrait done," which is very unusual for magistrates at that time. That's an interesting little tidbit. We hear about Cotton Mather, we hear about Samuel Sewell, but we don't hear that much about Danforth. But he was right there. So I brought him in halfway through and the ministers, and that was another part that that's based on reality that these ministers and these magistrates actually went back and used the Bible, passages in the Bible, to belie the thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
So I just love that sort of intellectual exercise of these ministers. They had a fine line to walk, because they believed in evil, in the devil, in witchcraft, but then they thought maybe that's not happening here, and that's a cognitive dissonance there. So how did they make that dissonance go away? And they did it through biblical texts. So I really wanted to bring those in, those people in, too. I just thought that was interesting.
So there were the Boston contingent, the Boston and Cambridge contingent, the power structure. And then it was these poor people in this little village. So those were my main characters.
[00:28:25] Josh Hutchinson: Which makes me think of your appendices. You also have bios in there for the characters, so something people can refer to as they're reading.
[00:28:38] Janice C Thompson: Because I've talked to the people like Margo and Marilynne and Tad Baker and Bernie Rosenthal. I didn't want them to poo poo like to say, ugh, this is just fiction and whatever. So I figured I would bring it up in the appendices about the difference between this story and what was real. Like a beef that I have with The Crucible is that Arthur Miller names that hanging judge, who we know is William Stoughton. He named him Thomas Danforth. And so now a lot of people, they think it's, oh yes, Thomas Danforth was the hanging judge. And that's what happens when you write fiction. People don't understand that it's fiction. So I just wanted to underscore that I want to have some creative license, but I also don't want to perpetuate lies. So that's why I thought it was important to put that in.
[00:29:38] Sarah Jack: I think it's so great because we need that creative license. It's a teaching mechanism too, and, but people do need to learn to be able to recognize and do their own look into the history. We want people to have that critical thinking that they can enjoy historical fiction but not get confused, and we have to teach them that. And your book is a great example of how it can be done.
[00:30:11] Janice C Thompson: Yeah. Marilynne's book, the Six Women of Salem, does it very well, too, because she does that like those beginning chapters. She would just come up with a scene of, Rebecca was, carrying the water, whatever. You can breathe life into these characters.
We don't really know how they work, but we have some evidence, through transcripts and all of that. I just want it to be true to the story, but not mislead. The Crucible thing, Margo talks about this too, that, John Proctor was supposedly having an affair with Abigail. It was not Daniel Day Lewis, that was not John Proctor. So yeah, that was important to me.
[00:30:52] Josh Hutchinson: People do get some wrong ideas from historical fiction, interpreting it as history when you know you have to have that creative license, because we don't have a hundred percent of the details of these people's lives. So of course you've got to connect the dots and fill in the blanks.
[00:31:15] Janice C Thompson: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.
[00:31:18] Sarah Jack: What would you like readers to take away from your book?
[00:31:21] Janice C Thompson: That's a good question. If I look at it from a macro level, I think that I would like for people to think about what ignorance and fear and uncertainty can do to a community. And again, I'm looking through my current day eyes, because we have to really be careful. It could easily happen today.
On a more personal level, at the sort of coming down from 30,000 feet, I want people to fall in love with these sisters. I want them to think, "I wish I had those sisters," and I want people to understand how, again, things are not black and white sometimes, and it's important to just remember that. And I just, I want people to really enjoy it, too. It's hard when you're into a story that's based on research to write something that would actually be enjoyable and it's not gonna be like a history lesson. I want people to not be able to put this book down. And a number of people have told me that, and that's what I want. I'm not doing this to get rich.
[00:32:42] Josh Hutchinson: People are drawn in to Salem with this kind of glamorous, romanticized view of everything, and it's just so important once they're drawn in to make sure that they're leaving with the right lessons.
[00:32:58] Janice C Thompson: But my book, it is pretty serious. I was at a book signing here locally yesterday, and it Harpswell is a very touristy place. It's a tiny little town, but it doubles in population with our summer residents and then tourist, because it's beautiful. It's like a postcard. So I was at one of these gift shops with all the tourists, and somebody said, "why would I wanna read this book? It's so sad. It's so down." I said, "yeah, but it's okay 'cause you'll be dazzled with my writing style. So that'll even out the subject matter." Yeah.
[00:33:34] Josh Hutchinson: There you go.
[00:33:36] Janice C Thompson: Yeah. And the thing is, too, there is redemption with Thomas Danforth saying, "I apologize." But it is sad, because I think she lost her religion. And it would be nice to say that everyone lived happily ever after, but they didn't. They changed their name to Clayes when they went to Framingham, and the story is that she never left the house, that she became housebound, because she couldn't deal with people and she's, we think that she's in the burying ground. It's 1704 and then it just says S. So she didn't, even if she's even buried there, she didn't want anybody to come visit her. So that's a really sad story. These families were destroyed.
I'm hoping that sort of scene with a redemption with Thomas Danforth will be enough of a Oh, okay. Okay. There's some little bright spot at the end, and it's just that it's not that everybody just died and everybody was sad and, yeah, but she only lived like another 10 years. She didn't live very long in Framingham.
[00:34:50] Josh Hutchinson: And I know she must have suffered in jail and losing her sisters. The suffering must have been so intense. I can understand why you might be reclusive and not wanna go out where people might accuse you again.
[00:35:08] Janice C Thompson: Yes. Yes. Yes, that's what I imagine. Do you know the book, Currents of Malice? It's about Mary, but it's about the whole family. And there are some chapters in the end where the families, the surviving members of the families were trying to get Parris out. They were trying to get recompense, they were trying to get retribution.
And Peter was part of that, but he left, the other, they said, "oh, he's left the area." And I imagine that must've been difficult for him, too, because, yeah, you want to be there, you wanna get revenge, you wanna, but then who wants to be in this community? Who you thought was your close knit? You thought they were your family, family in Christ, and who would just turn on you? And then there was no repercussion. Like these people, the accusers were never brought to trial. They just went away, or they just stayed there. There was no retribution.
I can understand. You just wanna get out of dodge and try to forget it. She was also devastated, and I could understand why she would never wanna go outta the house.
[00:36:18] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we, when we talked to Rachel Christ-Doane, we were talking to her about Dorothy Good's life after the trials and how tragic a story that continued to be. And I think that was sadly the way it was for so many of the families and individuals. How do you just go back to normal life after that?
[00:36:42] Janice C Thompson: One of the things that was very inspiring was that PBS Three Sovereigns for Sarah. And I thought it was interesting, because at the end they were talking about, what happened to different people, and those girls did not live good lives afterward. They were pretty tragic.
And it also supports the theory that they had PTSD. And I imagine, once the hysteria died down, knowing that you just accused these people probably added to the trauma. Because a lot of them didn't have families. A lot of them were refugees. They were maids. They didn't have any agency at all.
[00:37:23] Sarah Jack: I think about the young age of some of the afflicted and even the ones that were women but young. And then you look at the timeline of when hangings ended, with witch accusations, did these girls, women ever look back and think there were adults overseeing what was going on? I don't know. It wasn't like they grew up and then they continued to be part of hanging witches for the rest of their lives.
[00:37:50] Janice C Thompson: I think that they were sorely manipulated by their parents. That's why I have the scene where the girls are upstairs and they're hearing downstairs the conversation about Rebecca, and then all of a sudden Rebecca's being called out on. I do think that was probably part of it.
And again, there was no sort of social safety net afterward. They didn't have, the Putnams had, they had families, but, I'm talking about Abigail herself and Mary Warren and people who just, they were servants. And I imagine that you get older you know and you think, "oh my God, what did I do?" I also imagine that they probably, they might've been ostracized by the very people who manipulated them. Because, again, the tide was turning, and there were people thinking, "oh, this is was not a good thing after all." So I actually in a way feel sorry for those girls. It wasn't that all of a sudden evil sprang in these kids and then they decided to just put people to death. I don't think that's what happened.
[00:38:54] Josh Hutchinson: I think they were such vulnerable people. A number of them you mentioned were refugees from the wars in Maine and had seen their families get killed and managed to escape. But, they're totally devastated like by that for the rest of their lives.
[00:39:16] Janice C Thompson: They're alone. They don't have, they have to work, 12 year olds, in a community where, in a society where you don't have any agency as a young person yeah. I do think that there's this sort of group think that happens like that.
[00:39:31] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I'm kin to Mercy Lewis. I appreciate that people taking a more balanced view of the afflicted. We have to understand the accuser side to understand why the witch trials happened and why things like that happen today. You have to understand both sides. You can't only understand the victim side.
[00:39:57] Janice C Thompson: Yes. That's right. Yep.
[00:39:59] Josh Hutchinson: You mentioned early on that we're living in a time today that's not unlike the times of yesterday. So how, what sort of parallels are you seeing?
[00:40:13] Janice C Thompson: Again, when there is a lot of uncertainty and fear, people make bad decisions. And so for example, today there is a lot of economic inequality, and while I don't agree, I understand that people who have suffered the most from that inequality feel angry and afraid. And when you're in that state, it's easier to say, "I'm just gonna find a scapegoat." They're suffering from a bigger picture of inequality, of the money goes to the owners and, blah, blah, blah.
So I think that's what's happening. And that's why we're so polarized, because we both think both sides of the politic, like we're, it's the other side that's gonna hurt it. Look at the rhetoric. Some of the rhetoric is just crazy. And you're like, where did you come up with that? But again, if you're acting out of fear and anger, that's what happens. And I do think that's what was happening.
I was very interested in, I think it was Nissenbaum and Boyer. They were talking about the sociological aspects of things and the fact that Thomas Putnam, Jr. was expecting a big inheritance from his father. And that's true. The father didn't give him anything. And then it was the same thing that happened with Mary Carr. So these two people who were expecting to be moving up in the world and having all this money now doesn't get the money and God forbid his stepbrother is getting the money instead. And then they look at people like the Nurses who were very poor in Salem Town and then all of a sudden own this big farm. What's up with that? Why are you getting ahead? And that could be very scary. And I think that was what motivated the Putnams, 'cause they were losing power in the community. So I think there are a lot of parallels.
[00:42:27] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I think what you talked about with the economic stress there is an important factor in why the witch trials happened. What are some of the other key factors we should know about? What was in the Tinderbox?
[00:42:44] Janice C Thompson: So there's the economic discrepancies, there's the border disputes that, that south of the Ipswich River. That's why I feature it in the map. There was the strict, the religious restrictions. There were the wars, worried about making it through the winter, and not being able to agree on a minister. That is weird. Because this whole community couldn't figure out, couldn't decide on a minister. And that was unusual in the colony. Usually they would have ministers who would stay there for life, what's up with that? What's going on in Salem Village?
But I think the thing that was the tipping point was when the colony lost the charter. Because you've had this government for what, 40, 50, 60 years. You've created courts, you've created structures. And then now it's okay, you don't have a charter. You might get a charter, or you might not. So your governmentless at that point. And I think that was the tipping point and then also, by the way, the whole thing about the halfway covenant that was happening in the church as well, that.
It's just so funny because when you hear the rhetoric then about, oh, kids these days, they're worse than we were. That's happening today. It happens with every, single generation. So there were some people, some ministers who said, let's come up with this Halfway Covenant so that we can bring more people into the church, because there's now more lying and fornication and thievery and all of that sort of stuff. People are moving away from God, which is another one of those pillars that people count on, and you take that away, too, and so then there were the conservative ministers like Parris saying, Uhuh, we're not gonna have the halfway Covenant. You need to follow those laws. You need to have evidence for your conversion experience and all of that. So there was a lot of tenuousness in the church, as well. I think those are the elements to the tinderbox.
[00:44:50] Josh Hutchinson: I think that's so important you brought that point up, because we think of Puritan Massachusetts as being this very homogenous society where the rules were set from the top, but no, you had different congregations, and they weren't always in agreement with each other.
[00:45:11] Janice C Thompson: I also think it's the town and country thing. In Salem town, this is a port city, and so you're getting ships coming from Spain and Barbados, and there were black people, there were people speaking different languages. There were the merchant class who were making money off of building a ship and then getting a piece of all of that haul.
And that's what happens today here, too. It tends to be the cities on the coasts. It's more diverse. And so when you're rubbing shoulders with people who are very different from you, you learn how to get along, like that there are actually other ways of looking at the world, but then you're dealing with Salem Village, and they're the farmers, that's why I tried to have when Sarah went with Edmund to have their ordinary in Salem town, like she was hearing a lot of that stuff. So she was, in my mind, she's like more worldly than the Putnams, say.
And again, that's what's happening today. So when you don't have diversity of thought you can very easily just have not necessarily good or truthful ways of looking at the world. When you're not in a diverse area, you're not encouraged to think differently. For me, in my life, I grew up in upstate New York and in a very religious family. I just didn't know anything different, because it was quite an insulated, insulated community. And then when I go to college, Oh my God. At lunchtime people would be coming from their classes and say, oh my God, did you hear about Prohibition? Or, oh, I just learned about this new mathematical theory or whatever. It like leads to this kind of intellectual discussions, which some people hate. But for me, it opened up my whole perspective, because I started talking with people who are not me, who are not like me. And when you don't have that opportunity, it's easy to be insular in your thinking.
[00:47:28] Josh Hutchinson: I thought that ordinary was such a good setting to have early in the story, because of that very reason. There's all these different people from different backgrounds. It shows you that it wasn't just the English Puritan people
[00:47:46] Janice C Thompson: Yes.
[00:47:46] Josh Hutchinson: Salem. There were other people from, and people in Salem had been to far -flung places.
[00:47:54] Janice C Thompson: And that part of the story was actually true. But it also was a great construct, because a woman in the colony would not be interested or even have access to discussions about politics. And but Sarah had her overhearing the magistrates who were coming. And so that was that. She set me up with a great construct to do that.
[00:48:18] Josh Hutchinson: Did you have anything in particular you wanted to be sure to talk about today?
[00:48:24] Janice C Thompson: I really hope that people enjoy it, and I hope people will get something out of it. Genealogical connection is so important to me, even though I'm not a descendant. I think, again, spending time with the Towne family, there's this continual closeness in this family. And people get very emotional about it.
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[00:48:45] Janice C Thompson: When I was back in Framingham, I was the president of the Framingham History Center and we did this program called Voices in the Burying Ground around Halloween, even though it wasn't scary, and I reenacted Sarah complete with the outfit and everything. So we had the people of note who were buried in that cemetery. The tour would go around and visit the different graves, and we would talk about this and everything. And a bunch of the Towne Family Association members came up from Connecticut to see this. And this little girl, eight year old girl, comes up and says, "oh, hi Aunt Sarah." And she starts asking me questions and that's so cool. At the same time, I want this story to resonate with people who are not Townes, and so far that seems to be happening.
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[00:49:38] Janice C Thompson: And I want people to write me reviews on Amazon, because that's the thing. I'm selling a lot of books myself, but those reviews are the things that get the public to be interested. This has really been a labor of love, and I hope that comes through.
[00:49:55] Josh Hutchinson: We encourage listeners to please do that. Pick up a copy of the book, read it, review it. That will help get the story out there. And where can people pick up the book?
[00:50:09] Janice C Thompson: It's in hardcover, paperback, and ebook on Amazon. I do sell it directly. People can contact me through my website janicethompson.net. And I'm also here in Maine. A lot of the local shops and the independent bookstores have taken it. And so if you're in Maine, I always say go to the bookstores and get it, because I want people to support independent publishing. And also if they buy it from these stores, the stores will buy more from me.
[00:50:39] Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.

[00:50:51] Mary Bingham: Two weeks ago, four days after I was told that I had to move because my lease was going to be up in June of 2024, a tree fell and took out the courtyard attached to my apartment and damaged the overhang, missing my window by about a foot. It will cost hundreds of dollars to repair the courtyard and the overhang, I'm sure. If this was colonial times, I could have been accused of witchcraft. That's right. If this was the late 1600s, my landlord could say that my specter somehow caused that tree to fall, causing considerable damage to the property on purpose.
On a more serious note, in 1688, Rebecca Nurse confronted her neighbor, Sarah Holton, because the Holton's pigs kept breaking through their fence, charging into the Nurses' fields and destroying their crops. That was serious, destroyed crops meant less food for the Nurses. Shortly after this confrontation, Sarah Holton's husband, Benjamin, became ill and sadly died. Sarah doesn't say anything until four years later, when she offers a deposition against Rebecca in 1692. Really? Why wait? One can only speculate. Maybe Sarah believed all along that Rebecca's specter caused harm to her husband. It could be that Benjamin's illness was unknown to the doctor and that Sarah needed to believe that something caused her husband's death. This was not an uncommon belief amongst the Puritans. They believed that everything happened for a reason.
Four years later, Rebecca was accused, arrested, and removed from her home and sent to jail. Maybe it was then that Sarah said, "aha. That's it. Rebecca's specter caused my husband to die." This belief in bewitchment or someone manipulating nature to cause bad weather conditions, crop failures, harm to another person's environment, and most sadly, death to a family when scientific evidence was not known, had deadly consequences, such deadly consequences that one accused could hang. This was only one element in the case of Rebecca nurse, but it was an element of many of the cases in colonial British America. Sadly, it is an element in many of the cases of deadly witch hunts today. Luckily, I will not be accused of bewitchment because that tree fell onto the courtyard, but others living in Africa, Ghana, India, Papua New Guinea and other places are accused of affecting nature to cause harm to others at an alarming deadly rate. Please educate yourself regarding ongoing witch hunts. Thank you.

[00:53:59] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:54:02] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[00:54:12] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update. Thank you for being a part of the journey of discovery around witch hunts past and present. Take a look at our episode catalog. It is amazing. It is amazing because historians, authors, academics, economists, advocates, artists and descendants of accused witches have generously given us insightful and meaningful conversation week after week and entrusted Josh and I with their message to you.
Have you read any of our guest's books? Have you pulled up their research and articles to continue learning? Please do. Josh and I are constantly reading to bring you the best research and conversations on witch hunts. You can be reading and talking about it, too. Find links to articles in our show notes. Find and follow our team and guests like Dr. Leo Igwe and Mary Bingham on social media. Many are sharing blogs and articles regularly. Are you following Margo Burns? She has many presentations coming up this fall. Share the links with your friends. Buy books for gifts. Find our guest titles in our nonprofit bookshop, also linked in the show notes. Buy titles at your local independent bookshop or directly from the guests. There are so many great reads, and we are very grateful that each of these academics and researchers have given their time to talk about their work on this podcast.
We want this podcast to reach the world with news that witch hunts are real but that witches are not causing harm with supernatural attacks. That witch hunting is complex and nuanced but not a mystery. Witch hunting is a current crisis, and we all need to be educated on the ways societies find themselves scapegoating those that cannot possibly be the cause of suffering. The targeted individuals become innocent sufferers themselves due to anger and fear. Every week, Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast brings both the history of the past witch trials and news and education about the current global effort of ending modern witch hunts. I hope you are being transformed by the education around witch hunts. Are you talking about our End Witch Hunts advocacy questions? Why do we witch-hunt? How do we witch-hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?
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[00:57:18] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:57:20] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:57:21] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you so much for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:57:27] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:57:29] Josh Hutchinson: Hit the subscribe button wherever you're listening to this podcast.
[00:57:34] Sarah Jack: Find more episodes at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:57:38] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell everyone you know and everybody you meet about Thou Shalt Not Suffer.
[00:57:44] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end modern witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:57:49] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

August 17, 2023

Italian Witchcraft Trials with Debora Moretti

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Show Notes

Take a first look at witch trial history in early modern Italy. Dr. Debora Moretti, of the University of York Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies shares her research on Italian witchcraft beliefs and trials during the Roman Inquisition. What type of historical record is available today from this period in Italy? In this intriguing conversation she talks about witchcraft belief variations around Italy, some differences and similarities between Italian witchcraft beliefs and those found in other countries, Witch Sabbat details, and word origins for varying terms for the word witch in Italian.

Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:27] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, Dr. Deborah Moretti of the University of York Center for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies tells us about Italian witchcraft beliefs and trials.
[00:00:40] Sarah Jack: I am so excited that we got to talk about Italy. There are so many variations in witchcraft beliefs around Italy, and Dr. Moretti is the person to learn about it from.
[00:00:52] Josh Hutchinson: In addition to learning about the witchcraft beliefs in Italy, we'll compare differences and similarities with beliefs found in other countries.
[00:01:04] Sarah Jack: There's a lot to learn about the witches sabbat, and it's in this episode.
[00:01:10] Josh Hutchinson: And we'll learn about the differences between demoniac and non-demoniac witchcraft, and we'll learn about the Inquisition's role and practices in witchcraft trials in Italy.
[00:01:24] Sarah Jack: Dr. Moretti talks to us about the records of some specific witch trials that occurred in Siena and Piedmont, and it's fascinating.
[00:01:35] Josh Hutchinson: Among the many words that we'll learn for witchcraft, one is masca. We'll learn what that term refers to, what the origins of the word are, and who was the last masca.
[00:01:51] Sarah Jack: Here is Dr. Deborah Moretti, who holds a specialized master's degree, an MLitt in ancient history and archeology from the University of Florence and a PhD in history from the University of Bristol. She has taught courses and seminars in ancient history and medieval and early modern history at the University of Florence and Bristol.
Her research interests cover the history of Italian witchcraft in medieval and early modern period; ancient, medieval, and modern European paganism and magic, and also material evidence of magic in archeological context. Her published research focuses on the interactions between magic, its archeological evidence, and the social perception of the historical practitioners of magic and witchcraft.
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[00:02:35] Debora Moretti: The curiosity in historical studies and archeological studies is out there. I have just done a three days public outlet for archeology. I had many young people, they're doing also history, and the interest is there. So that's a positive sign. We, as you know, we just did in July a witchcraft conference, magic and witchcraft conference over two days. We, when I say we, it was myself and Tabitha Stanmore from University of Exeter, we organized the conference, and we focused, we really wanted to give more space to early career researchers following magic and witchcraft academic studies. And I have to say many people were surprised of the interest.
The interest is still there. There are new avenues being studied, being researched. Therefore, I think magic and witchcraft studies are still in a very good place. There is a new blood coming in, and it was really exciting to have them all. Great exchange of ideas. We both have learned quite a lot.
And because of that, next year is already in preparation. Next year will be the third year. So last year, it was just me organize it, and I had big names like Ronald Hutton or Owen Davies, Marina Montesano from Messina University, just to assess their research, where this year we focused on early career researchers, because we wanted to see is there a follow up to the big names? And there is.
So yes exciting times for studies in magic and witchcraft in all directions from spatial analysis to linguistic analysis, not just history or archeology, ethnography, anthropology. So it's still very vibrant, which is good to see, really. And also I think what excited me the most was how we are all prepared to embrace different type of media. So rather than follow the classical conferences, symposia, publication, there is more interest in having a more wider outlet, in social media and platforms like Instagram or, I'm not quite sure about TikTok, but Facebook, yes, I say I knew that the field was not stalling. I knew that it was still, the academic research was still carrying on, but I think I came out of the two days conference quite refreshed, knowing that yes, we are still there, we're still working, we're still researching in different areas to answer the many questions that still need to be answered.
[00:05:27] Sarah Jack: Dr. Danny Buck tweeted out a lot of his experience as he was there, and it was very enticing, and it sounded like the topics and the discussions were really, what he was sharing really highlighted what you just shared for sure. I followed a lot of new historians that I hadn't been aware of yet, and I thought some of their focus topics were really important, too. So what an exciting time.
[00:05:58] Debora Moretti: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.
[00:06:01] Josh Hutchinson: I think of this as something of a golden age in witchcraft academic studies. There's so much research out there now, where, when I first got interested in witch trials about 15 years ago, there were a few books around, some of them older, but now it's just, I can't keep up with everything that's coming out. It's so wonderful.
[00:06:34] Debora Moretti: Yes, it's, as I said, is refreshing to see. So of course, up to maybe five years ago, everybody was following the same pathways, because I think the usual pathways have to be explored more in depth, and now that we have explored them, there is like an explosion. For example, there is a focus on the inner emotions of basically of both the accusers and the people that were accused and even of the judges or the inquisitors, what was their background culturally, but also what was the input that put them there to ask certain questions? There is a focus on, as I said spatial narratives.
So, for example, there was a panel dedicated to the location of the Sabbat. So you, wherever you go in Europe, nevermind just one country, but in Europe altogether, you have different places that've been chosen to represent the perfect location for the sabbat by the people at the time. So you have liminal places. Therefore, you have a wooded area, you have the forest, you have the mountains, you have the sea.
And of course these liminal places were connected to the local culture of specific groups at the time. So what was important for their economy? What was important for their livelihood? What was important in the fears, like the fear of the forest, that contributed to create the perfect location of the sabbat?
[00:08:20] Sarah Jack: I was also thinking about the circle of borrowed concepts.
[00:08:24] Debora Moretti: Yes that's mine. I'm really proud of that. Of course, I was referring to what I am studying specifically. So that is the context of the Roman Inquisition trials. In the trial documents, you see, there has been an argument in the last 20 years on how really the Inquisition trials documents are primary sources to understand the perception of witchcraft and witchcraft practices at the time, in both the people who were accused, the accusers, but also the inquisitors, because it's like a dichotomy.
So you have a more learned approach to witchcraft beliefs or it's more a theological approach. And that was what was driving the inquisitors and the judges. And then there is more a folk approach or folk perception of magic and witchcraft. And that's what you can read in the depositions of both the accused and the accusers.
Borrowing concepts, the idea behind that is that when somebody accused somebody else, they brought to the table their own perception, cultural and folk perception of what they believed a witch was or witchcraft acts were. And they were confronted by the perception of the Inquisitor of what a witch was and what witchcraft acts were.
And of course, the two met during the witchcraft trials and there is evidence of the one part influencing the other. Also you have to think that a witchcraft trials was not just one event. And despite the, both the accusers and the accused were told of not discussing the trial outside of the tribunal, discussion did happen.
So whatever the Inquisitor or the judge said was then reported to the wider village people. And it was absorbed in a way, but also the other way around. There is the folk perception of witchcraft and witchcraft practices, and then you have the more learned perception of witchcraft and witchcraft practices that come together and influence each other. That was the idea of the borrowed concepts of witchcraft beliefs.
[00:11:12] Josh Hutchinson: Turning our attention specifically to Italy, what elements of witchcraft beliefs are unique to Italy?
[00:11:20] Debora Moretti: The first element is the longevity. So let's talk about the folk perception of witchcraft and what a witch is in the witchcraft trials. So the archives that I am using, they're dated between 1570 to 1780, more or less, and the same concepts come through across the 200 years period. Two different perceptions.
So there is still the idea of a witch as we have been told a witch should be, this almost supernatural figure, who would fly to sabbat either on top of a mountain or in a forest or somewhere else, have a pact with the devil, participate to the sabbat, so gathering of people. And during that sabbat they would do certain things, learning the dark art, copulating with the devil, eating specific things, amongst which, babies. So you have the supernatural witch, but then at the same time you have also the more practical witch, which is a normal person that has the capability of working sorcery for both a positive and negative end.
So you find the same spells throughout the 200 years period. And I'm not sure if I confront them with the English trials, for example, I'm not sure you find the same chronological broadness of certain beliefs. At least the practical side of beliefs is there is a famous spell the spell of the carafe or specifically called the Spell of the White and Black Angel, which you can find as early as mid-sixteenth century, but then you can find in mid 18th century. Is the same spell that has been maintained and practiced across the country.
So I would say the longevity, yes, the longevity of the beliefs, but also the practices is one characteristic of Italian witchcraft beliefs. Some others, for example, how to remove the evil eye has survived till now. I have example of the evil eye and how to remove it in trials dating mid to late 16th century. And then, I have my great-grandmother who was born in the late 19th century, who used the same practices to remove the evil eye.
So can we say that certain spells have survived throughout centuries? Yes, but with a condition. So where in the 16th century you would see a more defined perception of the supernatural, nowadays, removing a evil eye is just a matter of fact practice. So it has a less supernatural perception in it, if you like. So definitely let the longevity of the beliefs both as what a witch is and what the practices are. It's just that nowadays, because there is no pressure of the inquisition at certain practices are not, even in the 18 19th century, certain practices are no longer considered maleficia. So there's no connection to heresy. They're still there in some form. So continuity. Absolutely. The perception has changed. We no longer think that the devil has a major part in it. We are no longer talking of heresy, but we are still talking of bad and good practices, and certain practices are specifically maintained to help people to overcome certain problems.
[00:15:37] Sarah Jack: So as a little bit of an explainer, I'm wondering so like when you look at the New England witch trials, which is very different in every way, there is no longevity of practice, understanding. They're not even, there's no spells as a part of the trial history. But there are the hidden protective magic in their homes. The magic is there somewhere, but we don't really understand what their perception of it was. And we don't even have a perception of it today here in the United States. It's very interesting to me that we were targeting and murdering women as witches in the United States, but there wasn't even that element of spells or anything with it. So it seems very different, and I just wonder what people need to understand about that.
[00:16:33] Debora Moretti: I think the element was still there, but has not been recorded in the primary documents. Owen Davies has written a great book, I think it came out in 2013, which was America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft after Salem. And he pointed out that the perception of witchcraft and magic practices did not end at 1692. They carried on, but is the documentation that has changed.
He looked at different records, and he found evidence that the perception of witchcraft beliefs and beliefs in witches carried on later on and only petered out around the 1960s. Personally, what I really think is that there you had the same elements. So there were certain beliefs, certain practices that gave a push to the witch-hunt, but perhaps they were not recorded, because you have to understand the media through which this information has come to us. Now, I am lucky because I have the Inquisition records, and they were very meticulous in recording what constituted a witchcraft crime or a heretical crime. But if the local judges or the local priest did not record that and focused only on the heretical element or only on the pact with the devil, that's what we have.
So we have to remember that witchcraft-related sources are incredibly biased and they've been biased from the time that were created. So we have to see who wrote them, who actually wrote the documentation, why the person has written them, and what was the purpose of the final document? So again, if I make you a comparison with Inquisition trial documents, we know that the Roman Inquisition dealt with heresy. Therefore, in the interrogations, you can see how the Inquisitor was chasing the heretical crime. So of all the many things that the accused person was telling, the Inquisitor focused on the heretical crime, and that is a form of biased. Now we are lucky. I am lucky because everything was recorded.
But if in your case, the person noted down on the document decided that a certain spell did not qualify as heretical and did not fit the agenda of that specific trial, it was left out. So the fact that references to spells are not there does not mean that they were not there. It probably, in fact, very likely means that the person writing down did not consider them important to the agenda that the person was following or the trial agenda.
So we have to be really careful in how we handle any document that is related to witchcraft accusations, because ultimately they were written by somebody who did have an agenda. Therefore, large parts were left out. In Italian witchcraft trials, we, back 20 years ago, we were saying, oh yes, from the late 17th century witchcraft trials were no longer important. They didn't happen or they petered out. That's not quite true. The agenda of the inquisition changed. Therefore, the questions during the interrogations did not cover some elements. You have to understand what was behind the interrogation. What was the agenda of the institution or person that was carrying out the interrogation? What was the ultimate goal? So for the Roman Inquisition was to find out heretical practices, because they had jurisdiction only on practices that had a heretical nature. The rest, they didn't have jurisdiction on them.
I think I would say the first step for anybody that wants to get into witchcraft studies is, especially if they're working on archival material, is to understand the institution that has created the archival material and what was the ultimate goal of this institutional judge or, I don't know, tribunal? What was the ultimate goal? Was it really persecuting every form of magical practices, or was it just one section, were they chasing only the pact with the devil? Therefore, in that case, they would've left out everything else. They would've left out, I don't know, healing practices that might have had a magical side to them or other things, because did not support what they were chasing, basically.
And Owen Davies has used, as I said, different materials like newspapers, ethnographical material, and I love the book. And he, I think he showed that the perception of witchcraft did indeed change, but accusations were still there. The perception of the malevolent witch was still there. It was just in different primary sources. It was treated differently by the legal system. It's a different form, but the beliefs themselves, they were still there and I think, maybe spells and magical practices were there, but they were not recorded because not necessary for what they were looking for.
[00:23:10] Josh Hutchinson: They did record a few practices, divination, but not the spells. They would mention that a person would go away mumbling, but they wouldn't say what the person said. They never wrote down the words. They just wrote down that, yeah, they might have cursed this person. But the words weren't important for whatever reason.
[00:23:36] Debora Moretti: Exactly. Where again, I am lucky because the words were recorded is like in the case of Caterina Caponero, for example, we are early 17th century. She was, by the time she was accused and therefore put on trial, she had a 20 years career of magical practitioner, if you like, and she did all sorts of things. She did love spells, she did healing spells. She was quite well known in the community. The real reason why she ended up in front of the Inquisitor was because of this specific Spell of the White Angel, Black Angel, which the inquisitor's manuals saw as heretical because, shall I tell you what the spell is so you understand?
This is a spell that is very famous, and, as I said, it has survived. It was practiced across Italy for 200 years. So basically the person doing the spell would collect holy water from a church and put the holy water in a carafe. The person then would get a holy candle, usually what was leftover of Candlemas, so a specific type of candle. They would put the candle, so the carafe on the table, the candle behind the carafe, and then they would ask either a child or a nun, somebody who had not had sexual intercourse or a virgin human being to look into the carafe. So the candle would create shapes into the water and the person would tell the magic practitioner what the shapes were, and the magical practitioner would basically understand what the shapes were, and this spell was usually done for either finding treasures or recovering stolen objects.
Now, even some churches across Italy would ask the help of magic practitioners to use this spell, if they had some goods stolen by others. Now, Caterina was really good at it because there is a woman accusing her, saying that she didn't want to get involved with her, but she was desperate to find the stolen goods. So she went to Caterina, and not only Caterina saw where the goods were, but Caterina also saw who had stolen the goods and we don't know if then the woman went and got her goods back. But she was adamant on the fact that Caterina was, she never said, oh, she's good, but she said something on the lines of, I was surprised, and she was right. She told me who they were, and I knew that they were these people. So of 20 years magical practices career, the Inquisitor just focused on this one because the Inquisition manuals said that the black angel is the devil. So the magical practitioner was interacting with the devil.
And that was that. Nevermind the fact that she cured many people. Nevermind that she used other things for love magic. That was the thing that got her in trouble, and she was in and out of prison for decades and she got tortured for this. And she was basically kept in prison. So you see if the Inquisitor or the tribunal was not really careful in taking notes of what she was saying, we would've missed her spell, her love spells, or her healing spells, and we would've known of her, only of the white angel, black angel spell.
See how very narrow it's, so it depends on who is down the interrogation. So yeah it's very, the sources are very biased from the very beginning. So I think one who wants really to approach the trials documents has to keep that in mind all the time.
[00:27:50] Sarah Jack: Yeah. I just keep thinking about Samuel Wardwell in North Andover, and part of it's my own as I've come along trying to put all this together. He has this fortune telling. He's known, or it's brought up about him. He's questioning it. If these practices were getting them in trouble, but they were known to do it and comfortable, like, why were they so surprised for getting in trouble when they were publicly doing these things?
And now I'm seeing that many of them were, it was a very, possibly a very normal part of their interaction with each other, but because of what the target of the Salem witch trials was, which was the devil and the covenanting. There are these tiny little flickers of magical practices, even in the Salem witchcraft story. And it doesn't fit, it doesn't make sense. But that's why, this is why, what you are explaining is the answer to that.
[00:28:51] Debora Moretti: Even further back in time many practices were in place generation prior the person being accused of witchcraft. Now, you would wonder why all of a sudden what they have been prac, like Caterina, she has done that for 20 years. What happened to suddenly make her a heretical witch?
There is a shift with the at least I'm talking of course, for Italian witchcraft here, specifically. So when the Reformation kicked in and the Roman Catholic Church kicked back with a Counter-Reformation, so we are mid 16th century, the Catholic Church had to reform its ways so could fight back the Reformation. In reforming itself, push down on its flock. The supervision of the Church of its flock's practices became more focused.
So the general people had to follow a tighter line, a better Christian behavior. So all of a sudden the practices that they are carried out and learned from their parents and they have freely carried out up to that point, became dangerous practice, or the church started to consider them dangerous. Therefore, they became suddenly visible. And what the church did was also to invite the general public to come forward, if they had known of people practicing heretical. And they did, the population did. So the church provided a platform and the people used the platform. So we tend to say that the witchcraft accusations did not come from above, they came from below. So once there was a platform created by the Church, the general people used it, and that's when the accusations started. And the accusations, a good percentage of the accusations, were between neighbors, within the same family, and what propelled these accusations were usually bad social interactions.
There is an example in the witchcraft trials of Novara in the north in Piedmont, where a woman, an elderly woman, she was a widow and her husband, and you can read this in the trial, her husband left with good money, which was unusual. So she ended up lending money to different people, farmers, traders, et cetera, because that's how she would have an interest and have a better life.
When the time came that these people had to pay her back, that's when they accused her of being a witch. So she was bad-tempered, and everybody knew that. And they used that to say that she was a witch, so they didn't have to pay the money back. So you see, once they had the platform upon which to act, they did act on it, and they accused, whoever they were unhappy with at the time. They accused these people.
But then if you come forward to nowadays, don't you think people would do the same? If the authorities created a platform where you could get rid of your neighbor that has been making your life miserable for 15 years, wouldn't you do that? I think what happened there is a very human behavior. Pettiness, jealousy, even competitiveness played a role and also social situation. Generally speaking, these people struggled in their day-to-day lives. So they had to make their lives better, and they had a place to do that. They had a stage upon which play all these things.
So witchcraft trials are, gosh, so complicated. There are so many factors that one has to keep in mind, and that's why it feels like you are never a specialist. You are one person that continues to study even the same witchcraft trials, because you have to approach them from different viewpoints, and you have to understand exactly the role played by everybody in a specific trial. You can't just see the side of the accused. You have to see the side of the accusers. You have to understand what type of economy was there at the time. You have to understand the political scenery of the time, the religious background of the time, and then also considered, in my case, what was the ultimate goal of the Roman Inquisition? What and who were they chasing?
It is like Caterina, for example, she was a bit surprised of all these accusations. And she did say, "I've been operating for so many years." And she actually did say, "I even went around saying, 'oh, I'm really good at doing this and that magical practices.'" And she had a good trade, and she could not understand why all of a sudden she was being accused by the very same people who she helped, because the main accuser on her trial was a really disgruntled wife who had a cheating husband. And the wife thought that the cheating husband was cheating on her, because he was somehow bewitched. Personally, I don't think so, but there you go, that's my very personal opinion. But previous this so she accused the two women who took away her husband and then she accused Caterina of providing the magical meaning for these two women to steal her husband. Now, previous that, few years previous that, and this is in the trial, the same wife did go to Caterina for a love spell, to have her husband back.
So Caterina gave her the spell of the magnet. Literally was a piece of magnet that had been baptized in the church. And Caterina called the wife to keep it either in her mouth when she was kissing the husband, or in other parts of her body while they were doing other things, so the husband would be attracted to her, literally magnet attraction. So Caterina is saying, "but I have helped you with your husband, so why are you now accusing me of this?"
So you can see the social interconnection. These trials are never in isolation. You have to keep in mind the social context of them amongst all the other things. And that's why I say trial documents are complex. You have to read them in context. I am fond of giving the stage to the people that were in the trial rather than me making assumptions. I like them to be the main actors, because it's them who we should be listening to. And also the judges and inquisitors, because it's only them that can tell the story appropriately.
And then we have to place these stories within a really wide cultural, political, social, economic background. And I think only then we can get a glimpse of really what happened to have the full picture of them.
[00:37:11] Josh Hutchinson: Many excellent points. In Italy, in your articles, you've written about the regional differences in the witchcraft. Can you explain some of those? What was the difference, for instance, between belief in the Alps and belief south of the Alps?
[00:37:31] Debora Moretti: Yes. So this was part, this was the main part of my PhD thesis. So I worked on two different archives. One is the inquisition archive of the city of Siena, which is still is thankfully in Tuscany, so we are talking center north of Italy. And in the Episcopal Archive of the city of Novara, which is in Piedmont, therefore in the North.
And the witch trials of the Novara archive, they are, the events took part in two very small villages in the Alps. Now, the difference between, and I'm going to give you the general differences. Otherwise, we will be here for three days. So the main differences are that in the Novara archive, the witches, or the accusations carried out, present the supernatural witch, the heretical witch, as we know it from Central Europe, so the typical witch that we know.
So the person, supernatural person, who would indeed fly to the sabbat on top of a mountain, in a gathering, the sabbat, where first and foremost they would meet the devil. They would kiss his bottom of the devil and then have sex with the devil and then dance obscene dances. And usually they were dancing backwards, and then they would have lots of food, always without salt. One of the preferred food was children, there's a lot of children.
So that's the stereotypical, heretical witch that was pushed by the elite of the time. So that is the heretical witch. Whereas in Tuscany or in the Siena archive, there are references to the sabbat, but they are, they're almost like passing by references. And the figure of the witch is not really the heretical witch. You have more a low level sorcerer. So the person who would learn certain spells and they were not necessarily all bad. So the majority of the spells that you find in the accusations that you find in the north, as I said, they are heretical acts and mainly killing children, adoring the devil, and all that. So that is pure apostasy, and that's why that is a heretical crime. Where in the Siena archive, you find healing spells, you find love spells, you find what at the time called a tero tero spells. So they are spells to make, usually men, win games or find treasures. You do have references to the devil, but they are very specific. The adoration of the devil in Central Italy or in the Siena archive is usually associated with priests, nuns, or educated people.
The references to the devil of your normal folks is, you don't find the devil much, and when you do find it, it has almost like a secondary role. They addressed the saints, they addressed God, they addressed the angels, they even addressed stars, certain stars. And then if all that did not bring a change, then they addressed the devil. The devil was not that important. It was part of a supernatural universe. They, the majority of these people, apart the few, like the priests or the aristocrats or the nuns, the majority of the people accused were poor people that were struggling, so in the trials, you see how they justified certain acts as a way of making their life better. So sometimes you have people saying, when they've been asked, did you address the devil? And they say, oh yes, but it wasn't my first choice. I went to Saint So-and-so first and then the angel, and then the bright star, and then I have to go to the devil, because nobody else made it happen.
So you have this feeling that the sabbat is not important. Not even in the accusations, because we have, if we want to understand the sabbat, we have to read the accusations. So in the accusations of the Novara Piedmont North, you have, people accusing somebody else of going, flying to the sabbat and committing apostasy and kissing the devil's bottom. Where in the Siena Archive, there's not much there. There, there are references, but they are not your typical heretical gatherings.
Now, you find different references to different type of sabbats across Italy. So these are not the only two typologies. It's almost a regional perception of the sabbat. But whereas in the north you have your typical sabbat that you also have in central Europe, for example, or even in Scotland, in the center and maybe the south is more local. So you have the walnuts of Benevento or you have other types of sabbats. So they're more folk perceptions of the sabbat. Where in the north, as in the rest of Europe, is the stereotypical sabbat that was imposed from above.
[00:43:18] Josh Hutchinson: So it's more of a diabolical pact that's important in the north, and in the south, it, and central, it sounds like it had more to do with magic that was being used for practical purposes, and it's the magic itself doing the harm versus what the source of the magic is. Yeah. Okay.
[00:43:43] Debora Moretti: Exact perfect. Perfectly. Yeah. Perfectly spotted.
[00:43:47] Josh Hutchinson: you. Can you tell us about the different words there were for witchcraft and witches?
[00:43:57] Debora Moretti: Oh, yes,
[00:43:58] Josh Hutchinson: know you pointed out several of different words and they had somewhat different meanings.
[00:44:04] Debora Moretti: Yes. So strega is the one that we all know the best, because it is the one that comes from Latin. And that has survived into modern time. But then you have, for example, the masca, that seems to come from a more Germanic type of substratum. This is my hypothesis, the different names for witch in Italy, they are determined by the different languages in different regions. For example, in the areas that were because you have to remember that in Italy you didn't just have the Roman Inquisition, you also had the Spanish Inquisition in the south and some parts of the center. And then you had the Episcopal tribunals, et cetera. So it was a very complex religious situation regarding witchcraft.
So you have in some part of Italy witches is that are called bruja, for example, that comes from Spanish. So that's an influence of the language. And masca, for example, comes from the Germanic, I think. It's definitely Longobard, or Lombard as, as you say in English, of Lombard origins. So the the terminology of witch depends on the subcultural substratum of different regions.
Marker
[00:45:33] Debora Moretti: And then, of course, you have, so in the modern language you have strega, fata, and maga. So the fata is derives from the Latin word for fatum, which is a prophetic declaration, an oracle, or a prediction and is more, the fata is more of benign folklore figure. So it's not necessarily a witch, but sometimes fata has magical powers, and they were usually benign, but if humans treated them badly, then they would take revenge on them, basically.
Maga is, it comes from Latin. And it comes from Maji, from the Persian Maga, in fact derived originally from Greek, and then it was used in the Latin language. So it comes from that word, from the Persian word that means learned and priestly class. And then it became more like of a magical practitioner. And in the modern Italian folk tradition, the maga would be also synonymous of a healer or cunning woman. Now you do have the male version as well. So maga mage is for it's a female magic practitioner where mago magi is a male magic practitioner. They're less threatening figures, but they certainly still have magical powers.
The strega is absolutely a negative figure, because it really comes from the Latin strix and striges. So there's no way to find a benign character in the name. The masca, again, that's specific to the northwest of Italy, is mostly a negative, is still is today seen as a negative magic practitioner. And he still, now, it's one of the most famous type of witches in Italy to the point that Piedmont, for example has a specific tourist sector dedicated to the masca.
So yeah, so you have your typical witch the strega, which is definitely negative, has negative attributes. Then you have the fata, which is more of a folk benign entity that can turn nasty, but usually as a vindictive act. You have the maga or mago, which is more cunning folk type of person.
And then you have, there are many others, many others. And then you have the masca, which is again, has a negative connotation but at the same time has also a cunning folk vibe to it. So it's more complex than just either the strega or the maga.
So the strega is negative totally. The maga is mainly cunning folk type of figure. It could turn nasty, generally speaking magic practices, the fata is more of a folklore, supernatural entity. And then you have the masca, which is the demonic witch but at the same time is also the cunning folk type of person, because they usually were, next door neighbor who during the day they would do the normal things every person would do. And they, in the night, they would transform themselves into these demonic figures. There are many others, many others. And the variation in the terminology, I think is because of the cultural substratum. Is there being a Spanish influence there? Therefore, you might have a different type of name. Is there being a Greek influence in the region? Then you have a different name. It depends on where you are in Italy, to have different terminology to express the term witch.
[00:49:37] Josh Hutchinson: And can you tell us more about the masca? In one of your articles, you break down the origins of the word and where that might've come from. Can you tell us about that?
[00:49:50] Debora Moretti: Yeah. That was a mental exercise on my part. I wanted to see, because it's such a well-known character or figure, I wanted to see if I could find material evidence of its provenance. So I have chased the etymology of the word, and I have traced it back to believe it or not proto-Indo-European to a proto-Indo- European root of. Now the pronunciation of in European, it's all made up. So forgive me if I just don't pronounce it well, but who knows how they pronounce it? So is mezeg, which meant to knit, plait, and twist. And that came down to Proto-Germanic mask, and it had cognates in all the Germanic dialects. So you find in, you find it in Old High German as max, and that is sixth to ninth century. You have it in the Old German or Old Saxon of eighth, 12th century as masca. You have it in German from the 16th century as masca. So you know through different yeah, Germanic dialects.
So what is this mental exercise on the etymology of the word I, in my article, I throw it out there that the modern masca, which was definitely a witch figure in the Lombard low codes, comes from an even more ancient figure that was associated to bog bodies.
I know this is a bit of a leap of faith, and I say that maybe the original etymology of masca, which means, as we said to knit, plait, twist is perhaps a memory of a practice carried out from Iron Age cultures in Europe to basically deliver bodies into bogs. And they were usually pinned down by knitted material or twigs. So that's the mental exercise.
Now, I have no evidence of that, because we need more work, but we know for example, from Tacitus that certain individuals within certain societies were punished by drowning in marshes or bogs, and they were pinned down into the bogs. So in my article, I'm just wondering if the Lombard witch, masca witch, has survived as a witch figure in modern time, still called masca, actually is a memory of an ancient, sacrificial or punishment of certain individuals not well accepted within specific societies.
We know from Tacitus that the people that were pinned down in bogs were prostitutes or unclean individuals. Not quite sure what that means, but clearly there were individuals that were not well accepted within the society where they practiced this. I don't think there were sacrifices per se, but they were definitely killed because of their perceived crimes.
So could that be, maybe there is still more work to be done, because it's very difficult to bring together the philological interpretation of a term and then find the archeological evidence, an act that we can see in the archeological records that could explain the evolution of an etymology and then can that be transferred to historical figure. That was a mental exercise.
I think it is possible, because bog bodies are a specific, it was not your usual burial. There were reasons, either rituals or social reasons for certain individuals to be dumped into marshy areas. Why were they pinned down? They were, we know that, I dunno if you know what hurdles are, but they are like mesh twigs, and so they were properly kept down in the bog. And because of this mesh situation or even bodies that have been wrapped up, I was just wondering, is there a connection, because the etymology of the word masca takes you all the way back to Proto-Indo-European, meaning knitting, meshing. Is there connection there?
But Yeah, it's all hypothetical.
[00:54:43] Josh Hutchinson: And you talk about the last masca killed in Piedmont.
[00:54:50] Debora Moretti: Yeah.
[00:54:50] Josh Hutchinson: When did that occur?
[00:54:53] Debora Moretti: Early 19th century. And she was the post medieval masca were considered witches, and they were told to possess a specific book that would give them the power to carry out their acts. And the book was called Book of the Fisica. She was accused of having one of these books, and the book apparently had belonged to the family for a very long time. She was accused of causing illness and death to two people in the village. So authorities were called, but nothing was done. Therefore, the people of the village decided to take matter into their own hands.
And they choose two men to have it killed. And these two men were never prosecuted for the murder, because the village basically supported the alibi. Therefore, they were never prosecuted, and yes, she was killed by them just because the village thought that she was a witch.
Marker
[00:56:02] Sarah Jack: I have to tell you that this is a little bit off, and we don't have to keep this in the episode, but I have to tell you, I can't help but think of Dorothy Good right now, Josh.
[00:56:12] Debora Moretti: Again, the connection there is an historical connection to bog bodies and witches. But again it's not a direct connection. So the main direction in the Burgundian laws, so that is. 500 AD. So we are early, early medieval Europe. There is a chapter that says, tell how adulterous women should be treated. And there is a connection, of course, between the adulterous women, prostitutes. And then there is an associations of prostitutes with witches. And adulterous women should be drowned in bogs, basically.
We have the archeological evidence of bog bodies. Then you have Tacitus that mention certain unholy or I can't quite remember what he named them, but certain individuals in society that deserve to be drowned into bogs. And then you have the Burgundian laws that specifically refers to how an adulterous woman and prostitute should be dealt with.
So there is something there. Now we, as Ronald Hutton always say never join the dots, because that is a very long chronological period to assume something. So there is definitely something there. But even in my article, I say, is this too much of a leap of faith because you, you would need to have direct references all the way through. So from, early, early medieval to then post medieval, either Europe or Northern America, to definitely say absolutely there is absolutely a connection between bog bodies and witches. But it's fascinating. I like to think that there is something there. Otherwise I would've not gone through, the etymological research on the word masca. So if I put my scholar cap on, I would say, yeah, we have to be careful because do we have evidence in, so after, let's say after the seventh century AD, do we have evidence of that?
We don't really but as a person who is really passionate about witchcraft studies, yeah. , no even here, even in Europe, there's no association between bog bodies and witchcraft directly. So it's just me working on the masca, which is, Italian. Really. So no bog bodies are all, I think from late bronze age, iron age period type of they do have them here in England as well. Definitely in Scandinavia and Central Europe as well. But not in later periods well, not yet. Who knows, maybe.
[00:58:58] Josh Hutchinson: But the point of going back with the word is basically the words meaning evolved over time to become witch. It started out as a different kind of situation of an unclean person and then evolved somehow.
[00:59:17] Debora Moretti: I only gave you like the shorter road from Proto-Indo-European to the Lombard word masca. But there are more bits in between which allowed me to have an hypothesis on, a theory on this. But yes, we start with something that means, knitting or mesh ending then into a witch figure, which is an incredible, incredibly large leap of faith. I give you that. But I think there is something about it, and when I will have a little bit more time, I will expand this with some philologists so they will know better about the evolution of Proto-Indo-European into then Germanic languages, et cetera. Because I'm not a philologist. Then, yeah, I can look better into the bog bodies, see if we have more later evidence.
So yeah it's intriguing. Absolutely. Just it needs to be taken with a little bit of a pinch of salt. I personally think there is something there, but it needs to be studied in depth. Really.
Marker
[01:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: The masca, what were some of their powers? I know you talk about their spirit coming from their body.
[01:00:28] Debora Moretti: Yes. So they had the ability to operate outside their body. So in folklore evidence that were collected quite recently in the 1980s people remembered, so we are talk, the majority of the people talking about their memories, they were, in 1980, they were around like 70, 80 years old, and they referred to traditions that came from their parents. So we are looking at the end of the 19th century. So they would say that one of the most feared characteristic of the masca was that she would, let's say they were doing some work together in an evening. So the village was gathered together, she would fall asleep and then she would, her soul or spirit would come out of her mouth and she would commit witchcraft acts in a spirit form.
So that was one of the most feared elements of the masca. That way that could fly. And there are some references to how they would, in that form would collect the fat from children. And they would keep this fat in jars hidden in their homes. And then they would use the fat to enhance their magical powers and then to fly further.
And in one of the folk references there is, there was a gentleman who said, I remember in my village. So as I said, yeah, the these folk narratives were collected I think it was 1980s or early 1990s. So the gentleman said, I remember of a masca farfalle, which is butterfly. And she was basically a woman masca, a witch, benign for what the person was saying, who would every so often fly back to her own country, which was France, so she could fly as a butterfly.
So yeah, they had this power of either operating in spirit form, coming out from the bodies through the mouth, or fly around like butterflies.
[01:02:43] Josh Hutchinson: It sounds so familiar to with New England witches they were, a lot of the evidence that came in was spectral evidence, and it was about the specter of the individual leaving the body and going off to do the nefarious things. And it would fly to Sabbaths and go into people's houses in the night to injure them, make them sick, just torment them in some way, and then return to the person.
And there's stories of, there was one woman who had, I believe, catalepsy, and she would pass out basically. And so they found her body lying there still and revived her. But then in later years, they were looking back on that incident and they're like, yeah, we should have known she was a witch right then, because her soul left her body while she was snoozing.
[01:03:50] Debora Moretti: Yeah, that's why in my PhD I said that the masca is more of a strictly speaking, demonic witch because she would operate, in the same way that demonic witches would operate. So yeah. But that the idea of the masca being the demonic witch was perceived earlier on, even in the Lombard law codes because the masca was somebody who, like a strega a witch about witch would eat a man inside out. So they had supernatural abilities to hurt people from inside out. Absolutely differently from the various witches from the Siena Archive, for example, where you really don't have that.
There are a few elements that they did hypnotize parents inside their own homes to steal children and then steal the fat of the children. But again, they, compared to the quantity of the trial documents, these elements are few in percentage. The remaining they are just, they were practical witches, if you like.
[01:05:03] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. And I'm really curious what did the witches do with the baby fat?
[01:05:12] Debora Moretti: In both the Siena archive and then the Novara archives, they would cover themselves with the fat, and then they would be able to fly or being able to summon the devil to fly with the devil. Yeah, it was, it would enhance their powers.
[01:05:33] Josh Hutchinson: And when they flew, would they fly as their human form, or would they always transform into something else, or?
[01:05:45] Debora Moretti: You also have metamorphosis. But usually they would fly on a horse, in fact not even fly. So sometimes once they anointed themselves a goat would appear that's the devil. And the goat would take them to the sabbat. Sometimes is a speaking horse. Sometimes they would fly themselves.
So it depends. There are so many traditions on how to get to the sabbat. There is one common element, though, while in motion they could not mention God, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, or any of the saints. Otherwise, their magical power would disappear, and they will fall down. And there are some of them that will say, and all of a sudden, I woke in the middle of a field covered in bruises, because I said Dio, Maria and Jesu, and all the magic disappeared, and then they became normal again.
[01:06:46] Josh Hutchinson: We had them on broomsticks. Sometimes Satan would appear as a horse or a dog or some animal to them, but usually they would ride on a pole to the sabbat. And
[01:07:01] Sarah Jack: about each other? Isn't there a couple that just rode another witch?
[01:07:06] Josh Hutchinson: There was something where they made somebody ride them. But there were also, there were crashes. There were times where the poles snapped, and they fell to the ground. And that's recorded in their confessions. And there's one story of one, one witch clinging onto the other for dear life, because she was falling off the pole. So they were very elaborate in their descriptions of flight in New England, at least during the Salem trials, when the devil really played such a critical role.
[01:07:44] Debora Moretti: Yeah. I found detailed narration of the food that they would have at the sabbat. Loads of food, high status food. So that is almost what they were wishing, because of course their daily food wasn't that type of food. And all the time the food had no salt in it, because the salt, again, would annihilate the magical power, and sometimes they say basically great variety of food, really lush, but then when they ate it, it tasted charred material, like sand or burned material. So that gives you the idea that even in their narratives, they knew that all that was just an illusion, the illusion of the devil.
[01:08:35] Josh Hutchinson: The salt is very interesting because I've seen that elsewhere used in protective magic to form a circle around you of protection, that kind of thing.
[01:08:50] Debora Moretti: We still have in Italy. I remember seeing my mom spreading salt at the bottom of our external staircase to make sure that there was no evil coming in. And we still say, do not spill salt. And if you do, then you have to chuck a little bit behind your shoulder to make sure, so the salt has always had magic, a counter witchcraft or counter magic properties of it was an apotropaic mineral. It's being used in antiquity, as well. Yeah.
[01:09:22] Josh Hutchinson: I just had this idea of the salt as, we talk about sympathetic magic and where a property, there's a transference of some property, of something that's like another thing. And the salt, because it preserves the food against rot and decay. Maybe it also protects the person in other ways.
[01:09:51] Debora Moretti: That is very possible. Very possible. Also, remember that salt has healing properties. What is the first thing you do when you cut yourself if you don't have whatever the name of the, alcohol based solutions, you just use hot water and salt. So yeah, it's healing property and preservation of food. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Sympathetic magic right there.
[01:10:21] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. You'd mentioned some other sympathetic magic earlier. Was that common in witch trial cases?
[01:10:31] Debora Moretti: Absolutely. The most used spells, for example to prevent fertility in a man, one of the most common spells were the knotting of the string. So you can see the, so you are knotting something therefore the man will stop being fertile, for example. And then, yes, the the spell of the magnet. So it's literally a piece of magnet that was baptized. So you see, they were practicing magic within their own cultural background. So they were religious people, they were Catholics. So for something like a magnet to be active, to be magical, to kick in the sympathetic element of the magical practice, it had to be baptized.
And this was, the baptizing random objects, was a thing, because we find sermons that, stating this ignorant, backwards, people bring all sorts of things to be hidden under the altar to be baptized. So the priest would not know what he was baptizing to give the magical power to certain objects, because the church itself had a magical element. And that's why amongst the different apotropaic object, you would also have saints figurine carried on the body or prayers carried on the body. Their perception of atropaic was vast and certainly included liturgical objects, liturgy itself. Everything was, could be used, in a different way from what.
[01:12:20] Josh Hutchinson: And people still wear protective medallions and amulets today.
[01:12:26] Debora Moretti: Yes, absolutely. This again, is one of those human element, that never goes away. And I think there is at least for me, it's comforting to know, because I use amulets, I wear certain type of stones in my jewelry or a specific metal in my jewelry. And it is for me, a sort of comfort to know that what I am doing has been done for thousands of years, but also that is because this is my perception of what witchcraft is, or not necessarily witchcraft, because witchcraft was almost created with the demonization of magical practices.
But yeah, magic is a sort of, you are nowadays, why do you practice magic is to have, bring control to your life, to almost shape the universe around you so you are in control. And for what I read from the, not all of them, but a good percentage of the witchcraft trials documents. That's why some of them did that, because they say that I had no bread for three days. I had no food for two days. Hence doing this. And also there is a practical element is Caterina, she made money, good money in selling her spells.
So yes, there is a psychological element to magical practices. So they're almost a way, a coping mechanism. So if life is particularly hard on you, you try to take back control, and I think as it applies today, it did apply back then. And there is the element and then there is the practical element.
So people either truly were magical practitioners and they made money out of it, or they pretended to be magical practitioners, so they could basically almost force people to help them. Otherwise, they would put spells on them, even if they were not magical practitioners.
[01:14:40] Josh Hutchinson: Was there anything else you wanted to talk about before we wrap up?
[01:14:46] Debora Moretti: We have to have more social media coverage, academic study of witchcraft and magic has to have more media coverage. Because in the past tended to be more for specialists, where I think it has to go out there to a wider public. So thank you very much. Thank you to your listeners.
[01:15:08] Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary.

[01:15:19] Mary Bingham: The name Putnam has caused many to cringe when we talk about the Salem Witch Trials. After all, some of them were the main accusers in 1692. But only some of them. In fact, only a small few, Thomas Junior, his wife and daughter, Ann Senior and Ann Junior, Thomas's brother Edward, and Jonathan, a cousin of Thomas and Edward. If I missed a Putnam or two, it's not more than three. Here's the deal. My fellow volunteer at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, John Fellows, readily tells our visitors the name Putnam is like the name Smith. To further that point, archivist for the town of Danvers and the historian Richard Trask says that the Putnam clan made up 12% of the entire population of no more than 550 living in Salem Village in the late 1600s. These Putnams included the families of the daughters who married and started families of their own.
So what were the views of the other Putnams regarding the witchcraft allegations? One can't speak for all of them, but we know one thing for sure. Several signed the petition in defense of Rebecca Nurse. One of them was my 10 times great-grandfather, Captain John Putnam. It's interesting to note that Captain John was at that time in heated arguments with the Esty and Towne families regarding the boundary dispute between the towns of Topsfield and Salem Village in Massachusetts Bay Colony, British America.
These families with whom Captain John was ready to do physical battle were close relatives of Rebecca Nurse and her sister, Mary Esty, both hanged in 1692. However, Captain John never accused Rebecca Nurse or Mary Esty of witchcraft, as did his nephew Thomas and his family, never. The other Putnams who signed the petition in defense of Rebecca Nurse were Captain John's wife Rebecca, Jonathan Putnam, Benjamin Putnam, Sarah Putnam, and Joseph Putnam.
Just because someone was named Putnam doesn't mean they were accusers. Hopefully, I have laid this misconception to rest, for a few minutes, anyway. Thank you.

[01:17:53] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:17:54] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[01:18:05] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) weekly news update. Today is World Day Against Witch Hunts. Humanity, has not yet gotten past the fearful behavior of hunting vulnerable people, witches. Witch hunting targets the vulnerable and innocent.
Please join me right now and have a 30-second moment of reflection for those who have been executed as witches.
If you would like to spend more time reflecting, you should do so and pause the episode.
On August 10th, 2020, World Day Against Witch Hunts was started in order to recognize the violence in at least 41 countries around the globe, such as countries in Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, where fearful, panicked people target vulnerable, scared people because of witchcraft fear and blame.
The victims are hunted, tortured, and often killed. The inaugural World Day Against Witch Hunts was in 2020. This date of remembrance was chosen to honor the attack on a woman in Papua New Guinea on August 10th, 2012. She was accused of being a witch by residents of her village and tortured for days. She survived the violence, was able to escape, and was brought to safety with the help of advocate and Swiss nun, Sister Lorena Jenal. And so the International Catholic Mission Society launched August 10th as the day to draw attention to the devastating consequences of sorcery accusation-related violence and witch hunts, to connect experts and advocates, and to grow awareness and pool violence prevention and education initiatives.
Work with us on growing this day of remembrance, and take time to post words like August 10th, World Day Against Witch Hunts 2023, in order to amplify this annual day of education and remembrance. We want it to be an annual anticipated day of recognition for the victims and advocates facing this crisis daily. It is a memorial day and a day of education. Worldwide, multitudes of victims do not have a physical memorial, but they now have the World Day against Witch Hunts. Tell your friends about it and send them our way to learn more.
Thank you for being a part of Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast community. We appreciate your listening and support. Keep sharing our episodes with your friends. Have conversations with them about what you are learning and how you want to jump in to end witch hunts with your particular abilities, influence, and network. Community development that works to end witch hunts is an ongoing, long-term, collective effort for all of us to participate in. You can learn more by visiting our website and the websites listed in our show notes for more information about country-specific advocacy groups and development plans in motion across the globe.
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[01:21:42] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:21:44] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:21:45] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:21:51] Sarah Jack: We'll be back to talk with you next week.
[01:21:54] Josh Hutchinson: So subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and you'll have that episode downloaded and ready to go when it comes out on Thursday.
[01:22:03] Sarah Jack: Visit our website thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
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[01:22:11] Sarah Jack: We thank you for supporting our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit us at endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:22:19] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

August 10, 2023

Massachusetts Witch Trials with Alyssa G A Conary

History Camp Boston, August 2023

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Show Notes

Introducing Alyssa G. A. Conary, Historian and Author of witchcraft, magic and 17th century New England. In this conversational episode covering Massachusetts witch trial history, Alyssa, Josh and Sarah discuss shocking aspects of these stories including the courts, magistrates, ministers, misogyny, what was written about the behavior of the accused, and the circumstances around their trials. Hear how the Boston witch trials, the Salem witch trials and the witch trials of Connecticut connect, compare and differ. Find out more about History Camp Boston 2023, where Alyssa presents her research. We address the importance of seeing and responding to humanity in all people on our planet. This discussion communicates End Witch Hunts’ message: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

The Pursuit of History Organization

A Modest Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft, John Hale

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Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:26] Josh Hutchinson: We're going back to Massachusetts this week.
[00:00:30] Sarah Jack: But not to Salem.
[00:00:32] Josh Hutchinson: That's right. We're taking a field trip this week.
[00:00:35] Sarah Jack: So pack a snack and enjoy the ride.
[00:00:39] Josh Hutchinson: You'll love this fun conversation along the way.
[00:00:42] Sarah Jack: We talk about the Boston Witch Trials.
[00:00:45] Josh Hutchinson: That's right. There were witch trials in Boston long before the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened in Salem.
[00:00:51] Sarah Jack: We talk about Margaret Jones, Elizabeth Kendall, Alice Lake, Anne Hibbins, Goody Glover, and Elizabeth Morse.
[00:01:00] Josh Hutchinson: And we learn a valuable lesson that we can all apply today.
[00:01:04] Sarah Jack: Alyssa G. A. Conary is a historian and writer. She will be giving her Boston Witch Trials presentation at History Camp this month, and she was kind enough to discuss some of it with Josh and myself. Grab your beverage, pull up your chair, and lean in.
[00:01:19] Josh Hutchinson: We hear that there were witch trials in Boston. Is that true?
[00:01:25] Alyssa Conary: Yes, there absolutely were.
[00:01:29] Josh Hutchinson: And approximately what years were these held? What kind of range are we looking at?
[00:01:35] Alyssa Conary: There's a little bit of a question as to when the first was. It was, usually people say 1648, but it's possible that it was 1647. And then that goes into the mid 17th century. And the last execution for the first era is 1656. And there's no executions for a really long time. There's some trials, but no executions. And then you have 1688, you have another execution. And then after that is Salem. So Salem that's just like a totally different story.
[00:02:12] Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
[00:02:13] Alyssa Conary: Yeah.
[00:02:14] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. What are some of the key differences to make that a different story?
[00:02:22] Alyssa Conary: Salem is a witchcraft panic. It's funny, because you always want people to understand that witchcraft prosecution was not strange then. That was pretty normal, because people believed in witches. But even within the history of witchcraft prosecution, Salem was an outlier. Because before Salem in Massachusetts had just been like putting one or two people on trial at a time. There was periods of time in between. It was usually for some mundane misfortune or something like that, that someone would be accused. There are also more serious cases people thought people were being murdered by witchcraft, but which fascinates me, but that's, again, that's a whole other thing.
So for the most part it was just these pretty simple cases, and they didn't execute many people. I don't think they liked to execute people for witchcraft. The execution rate was pretty low. Then you get to Salem, and it's a full-blown witch panic. And you have the afflicted people, mostly girls, but there were some others.
Geographically, it's much wider than it had been in the past. There's way more suspects. There's tons of people in jail, and then you've got these judges who are using pretty much any kind of evidence that they wanna use and just convicting, literally everybody that they tried in 1692 was convicted and sentenced to death. So it's just something that is an outlier from the rest of the history of witchcraft in Massachusetts.
[00:03:57] Sarah Jack: And you're gonna be talking a little bit about this at History Camp. What is History Camp?
[00:04:03] Alyssa Conary: Yeah, History Camp is awesome. I think I went, I think it was maybe the first or second History Camp that I actually went to in 2015, I wanna say. And my, he wasn't my husband then, he is my husband now. We were best friends back then, but we were just like super excited about going to this, 'cause we're big history people and it sounded like perfectly nerdy and perfect for us.
So we went that year and didn't speak or anything, but it was just, it's just a full day of history lectures. And you get to choose which one you wanna go to. So there are different slots and like at any given time there's like several different lectures going on. So you can choose, okay, I wanna go to listen to this topic or that topic. And then this goes all day from nine to five. So it's just basically the best thing a nerd could ever attend.
[00:04:51] Josh Hutchinson: I really hope to be able to do that sometime. It sounds like a festival for history nerds.
[00:04:58] Alyssa Conary: It's great. It started as just this event, and then the founders of the event went on to, I think it was in 2019, they created a nonprofit organization called The Pursuit of History to oversee History Camp, and then they started taking it to different places, like I think there's one in Virginia now, and there's one in Philadelphia. That's the latest one. Started in Boston, but it's it's spreading, like Salem witchcraft. Sorry, that was lame.
[00:05:24] Josh Hutchinson: That's a perfect analogy.
[00:05:27] Sarah Jack: It's a, it's an exciting and positive one, though.
[00:05:31] Alyssa Conary: Yeah.
[00:05:32] Josh Hutchinson: You had mentioned early on that there was a gap in the executions between, I think 1656 and 1688. Why was there such a long period where they weren't executing anyone?
[00:05:47] Alyssa Conary: I think they, like I said, they didn't like to execute people. I think for a long time that they were just, "yeah, we're not really gonna do that anymore." Maybe, you know, it wasn't a conscious decision, but it was just, they were just very, it was actually a situation where from the top, the Court of Assistants, the judges, the center of the thing in Boston, they were like a mitigating force on this witchcraft accusing, so they'd be like, you know this, okay we'll hear this case, but it was hard to prove in court.
So it was hard. It was really, it was hard to get a conviction. And then you have 1688, which happens. That one's kind of weird, because you do have afflicted children, so it's like a, it's like a lead up to Salem. There is an execution in that case.
But before that, I just, I think that they were just slow to wanna execute people, which I feel like the stereotype of Massachusetts puritans is probably just the opposite, but, in my opinion, they didn't wanna do it. They felt like they had to sometimes, but they didn't love doing it.
[00:06:50] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, in the early years, Connecticut was the place where you were more likely to get hanged, and that really surprises people.
[00:06:58] Alyssa Conary: Yes. Yeah. Connecticut in the 1660s had a big witch panic, and that was huge until Salem happened and Salem was much bigger. But yeah, Connecticut was not a good place to be accused of witchcraft.
[00:07:13] Sarah Jack: And the 1688 case, was that Goody Glover?
[00:07:17] Alyssa Conary: That's Goody Glover. Yep.
[00:07:19] Sarah Jack: And why was she chosen as a scapegoat?
[00:07:22] Alyssa Conary: She was Irish. And it's interesting, because there is that scapegoating aspect of witch hunting, but at the same time, usually the majority of people that are being accused are members of the community who are basically just like their accusers, the same religion, oftentimes they're neighbors. They're pretty much like the same people that they're accusing. It's like this purge from within a community.
But you would have, once in a while, you'd have someone who was inside a community, but who was an outsider on the inside. And that's the case with Goody Glover. She was an Irish Catholic woman, and her first language was Irish Gaelic. She was someone who stood out, and that could be part of the reason why she was accused to begin with.
[00:08:05] Josh Hutchinson: How many people were executed before Salem?
[00:08:10] Alyssa Conary: Before Salem, in Massachusetts, it's five people.
[00:08:13] Josh Hutchinson: And who was the first one?
[00:08:16] Alyssa Conary: The first one, that's a little bit confusing because it could have either been, most sources say Margaret Jones, but there's some question as to when Elizabeth Kendall was executed. It could have been earlier, but we're not positive, because the sources are very bare.
[00:08:32] Sarah Jack: And what are those early sources that discuss those two ladies?
[00:08:37] Alyssa Conary: So for the most part, with the five who are executed, who are the ones I've done the most research and reading on, there are no trial records for any of them, any of the five. There's some kind of strange gaps in the Court of Assistants records there. They're missing basically all of the early stuff.
I think it's in like the 1670s that, the record kind of begins. So they're missing the early stuff, and then strangely they're missing like 1687 and 1688, which is exactly when Goody Glover happens. So you really don't have court records for these five women, but you have contemporary accounts.
So with Margaret Jones, you have Governor Winthrop, his journal, which is great. And you also have John Hale's book, Reverend John Hale's book, Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft. And then for Elizabeth Kendall, I think it's just Hale. That's the only source we have for her. And so we know it was sometime between 1647 and 1651. But we can't exactly be sure when.
[00:09:44] Sarah Jack: What does he say about her?
[00:09:46] Alyssa Conary: For Elizabeth Kendall?
Yeah. So he basically, he was very small. He actually visited some of these people in jail, John Hale, when he was a child. And I don't remember if he visited Elizabeth Kendall, it might've been actually Margaret Jones that he visited, but for Elizabeth Kendall. So what happened with her was she's interesting because, you always hear people believed in witchcraft. So I know there wasn't a lot of fraud. And I do believe that, I don't think that there was a lot of fraud, people accusing people knowing that they were lying about it. But this is a case where it's pretty obvious that's what happened.
So a nurse, so Elizabeth Kendall, she was from Cambridge. A nurse from Watertown accused her of bewitching a child to death, and the nurse testified that this is what she said here, actually have her words, "Elizabeth did make much of the child, and then the child was well, but quickly changed its color and died in a few hours after." So what happened is Goodman Jennings, who was the father of the child, he was apparently unaware of the evidence that was given against Elizabeth, because after she was executed, we don't know what was said in court or what the evidence was in court, 'cause we don't have the record, but after her execution, a deputy to the general court named Richard Brown went and talked to the Jennings family. And he asked whether the family had suspected Elizabeth of murdering their child. And the father was like, no. They thought the child's death was the nurse's fault, because she had kept the child outside in the cold for too long.
And this is the same nurse who testified against Elizabeth. So basically it looks like what happened was she just blamed Elizabeth for something that she had actually done. So the nurse was subsequently actually in prison for adultery, Hale says and she gave birth to a child, apparently in jail, and Richard Brown, the deputy to the general court, he visited her in jail and apparently told her, and I have that quote as well.
"It was just with God to leave her to this wickedness as a punishment for her murdering Goody Kendall by her false witness bearing." So there is a very clear example, early example of a fraudulent witchcraft accusation.
[00:11:57] Sarah Jack: Wow. That's so interesting, because that's like a question people have often about the different cases, and here is the story. That is the story. And then I was curious, you're calling her a nurse. How is that different than, so like for non historians who are, hear that healers or midwives are involved in which trials, what's that role of the nurse?
[00:12:22] Alyssa Conary: You know what? I'm not sure to be honest why she is called mmm a nurse. I think that might have just been like a modern word that they used to call her. I'm not sure that was actually in the historic testimony that they called her a nurse. I would have to double check about that. But but yeah you get to, you're mentioning that the healer midwife sort of myth, which I've actually been thinking a lot about lately.
So you can see that people in the medical profession were also accusing others. So it wasn't, it wasn't just people coming after healers and midwives. Actually midwives mostly gave evidence against accused witches, because they would be the ones who would search their bodies for witch marks.
But that being said, there is something to it. There's some kernel of truth in this this myth that healers were targeted. I don't think that there's evidence in New England for the doctors going after midwives. That's one big myth. I don't think there's evidence for that, but, and Paul Moyer actually, who just recently published a book about witch hunting in the Atlantic world, he looks at New England, but he ties it into things that were happening in England at the same time. So he describes it really well. He says that there's no like clearcut connection between midwifery and witchcraft accusations. But there is this sort of connection between like healing in general and like medical practice in general, because being a healer, you'd be put in these situations where someone could end up dying under your care.
And then that was the perfect opportunity for a family member to accuse you of witchcraft. So just by the nature of the profession, you were more vulnerable, I think. I don't think that there were a lot of healers accused, but it did happen. There's some truth to it. Truth for sure.
[00:14:11] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I haven't seen many that stand out as like professional healers. I've seen a lot who seem to have had things in their medicine cabinet, so to speak, that they used to treat people within their own home. Yeah.
[00:14:28] Alyssa Conary: Of course. Yeah. Which is what mainly would be the role of the woman in the house. As far as the people who were known as healers, I think out of the like 27 that are tried in Mass Bay before Salem, I think there's only four who were known as being healers in their community.
So it did happen, but probably wasn't an organized conspiracy against healers and midwives.
[00:14:54] Sarah Jack: We did some research when we were working on our episodes that we put out on the Connecticut history and looking at some of those individuals, and sometimes an author would label somebody a healer, but there was maybe one thing mentioned that could be viewed at in a different way even, or just as the medicine cabinet healer
[00:15:25] Alyssa Conary: right.
[00:15:25] Sarah Jack: there, is there record or diary or anything that ever talks about one of these women who you know was doing that for her neighbors regularly?
[00:15:36] Alyssa Conary: I think with the four that are more known as healers in their communities, there's I don't know of any diaries. I just know of contemporary accounts of their accusations. I know, let's see, there's one, Mary Hale, she's a Boston widow. She had a sort of, I don't wanna call a hospital, but like a place where people came to be like cared for.
And this ended up not, it didn't end well for her because she was accused of witchcraft, but she was acquitted, so she was never executed. But for the most part, like Josh was saying, it's unclear, because medical care was usually done at home by the woman in the house. So someone could be involved with healing, but not necessarily be known as a healer.
[00:16:24] Sarah Jack: And Mary Hale is my 10th great grandmother.
[00:16:27] Alyssa Conary: Stop it. Are you serious?
[00:16:29] Sarah Jack: If like the records indicate that she was indeed Winifred Benham's mother, have you looked at that at all?
[00:16:38] Alyssa Conary: No, I haven't.
[00:16:39] Sarah Jack: Winifred Benham was and her daughter, Winifred Junior, were the last case tried in Hartford, in 1697. But if you go back to Mary Hale's case, her granddaughter, Joanna, ties Mary and Winifred, because Joanna is Winifred's daughter.
[00:17:00] Alyssa Conary: Wow. It runs in families, right?
[00:17:03] Sarah Jack: Yeah. And it's interesting, both Mary and Winifred Senior disappear from the record after their trials. There's nothing that shows when they died or where they went. Joanna, you can trace into New York and Winifred Junior, you can trace her marriage too. But both of those senior women, we know nothing after they were acquitted.
[00:17:26] Alyssa Conary: Yeah, I know there's so many like that, because 17th century women, there's not much to start with. There's not that much out there about them. So yes. So many of these women, we do lose them after the trials. That's the last we hear of them. That's fascinating, Mary, so you're a Hale. Wow. Very cool.
[00:17:45] Sarah Jack: Yeah. And I didn't understand that connection until our Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project started, 'cause we just were doing more research. And since that's my direct, Winifred was my interest in the Connecticut witch trials. That case, there's a lot of, it's not misinformation, but it's not primary source information that's been passed around, where she's possibly buried, which there's actually no indication of her burial, 'cause there's no indication of her death either.
But there's a really great article that I found that talks about the trial records for Mary Hale and then that's how that author made the connection. And that was exciting to me, because that was like, oh, this is record because with Winifred and Winifred Junior, there's not much actual trial record.
[00:18:37] Alyssa Conary: For Mary Hale there, there is an entry in the Court of Assistants that mentions her. There's not transcripts. I don't think there are trial transcripts for any of them, but yeah, I do remember seeing Mary Hale was mentioned in the Court of Assistants records as a widow from Boston.
[00:18:53] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Were there other cases that you know of witchcraft being passed down in the family?
[00:19:01] Alyssa Conary: Oh yeah, for sure. The one that comes to mind right now is Ann Burt from Lynn, who is one of the women actually who was known as a healer and, in the community. And she was tried and evidently acquitted. I don't know if there's an actual record of her acquittal, but she shows up later, so we know she wasn't executed, so she was probably acquitted. Her granddaughter is Elizabeth Proctor from the Salem Trials. So there was that suspicion hanging on her, because of her grandmother being accused of witchcraft. I think it is mentioned at least once.
[00:19:42] Sarah Jack: Yeah, I was curious about that. How many of these earlier trials in Massachusetts maybe had some connections to Salem or other trials?
[00:19:53] Alyssa Conary: Yeah. You have the same, it is the same guys in charge in the mid to late 17th century. So you have some of the same judges at the trials. Mary Hale's acquittal, you have Nathaniel Saltonstall, William Stoughton, Bartholomew Gedney, and John Richards are the judges involved, and she's acquitted. Mary Webster, 1683, you have William Stoughton and Bartholomew Gedney and also acquitted. James Fuller, acquitted in 1683, also you have William Stoughton which it just makes me wonder if he was just seething, because we know he was very enthusiastic about convicting witches. There must have been, like I said, these sort of other forces that were keeping it in check back in the 1680s, and then when Salem happened, he just got to let it rip pretty much. So yeah, you do have some of the same guys that are on the Court of Assistants.
And then you have a couple of Salem victims who are actually accused for the first time earlier in the century. Susannah Martin, who's actually my husband's ancestor, she was acquitted of witchcraft in 1669. And then you have Bridget Bishop, she's acquitted in, presumably acquitted, 'cause obviously she wasn't killed until later. In 1680 so she's not Bridgett Bishop, yet, she's Bridget Oliver at that time.
So you do have some people showing up in more than one story and then showing up again in Salem, for sure.
[00:21:19] Sarah Jack: It was so enjoyable to hear you say who was sitting at her trial, Mary Hale's. Thank you I had not seen that yet.
[00:21:27] Alyssa Conary: It's four of the guys who were on the Court of Oyer and Terminer. And I think it's interesting that Saltonstall was on there. He's the one who left early on. He is, "you know what? I don't have the stomach for this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take off," we presume.
[00:21:41] Josh Hutchinson: It is fascinating.
[00:21:43] Alyssa Conary: Yeah. It's the same guys, it's just something changed. Basically, what changed for Salem was that there was no one in charge after the charter was revoked. And even though they had this new charter in 1691, they hadn't reestablished the courts or the laws yet. So it was the governor, Phips, was like, "let's set up this court illegally." And the judges got to pretty much convict people however they wanted to. That's one reason why Salem got so out of hand, because these guys are, it's the inmates running the asylum here. There are no rules. There's no one in charge really.
[00:22:21] Sarah Jack: It makes me think of this meme that I've seen. The guy hands a note to this officer, and the officer reads it, and it says, "oh, this just says you can do whatever you want."
[00:22:32] Alyssa Conary: So basically what happens, that's what Phips gave to William Stoughton. He had carte blanc. Phips didn't want anything to do with it. He just wanted it to go away. So he just hands it over to them and is, "okay, do what needs to be done."
[00:22:45] Sarah Jack: Whereas the Boston Court was running for more than just...
[00:22:50] Alyssa Conary: Exactly, yep. It was a center of political power. And it was, there was checks and balances, which is not, again, what people think about Puritan New England as being this moderate place. It is obviously, it's religiously driven, but they took laws seriously, and they didn't, like I said, I, they didn't wanna execute a bunch of people.
Yeah it, and it changes. It changes, and it has a lot to do with the politics. And I think the best book for understanding kind of the situation with the charter and with the political climate is Emerson Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft. If anybody's really interested in learning more about the judges and the politics, he does a really excellent job of explaining that whole dynamic.
[00:23:33] Josh Hutchinson: I'm wondering, was there a lot of spectral evidence involved in cases outside of Salem?
[00:23:41] Alyssa Conary: No, absolutely not. It was not seen as very reliable or valid evidence. And of course, in England you have these guys writing handbooks on how to prosecute witches. And there's some differing opinions. Some of them do put stock in spectral evidence, and others say, "no, it can't be used to prove witchcraft."
But for the most part, I think in New England, in the 17th century, no, they didn't wanna use that to convict people. The big thing that would get you convicted was a confession, again, before Salem, because Salem is completely different. But before Salem, you wanna get that confession. But that doesn't happen very often.
So another way to get a conviction would be to have two witnesses who witness the same sort of act of witchcraft. And that was another big way to get people convicted. But no, spectral evidence was not really seen as a reliable way to prosecute people. I think with Elizabeth Morse from Newbury, who actually was convicted in 1679 but then reprieved, actually, I think it's John Hale, who later says her being reprieved might've had something to do with the fact that the judges did use some spectral evidence to convict her and then subsequently realized, "okay, maybe we shouldn't have done that." So yeah, no, it was not reliable.
And then again, like we have said a million times, and then in Salem it was just like night and day. It was just like, okay, we're just gonna use, it's, it was a free for all.
[00:25:12] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. And it's like you said, a lot of the same people making the decision to suddenly include spectral evidence.
[00:25:21] Alyssa Conary: It makes you wonder what they were thinking at those earlier trials where people were being acquitted. I think about Stoughton just probably super angry every single time someone was acquitted. He had to play by the rules.
[00:25:34] Sarah Jack: He was ready to unleash when 1692 came.
[00:25:38] Alyssa Conary: Yeah, he was ready. He was ready. To me, he's the biggest villain. He's the biggest Salem villain in my mind, for sure.
[00:25:44] Josh Hutchinson: I agree. One that judge that surprises me is Waitstill Winthrop, because his father, John Winthrop, Jr. was very opposed to spectral evidence, and he brought in the two witness rule into Connecticut witch trial cases, and then Waitstill's like, "whatever Dad."
[00:26:06] Alyssa Conary: John Winthrop, Jr. It's funny. And then you go back to his father and his father was just like super haunted by all of this stuff and did some very strange things. But yeah, it is interesting that Waitstill Winthrop then, maybe it was a way to differentiate himself from his father.
[00:26:24] Josh Hutchinson: Sided with granddad or something.
[00:26:28] Alyssa Conary: I mean, I think Winthrop was pretty earnest in wanting to believe what he thought was the right thing to believe. But yeah, you can't read his diary without thinking, "wow, the guy was such a jerk." Yeah, he said some pretty interesting things, and the antinomian controversy, he did some pretty questionable things. Yeah, that, it is really interesting to look at those three generations and how their opinions differed and their actions differed, for sure.
[00:26:55] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I noticed the victims we've talked about so far have all been women. Why were women the predominant victims of witch trials?
[00:27:08] Alyssa Conary: The short answer is that they were believed to be more susceptible to the devil. And I always giggled to myself when I see that in, in a book and the scholar will say it wasn't because of misogyny, it was because they were believed to be more susceptible to witchcraft. And then I say to myself, "isn't that pretty misogynistic?" I don't know. And this isn't every book about witchcraft, but it's just a few times I've read these people dance around it. They don't want it, they don't wanna admit that it's misogyny. But it's absolutely an aspect I think it wasn't, again, just like with the midwives, I don't think it was this coordinated conspiracy like, "oh, we're gonna, call them witches just so we can kill them." No, they really believed in witches for the most part. But yeah, they thought women were more likely to be witches, and something like four out of five of people accused, I think, I wanna say it was four out of five were women. Something like 80 to 90% I wanna say. And that differed in other parts of the world. There were some places where actually more men were accused. But when we're talking about England and New England, there is an aspect of misogyny to it. Women were definitely more likely to be believed to be witches for sure.
[00:28:18] Sarah Jack: I wish there was more information on Thomas Jones. There's some secondary mentioning of his being accused or arrested after his wife had been hanged for witchcraft. I don't know any more than that, but I know that's like somewhat different than some of the other situations where the husband and the wife were arrested together, and then the husband was not found guilty.
That would be in Connecticut, or the couple in Connecticut where they were both found guilty. I wanted to know more of this backstory with the Jones that when his wife was hanged, it wasn't over. I wish I knew. And then is he the first man that we know of in Massachusetts who was accused?
[00:29:00] Alyssa Conary: I'm not sure about that. That is pretty, pretty early. He's definitely one of the first, and he is absolutely. He is put in jail. But he's never prosecuted, I don't think. And then you get to the Parsons where it's the opposite. But yeah, you do see these sort of like married sort of duos where they'll both be accused, but generally speaking it was much more likely that the wife would be executed statistically speaking. So there you go again.
[00:29:33] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, and it's really similar. We've had guests on recently talking about witch hunts today, and you still see that pattern with the women in most locations. There are like regions of Papua New Guinea where more men are accused, regions of other nations where more men are accused. But overall, it's still that very high ratio of
[00:30:01] Alyssa Conary: Yeah.
[00:30:01] Josh Hutchinson: women to men.
[00:30:04] Alyssa Conary: And I think it's a bigger question. Why do men kill women? Like I said, it's not, the witchcraft accusations, it's not a coordinated conspiracy clearly, but there's gotta be some reason why men kill women. It's just, it's always been that way. It's still that way today. I think we have to ask those questions, like, why? And maybe instead of shying away from the misogyny piece, confront it.
[00:30:30] Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
[00:30:31] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
We need to do it for the future victims. Discussing it, talking about it, those conversations have to become more comfortable.
[00:30:41] Alyssa Conary: Yeah, absolutely. I think as far as like the witchcraft scholarship goes, the early stuff, the Margaret Murray and all of that, and the fertility cults and the, I, people wanted to react against that scholarship and didn't wanna make it about misogyny, but it's there. It's there, and we can't ignore it.
[00:31:02] Josh Hutchinson: It's pretty plain when you see the comments of some of the people in the New England Witch Trials, at least, some of the comments that the men made about the women, like Cotton Mather's not my favorite guy. He's not he's not so nice when he writes about, say, Martha Carrier as a rampant hag, and John Winthrop's not so kind calling everybody a witch and everything.
[00:31:34] Alyssa Conary: oh, Yeah, Winthrop, man, he writes some real misogynistic stuff. Cotton Mather, he's fascinating to me, cause initially he's telling the judges to use caution at Salem. And then he becomes the guy who does the whole government defense of the trials.
But yeah, yeah, one thing, Winthrop, he really, the way he wrote about Margaret Jones to me was like, ugh. Wow. He talks about her "behavior," quote unquote, at her trial. And I have his quote here somewhere, and it's just, here it is. "Her behavior at trial was very intemperate, lying notoriously and railing upon the jury and witnesses. And in the distemper, she died. The same day and hour she was executed, there was a very great tempest at Connecticut, which blew down many trees."
And it's dude, like, if you were about to be executed, maybe you'd be acting intemporately, like I think, and then you get the account from Hale about her, and Hale is saying he went to visit Margaret, and they had urged her to confess, and she had insisted, "as for witchcraft," this is the quote, "as for witchcraft, she was wholly free from it, and so she said unto her death," and it just gives her like more of this like earnest sort of victim, description of her as like this earnest victim. And then you have Winthrop who's basically describing her as like this crazy woman who's yelling and screaming.
But of course she was, like, she was going to be executed for something that she was denying, and she was terrified, and she was angry. And it's just like what he says, it's just just being a crazy woman, just lying and railing upon people. And yeah, that one has always really bothered me.
[00:33:16] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's like blaming her for you, just saying, oh, she was hysterical. And uh, you know, he doesn't use the word.
[00:33:25] Alyssa Conary: Pretty much. Yes. She's a hysterical woman. It's like women weren't allowed to be people at so many times in history and even today, but we don't even have to touch that. Obviously it's an issue. Obviously misogyny is an issue. It always has been. And it is still today.
[00:33:44] Sarah Jack: I wonder how Margaret's fight for her life, since she was one of the early ones, intimidated the next women.
[00:33:57] Alyssa Conary: Yeah.
[00:33:57] Sarah Jack: It didn't play out well for her. Her fight didn't, and then they're being read or reading the account that there was the hearsay of the account or they witnessed it, and then how she was recorded in history.
[00:34:11] Alyssa Conary: It's terrifying. There's also this account after she's indicted of her sitting with her friend, Alice Stratton. And the account was given that she that Alice Stratton had a bible on her lap, and they were both crying, and that has always hit me pretty hard, too. Margaret Jones is fascinating to me and I just wish that we knew more about her. So you get this whole gamut of emotions from this woman who's facing this terrifying thing and it just makes it so real.
[00:34:44] Sarah Jack: yeah.
[00:34:44] Alyssa Conary: You read these accounts. Yeah. Makes it so immediate and scary and I'm sure people reading about that, hearing about that, more likely, would've been terrifying to hear for sure.
[00:34:58] Sarah Jack: And possibly at that point she had hope that someone was gonna hear her message and hear her plea. It was worth fighting for it, because what if somebody stands up for her?
[00:35:12] Alyssa Conary: Exactly. And nobody did. And apparently she made the weather really bad in Connecticut.
[00:35:19] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah.
[00:35:20] Alyssa Conary: Silly.
That, that was a big, that was a big witchcraft belief back then was that witches could control the weather. But yeah, it's just, it's very sad.
[00:35:29] Josh Hutchinson: On this topic of misogyny, I was thinking about how the women were physically examined, at least at Salem. Were they physically inspected in these earlier trials, as well?
[00:35:43] Alyssa Conary: Yeah. And that would actually mostly be by other women. And yeah, it, I mean it went on in the earlier trials too, to find, try to find, the witches teat or the witches mark that was not good enough to convict someone, but it was good, like corroborating evidence if they had other evidence. And God knows what they were actually looking at. I actually think Alice Stratton had something to say about that, because they did supposedly find a witch's mark on Margaret Jones. Yeah, she they found a witch's teet, and Alice Stratton says it's just an injury related to childbirth.
[00:36:19] Josh Hutchinson: Like Rebecca Nurse.
[00:36:20] Alyssa Conary: Exactly, yeah, exactly. They're seeing these marks or whatever, which probably have perfectly reasonable explanations, but but yeah, they are it is, it's it's an assault. It's an assault being, their bodies being searched, for sure. But like I said, it was usually women who did it, but I'm not gonna, I'm sure at some point there were men doing it as well. And that's horrifying to think about. But yeah, that's an assault, basically.
[00:36:46] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it's so invasive, and I've noticed in my reading of witch trials that for women, the witch's teet is almost always found in the secret parts. For men, it's on their shoulder or their neck or something.
[00:37:05] Alyssa Conary: That, That. Interesting. Yeah.
[00:37:07] Josh Hutchinson: So yeah, they didn't get the same
[00:37:09] Alyssa Conary: like someone's just really preoccupied with a female genitalia. There's so much, there's so much here that is just so clear, so clearly, just.
[00:37:21] Sarah Jack: Preoccupied but unaware at the same time. It's surprising that they couldn't start to understand it since they were looking at it
[00:37:30] Alyssa Conary: interesting is
If they had midwives looking for it, these midwives must have seen things like that before. So why would they be so quick to say, were they pressured into saying it ever that it was a witch, I don't know. I that's the thing is you always wish you could be there and see the things that happened that weren't written about, and I can only imagine. I can only imagine. I bet some women went through some really horrible things
[00:37:55] Sarah Jack: Rebecca said, take another look. Have an actual expert look, because
[00:38:01] Alyssa Conary: Yeah.
[00:38:02] Sarah Jack: is wrong.
[00:38:03] Alyssa Conary: Yeah. Her case is, that's a tough one.
[00:38:07] Sarah Jack: she's she's my ninth great grandma. So I get real
[00:38:11] Alyssa Conary: How many,
[00:38:12] Sarah Jack: her
[00:38:13] Alyssa Conary: oh, wow. Do you have any more? Is that the only two? Mary Hale and Rebecca Nurse
[00:38:18] Sarah Jack: so mary, It is a lot. Mary Esty, her sister, their grandchildren married and I descend. There's a line of Russells that goes down several generations and I descend out of there. And so I knew about Rebecca since I was a teenager. And then as I started doing my own research seven years ago or so, I realized, oh, Mary is my grandmother too.
and
[00:38:41] Alyssa Conary: fascinating.
[00:38:42] Sarah Jack: a few years after that, I discovered Winifred on my dad's, side of my tree. And then I'm like, oh, I wanna find out where her memorial is. And then the rest
[00:38:51] Alyssa Conary: So when did your family leave New England? 'cause they must have been there early on.
[00:38:55] Sarah Jack: They all left pretty quickly. So the Towne descendants moved into Vermont, that I come from, and then my line left Vermont about five generations back from me and moved into the Midwest. So I am, I'm an Iowan. And All of my New England ancestors, and there's a lot, they ended up coming through Ohio, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa.
[00:39:22] Alyssa Conary: Oh, that's fascinating. My husband, he is his family, it's like they came over from England and they're still there. Like they never, it's, he is, oh my gosh. He's related to so many colonial people. And like I said, Susannah Martin is his ancestor, which I find, I always look at my kids and think, wow, it's really cool, because she was such a firecracker. I really think that's a plus to be a descendant of Susannah Martin. She was awesome.
[00:39:50] Sarah Jack: Awesome.
[00:39:51] Alyssa Conary: But he, let's see, I think he's a Towne as well, somehow not a direct descendant of one of the sisters, but one of a descendant of one of their brothers. I think. I have no ancestors that I know of that my, all my ancestors were Quaker, not, I haven't found any that were actually executed, but definitely put in jail a lot.
[00:40:10] Josh Hutchinson: Wow.
[00:40:11] Alyssa Conary: yeah.
[00:40:12] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I'm also a Mary Esty descendant. My grandfather was from Danvers and he just moved to California after World War II. He, the Navy sent him there and he stayed so up until two generations ago, a quarter of my family at least was Essex County
[00:40:35] Alyssa Conary: You're recently from Danvers. Yeah. That's fascinating
[00:40:37] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah.
Pretty recently. Just yeah, just a couple generations ago. I feel a closeness to Danvers and that area and
[00:40:47] Alyssa Conary: I love Danvers.
[00:40:49] Josh Hutchinson: Uh, like dozens of ancestors and close relatives that were involved in Salem on the accuser side as well as the accused and the in-between just playing different roles, giving testimony, signing petitions.
[00:41:07] Alyssa Conary: Her letter, Mary Easty's letter, that, that blows my mind. They just, the Peabody Essex Museum had a, an exhibit, a Salem Witch Trials exhibit, and they actually had the actual piece of paper on display. And that was crazy to see. Yeah.
[00:41:23] Sarah Jack: Yeah. You know that no more innocent should die. She said that in 1692, and that hasn't stopped yet. So I'm really motivated by those words of her to keep pulling out the education and pushing out the word, because the innocent need to stop dying. They, those women who were pleading for their lives then didn't want others to suffer.
[00:41:54] Alyssa Conary: And it's happening.
[00:41:56] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:41:56] Alyssa Conary: again and again. Yeah.
[00:41:59] Sarah Jack: I was curious if you wanted to tell us anything about the hanging site in Boston.
[00:42:03] Alyssa Conary: Yeah. Traditionally, people have believed that in the 17th century the hangings were on Boston Common. And I know that in later centuries, actually, there were a few people hanged on Boston Common, as we know it today. But in the 17th century there were other pieces of land that were common land, and if you look at the maps from the early 18th century that exist, the gallows was actually on Boston Neck on some common land there. It's likely that sort of led to the misconception that they were happening on Boston Common, because that was also Boston land. So there is evidence, at least by the mid 17th century that yeah, people were, the gallows people were being executed on Boston Neck, which was this little tiny strip of land that connected the Shawmut Peninsula to the mainland.
Now there's a bunch of landfill around it, it's, there isn't a tiny little strip of land anymore, but it's clearly marked on these early 18th century maps that that was the execution site,
[00:43:01] Josh Hutchinson: So basically instead of hanging them in the center of town, they're taking them out towards the edge of town.
[00:43:10] Alyssa Conary: Which was usually the case in 17th century New England, is they would execute people outside of town.
[00:43:16] Sarah Jack: Which is a possible detail in Connecticut, in Hartford, possibly. We don't know.
[00:43:25] Alyssa Conary: Do they, I don't even, you know what, I'm so uneducated about the Connecticut trials, even though I find them absolutely fascinating. Do they have a, know of the execution site in Hartford?
[00:43:34] Josh Hutchinson: We think that we have a leading contender for it. It's, there's an old land transfer from the early 18th century that references a plot of land where the gallows once stood, and you can trace that, who owned that land, through the generations up till now, how it's transferred over the years, and what it's transformed into.
But there's a legend that goes along with it of the Witch Elm. And back in 1930, they tore this witch elm down. So it, that doesn't stand there anymore. But the gallows were supposedly, like near that tree. That tree was the landmark. It used to be on a rise, which has since been graded down level, but it was up above, and it's about a mile from downtown Hartford. So again, it was on the town edge, it was on a road leading to the cow pasture. And yeah, it's just at the edge of what the town was at the time.
[00:44:47] Alyssa Conary: Yeah. Yeah. Which that is to be expected, which is the reason why Boston Neck is such a better location than Boston Common, because it was on the outside of town. So that's at least, Anne Hibbins and Goody Glover I'm pretty sure it would've been Boston Neck. Yeah.
[00:45:06] Sarah Jack: And would've they discarded the bodies right there?
[00:45:09] Alyssa Conary: I think that was usually the practice with executions. I don't specifically know of any evidence, but it's probably, it's safe to say that is most likely what would've happened, yep.
[00:45:21] Josh Hutchinson: Okay. The question, what lessons can we learn from the past witch trials that we could apply today?
[00:45:30] Alyssa Conary: Oh man. Yeah, that's a, I actually love, as a historian, on the one hand, you have to be able to recognize that the past is unique and that it has to be looked at for the sake of looking at it. And it has to be looked at from its own perspective. But, that being said, I think, I do think that there are, lessons. I do think that if history doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but it rhymes. Someone said that once, I cannot remember who said that, but I loved it that history rhymes. So I think it is very useful to look for lessons.
And as far as witch trials go, I think the lesson is to not get carried away. If you're looking at things like Salem, singling people out and demonizing them is something that humans have always done. But we can get into this sort of mode where we're not even seeing clearly anymore, where it's just like other people aren't even people to us anymore. And I think being able to pull ourselves back and ground ourselves back in, in a place where we can look at others and actually see them as people is really important.
And it's scary, because, America today and like how divided we are. It's such a cliche, but it's true. And people, I feel like people don't even really see the humanity of other people at times. So I think that's the lesson is just stay in touch with people's humanity, other people's humanity. Don't forget about it. So I think that's probably one of the biggest lessons.
[00:47:13] Sarah Jack: I think that's such a good reminder, because if things are hard and ugly, which surround a lot of witch hunting situations, and you hold onto that strand of humanity, it's the lifeline. It can pull everyone through to the other side less harmed. Working together, finding the common ground, healing through something together instead of divided would be great.
[00:47:43] Alyssa Conary: Absolutely. Yeah. To think more about what you have in common than what might be different. That I think that loss of humanity is, and you see it in all kinds of discrimination and singling out of people. So it's just important to not forget that we need to take care of each other. That is just like something that is just gets so lost today is there's just no concept of I think the the sort of importance of taking care of other people is just like completely lost in our political discourse today. Yeah. It's all about seeing the humanity of others for sure.
[00:48:24] Josh Hutchinson: Right now there's a lack of a collective, a feeling of that our society is a collective
[00:48:33] Alyssa Conary: a
[00:48:34] Josh Hutchinson: society. Yes. It's more I am out for me. Yeah, and you're out for you and yeah.
And then it's easy if I have a problem to go blame it on somebody else. I don't want to take responsibility. Like the case you mentioned earlier where with the nurse and the baby died, because she had it out in the cold, if that's the way it went down. It's the same kind of thing today where something bad happens and you weren't prepared for it and instead of saying, "how could I have prepared for this?" You say, "who's responsible?"
[00:49:16] Alyssa Conary: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There's just that loss of the idea of actually being responsible for the people around you.
[00:49:25] Josh Hutchinson: We talked to economist Boris Gershman about what can be done about witch trials, and he was talking about how having a social safety net is important, because people are less likely to go out looking for who to blame if they've got some kind of backup, insurance. And I've heard that the ending of the early modern witch hunts, it coincided with a lot of institutionalization, but it also coincided with the advent of insurance.
[00:50:00] Alyssa Conary: I think that's valid. Absolutely. When people are without any sort of help or any sense that things are gonna get better or that they can be better, absolutely the tendency for human beings is to lash out and blame someone. But yeah, no, I think there's absolutely something to that makes sense.
[00:50:20] Josh Hutchinson: To change the subject a little bit, the question that just came to me was, had to do with Matthew Hopkins of England, the infamous witchfinder general that he called himself.
[00:50:36] Alyssa Conary: Okay.
[00:50:37] Josh Hutchinson: He wrote his book, A Discovery of Witches. And in that book he talks about his methods that he used and those included things like watching people to see if their familiars came to feed. Were any of those techniques employed in the Massachusetts Witch Trials?
[00:50:57] Alyssa Conary: Yes, Margaret Jones was watched, and that was, it's funny, because it was, that's around the same time that's happening in England. So they are reading and hearing about Matthew Hopkins and that's evidence that they're using some of the same tactics here. So that's great evidence of the sort of back and forth that's happening between England and New England at the time. She was watched while she was in jail and I mean I, it could be seen as a form of torture, really. It's Matthew Hopkins. Wow. That whole thing was horrifying. Again, Paul Moyer's book, which why can't I think of the title?
[00:51:36] Josh Hutchinson: Detestable and Wicked Arts.
[00:51:38] Alyssa Conary: That's it. Yes. I love it. I've read it twice.
He actually does, he makes that argument that, it's not a coincidence that this all starts up in New England around, 47, 48. That they are, hearing about what he's doing and going for it. And I think that makes a lot of sense.
[00:51:56] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I
[00:51:57] Alyssa Conary: But as far as
his methods go, I think Margaret Jones is the only one that I can think of specifically that we'd know one of his tactics was used.
[00:52:05] Josh Hutchinson: okay. Yeah. I think that people have this vision of New England as really being this independent entity, but it's obviously, it was very close with England, even though not geographically. You talked about the flow of information going back and
[00:52:26] Alyssa Conary: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're, they're English. These are English people living across the Atlantic Ocean, but they're still English. And there is this back and forth, around the time of the English Civil Wars and you have people going back to England to fight for Cromwell.
And you even have Hugh Peters who's one of the first Salem Reverends who goes back and he becomes, he's executed. He is one of the regicides who's executed for being a conspirator in the death of Charles I so there's absolutely. And there has been some written about this. I feel like there, it's not a ton, but I feel it's an area that's probably rich for a lot more research. But you do see these events in history that really remind you that these are English people living in New England.
[00:53:17] Josh Hutchinson: It is interesting, like you said, when these witch trials start in New England, because in Connecticut you have Alice Young in 1647, and that's Matthew Hopkins time right there.
[00:53:32] Alyssa Conary: Yeah, it's right there. It's something that I actually wondered about years ago and was like, I wonder if that's a thing and that, Moyer's book comes out and he just really lays it all out, like in a way that is just it's so obvious, that and it's crazy that no one had ever, really explicitly stated that before. But that's another book that I highly recommend if you're interested in this, because it's just phenomenal.
[00:53:56] Josh Hutchinson: Another great book on that Malcolm Gaskill's The Ruin of All Witches
[00:54:02] Alyssa Conary: Yep.
[00:54:02] Josh Hutchinson: And,
um,
[00:54:04] Alyssa Conary: that book.
[00:54:05] Josh Hutchinson: He also talks about the other factor in New England's settled first in 1620 and then Salem's founded in 1626. And there's people there for a couple decades before you start to see these trials. And I thought that his explanation of it takes a lot of like neighborhood friction basically building up these tensions and suspicions build up over the years.
[00:54:36] Alyssa Conary: Yeah. They don't have beefs with anyone, yet. It's, everyone's just gotten here, so it takes some time. For sure. That's a, an absolutely spot on observation. I love that book. That book is just, talk about humanizing people from the past. He really just makes it feel so immediate. That's my favorite thing. Malcolm Gaskill is not only is he this, it's gonna become like a Malcolm Gaskill lovefest. Not only is he a phenomenal torian, but he is such an incredible writer. That book, like if you wanna get if you wanna feel close to the people that this happened to. That's the book to read for sure.
Either that or Marilynne Roach, Six Women of Salem is the same sort of deal. That book just makes you feel like really another example of a great historian and a fantastic writer. Those two just really make you feel close to those victims, for sure.
[00:55:28] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it's like reading a novel or a almost a memoir. It's so personal and,
[00:55:36] Alyssa Conary: it's,
[00:55:37] Josh Hutchinson: And Malcolm Gaskill and Marilynne Roach, both just the details that they put in there. It makes it just seem so real, like you're watching it unfold.
[00:55:49] Alyssa Conary: Yeah, it is. It's almost like watching a movie.
[00:55:52] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, it's, those books are so good.
[00:55:56] Alyssa Conary: Yeah. They're great. I.
[00:55:58] Sarah Jack: What do you think, Josh? What else should we extract?
[00:56:01] Josh Hutchinson: We haven't talked about Alice Lake. Do you have
[00:56:06] Alyssa Conary: Alice. Yeah.
[00:56:07] Josh Hutchinson: Lake?
[00:56:09] Alyssa Conary: I, she is so fascinating to me. I know I say that about everyone 'cause they're all fascinating. But Alice Lake. Wow. I try, I have tried so hard to find more information about her and I cannot find a darn thing, let me tell you. And that's probably actually something that I'll continue looking for in the future, because I just need to know more about Alice Lake.
[00:56:34] Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
[00:56:34] Alyssa Conary: So yeah, just to talk about so the only evidence we have for what happened to Alice Lake is Hale. It's just his explanation of her being executed for witchcraft. Okay, so Alice Lake, she's from Dorchester and she's tried and executed, we think a about 1651.
What Hale says is, okay, so on the day of her execution she's visited by Reverend William Thompson of Braintree, who is trying to convince her to repent her sins. And she denied she was guilty of witchcraft. She said, I'm innocent, but and this is, this part is so sad. She said, I'm innocent, but I deserve to die basically for my past sins. And she said, and I have her quote here from Hale. "She explained that she had when a single woman played the harlot and being with child used means to destroy the fruit of her body to conceal her sin and shape." So basically she had an abortion, and she said, "I deserve to die because I had an abortion."
And I just, that is just so poignantly sad to me. She saw herself as actually she believed that she was a murderer. And it just makes you think a lot about how these different, like women's issues and these events that happen in women's lives, like how those interplayed with the belief in witchcraft.
And actually infanticide is something that you see a lot that coincides with witchcraft accusations. And there's also suspicions of infanticide or maybe actual infanticide. Parsons is a good example of that as well. So it's just more of that issue of like women and witchcraft.
Like I feel like there's just so much more there to look into and examine. And Alice Lake, it's funny because we actually know her children end up in Rhode Island with their father. And so it's just, it is crazy that we like know what happens to them, but we know so little about her life, like almost nothing.
There was one more bit of information about her and it was a letter to Increase Mather from his brother. Nathaniel told Increase, he heard Alice Lake was lured by the devil when he appeared to her in the likeness and acting the part of a child of hers than lately dead on whom her heart was much sad.
So there you go. There's another just devastating event in a woman's life that could in some way be tied to an accusation of witchcraft. It's just really sad. It's you think about all the pain and then on top of that, then she is executed for witchcraft. It's just awful, and she thinks she deserves it.
So yeah, Alice Lake is someone to me who is just especially fascinating and I really wish I could find out more about her.
[00:59:16] Josh Hutchinson: It reminded me of some other stories of women who decide that having an accusation brought against them means that they've done something else wrong other than, they know that they're not witches, but they look what other sin did I commit that this is
[00:59:38] Alyssa Conary: Right.
[00:59:39] Josh Hutchinson: to me?
Yeah.
[00:59:40] Alyssa Conary: Exactly. Yeah. That's,
[00:59:43] Sarah Jack: And in modern politics, there are some
[00:59:46] Alyssa Conary: Yeah.
[00:59:48] Sarah Jack: men politicians who would believe that, because they said that when we were, when we were
[00:59:54] Alyssa Conary: that for sure. Hmm.
[00:59:54] Sarah Jack: for the exoneration of the Connecticut victims, there were some politicians that were highly concerned that we did not touch what other moral infractions, these culprits would've participated in, that we only acknowledge the compact with the devil because surely they were bad people already.
[01:00:17] Alyssa Conary: There must be something else. Yeah. That's scary. And then when you talk about lessons you can learn, it feels like it's right. It really does sometimes feel like we're ripe for something like this to happen, and I hope I'm wrong. I really do. I hope it doesn't go that far.
[01:00:33] Sarah Jack: It's
[01:00:33] Alyssa Conary: and I know it is happening in other places for sure.
It, I just feel like
[01:00:39] Sarah Jack: It's gonna come down to the people standing up.
But it's that whole concept of speaking up for those that aren't in the room. That's what's gonna stop it. There, there was this one attack in Papua New Guinea where a brave son pulled his mother off of the fire who was being burned for witchcraft belief. And she was harmed and she, she is suffering from what she went through, but he was brave and saved her life. And those are the types of actions that people will have to keep stepping up and doing, because it is possible for sanctioned witch trials to happen again. It, there's,
[01:01:27] Alyssa Conary: yeah. Oh 100%. Yeah, it could happen for sure. It could absolutely happen. And I spend so much time these days like just looking at that rhyming, like I was talking about, that rhyming between history and being pretty freaked out by it, honestly.
It's just interesting too that we've been saying this whole time that all this stuff about women is happening, again, and it's just all feels so familiar. Really does.
[01:01:57] Sarah Jack: And now Mary Bingham is back for Minute with Mary.

[01:02:08] Mary Bingham: Sarah Jack recently asked the listeners a vital question in the past episode of this podcast, Ending Sorcery Related Violence with Miranda Forsyth, as part of the End Witch-Hunt News segment. Sarah's question, is your family precious? My answer. You bet. Sarah was referring not only to each of our nuclear families, she also challenged me as a listener to place myself in families where witchcraft accusations destroyed that tight family unit.
These accusations where the wrongful accused were murdered, caused harmful disruption and displacement, which not only sadly affected one generation, but many to follow. . This was the case of four year old Dorothy Good in 1692, whose story was so eloquently told in the episode of this podcast, Rachel Chris Christ-Doane on the Salem Witch Museum and the life of Dorothy Good.
This was also the case for Kepari Leniata's six year old daughter who was viciously attacked for supposedly bewitching her friend who became seriously ill and died. As was the belief in 1692 when Dorothy Good's mother, Sarah was hanged for witchcraft, some still believed that witchcraft or sorcery, as it is known in Kepari's home country of Papua New Guinea, is passed down from mother to daughter.
You might remember that Kepari was brutally murdered for the false accusation of sorcery herself when her daughter was only eight months old, leaving behind not only this precious infant, but a son and a husband as well. This family unit was smashed into pieces.
Her daughter's vicious attack happened in 2017. However, there was hope when activists Ruth Kissam and Anton Lutz stepped in and saved the girl's life. Ruth welcomed her into her home and family. Ruth's brothers and nephews took such good care that she was able to find a new safety net. Ruth's family became her own.
For more information on Kepari's story, please read my two articles regarding her case and that of her daughter on medium.com, "Kepari Leniata" and "Kepari Leniata: Her Legacy Lives On." Please listen to the two podcast episodes with Miranda Forsyth and Rachel Christ-Doane. Place yourself in these situations. Always stay tuned to listen to Sarah's End Witch Hunt News for current global News as to how communities and organizations fight daily to stop Deadly Witch Hunts. Then visit endwitchhunts.org to see how you can help to save a life. Thank you.

[01:05:11] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:05:14] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[01:05:24] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a Nonprofit 501(c)(3) Weekly News Update.
So what exactly is this History Camp Boston that you heard about in Alyssa Conary's episode? It starts with The Pursuit of History, a nonprofit organization. They engage adults in conversation about history by connecting them with historic sites in their communities and across the country through innovative in-person and online programming.
Their in-person annual events include History Camp Boston, Pursuit of History Weekends, and the weekly live, online, in-depth History Camp Discussions with noted historians and authors. History Camp Boston 2023 is about to become history, so don't miss it. It's in Boston, August 11th through the 13th, and they offer a scholarship for a free day for students for the August 12th date. See our show notes for the link. Get there.
Every week, Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast brings both the history of the past witch trials and news and education about the current global effort of ending modern witch Hunts. Would you be surprised to hear that the United States is engaged in global development partnerships that can affect witch-hunt violence? In 2023, the United States has now kicked off a 10 year long-term initiative that will impact witch-hunt violence. The US Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability is a long-term initiative to redefine how the United States prevents violence and advances stability in areas vulnerable to conflict.
As you have learned from our academic, economist, and activist interviews and suggested books and other research reading, addressing witchcraft-related violence begins with offering solutions for communities that may reduce gender violence and offer stability for the vulnerable.
The countries and communities targeted in this strategy are Coastal West Africa, Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, and Papua New Guinea.
Quote, "these plans represent a meaningful, long-term commitment by the United States to build the political and economic resilience of partner societies by making strategic investments in prevention to mitigate the underlying vulnerabilities that can lead to conflict and violence and are critical to achieving lasting peace." -- President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. March 24th, 2023.
Please read about this initiative now. Click the link in our show notes to see the USAID pamphlet on this initiative. Have you heard of the US Government Agency, USAID? The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, is, quote, "the world's premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID's work advances US national security and economic prosperity, demonstrates American generosity, and promotes a path to recipient self-reliance and resilience." The USAID receives its funding from Congress. Thank you for being a part of the Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast community. We appreciate your listening and support.
Keep sharing our episodes with your friends, have conversations with them about what you are learning and how you want to jump in and end Witch hunts with your particular abilities influence a network. Community development that works to end witch hunts is an ongoing long-term collective effort for all of us to participate in.
You can learn by visiting our websites and the websites listed in our show notes for more information about country specific advocacy groups and development plans in motion across the globe. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. And now that it's back to school pre-game time, be sure to share a link with your teacher friends. To support us, make a tax-deductible donation, purchase books from our bookshop, or merch from our Zazzle shop. Have you considered supporting the production of the podcast by joining us as a super listener? You can be a super listener by committing to as little as $3 a month, but don't stop there if you are really excited about our programming, go ahead and add a zero to that three. Your super listener donation is tax-deductible. Thank you for being a part of our work.

[01:09:13] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:09:15] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:09:17] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:09:21] Sarah Jack: Please join us next week.
[01:09:23] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:09:26] Sarah Jack: Visit us this week at thoushaltnotsuffer.Com.
[01:09:29] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[01:09:32] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts.
[01:09:35] Josh Hutchinson: Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:09:38] Sarah Jack: Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.
[01:09:43] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

August 3, 2023

Ending Sorcery Accusation-Related Violence with Miranda Forsyth

Stop Sorcery Violence in PNG

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Show Notes

This episode will lightly introduce you to Melanesia sorcery accusation violence through an eye opening and informative conversation with professor and advocate Miranda Forsyth, professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) in the College of Asia and Pacific at ANU. She is a Director of the Working Committee for The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices. Miranda’s geographical focus has been primarily in the Pacific Islands region, particularly Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. Her current research projects include focusing on a multi-year project on overcoming sorcery accusation related violence in Papua New Guinea. This is Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcasts first look at the Pacific Island region witch hunt. We ask: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

Sorcery National Action Plan

The International Network

Fighting the Wildfire of SARV

Australian National University Wildfire StoryMap Announcement

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:27] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we're speaking with Miranda Forsyth, a director of The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices, about her network's activities, and the crisis of sorcery accusation-related violence in Papua New Guinea.
[00:00:44] Sarah Jack: This conversation will stretch your mind.
[00:00:48] Josh Hutchinson: We will be learning about the causes of sorcery accusation-related violence and what's contributing to an uptick in those harmful practices and learn how sorcery accusation-related violence is like a wildfire.
You're used to hearing us talk about witch hunts. Today we're talking about sorcery accusation related violence, SARV.
[00:01:18] Sarah Jack: I like this terminology because the action part of that phrase, accusation-related violence, really puts the emphasis on the accuser and the violence.
[00:01:31] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. It's not the alleged sorcery that's really at issue here. It's the accusations and the results of those accusations. And once you're accused of sorcery or witchcraft, we see this all over the world, negative consequences follow. Even if you are not violently attacked, your reputation is ruined, and you often have to leave your community and seek shelter elsewhere.
We learn about different solutions. The holistic approach is needed.
[00:02:20] Sarah Jack: Just like we don't find one single reason that an accusation happens, it's not a single solution that's gonna solve the violence.
[00:02:36] Josh Hutchinson: We all need to take action to stop violence, and every sector in government and civil society needs to respond to this to be a part of the solution. Everyone has to work together, and each person and each government agency and NGO has their own responsibilities, pieces that they need to be working on. And so we'll learn what all those components are to a holistic solution. Learn about how the healthcare sector needs to be involved, the law enforcement and judicial sector, the civil society, private organizations and individuals and community leaders, religious leaders, all need to be involved to complete a solution.
[00:03:47] Sarah Jack: Did you hear that list? There's a good chance you fall onto one of those categories, and if you don't, someone in your household does, or your neighbor or your friend. I hope this episode causes you to think about how your position and your profession or community gives you influence to do something about this problem or urges you to reach out to your friend or family member who could have influence to benefit the efforts against this violence.
[00:04:27] Josh Hutchinson: I do wanna just mention the National Action Plan, the Papua New Guinea Sorcery and Witchcraft Accusation-Related Violence National Action Plan. That holistic approach is being employed to solve the major problem and that gathers people from many sectors and brings them all together.
[00:05:00] Sarah Jack: It's a well-informed plan.
[00:05:03] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, it's well-informed. There are many, many people working to implement it, and knowing that there are all these advocates and people willing to risk their own lives to save people from Sorcery Accusation-Related Violence, the National Action Plan, and other action plans being developed elsewhere. Between those plans and just the number of people wanting to advocate right now, I'm very optimistic that this situation is going to improve.
[00:05:49] Sarah Jack: Yes. When you listen to Miranda today, you're hearing research, you're hearing the outcomes of well-informed tactics or strategies.
[00:06:02] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, many of these community-level interventions, in particular, are having real impacts in their locations. And, as more resources become available to the advocates, more of that work will be able to be done and more lives will be saved.
[00:06:29] Sarah Jack: Enjoy this enriching talk with Miranda Forsyth, a professor in the school of Regulation and Global Governance in the College of Asia and Pacific at Australia National University and director on the working committee of The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices.
[00:06:46] Josh Hutchinson: Can you explain for us what The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices is?
[00:06:56] Miranda Forsyth: So that's a new NGO that I and some colleagues formed last year. And really it was a way of bringing together individuals across the world who are interested in trying to combat the problem, the harms that come from accusations of witchcraft and associated harmful practices. And we really formed it in order to take over from the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network that was set up quite some years ago, and that was run by Gary Foxcroft. He decided that he wanted to step away and do some other things, and we were conscious that that had been providing quite an important space, particularly for the advocacy around work at the United Nations.
And so we didn't want that to disappear. So we thought, okay then, let's create this new network really in order to continue the work that Gary and WHRIN had been doing. The people who formed it, we really came together in 2017, when the Special Expert for people Living with Albinism convened a meeting in Geneva to really address for the first time the issue of accusations of witchcraft and associated harmful practices.
And I'm using that language, because it is a very difficult, the terminology is a really difficult part of this whole issue, as I'm sure you guys are very, very aware, and there was a lot of discussion about what language we should be using, what terms are appropriate, witchcraft or sorcery, how do we bring together the different agendas?
So for example, of particular interest for the Special Expert of People Living with Albinism are what were called muti killings or ritual attacks on people with albinism. Often that was done not as part of an accusation of witchcraft, but because of a belief that their body parts could be used either to bring good fortune or to heal some kind of a sickness.
And so they would be mutilated in all sorts of really horrible ways. And so there was a desire to bring these various different agendas together, which all coalesce around harm that comes from beliefs in the supernatural. So that happened in 2017, that very important meeting, which then led the sort of a core group of people to work to develop a concept note and some data intended to really support a push for a special resolution on the issue of harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attack. And that happened in 2021. And then as there was a follow-up expert report that was done following another meeting in 2022.
So the group of people who were working in that space really decided it's fantastic that there have been all of these announcements that have come out at the UN level, but there probably needs to be a lot of advocacy, a lot of networking around those different, quite high-level agreements, in order to really make change on the ground. And so our network is intended to connect people, to share initiatives, to share information, and to try to get knowledge about that special resolution out into the broader public and down to the grassroots NGOs that we hope can, can really use it.
[00:10:37] Sarah Jack: Are there any other activities of the network that you wanna speak about?
[00:10:42] Miranda Forsyth: So we've created a website, and the website is really intended to put in one place a lot of the information about these issues. So we've got a whole lot of videos from different parts of the world. Because I work in Melanesia, then I have to say that a lot of the content is from Papua New Guinea, but we've tried really hard to, to bring what we found in other places, as well, but to all of your listeners, if you've got other information that you would like to share with us on the website, we'd be really happy to have that.
We're also trying to, to put out regular newsletters to let people know about what's been happening in that space, to encourage people to share their stories about what has been happening for them as well as a way, again, of raising advocacy, but also just making people realize that they're not alone.
Cuz often being accused can be a very, very isolating and terrifying experience. And so we're hoping that by showing that this is a phenomenon that exists across the world, it impacts on wealthy men as well as poor, old women and beautiful, young women. Everybody can be a victim of this. And so we're, we're trying to create that sense of a community. Some of our members have also been really successful in getting grants. And Charlotte Baker, who's at the university, a professor at the University of Lancaster she got a grant that is going to be doing a whole range of really exciting things, but one part of it is an online advocacy program that's going to get out, online, a whole lot of materials about explaining the resolution, what, what it does and also what it doesn't do, cuz there's a lot of misunderstandings, as well, about what that resolution does.
So we wanna make it really clear to people this doesn't impact on your right to believe whatever you want. It doesn't impact on people's right to their culture. It doesn't impact on the really important work that's done by traditional healers, all of those things. No, it's about harmful practices, and that is the intent of that online information program, which we hope will be done in a really engaging way.
So we've also got a photography competition that's running at the moment and that's been to encourage people to send in photos that we can use in that online advocacy program to really highlight the issue in quite, hopefully, expressive and innovative ways.
[00:13:22] Josh Hutchinson: How did you come to be involved in this area?
[00:13:25] Miranda Forsyth: So I was a, a volunteer prosecutor in Vanuatu, which is a small country in the South Pacific. And one of the early cases that I came across was a case where somebody had been found guilty of witchcraft, because witchcraft is still an offense in the Vanuatu penal code, or it was back then, and I was in the prosecution office, and I saw that the case had resulted in a conviction, but then it was a conviction for both witchcraft, but also murder and rape. And then the sentence was very lenient. And we decided we needed to appeal that on the basis that the sentence was manifestly inadequate. But then that also gave rise to the public defender very appropriately appealing it on the basis that the witchcraft conviction was was unsound.
And so the case then went to the Court of Appeal, and the Court of Appeal held that, in fact, it was an unsound conviction. And said that, in the court at the moment, there is no way that you can prove witchcraft. And so really they not only struck out that conviction, but they made it pretty clear that it will be very, very hard to bring such a, a case in future because there, how do you prove that in a court of law? So that was a really important precedent, but it then opened my eyes to the fact that, oh, there is a belief in witchcraft, or nakaemas it's called in Vanuatu, or sometimes they refer to it as poisoning.
And that belief structures people's lives in really significant ways. So it impacts on where people go, on the kinds of work that people will do, in the ways that they engage in the economy, the fear of people being jealous of them, or the fear that if somebody has done something wrong, then it's because of, of the use of sorcery or witchcraft is, is very real. And, and I thought this actually impacts then on the way, or this should impact on the way in which the Australian government does development, for example. Because if you don't understand that, and then you just do development programs without taking those cultural beliefs into account, then you're gonna run into problems.
And so I tried to raise some awareness of that. But I found that there wasn't really much of an appetite for listening to, to what I was trying to say. And so then when I returned to Australia some years later, I was, I'd always been interested then in, in this idea of, of witchcraft and sorcery being an important feature of Melanesian society that really wasn't taken into account by Australian law and development or just generally development practitioners.
And so I was talking with a friend of mine back in Australia who works with a lot of people in Papua New Guinea. And he started telling me about the problem of witchcraft accusations in Papua New Guinea and how, whereas in Vanuatu you'll have a murder that arises from an accusation of, of witchcraft maybe once a year, but in Papua New Guinea, he told me, no, no, no, this is happening on a really, really regular basis.
And so together we thought, "let's hold a conference in Australia to try to draw attention to the issue." And our target audience really was the Australian government. Just to just say we need to put this as an issue on the radar. It's not a sort of a funny, strange thing. It's a really significant human rights issue that does need to be addressed. And. It's not a matter of just saying, "oh people will be educated, and the world will change, and this will go away," because it just doesn't look like that's happening.
And at the time that we decided to hold that conference, there was a very, very public burning of a woman in Papua New Guinea, Mrs. Leniata Kepari. That went viral. The images of her being burnt went viral across the world, so there was a lot of attention on the issue. And then some activists in Papua New Guinea got in touch with us and said, "oh, we think that this also needs a conference in Papua New Guinea." And so we said, "great, let's team up and, and hold another conference in Papua New Guinea." And so that was my first introduction to the issue in PNG and that, we held a conference in Goroka in 2013, and that brought together various different groups who were working on the issue.
But at that time we didn't have any shared terminology about it. We still had the, the problem, but often people would end up talking at cross purposes. Some people would be talking about the problem of sorcery. Some people would be talking about the problem of the violence that comes from sorcery accusations. So it was a constant miscommunication that was occurring, but it was clear that there were enough people who were realizing this is a problem. We don't know the scope of it, but we are seeing it is resulting in this absolute misery for women, for men, for families being displaced, and something needed to be done. So I then became involved with the core leaders of that conference, and that journey has continued ever since, really.
[00:19:05] Sarah Jack: You spoke a little bit about Melanesia and what a important place that has in your work. Can you tell us what is currently going on in Melanesia with sorcery violence?
[00:19:17] Miranda Forsyth: Melanesia is made up of a number of different countries. I work primarily in Papua New Guinea, which is where the vast majority of really extreme violence related to sorcery accusations occurs. You do have, as I mentioned, these cases in Vanuatu and in Solomon Islands, to an extent, but it's so much less significant than it is in Papua New Guinea.
In Papua New Guinea, we don't actually know what the population is. It's between 9 and 17 million. It is expanding quite rapidly, there's a big youth bubble, and it is one of those countries that has got the resource curse that some people call it. So there are quite a lot of big mining, natural gas projects, but in general the levels of wealth of the population have certainly not increased as you would've hoped, given the immense natural resources of the country.
There is a, what some have called an epidemic of sorcery accusation-related violence in Papua New Guinea. We, after a number of years, managed to to come to an agreement on that terminology, sorcery accusation-related violence, because it really identifies the fact that it is the accusation of sorcery that is the real issue that we are targeting. And we call it SARV for short.
And it became clear that it is an issue. It's very hidden, though, as I'm sure again, many would've told you on this on this program, and as you would know, a lot of these cases are just not reported. They're not reported to the police. When people go to hospital, they don't say that they're had these injuries because of an accusation of sorcery because that puts them at, at more harm of being reaccused, unfortunately. We've also heard of cases where, patients are in hospital seeking care and then groups will come in and take them out and re-torture them.
We became aware that this is a massive problem, but we don't know the scale of it. So the only data sources that we have are the newspapers and the national courts database that reports the few cases that are actually prosecuted. In order to try to understand what is the scope of these and who are the people who are being accused and what circumstances are they accused in and who are the perpetrators and what kinds of harms do people face and who tries to stop them and what kind of prevention activities occur and who looks after the victims afterwards and how are they reintegrated into their communities? Like all of those questions we just didn't know the answers to. And so I've been leading a research project that's been trying to find the answers to those questions for the past 10 years or so.
And we, we still can't exactly say how many cases there are, but we did quite a detailed case collection in four provinces over four years, and we documented 1,500 or so cases of accusation and about a third of those led to physical violence. But of course, the ones that even didn't lead to physical violence, you still have stigmatization, which has an incredible psychological toll on people. People talk about the fact that they've got this brand on their forehead that they can just never, ever wash off or get rid of. Anytime something goes wrong in the community, then they are afraid that they are going to be reaccused.
[00:23:14] Josh Hutchinson: And what causes an accusation?
[00:23:18] Miranda Forsyth: Okay. So I have come up with an explanatory metaphor to try to explain what happens because it's clear that there is no one factor, right? This is a really complex phenomenon. So we have to understand that there are many things that come together, in order for an accusation to occur and then to lead to violence.
So I find it helpful to think of a wildfire and to think first of all of the idea that you need to have a conducive landscape, right? So when, for a wildfire, you need to have a dry landscape with lots of buildup of of fuel. But for a sorcery accusation, the kind of conducive landscape, there's a cultural and there's a socioeconomic dimension to it. From the cultural dimension, you need to have a population in which there is a belief that if misfortune occurs, it can be the result of somebody using supernatural forces in a deliberate or a unconscious way. So that's the worldview, if you like, of an acceptance of a magical explanation for misfortune.
But often that, that worldview will coexist with other worldviews. We call that worldview pluralism. So often, people will be open to that explanation, but they'll also be open to a more scientific explanation or else to a Christian explanation of that it is God, for example, who's responsible for whether people live or die. So long as there is a magical worldview, then that's part of the conducive landscape.
Then often you have situations where there is poverty, there is uncertainty for one reason or another. That might be because of increasing pressures on land caused by population growth or caused by drought, caused by earthquake. So those are some other features of that conducive landscape.
Also when you're thinking about the conducive landscape, you can think about things like ongoing land disputes. So the community is already somewhat tense, there's already antagonisms between different groups.
So the conducive landscape, then you often need to have a trigger event, and that trigger event we find is often a death or a sickness, particularly a death of a child or a sort of an unusual death. But a lot of people say there is no such thing as a normal death. Almost any death can potentially be seen as having been caused by sorcery. So that trigger event then gives rise to suspicions, to gossip.
These are often aired at what are called haus krai or funerals that can take place over many days. And and so there's a lot of people together, gossiping and there's concerns raised about, okay, well how did this happen? And then often you have people who will then come in and who will crystallize those sort of suspicions by naming and accusing somebody in a particular way. And those people in Papua New Guinea are often called a glassman, or a glassmeri, like a diviner kind of a person. Although can be Christian prayer warriors, as well, who will often identify individuals, in order to pray over them. So there's a slightly different motivation between the glassmeri, glassman and the prayer warrior. The glassman and glassmeri are often paid for their services, and this falls into that category that some of my colleagues call a spiritual entrepreneur, who really benefits from these things, seen to have the power to make these kinds of identifications. So then that crystallization of the belief, also it can be used by people who have got something to benefit from the person being accused.
So often you hear people talking about the fact that, oh, accusations are just motivated by economic reasons. People want somebody's land, and so therefore they'll make an accusation of sorcery, it's not a real belief in sorcery. I think that that's too simplistic. I think that when there is that belief in play, then it's there, it plays a role. But for sure, people do deliberately make accusations in ways that benefit them. But they might also think, "we've had this land dispute, so that is the most likely person to have caused that particular death, as well." it's chicken and egg to an extent.
But we have certainly documented many, many cases where, for example, a brother will accuse his brother's wife of sorcery, of having killed him in order to then obtain his land. And that kind of person then will also be present in that discussion about, okay then, so someone's accused, what are we gonna do? And then leading towards the decision to engage in violence. And of course this isn't always just, it's not a, a something that is discussed in a rational way a lot of the time as well. There's, it's a very emotional process, but often it can take a while to happen. Sometimes it happens very, very quickly, and it's just a sort of a really trigger combustion event.
But sometimes it can build, there can be suspicions for a little bit of time before the violence erupts. And then once the violence erupts, then it really becomes a mob, a collective, violent event. And we've documented in a lot of the cases, there's, 20, 30, 40 people who are involved in the particular case.
That's one pattern that we see. And the people who are doing the accusing, like in many other parts of the world, often have some kind of a relationship with the person who's being accused. So often it's a blood connection, and often there is already some sort of an ongoing tension. It might be over land, it might be because of a case of polygamy, or it might be a jealousy of one sort or another.
The victims that we've found can be both, as I've said, men and women. It very much depends on the particular part of Papua New Guinea that we're talking about. In some places it's almost entirely women, in some places it's almost entirely men, and in other places it'll generally be families that are accused, so you have both. When we've done our newspaper analysis, then we've found that it's about 50/50 overall men and women. But that sort of general explanation doesn't take into account those regional differences, which really show that it is a highly gendered phenomenon.
It seems to be connected, like who is being accused is very much connected with the kind of narrative over sorcery and witchcraft that exists. In some places up in the highland, there are, there's reference to sanguma, who are generally seen as women who eat people's hearts. Whereas in Bougainville there's generally reference to poison man who will take leavings of peoples, so their fingernails and their hair clippings and they will do magic on those and use that to poison people.
So these very distinct cultural narratives seem to then feed into the gender of the person that said, we are noticing that there's a spread of these narratives, and there's a consequent changing of the genders of people being accused. So in some places where there were only men being accused, now there are women and vice versa. We're also noticing that children are starting to be accused, which is a really disturbing trend, as well.
The wildfire trajectory that I identified, that has come through from the surveys that we've done and from a lot of the newspaper reports. But interestingly, when we look at the cases that are reported in the national courts, then they generally involve only a few perpetrators. And they generally involve male victims. it's really quite interesting the difference in the cases that get to court, whether or not that's because only a few individuals are actually caught, I'm not sure. There was one case in Papua New Guinea where 97 perpetrators were caught, charged, and imprisoned, which was a really amazing job by the police and by the courts. Of course, that then creates a whole lot of pressures on the state criminal justice system. But in general it's only a few people who are involved in the attack.
[00:32:45] Sarah Jack: Is there like an element where it's like with Christianity, those who fear witches in Christianity would attach it to covenanting with the devil?
[00:32:56] Miranda Forsyth: The role of Pentecostal Christianity in Papua New Guinea in this space is really interesting and something that quite a lot of my colleagues have written about, me less. As I mentioned, the prayer warriors, there's often an emphasis on exorcism of evil spirits and so forth. So certainly those beliefs get merged together with the beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery.
[00:33:26] Sarah Jack: Yeah. It's Josh, which of the films were we watching yesterday on YouTube?
[00:33:33] Josh Hutchinson: Everybody's Business.
[00:33:34] Sarah Jack: Yeah,
[00:33:35] Miranda Forsyth: Oh, yeah.
[00:33:36] Sarah Jack: And I noticed, I was very intrigued by the fear of a Dracula and how some of the interviewed persons said, "we don't really know who he is or what he is or what she is," but it is a feared thing. That's very interesting that something that they don't really understand has such a grip.
[00:33:58] Miranda Forsyth: The thing that we know about witchcraft beliefs or witchcraft doubts, I think that there's a really interesting movement to change that around and to show how really what witchcraft is about is more doubting, it's uncertainty. We don't exactly know what's going on, what's causing it, and so that makes it such a flexible, malevolent thing that can metamorphosize and become very, very modern. It can take concepts like Dracula and somehow permeate through them and make them into something that is scary, but unknown and unknowable. And that increases its power. We also hear things about mobile phones being used for sorcery and parliaments where witches go and sit and discuss and plot.
So there's lots and lots of these tropes of modernity, if you like, that are very much brought into the discourse around witchcraft and sorcery in Papua New Guinea. So the idea about Dracula, I think that was a few years ago. I don't know if that's still the case now, but these different ideas come and go and they're all part of that same generalized fear of the supernatural.
[00:35:14] Josh Hutchinson: Really hearing a lot of similarities between what we've heard about other parts of the world from Dr. Leo Igwe, for example, has told us about Africa using the witch planes now. So they're integrating modern technologies into belief and just the causes and even similarities to early modern European witch hunts. When you talk about all the factors that have to be in play, that's exactly what we saw with something like Salem. And a lot of the reasons, underlying reasons behind the accusations were the same. I'm wondering if you could if you're seeing the same kinds of similarities or if there's more, is it, are there more differences than that I'm not picking up on.
[00:36:09] Miranda Forsyth: No, I see lots of similarities as well. Really interestingly, I was reading some work by Will Pooley. Has been looking at the witchcraft accusations in France, I think up until 1940. Starting from early modern periods up until quite recently, and I just kept on circling everything and saying, yes, this really resonates, this really resonates, the way in which the doubts and the fears change, the way in which the courts are uncertain. The justice system has had to shift in terms of how to address the problem, but it still creates problems and uncertainty. In Papua New Guinea, they repealed the Sorcery Act 1971 in 2013, but still people will talk about the Sorcery Repeal Act, as if that's a new act that's intended to repeal sorcery.
And it's, there's just been a tremendous amount of confusion about it. People feeling if the government isn't going to be protecting us against this, then who will? And therefore that then, in a way, gives legitimacy to to vigilantism. And I think that those were also some of the real dilemmas that apparently, according to the historical record, that judges and other criminal justice figures were having to deal with back in those days, as well. Because what do police do if somebody comes to them and says, I'm really concerned that this person caused that particular death and is going to keep on causing deaths in my community, police officer, we need help. That's a very difficult position for a police officer to be in. They've got the law, which says, there is no such crime as sorcery. And yet they know that if they don't do something, then it's likely that people will just take the law into their own hands. These dilemmas are very, very real and I think that they were very real back in the day, as well.
So I was also reading that people were using. Again, back in France, people were using the law of defamation or slander as a way of trying to clear their names. And that's something that's been happening in Papua New Guinea, as well. Interestingly, I think a slightly more than it was in the past, I've been, again, looking through the court database, and there seem to be an increasing number of successful cases where people are able to go to the court and the court will make a statement.
But still you ask the question, does that always put those doubts to rest? Does it make the person entirely safe? Maybe not. But if the consequence of actually articulating those suspicions are that you have to pay a fine, then it might stop people from publicly articulating them. And so that then means that the risk of that kind of mob violence is lessened.
[00:39:14] Sarah Jack: One of the things that I'm thinking about that you know are a pattern over the ages is this attributing sorcery witchcraft to deaths that, in the 17th century in the American colonies, many of the women who were accused, even hanged, they were connected to a death somehow, and listening to Everybody's Business, these deaths that are happening are part of their regular, experience that there's deaths always coming for unfortunate reasons to the circumstances of the society.
Death is so permanent. It's so devastating to these families, to the communities. It's a severe, severe misfortune, and it's coming to terms with that. This is just the innocent ending of a life. How do you overcome that in a community?
[00:40:13] Miranda Forsyth: I think that's a really important point, Sarah. I think that it goes to the trauma that people often feel that when they're grieving and there aren't trauma counselors in Papua New Guinea. There isn't a lot of support for people who have children, for example, who die.
And one way then of somehow getting rid of those terrible feelings of despair and hurt is to make this accusation. It seems to be a way, of releasing that torture that they're going through in a way that they can't in any other way. So I think that that is a really important insight.
So I've spoken a lot about the causes and the drivers and the sort of the momentum that pushes these accusations and this violence to occur, but I haven't yet spoken about any of the interventions, which I think is an also a really important part of the story. The thing that really drives me, I think to working in Papua New Guinea on this topic, which is such a a horrific topic in many ways, is the extraordinary.
Commitment of so many individuals across the country to try to do something about the issue, to step in to do prevention campaigns, to rescue people who have been accused, and then to try to work with victims and to rehabilitate them. So one of the, in terms of I suppose early interventions, we found what seems to be quite successful is being able to work with, so whoever the sort of the activist is being able to work with the family, the direct family, of the dead person.
So say for example, you've got a situation where there's been a death in the family Then going to the family members and saying to them, it might be that there will be an accusation of sorcery as a result of this death. And it's really important that you guys stand up and say, we're not going to be making accusations of sorcery, so the activist needs to work with those family members, cuz those family members will have the moral authority to say no in a way that nobody else has that authority.
And so if they are able to be convinced that, yeah, that's not a path that we want to go down, then that can stop that accusation from happening right at the outset. So that means that, for example, working with health workers is really, really important, because the way that they communicate the information about sickness and death can really either set the whole thing on a path where it's likely that there will be violence, or it can really try to mitigate the risk of violence. They're a really important sector that probably haven't been sufficiently brought into the work of advocacy, as yet, certainly not in Papua New Guinea, although it has that has started. So there was one workshop done with health workers and it was a really eyeopening experience. So we're hoping that that will be continued. So that's one kind of strategy that's being used.
Also the village court magistrates, so village courts are the lowest level of the formal justice system in Papua New Guinea, and they also have a lot of moral authority in the community, and they're able to do things such as issue preventative orders to say, okay, people are not allowed to to start to take the law into their own hands. That can also work in some context.
Some communities have got together and have said, this is such a problem for us, that we're creating our own community bylaws. And so we're saying that there will not be any accusations of witchcraft in our community. And if there are, then people have to pay a certain fine. So they might also try to say we're not gonna do tribal fighting, and there's not gonna be gambling, and there's not gonna be drinking after 10 o'clock at night, and these kind of rules that work for the community. But often then they'll include sorcery accusations as part of those.
Then we also find that it's a question of trying many different messages and having many different voices speaking those messages generally, in order for the the violence to stop. But once things get to a certain point, then there's very little that that can be done to stop it at that point. That's when it's a matter of going in and trying to rescue, and that's where we find the police working with civil society organizations is of critical importance. The police officers are unable to do that alone, but working with that local knowledge means that even though it involves taking some risks, they are, and they have been able to successfully rescue a lot of people. it's unfortunate that it does require people often putting their lives at risk. And we've just seen some extraordinary acts of bravery, both by activists and by police officers on a regular basis.
So the police are often chastised for not doing enough in Papua New Guinea in relation to this issue. And there's no doubt that there are a lot of failings and there's a lot of challenges. But. I think it's also really important to identify that there are individual police officers who, on a regular basis, go way beyond the call of duty, in order to rescue people in the throes of these kind of violent attacks.
And they use all kinds of strategies in order to do then also a lot of the survivors themselves, when we've talked about, what, what happened, how did you get away? They've told us quite extraordinary stories, too, of their real ingenuity and creativity in somehow smuggling mobile phones in and contacting people and the kinds of stories that they've told in order to get people to release them. It's a testimony to the bravery, again, of those men and women, and some of them as well, who talk about the fact that they're being tortured, and they're asked to name others, and they refuse. And again, I just cannot imagine what level of bravery that requires. For a lot of them, their Christian faith is very important. And they talk about that as being something that, that somehow sustains them through it.
And then afterwards, for the survivors, this is a very, very difficult situation. Because as I said, survivors are often so vulnerable, so much at risk of reaccusation. And how do you go back into a community where people have been involved in causing that kind of extreme pain on you? This is for those who do survive.
So we've found that some some programs will offer safe houses for survivors to go to with their families. But that's a kind of a short term solution, and it's it's a bit unsatisfactory. It's absolutely necessary, but it's only one part of the solution.
Then other NGOs have developed programs really to give a sort of a startup pack again for somebody, who then they will move with their family into the capital city, for example, , or down to another place, which, which can work. But sometimes as well, there is a precarity because stories do follow people and it's hard to recreate a whole new identity.
That issue of reintegration is a real problem. We've found successful cases of reintegration occur when there's been quite a lot of work done with the community and with the people who have done the accusation and the perpetrators as well. And the people who accuse and the people who are the perpetrators are not always the same. But when there is what appears to be a genuine expression of remorse, when there is a payment that's been made in a customary way, it's called a compensation payment in Papua New Guinea, and that's a way that a lot of disputes are resolved, so when that customary payment has been made, when the survivor is somewhat emotionally ready to return, and there is support from the pastors, the village court magistrates, and the police, like everybody together saying, okay, "this reintegration is happening, this person is here," and the police say, "we're watching, we've got our eyes on this person, and we are gonna be coming back, and we're gonna be checking that she or he or that family is okay." In those circumstances, we've found that reintegration can be successful.
I've just got a colleague who is visiting here from Hela Province in Papua New Guinea, and he has just started identifying the major problem of SARV in his province. His province is known primarily for tribal fighting. But he says actually SARV is a major problem there as well. And And he was struggling with the thought of what do I do for these for these victims?
Some are mothers who have just given birth like the day before who have to flee into the bushes. And he was sinking, okay, I want to build a safe house, but I'm gonna build a safe house in the epicenter of the SARV accusations. I'm going to build a safe house as a challenge to the community to say it's not the right thing to do. And he's got a group of young men who have decided that they are going to defend that safe house. Whoever the victims are who come, they're going to defend them. And they're building around that safe house a garden, a huge garden that will support the safe house, that will give a mean of in means of income for the people who live there, so that it will be a sustainable safe house. They're also building a library, so hopefully they can do education of the community. And I think they're building a soccer field as well, so that, again, there can be social events that can occur. And we've seen that quite often, that communities, when they're starting an initiative to try to counter a social problem like SARV, then they'll often think about what is the economic dimension to this? What is the social dimension to this?
[00:51:20] Sarah Jack: It's so hopeful, because of all the elements that they're incorporating in for protecting the accused and the rehabilitation. I couldn't help but think about the Ghana witch camps while you were talking about refugees of, short term protection, but then integration like all of those pieces are real issues. And we see that the long-term refugee camps aren't offering the survivors a way to get back into society and to find purpose and strength and their dignity. So I'm really excited to hear this effort in this community. I think it sounds very promising and it's giving people a reason to band together for the good.
Memorialization is like a really important effort in some parts of the country right now, some parts of the world right now, where most witch hunting and accused are a part of the historic past and remembrance, tributes, having a way to pay tribute to ancestors, if, that kind of thing is really big part of what's happening in the United States and Connecticut and in Scotland they're trying. How does memorialization work in a situation where there is so much current accusation and violence? Is there a purpose for it? Is there a way that it could be beneficial?
[00:52:56] Miranda Forsyth: Yeah, that's a really interesting question and as soon as you were saying that, what sprung to mind for me was the efforts by an activist Ruth Kissam, who heard about, I mentioned that case of Leniata Kepari. She's a woman from Enga, and she found that Leniata Kepari's remains had been in the morgue in the hospital for a year, and she just decided, this isn't right. I'm not going to let this happen, and so she went and she got the remains, and she buried her, and she made a sign and a plaque. And that was a really important moment for the movement. It really was somebody stepping up and saying, "this woman has got a right to be buried, and we should all like grieve for her and we should all feel the sorrow for what happened to her."
And I think that, although that's just been the only one that I know of, it was very powerful, and Ruth has gone on to be an extraordinary activist for this cause. And so I think there probably is a role for that a little bit more. There's been a regular movement as well called the Haus Krai Movement, which is intended to raise awareness, not just about SARV, but also about gender-based violence.
And so that's another way in which that happens on a regular basis, but probably there needs to be more of that kind of memorialization that occurs, because everybody, it seems, knows somebody who has lost somebody because of SARV. It is such a pervasive issue, unfortunately, in Papua New Guinea.
I haven't spoken about the Papua New Guinea national Action Plan. So the National Action Plan was developed in 2015, and that was really intended to take a holistic approach to say, you can't just think about this issue as a law and order issue. It's not, although it is, there, there's all of these different things. You need to have the education part, you need to have the health sector part, you need to have the care and counseling part, you need to have the research part. And so it was a really exciting plan that was promoted. It's been driven by the Department of Justice and Attorney General, by the leadership of some really fantastic women for a long time now. Getting on for a decade of work on that.
And so the the plan, of course, like many plans in developing countries, has really suffered from a lack of funding. But what has kept it going and what has kept SARV on the agenda, I think has been the sort of this core committee that met for many years. It fell down a little bit during Covid, but it's being resurrected now. That just kept on saying, this is an issue. Hey, is there any funding available for doing any programs under the plan, even though the plan was not being funded by the government, although there more recently, it just has started to be funded to an extent, which is fantastic. There were these individuals motivated, looking for ways that they could access fund to do different activities underneath the plan.
And for example the Australian government has been funding a series of trainings on how to deal with SARV for the police and for the village court magistrates. My colleague, William Kipongi, in Papua New Guinea just recently attended one of those trainings and presented our research findings. There were 30 senior police officers who were there for a week working through these issues, understanding the way in which the law works. There was a recent amendment to the law last year that specifically targets glassman and glassmeri and also makes accusations of witchcraft or sorcery a criminal offense.
And so talking them through how to go about charging people and the prosecution process, these are really important developments that have occurred. And the aim of that core committee and of the plan itself is to ensure that this is a holistic response, but also that everybody who is working on the issue in Papua New Guinea is on the same page.
If everybody does these isolated little initiatives, that's not actually going to lead to transformative change. But if they can be joined together, can be working with each other, sharing insights, spreading the same message, then we know that that is how change occurs. And so I think that that central coordinating role is a really important one.
The challenge now is to make sure that it develops roots that go really down to the very, very local levels, and that part is probably still missing and is the next stage of development, I really hope.
[00:58:14] Josh Hutchinson: I know that Papua Gua is one of the most, if not the most culturally and linguistically diverse nations in the world. And how does that present challenges? Are people able to work through those issues generally?
[00:58:33] Miranda Forsyth: Yeah. I believe it is the most culturally and linguistically diverse country. There's over 800 different languages. It's just extraordinary. And that is, I think, also what characterizes the Papua New Guinean people of their enormous creativity and inventive spirit and the way in which they are able to hold multiple different perspectives in their heads at one time.
I'm always inspired to think in much more flexible ways. Although of course I end up returning to my sort of Western lawyer trained sort of Cartesian mindset, but then I'm challenged to get out of that and to try to see things from different perspectives. And I think that it is that ability to see things from different perspectives that mean that we haven't found that any workshops, for example, it's been a problem that people have got these different cultural beliefs.
Interestingly, often people will find the cultural beliefs, the sort of the witchcraft, the sorcery cultural beliefs from other places to be quite strange. And they'll say, oh, I believe that, but then it doesn't, it doesn't mean that they don't hold their own beliefs, which the others think are just really strange any less strongly. I haven't done enough research into finding out, like I should do some interviews to find out, oh, did learning that different people have got these different beliefs, does that change how you feel about these things? I imagine they, that it wouldn't, I think we all know that people believe different things, but as I've said, witchcraft doesn't all just happen in the brain.
There's an emotional dimension to it as well that I think we really need to pay cognizance to.
[01:00:17] Josh Hutchinson: The fear is very real and how deeply it affects you. It's such a, a foundational belief, how you view the world.
[01:00:28] Miranda Forsyth: It structures people's lives in very profound ways.
[01:00:31] Sarah Jack: How can we ask our listeners to help? How can we ask, the population of the globe to get involved personally, and I was thinking today while you were talking, there are folks who have very specific skills and influence and pull, maybe in the healthcare industry, how can those people who wanna be able to use that influence support these efforts?
[01:00:59] Miranda Forsyth: I suppose get in touch with me, and I can contact them with people who are working in that space. There is a group of scholars who are working with colleagues in Papua New Guinea to try to develop a program that would train those frontline healthcare workers in order to be able to better address concerns about sorcery and better communicate causes of death and sickness in ways that are going to alleviate the problem of sorcery accusations.
So that's, a program that I really hope does get funding. I know that they're putting in an application for that now, but I think that support in that way, developing materials, that can be used in that kind of training program is important. But often what we find again, and again and again, is that outside initiatives are not gonna be very effective. It needs to be something that is generated by those who are on the ground, who understand, who have that absolute local knowledge and legitimacy. But what outsiders can do is to support those people who are on the ground. So I call this inside-outside networked change. You've got those insiders who are then connected with outsiders, who then can network in ways that can lead to this more transformative change.
And we're starting to see that happening in Papua New Guinea, a lot of NGOs for example, and a lot of the churches, as well, who are doing very good things are connected then with outsiders and able to provide emotional, support for the case of the church people, spiritual support, and also resources, in order to keep that work going. So I think that finding out what are those local initiatives where are they working, how do they need help, having that conversation, listening, not assuming that outsiders have got the answers, as we unfortunately have a strong history of doing, but really listening. What help do you need? Then that is the way to support what's going on, I think in Papua New Guinea.
I should also say that as part of the international network, one of the things that we're planning to do is to hold a conference next year in Lancaster again. So there was one in 2019, and again professor Charlotte Baker is the one, together with Dr. Sam Spence, who is leading this. And hopefully that will also raise a whole lot more awareness. And historically we haven't had much engagement from the US in these issues. And it would be fantastic to have more involvement, because I think that there's a lot that each can learn about, what's happening today, what's happened in the past but also I read a case in the US where there was a pastor who accused members of his congregation of being witches. It doesn't seem to me that it is such , a farfetched thing to think that it does occur, although in a very, very hidden way, in the United States, even today.
In the UK, they've started paying attention to the issue of what they call child abuse linked to spiritual possession. And they now are documenting like, I think over a thousand cases a year of that kind of abuse of children, because you know of the belief in witchcraft. And these are contemporary issues that are in the center of the western world, as well as in places such as Papua New Guinea.
So all of us coming together and seeing it as a problem really that that comes from the unfortunate human tendency to blame others to seek to scapegoat when things go wrong, rather than to try to work as a community to, to address problems. Yeah, there, there's probably a lot of benefit in that.
[01:05:02] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we do have a lot of that in the U.S. What you talked about. There's a lot of belief. We spoke with Boris Gershman about his report on witchcraft belief in the world.
[01:05:16] Miranda Forsyth: Such great work that he's done.
[01:05:18] Josh Hutchinson: So brilliant. And but he estimated that or calculated that 16% of the US population believes in this harmful power of witchcraft. And so it's very real. We do hear cases from time to time that get into the media about someone accusing someone of witchcraft and unfortunately attacking them. And so it's not entirely foreign to the US. It's something that we have to deal with on our own, and hopefully raising more awareness of that can have some impact.
And we're looking at ways that we can help with making the American public aware of what's going on internationally, because everybody that we meet is so surprised to hear what's occurring, even though we see it from time to time in our own country.
[01:06:24] Miranda Forsyth: Mm. Yeah, absolutely. That's the thing as well that I've found that again and again, people say, oh my goodness, it's the 21st century and this is happening. And I say it's the 21st century, that's why it's happening. Like these things are very much a result of pressures of modernity on communities and that this unfortunately is a symptom of those pressures. And, the trajectory of the world everywhere seems to be signifying that there is going to be more uncertainty, more precarity, more poverty. And so the likelihood of these kind of accusations is going to be intensified. And the thing with a sorcery accusation is that you take an already unfortunate situation and then you put a sorcery accusation in and it just makes it 10 times worse.
Like for example, we think about refugee camps. Already these are places of extreme misery, and yet they're documenting, Accusations of sorcery happening within those camps. This is just a major, major problem. And again, it's one of those things that it is a little bit, as I said, like wildfire. It's contagious. It expands. And so that's why working on prevention is so absolutely critical. And there's not enough work on prevention that's occurring, because people will ignore it as a problem until it gets out of control and then the genie is out of the bottle and it's very difficult to do something about it.
So I totally commend what you guys are doing in terms of raising awareness of the problem. I hope that more people do pay attention to it. We really hope that the That the resolution, the UN resolution, and the expert report, and their recommendations are really taken up by nation states across the world.
It would be great if the US also put significant attention into that to see what could be done there. Papua New Guinea was listed as one of the five countries under the US Global Fragility Act. And that means that it is a target for support for the US government over the next 10 years. It's a really fantastic new way of thinking about doing development and doing conflict prevention in a number of countries across the world. And I really hope that ending SARV could be one of the contributions of the US through that global Fragility Act.
[01:08:51] Josh Hutchinson: So I'm thinking one thing Americans can do is contact their elected officials in Washington and say, "hey, this is going on. You need to be aware of this, and you need to be doing something about it."
[01:09:07] Miranda Forsyth: Yeah. And if they want like directions as to what needs to be done about it, that expert report that's come out has got a whole lot of really fantastic recommendations that can be followed. So we've put all of those things on the website. You could encourage your listeners to go and to have a look at our website.
[01:09:25] Josh Hutchinson: That's an excellent point. And that website is so wonderful. It's full of those resources. You have, the Papua New Guinea National Action Plan, the Pan-African Parliament Guidelines, and those really also talk about the steps you outlined, the holistic approach and what needs to be done.
[01:09:49] Sarah Jack: And now Mary Bingham is back for a Minute with Mary.

[01:10:00] Mary Bingham: I spent a lot of time with my grandmother when I was young. She was the one who provided me with the gift of music and family research. I still have the cassette tapes of her telling me her childhood stories about her abusive stepfather, her passive mother, my wonderful grandfather, and so many other life stories which held my interest. Grammy was a great storyteller.
One other thing we did together from time to time was to use the Ouija board. Yes, we allegedly conjured up some of my grandfather's Irish ancestors to ask them from which county in Ireland they immigrated, but I digress. On another occasion, I was sitting on Grammy's couch with my foot on a nearby empty rocking chair. I started to rock the empty chair. You would've thought I committed the gravest sin known to humankind. Grammy turned to me with a very stern look on her face and a bit of fire in her deep set eyes, placed her index finger over her tightly pursed lips, all the while motioning me to stop rocking the empty chair with her other hand. I was too scared and too young to question her. Today, more than 40 years later, I know why, and it simply does not make sense. Grammy thought I was inviting evil spirits into her house. If she didn't want the evil spirits in her house, then why did she enjoy playing with the Ouija board periodically? Wouldn't using that contraption do the same thing? So here's a prime example as to why superstitions are certainly not logically based.
Let's travel to Papua New Guinea for a moment. Michael Wesch, a resident of Papua New Guinea, six years ago told a story of a man named Codinine, a very active, healthy man living in a local village. Codinine suddenly became ill with a swollen stomach and thinning arms. Because the superstitions of witchcraft were very real to Codinine, he thought witches shot him with an invisible arrow in the stomach, then assaulted him at night and ate the flesh from his arms. Instead of seeing a healthcare professional, Codinine saught the treatment of a shaman.
The residents of this village in Papua New Guinea are interdependent community. The people rely on each other to survive, building strong communal relationships. The shaman told Codinine that someone in his community, who prepared a sweet potato as part of a communal meal, performed witchcraft on a small part of the potato before handing it over for consumption. According to the shaman, Codinine ate the bewitched part of the potato.
Long story short, Codinine died from this illness. Someone could have been accused of performing witchcraft, but luckily Michael Wesch stepped in. Using what he calls a reasonable and empathic approach, Michael and his father agreed to compensate Codinine's family to restore the community. Lives were saved, though sadly, Codinine's was not. If Codinine had received scientific medical intervention, he may also still be alive today.
Thank you.

[01:13:40] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:13:42] Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[01:13:52] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a Nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update. The following quote is from the wildfire story map that Miranda mentioned in today's episode. Quote, "sorcery accusation-related violence is a worldwide phenomenon. The deaths, mutilations, displacement, and stigmatization arising from accusations of sorcery are often hidden. It's time for a large-scale, coordinated response to what are not unique, one-off incidents, but in fact a wildfire of sorcery accusation -related violence. There is an urgent need for courageous and consistent public leadership," end quote.
How do we engage influential individuals in collective action against modern witch hunts? How do we motivate them to use purposeful and additional efforts to stop accusations against alleged witches? We start by talking about the facts, teaching the reality, and seeing ourselves as influencers.
The impact of this violence is real and deep on precious families in our world. Instead of thinking of these victims as strangers, who certainly experience different evil and look differently, strangers who must believe differently about the supernatural and sound differently, and strangers who clearly live differently and have different rituals and traditions, intentionally think about them as part of a precious family.
Is your family precious? When we look at the witch trial stories like the one of Rebecca Nurse from Salem in 1692, do we think her family was precious? What about Sarah, Dorothy, and Dorothy Good Jr? Do we believe that was a precious family? We do. The families that you heard about in today's episodes are precious and need our help. When a mother, father, or child is targeted in sorcery accusation violence, the family unit is traumatized. The harm alters them forever. They need help from influential persons that can stand with them and help them intercede. Who are the influential persons that can intercede? Who are the influential persons that can stand with them? It's me. It's you. It's us.
Take action in the specific ways that you know you can today. Join organized groups of people who are working as advocates against witchcraft fear and sorcery accusation-related violence. These advocates are people like you and me. They are people across the globe from different cultures, different religions, and with different skills and professions, but they're coming together to protect the vulnerable. This diversity gives us strength.
No one else advocating is just like you. What you hold back will be missing from the work. Please join us with your particular personal contribution. If you can contribute money, do it now. If you can write about what's happening, do it now. If you can talk about it from the front of your classroom or sanctuary, do it at your next meeting. If you can help your friends understand witch hunting over pizza and drinks, wait no longer. Get the word out, that violence against women, men, and children is seeped in witchcraft and sorcery fears. You have heard specific ways that you can start advocating. You do not have to wait to get involved. It is everybody's business to take a stand against the violence humans endure due to the supernatural fears of other humans.
Today's guest, Miranda Forsyth, has created a story map to help us better understand sorcery accusation-related violence. She portrays it as a wildfire that starts small but can become a raging inferno with sparks spreading to ignite fires everywhere. The story map draws upon her research into the levels of harm and nature of the victims, as well as highlighting how much fire can be effectively fought and ideally prevented. Go to our show notes today and click the link to the story map. Please be warned that the real life content is graphic and upsetting and conveys the extremity of the violence that is occurring.
Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast is a project of End Witch Hunts organization. End Witch Hunts has specific projects to effectively fight these fires. We seek to prevent them in the future. We educate the public about witch hunts past and present and work to identify witch-hunt mentalities and prevent injustice. We actively work to End Witch Hunts every day, when we bring awareness through our social media channels and writing, when we offer education through podcasting, when we team up and seek innocent alleged witch exoneration and build memorialization with community partners, when we advocate for responsive public policies and additional efforts from government, when we address witchcraft fear. Partner with us as volunteers. Financially support these active initiatives with your giving. Visit endwitchhunts.org to make a tax deductible contribution. You can also support us by purchasing books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or by subscribing as a Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast super listener for as little as $3 a month at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
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[01:18:38] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:18:40] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:18:42] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shall Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:18:46] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[01:18:49] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:18:52] Sarah Jack: See our full episode catalog at thoushaltnotsuffer.com
[01:18:57] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, and neighbors.
[01:19:01] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end sorcery accusation-related violence.
[01:19:05] Josh Hutchinson: Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:19:10] Sarah Jack: Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.
[01:19:14] Josh Hutchinson: And have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

July 27, 2023

Rachel Christ-Doane on the Salem Witch Museum and the Life of Dorothy Good

The Untold Story of Dorothy Good, by Rachel Christ Doane

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Show Notes

Learn about the latter life of Salem witch trial victim Dorothy Good and Discover what the Salem Witch Museum is all about as we chat with Rachel Christ-Doane, director of education at the Salem Witch Museum.

Rachel discusses the history of the museum and the story of the building, the exceptional online educational programming that is available and she explains what a tour of the museum is like. You even get to hear a little about the tourism of the iconic city of Salem, aka Witch City. Next Rachel discusses her recent research project that has brought shocking details to light of what life became for Dorothy Good, the four year old child that was tried for witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials. During our advocacy talk we reflect on the plight of people in need in early modern New England and how we stop hunting witches.

Links

www.salemwitchmuseum.com

Podcast Episode “Leo Igwe on the Deadly Witch-Hunts of the 21st Century”

Podcast Episode “Witchcraft Accusations in Nigeria with Dr. Leo Igwe”

Salem Witch Museum Presentation by Dr. Leo Igwe Advocacy For Alleged Witches

Documentary:”Why Witch Hunts Are Not Just A Dark Chapter From the Past”

The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Other Harmful Practices

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:27] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we talk to Rachel Christ-Doane, director of education for the Salem Witch Museum, about the museum, Salem, and the tragic life of Dorothy Good, youngest victim of the Salem Witch Trials.
[00:00:40] Sarah Jack: This is such a special episode. We are talking to the Salem Witch Museum in this episode. If there is an extended tour, this might be what it's like. You're gonna learn so much about the Salem Witch Museum history, their robust educational programming, and the future of the museum.
[00:01:01] Josh Hutchinson: We'll get the behind the scenes of the Salem Witch Museum. Rachel has done a lot for the museum. She does excellent research and has put together a number of very special educational opportunities and offerings. You can find many of them on the website, salemwitchmuseum.com. Others you can experience in the museum or purchase in the gift shop, such as their descendant packets of information on the victims of the Salem Witch Trials.
[00:01:41] Sarah Jack: And those packets were researched personally by Rachel and Jill Christiansen.
[00:01:47] Josh Hutchinson: They do thorough research putting together biographies of each of those individuals who were involved in the trials, and as Rachel says, coming up in the episode, it's an extended project. They're always coming out with new packets.
[00:02:08] Sarah Jack: I visited the Salem Witch Museum for the first time in May.
[00:02:12] Josh Hutchinson: How was your experience there, Sarah?
[00:02:15] Sarah Jack: It was really exciting. I actually enjoyed seeing the tourists' excitement as they walked in. And it's just you're anticipating what is it you're gonna learn? What is it you're gonna see? And the staff is so welcoming.
[00:02:36] Josh Hutchinson: I was actually there at the same time you know what that experience was like. I've been to Salem several times, but that was my first time going in the museum and seeing their highly engaging presentation about the history of the Salem Witch Trials. And the tour guide was very knowledgeable. After the initial presentation, you'll be guided into another room where you'll see exhibits on the history of witch trials and the image of the witch over time, and then you'll be taken to a wall with a timeline of witch hunts over several centuries.
[00:03:28] Sarah Jack: You are left wanting more, and that is why their virtual programming is so great. You can stay in touch and keep learning.
Our visit was extra special, because we were accompanied by Dr. Leo Igwe, director of Advocacy for Alleged Witches, and that same day he did a virtual presentation for the Salem Witch Museum, which you can watch, and we have the link in our show notes.
That really was special that we got to do that with him.
[00:04:02] Josh Hutchinson: You'll remember Dr. Leo Igwe from two of our previous episodes, and we'll have links to those in the show notes.
We're also going to learn about the history of the Salem Witch Museum's iconic building.
[00:04:16] Sarah Jack: What is dark tourism? Is Salem tourism and its attractions dark tourism?
[00:04:21] Josh Hutchinson: We're gonna get an introduction to young Dorothy Good, who was four years old when she was arrested in the trials. We'll learn what happened to her and her family.
[00:04:35] Sarah Jack: Rachel has uncovered new details of Dorothy's life after the trials.
[00:04:41] Josh Hutchinson: We'll learn where she went and how she lived.
[00:04:46] Sarah Jack: You will also find out a little bit about Ann Dolliver and how some of her adult experiences mirrored what Dorothy and other women in those situations suffered through.
Welcome Rachel Christ-Doane, the director of education at the Salem Witch Museum. She holds a bachelor's in history from Clark University and a master's in history and museum studies from Tufts University. Today she's going to introduce us to the educational programming the Salem Witch Museum offers and introduce us to the recently discovered details of the life of Dorothy Good, Salem's youngest witch trial victim.
So we're gonna start with talking about the museum first. Can you tell us when it was founded?
[00:05:31] Rachel Christ-Doane: The Salem Witch Museum was founded in 1972, so last year was our 50th anniversary.
[00:05:39] Josh Hutchinson: Wow, that's a big one.
[00:05:41] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, it was very exciting. It was a lot of fun. We had a private party, but various kind of Salem officials came, and then quite a few people who were involved in actually creating the museum were here, which was really neat to meet them, because our museum's a very kind of unusual format. It's presentation-based, and especially for the seventies, that was a very unusual way to present historical information. So it was really neat hearing about what the process was like creating it and how it's endured and remained, with kind of minimal changes over the years. That's really it. It was like a series of happy accidents led to this place, which is very neat.
[00:06:24] Josh Hutchinson: We had a great time there in May, and we love the building that you're in. What can you tell us about that?
[00:06:32] Rachel Christ-Doane: We are very fortunate to have it, but it's also one of our kind of greatest obstacles. So it's a really neat historic building. It was built in mid 19th century, and it was constructed as a church. So it was originally constructed for the East Church congregation of Salem that eventually became known as the Second Unitarian Church, and it served as a church until about the like 1940s, quite, quite a long time. And then the congregation disbanded and was absorbed into other local churches. The building was then an antique car museum for a while. It was an auto and Americana museum, which the pictures from that museum were really wild, seeing these old timey cars in here. And then there was actually a really serious internal fire that destroyed a significant portion of the inside, the internal portion of the museum. So the car museum was gone, and the Salem Witch Museum was founded a couple years later.
[00:07:31] Sarah Jack: It's very fortunate that they didn't just level it and leave, start from scratch, because the image is such a iconic piece now.
[00:07:42] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, that's actually the second fire in the museum's history that we know of. We're actually internally not sure that some say there were three fires. There were definitely two. There was another one in the early 20th century, which damaged the towers. So we have those two towers in front of the museum and they actually used to be much taller, and the fire weakened one of the towers, so they both had to be taken down, reduced to their present size. So hopefully that's it for fires with the building.
[00:08:13] Josh Hutchinson: And for our listeners who haven't been able to join you there yet, what is the presentation like? What's a tour consist of at the museum?
[00:08:25] Rachel Christ-Doane: So we're a two-part presentation. So the first part, you go into a large darkened auditorium, which was actually where kind of the main congregational space when this building was a church. And you see an audiovisual presentation about the Salem Witch Trials. So it's about 20 minutes long. Large life-sized dioramas that tell you the story of the Salem Witch Trials from the very beginning to the very end, an overview of the event. It is theatrical. It's intended to be entertaining, engaging, I should say, but it is a history presentation at its core. And then our visitors go into a second exhibit, which was added in 1999. It's called Witches: Evolving Perceptions, and that's about the evolving image of the witch, the European witch trials, modern day witchcraft. And then we talk a little bit about the meaning of the word witch-hunt and why we should be learning about these events.
[00:09:24] Sarah Jack: Your social media is really strong, and you're always enticing us into the programs that you're offering. Do you wanna tell us about what programs are available and how people can experience those?
[00:09:38] Rachel Christ-Doane: One of the silver linings of the pandemic we can say is we really surged into kind of the virtual stratosphere. So one of the resources we've been offering in the past couple of years are these virtual programs, which are honestly really fun. They're maybe my favorite part of the job. Myself and our assistant education director, Jill Christiansen, work on these programs from year to year.
So we typically offer three to four programs a year, sometimes more, sometimes less. And they cover just a variety of topics from researching the Salem Witch Trials and how historians make mistakes in the research process, we did an event about that this year, to contemporary witch hunts, such as those that are going on in Africa, which we posted a guest lecture. Dr. Igwe was here this year. We do events about women's history. We did an event about race and the Salem Witch Trials a few years ago, where we talked about how contemporary conceptions of race informed the way the trials or impacted the way the trials took place and then also how ideas about race have informed the narrative of the witch trials over time. So it's a variety of different events.
We create in-house a lot of lectures, which is really fun for us. And then we also bring in guest speakers. And that's just been a way for us to widen our audience and get our information out to people who can't necessarily come visit us in person or who want to visit us in person but haven't had an opportunity yet.
[00:11:11] Sarah Jack: I just appreciate how broad and deep and enriching the program topics that you offer, and as an out of state descendant, I gleaned a lot of history and information from attending, last May, I attended the panel that you did with several of the Salem authors and that was probably my introduction to the museum, actually. And then getting to visit this May, a year later. But I really appreciate when I see that a program is gonna be happening, it's not, "oh, it's more of the same thing." It's always something that is gonna be really important for people to get to experience. So thanks for doing that.
[00:11:54] Rachel Christ-Doane: Thank you. That's always really good to hear. And that's the kind of best part about this subject is it's so rich, there's so many different angles you can come into talking about the history of witchcraft. I don't think we'll ever run out of topics for these events.
[00:12:11] Josh Hutchinson: And you have another event coming up that looks very intriguing.
[00:12:16] Rachel Christ-Doane: It's July 20th. We are offering an event called Witch Trials and Antisemitism: a Surprisingly Tangled History. So this is an event that I personally have really wanted to do for several years now. So basically we're gonna very broadly be discussing the kind of overlap in connections between the treatment of Jews in European history and witches. And essentially the kind of very short version is a lot of the stories that are used to demonize Jewish individuals in the medieval period, stories about how Jews eat children and kill babies and drink blood, things that are, of course, 100% incorrect. These are just stories used to demonize others.
Those same stories end up getting recycled and used again during the witch trials period. But instead of being used against Jews, they're used against witches. So we're gonna really dive into that overlapping history, and we felt that this was a particularly important topic to talk about, because there has been such a surge in antisemitism over the past few years, and a lot of these same stories are coming up again.
There's this secret conspiracy of people who are hiding in plain sight, and they're eating children, and it's you hear a lot of rhetoric today that could have been copied and pasted from 1200 or 1500, so we felt like this was a really important topic to really dive into.
And it's a little bit outside of our comfort zone, cuz we're really diving into the medieval period. But we've put a lot of time and effort into this research, and we've had some really wonderful outside sources consulting with us for this. So I think it's gonna be a really great program.
[00:13:59] Sarah Jack: That's wonderful. Would you like to tell us how you got started at the museum?
[00:14:05] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, I ended up here by accident. I always say. It was a fortuitous journey. So when I was in the midst of my undergrad career, I was a history major, and I was interested in women's history, and I didn't quite know how I was going to ever make money out of, find a profession that would actually pay me to do that kind of history.
I applied to a bunch of different museums across Massachusetts, thinking it would be good to just get some experience in a museum space. And I applied at the Salem Witch Museum, and they had a opening position. So I worked here on the floor as just a general staff member, and I just fell in love with Salem and with this history. And I, you know, have have been here ever since. That was 2015. So I ended up finishing out my undergraduate career really focusing on witchcraft history. And then when I graduated, I came back to the museum and was able to pursue a master's degree while working here. And I've been the director of education since about 2018.
So it's been a really fun journey and now I always joke that I'm so specialized in this now I can't leave. Not that I would ever want to, this is definitely a job like no other, which is really special.
[00:15:24] Josh Hutchinson: We're so glad that you're there. You're doing wonderful work with all these programming and the educational offerings that you have. I know summer's a busy season for you, but what is life like there in October?
[00:15:41] Rachel Christ-Doane: So I've been working here for about eight years now, and even in just that time, October has become steadily more and more difficult to manage in some ways as time has gone on. So for those who might be listening who don't know, October is by far the busiest time of year for Salem. The city sponsors an event called Haunted Happenings. It's a fall festival that goes on for the entire month of October. And it was actually envisioned as, it was created as, a one weekend event in 1982. It was just supposed to be two days. And nobody could have foreseen how popular this festival would become.
There's all kinds of things happening throughout the city throughout that time. The different businesses do special events and things like that. There's tours, there's concerts. It's a really fun time to be here. But Salem is actually quite a small city. We were never meant to be hosting a festival that's this popular.
So even in the past few years since the pandemic, last year, we had the busiest year on record. We had over a million people come in the month of October, which was just unbelievably crazy to a point where the city's infrastructure simply can't handle it. Restrooms were breaking all over the city, like the plumbing of Salem couldn't physically handle it. It's a testament to how much people love Halloween and the popularity of that particular fall holiday, which people now very strongly associate with Salem. So it's a blessing and a curse.
It's really fun to work here in October to a degree. You get to meet people from all over the world who are in full-on Halloween costumes for the entire month of October, who are just so happy and excited to be here, so that's really fun. But at the same time it's also very demanding, and people tend to get a little frustrated trying to get in and out of Salem and are maybe not so nice to the service workers while they're here. So this is a friendly reminder to always be nice to service workers wherever you go, because it's people just trying their best to make your visit fun.
So it's good, and it's stressful. And it's also what allows Salem to thrive as a community, because the revenue that's generated in October is what keeps the city going throughout the winter. So again, it's a blessing and a curse all in one.
[00:18:12] Sarah Jack: And is there any other aspects of the tourism that you might like to speak to as far as the city or your museum?
[00:18:21] Rachel Christ-Doane: So I always say that Salem is a very unique example of tourism. We're a case of what would be called dark tourism. Contemporary tourists traveling to a site associated with dark or tragic history. So Salem is this very kind of unique, strange place because when most people think of the word witch today, they don't necessarily think of the historic criminal offense of witchcraft.
Of course, they know witch trials happened here and usually are aware that resulted in the deaths of innocent people. But for most people, witches are a pop culture phenomena. They're Hocus Pocus and Harry Potter and Wicked and Charmed and all of these kind of beloved cultural figures we know today.
So that makes tourism here very tricky, because what draws people here is not necessarily a colonial history lesson. It's this kind of deeper story of the supernatural and magic and the occult and things like that. Which I always say is not a bad thing. It's very tempting to condemn the contemporary tourism industry here and say, "this is so inappropriate, none of it should happen. Why would the city feed into this at all?" And I always say, it's not a bad thing that people have this in mind. You can't criticize people, because that's just what our culture is today. The important thing to do is once they're here and they're excited about being here, is to then use it as an opportunity to educate them about the importance of this history and what really happened and what a witch really was in 1692.
And you know, I won't flatter myself to say that every person leaves our museum, for example, with this kind of more enlightened view of the witch, but we certainly hope that many of our visitors do. And again, it's this kind of really unique opportunity to educate that most historical sites only dream about. So it's an interesting place, Salem.
[00:20:26] Josh Hutchinson: And what are some of the historical points of interest that are near the museum?
[00:20:33] Rachel Christ-Doane: There's lots of stuff nearby the museum, lots of places with direct connections to the witch trials and also just to the broader history of Salem. Salem is an embarrassment of riches when we talk about the history here, beyond the witch trials.
But in terms of our witch history, we're very close to several important sites. The site where the Salem Jail stood is right around the corner from our building. The site where the courthouse was and the meeting house. Those are all very near where we are. And when you guys were here, we obviously, we did a little walking tour and showed you the sites. And we do have a witch trials online sites tour on our website, where you can see different sites in Salem and across Essex County that have these connections.
So even if a marker isn't there today, we will show you the approximate location and the history of that site. That's our assistant education director's baby. That's a project she will work on for the rest of her life. So it's an ever expanding resource. But then we also have the Witch Trials Memorial that's very close to us.
So that memorial was actually in part created by our museum. We were very involved in its creation. Our director at the time and education director were extremely involved in organizing the tercentenary and the creation of the Witch Trials Memorial. And we actually have an entire virtual lecture about the history of the memorial, if anybody is interested in it, but that site is a really special place. It's right next to the Old Buring Point Cemetery, which is one of the oldest cemeteries in America, and several of the judges from the witch trials are buried there. Yeah, if anybody's ever visiting Salem, I always recommend going to the memorial, because it's really, it's a good place to reflect on what really happened here and the real people who were involved.
[00:22:25] Sarah Jack: Yes. Thank you so much for that walking tour. It was really memorable to be able to do that with you. And we had Dr. Igwe with us, and I remember when we were at the memorial, when we walked up and he saw the quotes there from some of the victims, how much that struck him, because he hears those words now too many times where he's working. So thank you for giving us that extra little history lesson and experience when we visited.
What is next for the Salem Witch Museum?
[00:22:59] Rachel Christ-Doane: It's kind of a two-part answer. So we're in the midst of the series of very large updates, interpretive updates. This is something we've been working on for many years now. The kind of first leg of this project was updating our second exhibit, Witches: Evolving Perceptions. So when I say updating, the kind of most significant element of this is removing some dated scholarship.
So scholarship, as we know, changes all the time. We learn more and more all the time about this history and kind of particularly in regards to witchcraft history. This field is still relatively new. It doesn't become a very serious academic discipline until the mid 20th century. So a lot of research has been produced since the creation of our museum and the creation of these exhibits.
So updating the interpretation, removing some dated content, such as when that exhibit, second exhibit was created. It was widely believed that a million people were executed during the European witch trials. Now, we now know that that's actually impossible given the population of Europe and the effects of the Black Plague. And historians have come up with the more reasonable estimate that it's closer probably to about 45,000 people on the lower end of the spectrum. Getting rid of information like that, adding new information just in response to our audience and what we see people interested in learning about, adding some new artifacts back there has been a big push in recent years.
We have a first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in our section where we talk about the evolving image of the witch. We do actually have a copy of the book, The Malleus Maleficarum, which was an incredibly important text during the European witch trials. It was a manual for witch hunters. We have a copy of that and several other texts related to demonology in our collection that are not yet on display, but are hopefully going on display in the next few years.
And then the next big saga or the next chapter is updating our main presentation and doing the same thing, removing points of dated scholarship. So that presentation was created in 1972, and since 1972, we've learned a lot about the trials. We've learned a lot about the kind of story of events. So the kind of cause and effect at the beginning of the trials, particularly the role of Tituba, who's an enslaved woman who's one of the first accused. That's something we've learned a lot about and had to unlearn some narratives since 1972. Things like knowing the location of the hangings, knowing it's not Gallows Hill, it's Proctor's Ledge, these are all relatively recent elements of the scholarly conversation. So all this to say, this is the next big project.
But the project has been going on for many years now, and it's been a series of really unfortunate events. The first time we started working on this, the front of the building started to separate from the building. It started to sag off. So that was a million dollar project just to fix the structure of the building.
And that's why I say our building is a blessing and a curse, because maintenance to a 19th century building is very difficult. And then the second time we had pulled the plug on this, it was January of 2020 and a couple months later, the entire country shut down. So we are now in round three.
I swear if there are any more destructive, life-altering events, we're gonna have to burn a sage bonfire or something, cuz it's feeling like this project is a little cursed. But anyway that's the next big thing on our horizon is just finishing finally that big project so that we can move on and work on building additional exhibits and adding additional content and things like that.
[00:26:44] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for sharing so much about the museum. We absolutely enjoyed ourselves there and your programming. And you also are heavily involved in research, and you've done some very incredible research into Dorothy Good, one of your subjects. And could you introduce Dorothy to the audience?
[00:27:10] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah. So Dorothy is arguably one of the saddest stories from the Salem Witch Trials. So she is the daughter of Sarah Good, who's one of the first people accused. She is executed during the trials, and Dorothy is four years old, so she is accused of witchcraft not long after her mother. She is arrested and placed in prison, and she remains in jail for about eight months, seven or eight months. So she's not released from prison until December of 1692. And she is so traumatized by her experience that she is never able to recover. Her mother dies. Her infant sister, who accompanies her mother to jail, because she's too young to be separated from her mother, also dies in jail. And she's four years old, shackled in a prison cell. So the emotional trauma she carried with her through the rest of her life is just, it's very hard for us to really even imagine today.
[00:28:15] Sarah Jack: I was wondering what, were there other types of situations where they would have imprisoned and shackled a child of that age during that time?
[00:28:25] Rachel Christ-Doane: Maybe. It's very hard to envision. There are cases of extreme poverty where, they wouldn't necessarily, and this is also a little bit later after 1692, you wouldn't necessarily be arrested and shackled, but you might be sent to a poor house. But yeah, it's very difficult to envision another situation where a child that young would be arrested for a crime. It would have to be a very unusual situation.
[00:28:54] Sarah Jack: It really struck me when you were giving your presentation for History Camp and you talked about what it would've even been like to get her to the prison, that she would've not walked herself there. She would've been brought there, like physically carried, picked up.
[00:29:12] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah. So my research in recent years, the past couple years, has been about her adult life. And I stumbled upon these records in the Salem town selectmen record book that show she kind of, as an adult, bounces around from house to house for most of her adult life, because she's unable to care for herself. So it's this really horrible story about not only the youngest accused witch during the Salem Witch Trials but also the life of a colonial woman who couldn't contribute to society. So if you weren't able to fulfill the role of mother, wife, keeper of the house, society struggled to deal with you.
And honestly, it's, that is true to this day, right? We still have a difficult time dealing with people who can't contribute to society. And Dorothy is, it turns out, a really clear example of that, so I have been working on this research about this story of her adult life for a few years. I published an article in the American Ancestors Magazine this past, I think it was the Spring edition, where I talk about the discovery and what we know now.
And now I'm currently pivoting and trying to work on this as a full book, just really diving into what do these records really tell us about a woman in the 18th century who couldn't function, who's struggling with a mental health issue, whatever that may be in clinical terms? She's not able to care for herself, so what does that mean? So it's really depressing research, but it's really interesting, and it certainly aligns with, I've always been interested in women's history. Turns out women's history is extremely depressing.
[00:31:05] Josh Hutchinson: What does the story mean? What is the importance of this new information about Dorothy for understanding the aftermath of the Salem witch trials?
[00:31:17] Rachel Christ-Doane: Sometimes people are a little shocked when they hear that 20 people are executed and shocked in terms of they think that number should be much higher. And I think that stems from the Salem Witch Trails are just so famous. You hear about them in popular culture so frequently. They're arguably the most famous witchcraft trial in Western history. So they assume that the, quote, unquote, "body count" should be higher or it should have been more brutal or something like that. And this is a reminder of 20 people being executed is a very large amount, number one. We can't discount that, but then we also can't discount the people who lived afterwards were forever altered by this experience. You didn't just go back to your day-to-day life like nothing had happened. So many people were traumatized, would've certainly struggled to live in this community or just live out the rest of their lives. We can only imagine, especially those people who were imprisoned for months and months. So it's kind of a reminder of these events were absolutely devastating to every person involved, not just the executed but the survivors were also forever destroyed by these events.
[00:32:36] Sarah Jack: And in the Good case, prior to the execution of Sarah, their family was already really struggling. Mr. Good wasn't necessarily helping Sarah contribute to society, and now she's gone, but he is still there. So Dorothy still has a father. Did he remarry? Did he take care of Dorothy? What happened?
[00:33:03] Rachel Christ-Doane: So he does remarry. He remarries relatively quickly after the trials. I don't remember the date exactly, it's I'll have to look it up, but it's maybe a year or two later. It's pretty fast, which was not uncommon during the time, especially because he now has this very traumatized four-year-old daughter. He likely needed a partner in the house to help him. He actually submits a request for a reparations payment when the reparations process is happening in the 1700s. And previously, that request for a payment had been all that we knew about Dorothy.
So he says in that payment that he is asking on behalf of his wife who's died, his other child who has died, and then his daughter Dorothy, who was shackled in a prison for months. And he says she is "chargeable, having little or no reason to govern herself." So when you look up the phrase chargeable, it actually means she's expensive. So meaning that her care is difficult, it's taxing on him financially. And then saying with little or no reason to govern herself, we have long inferred that meant she's clearly struggling with some sort of debilitating mental illness as a result of her trauma.
So we know that she lives with her father for quite a few years after the trials and his new wife. However, she in, I think it's around 1708 or so, starts to appear in the care of other people. So he clearly is not capable of taking care of her. And when he actually is awarded his reparation payment in 1711, he directs that payment go to the person who's currently caring for her, which indicates she's not living with him, certainly by that time.
William Good does not come across as a good person in history, and it's always hard to draw those definitive lines about who's a good person and who's not, especially cuz we have such little information about them. But he's not a good provider for Sarah. We know that the couple were destitute, they were forced to beg in the years before 1692.
Then during Sarah's trial or pre-trial examinations, he comes forward, and he says that she's probably a witch. Like he implicates her. And then after the trials are over, he ends up giving up Dorothy into the care of somebody else. We don't know what's going on with him. Maybe he's struggling with his own demons. Maybe he just wasn't capable of providing for a child that was that sick. But he does abandon her ultimately into the care of someone else. And then he disappears. And interestingly, his second wife, whose name is Elizabeth, she actually appears in the Selectmen records as well and seems to be in the care of other people. So I think he abandons both of them. He either dies, and his death is not recorded, which is certainly possible, or he just disappears, and he leaves them both, and he moves away. So either way, not a great ending for William Good.
[00:36:06] Josh Hutchinson: And given the struggles that her family had with poverty and then her own challenges, I'd like to know, was there a system in place to aid people who had needs like that?
[00:36:21] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yes. And that's actually why we know why there are records about Dorothy in the years that follow. So New England's poverty laws are very much mimicking the poverty laws in England. So essentially they're supposed to have an overseer, set of overseers of the poor, people who pay attention to the poor in your area and make sure that they're being cared for.
They do have a requirement about quote, unquote, "deserving poor." So these are people who are legal residents of your town. So that's to say that if somebody wandered into your town who was from Billerica, let's say, wanders into Salem Village. Salem Village would not be legally obligated to provide for that person. They would pass them back to Billerica, because it was Billerica's duty to be the one who's caring for them.
So it's, yes, they did have a system in place to care for them, but it's, they're really trying to pass people off. They try very hard not to have to care for you if they don't have to. And basically the systems that it is in place for many years is people would be put into the care of a local family. So you would live with someone for X amount of time. Usually they're doing it year by year, and the town would pay that family for your care. So they would pay for your clothing, for your food, things like that, and then, a year later, if that family still wanted to take care of you, they would keep you, and there would be a notation about it in the selectman records, or if not, somebody else would take you in, ideally, and the cycle would continue.
So that's how I was able to find Dorothy, is I was looking in the selectman records for somebody else, for Ann Dolliver, who is also accused of witchcraft, and she lived where our museum actually stands today. I was trying to figure out when her death date is, and I knew she was involved in this system of caring for the poor. And in looking for her, I found all these records from selectman, year to year, commenting on the care of Dorothy.
[00:38:28] Sarah Jack: Who ended up taking care of Dorothy?
[00:38:31] Rachel Christ-Doane: So it's a series of people. There's a Putnam who actually cares for her for a little while. It's Benjamin Putnam. Who is in terms of, if you know anything about the witch trials, the Putnam's are the villain family. They're the chief accusers, we can say, Thomas Putnam's family is. But this is a very large family, and there's certainly members of the Putnam families who are not involved in the witch trials or are sympathetic to the victims. So Benjamin is part of the family where his father hadn't been very involved. He hadn't been very involved. His father signed a petition, in fact, in favor of Rebecca Nurse. So they seem to have been sympathetic to the victims.
So he cares for her for a while. He then passes away, and his son Nathaniel takes over her care for a little while. And then she actually disappears and comes back pregnant. So that's, we don't really know what happened, or I'm working on finding out what happens to her, but whether she got pregnant living in Nathaniel's house, whether she left the house, went somewhere else, and returned pregnant is unclear. There is no record indicating who the father of the child is, so it's a big question mark. She and the baby end up living with Nathan for a little while, and then she bounces around from a few different houses.
She ends up in the house of corrections for a little while, which is like a poorhouse. It's places that people who were impoverished, who weren't showing signs of participating in society at all, so who were not helping in the houses they were living in or being quote, unquote, "lazy." Things like that could get you a stay in the house of correction. So she's there for a little while. She ends up getting pregnant a second time and gives birth in Concord, which is very confusing. How and why she ends up in Concord is still very unclear.
And then ultimately she ends up for most of her life, or most of her adult life, in the care of a man named Jonathan Batchelder, who lives in Beverly. He's very interesting, because he actually testified against Sarah Good years before, during the witch trials. He's young at the time. He's a a teenager. But he's one of the people who offers testimony against her. So we can make all kinds of speculations about is he taking care of Dorothy, Sarah's child, out of guilt, out of Christian charity, because he feels remorse for what he did? Whatever the case, he ends up taking care of her and her second child.
And then after Jonathan dies, Dorothy disappears, no idea where she goes. That's, I have some theories about it, but no definitive proof. And we don't know when or where she dies definitively, although I'm probably gonna spend the rest of my life trying to figure it out.
[00:41:20] Josh Hutchinson: One of those men you mentioned in your talk and in the article in American Ancestors was Robert Hutchinson, and he's my ninth great grand uncle. And thought I'd mention that. But his father, Joseph, was one of the ones who accused Sarah Good. So I always wondered, once I learned that Robert had involvement with Dorothy Good, was he making up for something? It's speculation, of course.
[00:41:49] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, that's fascinating. Especially because, so I will confess, I have a negative view of Robert, because Dorothy doesn't seem to wanna stay with him. So there's two or three occasions where she's, there's a record that says she's supposed to go into his care, and then she ends up somewhere else, either in the House of Corrections, or she ends up in Concord giving birth to a child.
She, it seems like there's a couple of attempts for her to stay with him, and she does maybe stay with him for some amount of time, but it's very interesting to me that it doesn't really stick. And we can make a lot of speculations as to why, so I, we all have like fictional narratives of what's going on, and then I kind of wonder if maybe she just didn't like him or didn't like living in his house for some reason. Is something going on there? But that's very interesting. If you find anything else about your relative, let me know.
[00:42:43] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:42:45] Sarah Jack: My speculative narrative on that situation is maybe Mrs. Hutchinson didn't want her there.
[00:42:51] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah. So the kind of darkest narrative, I will confess, is she does get pregnant around one of the times where she's supposed to be living with him. Is he the father of her child? That is total speculation. I have literally no reason to think that other than she's just near him. But so I don't wanna slander the name of Robert Hutchinson, but it's interesting to consider, you know, especially because we have no leads.
Normally in a case of an unwed mother, or I should say regularly in a case of an unwed mother, they would really try to figure out who the father is, because that helped with the financial situation. It was in the town's best interest to have a recorded father, because then they could be financially responsible for the child, as opposed to if no father is named, then now you've got a baby born out of wedlock, so you have to support the mother and the baby.
I have been through the records looking at cases of premarital sex and bastard children, and there's a lot of records of women and their baby daddies, for lack of a better term, that the court would force them to on record say who it was, and Dorothy just does not appear in those records. So that's really interesting. Could they just not get her to say who it was? We don't know. Given her mental state, was she capable of telling them who it was? It's unclear. We don't know how cognitive she is. We don't know how she might not have been a verbal person. It's very kinda shady the way her mental health is described.
So yeah, we can, we can, and I do, make many speculations about it on my own, but in lack of firm evidence, all we can say is there's two babies. One's a boy and one's a girl, and we have no idea who the fathers are.
[00:44:42] Josh Hutchinson: And you mentioned a house of corrections. What was that?
[00:44:49] Rachel Christ-Doane: So it's like a workhouse, poorhouse. So the house of corrections in Salem is actually built as an attachment onto the jail, which is a whole other layer of kind of, a whole other disturbing layer here, because Dorothy is certainly in jail in Salem for some amount of time. I don't think she's there for the majority of her imprisonment. I think she's in Boston. But she was brought there for her initial questioning. She may have been transferred there at some point. Her mother is certainly transferred there before her trial. The fact that Dorothy is then as an adult sent to the house of correction, which is just a building added on to that jail space, that's horrible that we can only imagine how triggering that would be.
So when people who are sent there, there are some lines in the records describing other women who are there, who were set to work like spinning and things like that. So this was a place for people who, again, were not contributing to society. There's some very strong language in the Massachusetts laws that say, if you're idle, if you're slothful, things like that, you will be sent to the house of correction. So yeah, what she's actually doing in there, who can say, but other people who were in that situation were required to like spin wool and things like that.
[00:46:13] Sarah Jack: I was wondering who took care of her children.
[00:46:17] Rachel Christ-Doane: So both children become indentured servants, which was very common for children in that situation. Even if both parents were known, if they were both impoverished parents who couldn't necessarily care for the children, the kids would be sent out to work in other people's homes and be raised there.
So an indentured contract essentially says you are going to be a servant in my home for X amount of years. I believe for boys it's 18 years. For girls it's 21 years. I think I could have that backwards, but I think it's boys 18, girls 21. And in exchange, the master of the house will teach them a set of skills. So they will clothe them, they will bathe them, they will feed them, and they will teach them a trade. So for girls, domestic work, for boys, depended on the trade that person was in. And we'll teach them to read and write. We'll teach them some amount of literacy. So it was, in a way, kind of a good solution.
The idea was a child will be able to leave an indentured contract and have a trade, so be able to support themselves to some degree. So we know that her daughter is indentured to Nathaniel Putnam, and she's there for her set term, and her son, whose name is William, is indentured to Jonathan Batchelder.
And Dorothy actually disappears before Williams' indentured contract is up. So I would assume both kids stay where they're supposed to be for their full contracts. But I haven't been able to find any records of where they might go from there. Maybe they die, maybe they move away and they're just gonna appear in a different town records. They're not in the vital records at all. So that's another thing I'm gonna be hunting down for the rest of my life. I was joking with Marilynne Roach, the historian, that this is gonna deteriorate into me going selectman record to selectman record, town to town. And she laughed, cuz she wrote the Day by Day Chronicle, which took her like 30 years. So who am I to complain?
[00:48:27] Josh Hutchinson: And is it known what trades the children were being trained for?
[00:48:35] Rachel Christ-Doane: So Dorothy, the, girl is being trained as a domestic worker, so to be able to serve in a house. I don't remember off the top of my head what William's trade was. I think it might have been carpentry, but I'll have to look it up. The indentured records for both of them exist. This housewright? And there's no record of him. I have got, so he's living in Beverly at the time. So I have been to Beverly to look through their records to see if there's any indication of him working as a housewright. And nothing yet. Unfortunately, their records are missing a big chunk in the exact time I'm looking for, which that happens. Maybe there was a record of him that just hasn't survived. So we will never know.
[00:49:19] Sarah Jack: Some of the timeline of Dorothy's adult life shows that she was a wanderer. It looks like there's records that show she was warned outta town. What does that mean, warned outta town?
[00:49:31] Rachel Christ-Doane: So warned out of town is essentially somebody who is being forced to leave for one reason or another. So it oftentimes has to do with a woman becoming pregnant. And it has to do with your status as a resident. So again, if you're not considered to be a legal resident of that town and you do something that it is not favorable to the town. For example, Martha Carrier, she and Thomas Carrier are warned out of Andover after the smallpox epidemic in the 1690s. So they don't actually end up leaving, it seems. They're told to go, and it doesn't seem like they do. So it's like a kind of official notice saying you need to go.
Dorothy is warned out. In her case, which is very common, it's after she gets pregnant, there's this notice that says you have to go, we're not taking financial responsibility for you, essentially. In her case, she doesn't, she also doesn't leave. And it seems that she then immediately kind of ends up in the care of Nathaniel Putnam. So my thought is that there's this notice issued and Nathaniel steps in and says, "I will take her, and she will live with me, and that will be the solution to this."
Yeah, it's, it's just kind of part of their system of caring for the poor. It's a really kind of brutal system of care and it's, a lot of it has to do with money, as it does today.
[00:50:54] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's just another layer of this multi-layered tragedy. Just that she gets pregnant, has children, the fathers don't step up, the town won't want to assume the bills, so basically nobody does, except that, fortunately, Nathaniel Putnam does offer to take her in.
[00:51:20] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, but there's, this is just one case of, it's an interesting and really sad window into women's lives, of what happens if nobody stepped up for you. You're just left destitute. And Sarah, her mother is in that position. She's got, she does have a husband, but the husband's pretty useless. She's wandering around the town, she's, she doesn't have anywhere permanent to live, and she's got a four year old and an infant baby in 1692. And her life has deteriorated into just living off of charity.
[00:51:56] Sarah Jack: I just think that it's really gonna be incredible as you're working on your book that you can take, you know, this tale of little Dorothy from the Salem Witch Trials. But these records that are emerging are going to put a lens on the experience of women in the 17th century in these situations. So it's really a beautiful thing. She's gonna be able to teach us more about those experiences, and you're able to give that to the world. So thank you.
[00:52:29] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, and I say that there's a silver lining to this horror. It's, number one, it's, it gives us this really interesting window into the life of impoverished women in the colonial period. There has been some really excellent work about women's lives during this time. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, for example, has written some phenomenal works about being a woman and just your day-to-day life.
But it's so rare to have information about impoverished people, because they don't, they're not showing up in the records, unless they're, they have done something wrong. They're not, they're, the records of their lives don't exist. So having access to that is really incredible.
But I also, I've said a few times this discovery is meaningful, because it also tells us that Sarah Good's line might have continued. So until now, we've thought that it stopped after Dorothy and her sister, who dies, and Dorothy, we just assumed didn't have children, and we now know she has both a son and a daughter. You know, I've yet to figure out what happens from there. But the fact that she has two children certainly may suggest her line continues. So that would be really incredible to find out that she has living descendants to this day.
[00:53:48] Josh Hutchinson: We're talking about 17th and 18th century, how unfortunate people were treated, and, unfortunately, our legacy of treatment of the unhoused, the impoverished, unwed mothers hasn't been stellar since then, either.
[00:54:09] Rachel Christ-Doane: I'm thinking that's the epilogue of this book is that we, when we're talking about the 17th century or the 18th century, we tend to say, "oh, those unenlightened early colonists, they were just less intelligent than us today, more brutish, less civilized. And we have made it so far since then." And the truth of the matter is that is absolutely not the case. We have so many similarities with people living during this time. We are still struggling with the same issues they struggled with. We may have indoor plumbing, but that doesn't make us better than them or more intelligent than they were.
So that's something that I always feel like it's really important to stress. And yeah, in this case, looking at the treatment of unwed mothers, of women who struggle with a mental illness that's debilitating, there's a lot of similarities between then and now. And we can't ignore them.
[00:55:09] Josh Hutchinson: There are so many laws that really disturb me today, and more come up every day about, that almost make it illegal just to be impoverished. You can't sleep in public. People are taking benches away, so you can't even sit down in a lot of places, and it just makes it, it's an impossible situation you're in already, and it's so much harder. You end up spending a lot of time behind bars, unfortunately.
[00:55:43] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yep. And again, it's not very different. It's not so different from the 17th century, unfortunately.
[00:55:49] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, and so we don't know where she went after Salem and Beverly?
[00:55:57] Rachel Christ-Doane: Not definitively. So I say at the end of the lecture there's a theory. So there is this very intriguing newspaper article that is published in New London, Connecticut that says, that's a death notice for a woman named Dorothy Good that describes her as a transient, vagrant person who has been found laying dead in a bog meadow. And it is, I don't remember the exact timing, but it's maybe like 20 years after she disappears. So I can certainly speculate.
I think maybe, and this is all super speculation, but Jonathan Batchelder may have been a consistent person in her life. She stays with him for a very long time. That's the truth of the matter. Does she feel safe with him? Does she, is that kind of becoming a home for her? And then he passes away, and she disappears? So my thought is, and she also has this recorded tendency to wander, that's something that comes up in the records a couple of times, that she's a wandering person. So my thought is he dies, and maybe she leaves, and she just ends up wandering town to town, maybe getting warned out of other places. That's my, not hope, but going forward, my last kind of thread here is looking at other notices of people being warned out to see if she appears anywhere else that would at least give us some indication of where she is.
And maybe because it's a period of numerous years, she certainly theoretically could have wandered as far as Connecticut. It's a very long period of time she's missing. That is a very far distance to go. It seems impossible, but it's, it is, it is technically possible. And just the description of her, Dorothy Good, a transient, vagrant person. It sounds like her, it sounds the way that she's described in the records in Salem.
So it's been pointed out by my colleague, this could also be her daughter, whose name is also Dorothy Good. It seems less likely to me, because Dorothy Good, Jr. is in a more stable situation. She's an indentured servant for Nathaniel Putnam. She's learning a trade. It feels to me like why would she end up being a transient person? It's possible. But yeah, it does feel like that could. I have this kind of just feeling it's her. I can't say it definitively, but, and what a horrible ending, though. Like part of me doesn't want it to be her, because if it is, she ends up dead in a bog. She ends up dead outside probably having died from exposure. And that's horrible. I really want her to have ended up somewhere where she's being cared for by a loving family. But who can say? It doesn't always work out that way, unfortunately.
[00:58:53] Sarah Jack: Yeah, it's really incredible that a name was even included in that description, because then it, you could have never put this as a possibility to her story. And then I know you had mentioned how this post was in multiple news outlets. That's very interesting.
[00:59:14] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, it's republished in three other papers in addition to the one in New London, including one in Massachusetts. There's, I believe it's two in New York, one in Massachusetts. I did have a long conversation with the historian in New London or the archivist in New London about this. She very kindly is the one who helped me find the full text for it. And she was wondering, is it just because it's so sensational of a story, it could just be that's a horrible way for someone to die. Maybe that's why it's published in multiple news outlets. It also feels to me, though, like it's certainly possible people were aware of her role in the witch trials. It's a reach, because they don't say anything about the witch trials in that death notice. Maybe that's why it reaches so far is because people are aware, or maybe people regionally had been aware she was involved in the witch trials in New London, and they wanted people back home to be aware she had died. So it's a very interesting little piece of text.
And I also mentioned in the article that Good is not a very common surname at this time. If you look in vital records in both Massachusetts and Connecticut, there are very few Goods, if any, beyond this family. There's variations of the name Good, like longer versions of the name, but just to have someone with the last name Good, and then to have also the first name Dorothy. It's either a very remarkable coincidence, or it's one of the two Dorothys from Salem.
[01:00:47] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, after I had heard you mention that, I did some searching online, and it was very difficult to find anybody named Good. It, you'd think it sounds like it would be a common name, and then it's absolutely not.
[01:01:05] Rachel Christ-Doane: There's lots of Goodwins, there's no Goods. And that actually makes it very difficult. I have no idea what William's story is, Sarah's husband, where he's born, where he comes from, where he's living before he meets Sarah, that is all up in the air. Because again, there's just very, there, I have not been able to find any mentions of his family or his lineage at all.
So that's another kind of big question mark of where did he come from? Is he the one who's starting the kind of Good family name here? Because there are Goods showing up in the 19th century, so a full century later. So what is happening there? That's an interesting question.
[01:01:52] Sarah Jack: Yeah, this research on Dorothy Good and then how could pieces get filled in through identifying descendants, that is like, there's so much promise there possibly.
[01:02:07] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah. That's the interesting part about a research project like this is there's a lot of possible ends, and some of them will have reward. I went to the Phillips Library looking for indentured records, not knowing if I would find anything, and I did find William and Dorothy, so that was a huge day for me. But then, going back and looking again through prison records and court records of unwed mothers and their children, nothing, dead ends. That's the kind of frustrating and rewarding part about research is you'll have a spurt where you find something and it's thrilling and then dead ends for years. So we'll see.
[01:02:53] Josh Hutchinson: I was really blown away that you found anything at all, because I had always thought that her story dead-ended with her just being chargeable and needing maintenance the rest of her life.
[01:03:07] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, me too. This, as I said, was a total accident. It was just, it was research about another person who I didn't know if I would be able to find anything about her. But, Ann Dolliver is a pretty obscure research subject. She, she, like Dorothy, is another person who struggles with mental health issues. She's the daughter of Reverend John Higginson, who is one of, he's the older minister of Salem in 1692. So I was just looking for, I knew she was in the care of the town after her father died, and I felt like logically there should be a record of the payments for her care from that point on, cuz it's a financial transaction, and theoretically when those payments stop, that means she has died. And so I was just super lucky to have access to the selectmen records. They were digitized only a few years ago, evidently. And it, you could have knocked me over the day where I started to realize that there was another very familiar name in these records that I kept coming across.
So yeah, it's, it was all just kind of luck. But and it also begs the question of what else is hiding out there, what other stories are in records that we haven't found yet?
[01:04:28] Josh Hutchinson: And Ann Dolliver also is interesting to me that she ends up in a similar situation, because of who her father was and the status of her brother, John Higginson Jr., also.
[01:04:40] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, so she actually has a lot of similarities to Dorothy, in a way. So she is married to a fisherman in Gloucester, who appears to be a horrible guy. They have three kids together, and then he abandons her. So because he has abandoned her, she ends up having to come back and live with her father.
And the similarities are in terms of the way that they're described in records indicates she's not stable to a degree, you know, and again it's such vague language, we can't really make a diagnosis of what's going on in either case. But Ann also seems to really have struggled with what they would call melancholy. She is not able to live independently or remarry. And she ends up in the care of another family, very similar, in a similar way that Dorothy does, who take care of her for the rest of her life, again indicating she's not able to support herself, and she actually ends up living away from her children like Dorothy, probably because she either couldn't or wouldn't care for them.
So yeah, it's, again, it's just a window into this is what happened to a woman if you couldn't marry and have kids and fulfill your expected role.
[01:06:00] Sarah Jack: I think it's incredible how, when historians and writers and researchers like yourself start to work on a story, records start revealing the story. It's, it really is like a voice from the past, but it's also a look into ourselves. It's such an important thing, the story. So I'm so excited about this era of research in general for our society and, but particularly with the witch hunts it, there's so much to glean from it.
[01:06:36] Rachel Christ-Doane: Yeah, very much so. My hope is that these warned out records will show up, so that's, it's why you can never put the pen down, right? Because things will just keep coming up.
[01:06:47] Josh Hutchinson: Do you have anything that you want to add or anything else you wanted to talk about? Either the museum or anything else?
[01:06:57] Rachel Christ-Doane: I would say that just the best way to keep up with what we're doing here is following us on social media. So we are just @SalemWitchMuseum on both Facebook and Instagram, and actually TikTok, also, which kind of our new, newest addition to social media, which I still don't know if I like or not. But yeah, that's where we post about our upcoming virtual events like the antisemitism lecture, which is coming out next week. And that's where we post about new research that's going on, like additions to our online sites tour or new descendant packets. We will actually have hopefully five new descendant packets, we currently have four finished, we're going for the fifth, that will be ready in September this year. So that's where you can see what's new, what's happening, and then also just our day-to-day, what our hours are and things like that. Please follow us on social media, and then check out our website, which is salemwitchmuseum.com, which has a whole bunch of different resources for descendants, for teachers, for students, for just avid history lovers. So yeah, that's the best place to see what we're doing and what's going on here.
[01:08:04] Josh Hutchinson: I also want to plug your YouTube channel. Do put these wonderful virtual events on there, and I've gone again and again to watch video after video, so I appreciate that you do that.
[01:08:20] Rachel Christ-Doane: Thank you. Yeah, that's another one. We also have the videos on our website as well, so there's a couple different places you can see them, but we always try to record virtual lectures. The only lectures we don't record are the ones that are ticketed, which these days are not many. Almost all of them are free now. So if we can record it, we do. And then, yes, those are available on our YouTube page and also on our website.
[01:08:43] Sarah Jack: And now for Minute with Mary.

[01:08:54] Mary Bingham: Joanna Towne. I would like to address the misconception that our grandmother, Joanna, was accused of being a witch. She was not formally accused ever, but she was named in 1692, long after her death.
The misconception originated circa 1670 when Reverend Thomas Gilbert of Topsfield was accused of being drunk before Sunday service, during Sunday service, and at the dinner following the Sunday service. Actually, he was so late to service that morning that some congregants actually left, but those who stayed were in for quite a show. Thomas was seen falling as he entered the building, slurring his words, and messing with the order of the service so that Isaac Cummings stood up and declared, "Stop. You are out of order and dangerously close to blaspheming the Lord's name." Thomas told Isaac to zip it and sit down. Things got so wild that Thomas quit his ministry at Topsfield right then and stormed out of the building, only to return three weeks later.
If that wasn't enough, there was a dinner that same afternoon after the fiasco at the parsonage, where many accused the minister of swigging too generously from the communion cup he shared with the diners, one of whom was Joanna Towne. Joanna, however, was the only person in attendance at that dinner who did not notice any odd behavior displayed by Thomas, nor did she think that he drank too much from the cup.
When this matter eventually went to court, Joanna proclaimed that everyone else was wrong. According to Joanna, Thomas ate and drank in moderation that day, and he was fully aware of his behavior.
Fast forward to 1692, 10 years after Joanna died. John and Hannah Putnam's infant daughter became sick and died within two days. Sadly, the child died such a violent death, as John Putnam said, it was enough to pierce a stony heart. According to a prior conversation with his cousin-in-law, Ann Putnam, Sr. regarding Joanna Towne's daughters, he said that the apples didn't fall far from the trees. John had heard that rumors that Rebecca Nurse's and Mary Esty's mother was a witch. After all, it was a common belief that witchcraft was passed from mothers to their daughters. John concluded that since Rebecca and Mary's specters could not kill him, they killed his child.
The Putnams were distant cousins to the Goulds, who were present at that service and dinner at Topsfield in 1670. Ensign John Gould, who filed the complaint on behalf of his wife against Thomas Gilbert, does not mention Joanna Towne in his complaint, though she offers the deposition in defense of Thomas. So I can only speculate that the gossip about Joanna's role traveled via the Gould family members, most likely those female family members, to their Putnam cousins who lived five miles south in Salem Village. I imagine these families visited from time to time, therefore sharing some of the gossip from their towns.
Thank you.

[01:12:42] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:12:44] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[01:13:04] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update. Today is July 20th. It is the day after the 331st anniversary of the hanging of five innocent alleged witches in Salem, Massachusetts on July 19th, 1692. The mother of Dorothy Good, Sarah Good, was among them, along with Sarah Wildes, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth How, and Rebecca Nurse. Rebecca, an accused elderly woman, was examined the same day Dorothy was examined.
The Rebecca Nurse Homestead Facebook page posted yesterday, quote, "accounts say that Rebecca Nurse was seen to be praying while on the cart and right before execution, only stopping to look at her children and family in the crowd. Sarah Good would have none of that. When they arrived at the hill, Reverend Noyes urged her to confess so she would at least not die a liar. She denied the guilt. Noyes said he knew she was a witch. 'You are a liar,' she snapped. 'I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink.' This curse was based loosely on a verse in Revelation.
What happened to these accused witches of the past is not unlike what is happening today. What you learned about Dorothy's experience as a four-year-old and the outcome of her adult life is the same story we hear today. Right now, people are targeted and hunted just like the Goods. They're believed to have used sorcery or evil to cause misfortune to their family, neighbors, or community. In many, many countries today, misfortunes like dangerous weather and unexplained or even everyday common sickness or death are still believed to be caused by humans doing supernatural harm.
In Ghana, women are hunted as witches, and thousands of them are now in refugee camps. These refugee camps are known as witch camps. The women sent away to them are alleged witches. They're innocent. They are not witches. These are not witch camps. These are refuge camps loaded with forgotten women, women who have not forgotten the life they were torn from, women who carry the visible scars and damage on their bodies from the attacks they endured. They survived brutal attacks, but now they are set aside. Their existence is buried in the past that they were plucked from. They're barely surviving. Many of them do not survive.
Multitudes of women do not supernaturally cause mischief and misfortune. Once a person, once a child, is targeted as a witch, their old life is over. Nothing is ever the same for them again, the family is never whole, they are no longer in their home with their family unit living life as it was prior to the accusations. Most often, extended family is no longer close. Family is scattered.
Awareness of the violent, modern witch Hunts against alleged witches is increasing across the world. You are aware and can take action, share the information, make a financial contribution to an advocacy organization. International media, organizations, governments, and individuals are taking action and educating about it directly in the affected communities. In Africa, India, Melanesia, and in additional affected places, many advocates are risking their lives to educate, rescue, intervene, and rehabilitate victims in the communities gripped by harmful practices and violence due to sorcery fear or witchcraft fear.
The United Nations Human Rights Council is acknowledging the crisis and urging additional efforts by all stakeholders. We are all stakeholders in efforts to stop these witch attacks and abuse crimes against men, women, and children. When you see it in the news, read about it and share it. Educate yourself and others.
Next week, you'll hear from advocate and professor Miranda Forsyth, director of the working committee of The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices. Expect to hear specific ways many organized groups of people are working as advocates. Learn about Papua New Guinea's action plan for sorcery accusation-related violence. Expect to hear specific ways you can start advocating. You do not have to wait to get involved. It is everybody's business to take a stand against the violence humans endure due to the supernatural fears of other humans.
Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast supports the global efforts to end modern witch hunts. Get involved. Financially support our nonprofit initiatives to educate and intervene. Visit endwitchhunts.org to make a tax-deductible contribution. You can also support us by purchasing books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or by subscribing as a Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast super listener for as little as $3 a month at thoushaltnotsuffer.com. Keep our t-shirts, available on zazzle.com, in mind when you start to get excited about Halloween 2023, and buy some fun wear. Sport one of our awesome shirts, and introduce people to the podcast or one of our projects by leaving your house looking cool.

[01:17:57] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:17:59] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:18:01] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:18:06] Sarah Jack: Thank you for joining us every week for our great episodes.
[01:18:10] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:18:12] Sarah Jack: Don't miss one. Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:18:16] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends.
[01:18:19] Sarah Jack: Please support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit us at endwitchhunts.org to learn what we're doing.
[01:18:26] Josh Hutchinson: And please rate and review wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:18:32] Sarah Jack: Thank you.
[01:18:34] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

July 20, 2023

Karin Helmstaedt on Why Witch Hunts are not just a Dark Chapter from the Past

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Show Notes

Learn about witch trials in the Holy Roman Empire and the deadly witch hunts occurring today. We interview Deutsche Welle presenter Karin Helmstaedt about her documentary, “Why Witch Hunts are not just a Dark Chapter from the Past,” which you can watch on YouTube. Karin tells us about her ancestors burned as witches in Winningen, Germany, and we learn nuances of the trials in that area. We discuss the current global crisis of violence against persons accused of witchcraft and talk about the many similarities between witch hunts across time and space. We also connect historical social injustices to our advocacy questions: Why do we hunt witches? How do we hunt witches? How do we stop hunting witches?
Why Witch Hunts are not just a Dark Chapter from the Past
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Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:26] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we speak with journalist Karin Helmstaedt about her documentary, Why Witch Hunts are Not Just a Dark Chapter from the Past, which you can watch on YouTube.
[00:00:37] Sarah Jack: The video covers European witch hunts of the past, as well as the modern global crisis of attacks on persons accused of witchcraft.
[00:00:44] Josh Hutchinson: Check the video out after you listen to this episode. The link is in the show description.
[00:00:49] Sarah Jack: Karin told us about her ancestors accused of witchcraft in what is now Germany.
[00:00:53] Josh Hutchinson: And we spoke of our ancestors accused in New England.
[00:00:57] Sarah Jack: We talked about why women are more likely to be accused of witchcraft.
[00:01:01] Josh Hutchinson: And covered other similarities between witch hunts across time and space.
[00:01:05] Sarah Jack: The sheer number of attacks occurring today is eye-opening.
[00:01:10] Josh Hutchinson: Historian Wolfgang Behringer says there are now more people dying in witch hunts than ever before.
[00:01:16] Sarah Jack: Tanzania alone has lost upwards of 30,000 people to witch-hunts since independence in 1961.
[00:01:23] Josh Hutchinson: And these attacks are happening in over 60 nations today.
[00:01:28] Sarah Jack: Affecting hundreds of thousands of people every year with psychological and physical violence that leads to neglect, displacement, homelessness, physical disability, and even death.
[00:01:38] Josh Hutchinson: What lessons can we learn from past witch hunts?
[00:01:41] Sarah Jack: And how can we apply those lessons today?
[00:01:44] Josh Hutchinson: Witch hunts are not just a dark chapter from the past.
[00:01:47] Sarah Jack: Here is Karin Helmstaedt, a Canadian born journalist, moderator, and TV host based in Berlin, Germany. She studied in Toronto, Montreal, and Paris, and embarked on her journalistic career in sports, writing for newspapers and magazines before making the move into broadcasting. Since 1999, she's been one of the most constant faces on Germany's foreign broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, presenting a number of news and culture magazine formats. She currently co-hosts DW's Arts and Culture News in English. Fluent in three languages, Karin is also a sought after moderator and consultant for conferences and events around Europe, with experience in a broad range of sectors, including communications, food and agriculture, and rail transport.
[00:02:28] Josh Hutchinson: We appreciate your film, Why Witch Hunts are Not Just a Dark Chapter from the Past. We've watched that several times and are so appreciative that you're drawing attention to the subject. Can you tell our listeners about your film?
[00:02:45] Karin Helmstaedt: Yes, I can. Thank you for having me. It started off as an idea for a format that we developed at my network where I am currently working, Deutsche Welle. And I had this idea in my head for a very long time and didn't really know how I was going to approach it, because I knew that we had an ancestor in our family who had been burned as a witch.
And it seemed to me that I hadn't seen any material done on witch hunts in the time that I've been at Deutsche Welle, which is really quite a long time. So I pitched the project, and it was accepted and got started with researching the witch hunts in Germany and of course in this particular community where my ancestor was.
And I tracked down a historian who, Walter Rummel, who is just amazing because it was really just like a meeting of the minds because he did his PhD on the witch trials in that entire area of southwestern Germany. And there were a lot of them right along the Mosel River, and it was so interesting because when I called him and asked him and told him that I had this ancestor and her name was Margarethe Kröber, he was totally excited because he knew exactly who I was talking about, and he had literally gone through all of the witch trials in sort of several communities in a relatively large radius around that area and had analyzed them in terms sociologically and looking at what had motivated all of these particular cases. And so I was able to do a lot of research, a lot of really specific research with him into her case.
And during that, I discovered, of course, that there were all kinds of other relatives, if you will. They were more distant relatives, perhaps. She's like a direct line and a kind of a great grandmother, 11 generations back, that would be. But I discovered all of these other people who had been affected and of course the entire families, and the connections that I got from Walter were a couple of other historians, Rita Voltmer being a very important one, but Wolfgang Behringer also, who was really key in alerting me to the fact that there were still witch hunts going on today. And so that in the end ended up being the arc of the story for the film.
And that's how I ended up including the chapter on modern witch hunts and the things that are going on in places like Africa and Papua New Guinea and many places in southern South Asia and also in Latin America. We couldn't fit it all in, obviously, to the film, but we had to do a bit of a bit of a sorting out.
But that's essentially how the film came to be. And we're very happy with it. I worked on it with a colleague of mine called Ulrike Sommer is her name, and we spent a lot of time really going through it all with a fine tooth comb and condensing, condensing, because of course we didn't have hours and hours that we could fill, but we're very happy with the result. We're very, certainly, very happy with the response.
[00:05:55] Sarah Jack: It's been a great response. What would you like us to know about her? And I'm curious about how you knew about her history.
[00:06:04] Karin Helmstaedt: That's an interesting story, because when I was a young teenager, I came to Germany for the first time with my family. My father is from East Germany originally and married my mom who's Canadian. So we, I grew up in Canada, but we came to Europe to visit for the first time and were visiting relatives of his mother down in the Rhein -Mosel area.
And we visited this one aunt of his, and he told her I guess, that we were going to drive through Winningen and retrace some steps. I think there are some grave sites there as well. I don't remember those very well, because what stuck out for me was that, when this aunt said, "if you're going to Winningen, you have to visit the Hexenstein."
And my father said, "oh, what's that?" And so he told me this when we got into the car, and of course I was 14 years old and know I was very impressionable. And the idea that we had a witch in the family, this was absolutely amazing to me. And we went to this monument, which of course is featured in the film. It's the oldest, I now know, the oldest monument to persecuted witches in Germany. It was erected in about 1925, I think. And her name is right on there. And it was just a really, it made a huge impression on me, this idea that somebody in our family all these hundreds of years ago had suffered this fate and was actually memorialized on this stone.
It's like an obelisk, and it never left me. And it was a story that I put in on my back burner, for many years. I probably should have done something about it earlier, but you know how life is, you think things happen, and you have kids, and you move, and I ended up moving to Europe, and yeah, eventually just decided, it was also interesting because it was during the pandemic that I decided I've gotta tackle this story. I've gotta do something and make use of this time and possibly start thinking about actually doing something about this story. So that's how it started. It really goes decades back.
[00:08:02] Josh Hutchinson: That reminds me so much of my own story of how I got interested in the witch trials, because my grandfather was from Danvers, Massachusetts, which used to be Salem Village, and there is the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, the property of one of the well-known victims of the Salem Witch Trials. And at that property there's a monument to her and there's also a monument to people who defended her, and my ancestor, Joseph Hutchinson, is on that monument, but the way they spelled the name, it's J O S apostrophe H, so it looks like it says Josh Hutchinson, which of course is my own name.
[00:08:52] Karin Helmstaedt: It is your own name.
[00:08:53] Josh Hutchinson: I saw that in stone at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, and I've just been fascinated with the witch trials since then.
[00:09:01] Karin Helmstaedt: Yeah, it's an interesting thing to look at a kind of a legacy like that. And interestingly enough, when I went to Winningen and started the research, I asked about that monument. There's very little known about the motivation for having put it up or who exactly put it up. I couldn't find an awful lot of information about that. There are mistakes on it as well. It's not complete. And as I discovered, the mother of my ancestor was actually the very first woman burnt as a witch in Winningen, so the whole thing started with her, and the date of her execution is actually wrong, as well, if you look into all of the trial records.
So Walter Rummel ended up being really helpful to me because I bought, I, I found an old secondhand copy. I searched and searched on Amazon and found an old secondhand copy of his thesis, which is a book, and spent ages reading it, and just my jaw just kept dropping further and further, and I would get on the phone to my dad and say, "you have no idea how many people." Really quite a lot of people, because interestingly enough, of her generation, Margarethe's generation, not only she was accused of witchcraft, but also her cousin, as I say her mother already was killed 11 years before, her aunt, so the mother's sister, and then every single one of her brothers and sister-in-law. So in other words of that one particular branch of the Kröber family, they executed all the spouses. So that's interesting and we can talk a little bit more about why these things happened and what Walter Rummel was able to tell me, because even he found that pretty extraordinary that a family was so taken to the cleaners, as it were, in in that sense.
[00:10:52] Sarah Jack: Yeah. Do you wanna speak more about that right now?
[00:10:55] Karin Helmstaedt: It's interesting, because the historians that I spoke to, so Rita and Wolfgang and Walter, and I spent really a long time talking to all three of them. The belief is generally accepted that all of the people who were burned for witchcraft or accused of witchcraft were healers and wise women and cunning women, midwives, herbalists, all that kind of thing.
And so that was, of course, one of my first questions when I was talking to them. And they told me that, based on their research, and this doesn't necessarily have to be the case for everywhere else, like, for instance, in places like Scotland or in places like some of the eastern European countries, but certainly in that area of Germany, and in their experience and their analyses of the trial records, which are copious in many regions, in certain regions of Germany, and in this one in particular, there's hardly a midwife to be found. That's really not the case for any of these victims.
So what was at work was social ladder climbing, if you will. There were sort of tiers of society, and there were levels of society that essentially wanted to take out slightly more powerful or wealthy individuals. But she came from quite a wealthy winemaking family and married into my father's mother's family, so the, that's where the Kröber name comes from. And that her husband was a judge, and he was one of a long line of judges. And afterwards his son became a judge. And a lot of these professions seemed for a while to be handed down. So you were in a bit of a social set, and it seems that another branch of his own family was not happy with the amount of wealth, I suppose, that was accumulated, the amount of influence that they had in the town, and I think it was very much a tactic to go after these men by literally taking out their wives, accusing their wives of witchcraft. And there was also the one man involved, as well, and he was one of the wealthiest people in the town at the time.
[00:13:15] Josh Hutchinson: And you share in the film that women were about 80% of the victims in the European witch hunts and that they continue to be targeted today, as predominantly women are accused of witchcraft. Why do you think that is that women are more likely to be accused of witchcraft?
[00:13:38] Karin Helmstaedt: That's also one of these interesting questions that I think obviously there is the misogynistic element, the fact that women had a lesser position in society at the time, and there were reasons to want to get rid of women, to get rid of uncomfortable women. But it's, I guess what was very interesting to me was to learn just how many men had been involved, and it was almost always a question of wanting to usurp their influence and their power and their wealth. With the women, it's tricky, I think. The misogynist element is there, and it was possibly very much sparked by some of those early texts by people like Heinrich Kramer, the Malleus Maleficarum, which I mentioned also in the documentary.
These seminal texts that described what a witch was about gave rise to a lot of the imagery that was created around witches and witchcraft. And those were primarily female, simply because someone like Heinrich Kramer actually had a real bone to pick with women. He was somebody who had tried to go after a woman in Austria for witchcraft, and I think that effort was foiled, actually. And then he left Austria and wrote that book, and a lot of the trouble started there. There was trouble, there were ideas of witchcraft that had already been created by the church, but he really crystallized a lot of that.
And great levels of description such that then the art world, and the publication of that book actually coincided also with the invention of the printing press, pretty close together, such that these texts, but also the ideas that were then able to fuel an artist's imagination, could spread a lot faster.
And I think that's how the ideas of female evil and the ability of women to be closer to the devil and their tendencies to wanna be closer to the devil, I think that really took off in the imagination of a lot of people at the time.
It's interesting. I guess one of the biggest surprises for me also was, there were several things that were surprising. First of all, you're surprised to hear that actually it wasn't midwives and herbalists and these wise women. Second thing was that men were involved and so that was interesting.
But the really shocking thing to me was that basically half, over a third to half of the witches, of the people who were executed as witches, in the entire 300 years of the great European witch hunts happened in the German-speaking area. That is something really interesting and makes the whole thing incredibly complex, because you're looking at an area of the map, the Holy Roman Empire it was at the time, which was much, much bigger than modern day Germany, so that included areas of Northern Italy and actually parts of France. It also included Austria and Switzerland, the whole German speaking area. It's really shocking to think that those numbers have been, well, largely ignored for a very long time. People haven't really paid attention to that.
You think back to a number of the traumatic things that were happening in that part of the world at the time. And my ancestor was killed in the midst of the 30 Years War, which was just devastating and there are so many factors that influence the number of witch Hunts in Germany. That it, we probably need three hours of a podcast to go through the history. But one of the things that was so influential was climate, and this was also complete news to me. There was a phenomenon called the Little Ice Age that was going on in much of northern Europe for an incredible amount of time, literally from the 14th century all the way into the mid 19th century. That there was a very stark cooling and a lot of years of really poor harvests.
And this climate element had a huge impact on Germany, first of all, because it's in Northern Europe, but Germany's also landlocked. Just in terms of its geographical positioning, it was really hard hit by that phenomenon, by the Little Ice Age and unable to, it didn't have sea access to mean that it could necessarily get grain and get supplies from elsewhere very easily.
So people were really down and out, suffering great hardship at the hands of these marauding armies, the Swedes and the French, and everybody who was marching back and forth over their territory during the 30 Years War. And the other thing that I learned from Wolfgang Behringer. Wolfgang Behringer was the first one to actually do this analysis of climate and come up with this theory that actually of the 300 years of European witch hunts, it went in cycles, and you had three waves, actually. And those three waves are, interestingly enough, always about a, an entire lifetime. I guess if you look at a at the length of a long lifetime, 70 to 80 years, and every 70 to 80 years things would pick up again until they finally, eventually completely died down.
It's very interesting that climate affected things and forms of settlement, according to Wolfgang Behringer, were also very important. So for instance, there were hardly any witch hunts in places that were extremely rural, this is in Germany, anyway, or in nomadic peoples. They tended to concentrate in places where people are in a village situation and where people are eventually, as in Germany, getting crowded.
That's the other thing about Germany is that it's actually always had a lot of people in a relatively small geographic space. So when you end up with these phenomena of towns building up and people are sitting on top of one another, that's when you get a lot of the comparing what you have with what I have and a lot of these developments of social situations that can possibly be a fertile ground then for that kind of, and then the weather doesn't work and then the harvest fails and then somebody dies and then there are all these reasons, the same reasons that we see in the modern witch hunts today.
The things that are happening in Africa, for instance, it's the same kinds of patterns that reproduce themselves. So it's always a question of forms of community and whether those forms, whether they're somebody is trying to get an advantage. And unfortunately we seem to repeatedly tend to do that.
[00:20:31] Sarah Jack: There's so many striking comparisons, and one of the things that you said a few minutes ago really made me think of the modern was when you talked about the multitude of victims in the German history, that we don't really fathom it. People don't really talk about it, understand it, and that is part of with the modern. People don't have a concept of how rampant it is for the modern victims.
[00:20:58] Karin Helmstaedt: Yeah, it was upwards of 25,000 people in Germany, which is just a staggering number really when you consider that it's between 50 and 60,000 all told. So that's including places like Iceland, Norway, Sweden, all of the other countries where witch hunts did happen. 25,000 people.
And I really think something really interesting happened. Once the film was online and people were watching it, people started responding, I had a number of really interesting responses from women in Germany who said, "why haven't we looked into this more deeply in terms of what this can mean or has meant or means continually for female identity in Germany? How many cases of generational trauma are there that have never been considered?"
And when you look at some of the work that's been done in Scotland, also, for instance, by the Witches of Scotland, Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi, who've been doing that fantastic campaign up there. They've looked into a lot of the cases in Scotland and actually talked to social scientists who have indicated that when you take a family like that, you completely snuff out their wealth, usurp their fields and their lands and possibly even their livelihoods. You completely demote that family. That family has to start again from zero, and possibly those families actually never get back to the position that they had or never get back to the actual. It has a knock on effect or a domino effect, if you will, very far down the line in generations.
That was something that was really interesting to me, because I think it's interesting to look at what people have said, and I've had a lot of response from people who have, like yourself, Josh, who have some relative that was affected in the Salem Witch Trials or in Connecticut or in Scotland or in England, and the ideas are really so multifaceted in terms of how these particular tragedies have affected the different families. The stories are as long as my arm, the list it's amazing. So I think every case is individual and every family is individual and a lot of these communities have had different ways of dealing with things.
Some of them had just a few families affected. But a town like Winningen, where my ancestor came from, we're looking at between 160, 200 people at the time. 21 people were killed, 24 were accused, so three managed to get off, which was also remarkable, but only happened towards the end of things. When you consider the number of families that were affected then, those 21 people that got lost, and you look at that one branch of my family where literally every spouse was knocked off and those people had to go on and very often married again. But my ancestor actually already had two children, so those two children also they lost their mother. They were six and three at the time. And that was also a really interesting thing, even when I was researching with Walter, because he was pretty much also thinking that it was mostly older women. It was mostly older women who actually had some status, possibly widowed. And here was my ancestor, a mother of two boys, six and three years old. So there were a lot of these stereotypes that just disappeared through the detailing of this story.
[00:24:32] Sarah Jack: I really loved that you were able to do that with your narrative.
[00:24:37] Karin Helmstaedt: It was very lucky. And again, it's because of this, of the fantastic treasure trove of trial records that are available for that area. It's not the case everywhere. It's, for instance, in France, it's very interesting. A lot of stuff did happen in France, but there's relatively speaking, little documentation about it. I've talked at length with Rita Voltmer about that. When you don't have that documentation, then you really are guessing. You're taking, records come from everywhere. You're looking at diaries, you're looking at, Walter was able to analyze, for instance, all of the receipts from the time, for instance.
One of the stories that was really shocking in the case of my ancestor is she was actually, I had to fudge this a little bit in the film, because she was actually killed on the same day as another woman. There were two women killed on the same day, and they had an enormous party after that was over, and it's detailed. It's absolutely crazy the amount of detail that exists about that particular. It was like a bonfire. You've got two women literally burning on this pyre, and they had all kinds of wine, and there were local, what would you call them, restaurateur, who just made a killing on this kind of thing. And that's all documented that these things happened.
It was absolutely shocking that so much was available, and yet when you see how much is available, for instance, another really interesting detail of the trials, the trial records in that area, is that most of them were written for about 15 to 20 years. They were written by one scribe. It's the same handwriting over and over again. And this guy, I don't exactly know where he lived. I did figure out what his name is, but his handwriting, very, very beautiful 17th century script. And you go through pages and pages and pages and pages of this stuff.
And at one point Walter said to me, this guy, he wrote them all at the time, so he was literally just moving around the communities when a trial came and needed to be protocoled. And we're talking, this guy was present for the torture. He was present for the accusation, for the witch commission basically accusing the women, and then they were tortured, and then they were executed. So there were all these phases, and this is, it's all documented like a diary. But you didn't necessarily have that wealth of information in other places.
[00:27:07] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, there's so many parallels that I know our listeners who are familiar with witch trials in other areas will pick up on. On the documentation, Salem is well documented, but the other New England witch trials are not.
You have a lot of the same things. The ratio of men to women is about the same. It's something like 80 to 85% were women in New England. Salem was a little bit heavier with the men. There was maybe a quarter of the victims were men. But you have the same things going on with the Little Ice Age, the crop failures, the storms. You have the situation where people believe it's the midwives and healers, but it really wasn't. You have warfare or tension as if war is coming played into it, the local economics played into it. In Salem, overcrowding played a role, because there were refugees from warfare that came into Essex County, where Salem was the seat. And so there were a lot of extra people vying for resources, as well. So there's really just, it's remarkable how the European, New England, and modern-day witch trials, it flows.
[00:28:35] Karin Helmstaedt: There's so much. Yeah. That's so interesting what you said about the overcrowding, and the other thing that comes into it, of course, is religion. And another really surprising thing that I discovered, because everybody thinks the Catholic Church was the main motor of the whole thing, and Walter and Wolfgang Behringer basically told me that was not necessarily the case in this area. And interestingly enough, that particular community, Winningen, was a Protestant community. So we're talking, we're post reformation now, and the reformation happened in, I guess it was 1517, it's when it started. Martin Luther was actually quite keen or quite a sort of an encourager of witch hunts. There wasn't necessarily on our side in that sense.
But you had this Protestant community surrounded by other Catholic communities, and then you had a kind of a bit of a pressure cooker situation that developed because there used to be, and I forget what the word was for them in German now, but there used to be basically sort of seers who would go around to the Protestant communities and check to make sure that everybody was behaving properly and minding the new doctrine and not stepping astray with all of the ritualization of the Catholic religion was left behind by the Protestants, so they were really very strict, and there really was a kind of a situation that developed where they felt they had to be the more chaste community, the community that was more on the ball, that was paying attention to all of this possible influence of the devil. And it turns out that some, many Protestant communities were actually more zealous in going after people for witchcraft than Catholic ones, which is also a little bit counter to what we tend to hear and believe. But it's interesting that France, which is a predominantly Catholic country, Portugal, Spain, they had much lower incidents of witch trials than Germany did. Although Germany had a lot of Roman Catholicism still at the time. Obviously there was huge tension with the Reformation and then the Counter Reformation.
But even if you look, for instance, in the difference between Scotland and Ireland. Scotland was predominantly Protestant, and the witch trials there were really fired on by King James VI. And in Ireland, where they were Catholic, I think there were three or four victims, like you can count them on one hand. So that's a really interesting thing to look at. It's really interesting to look at those numbers and to look at the fact that up in Sweden, they were also actually Protestant, I think in the Norwegian area, as well, where witch trials happened. A lot of the things that you think you knew, or that I thought I knew and many people thought they knew are not necessarily the case.
And yet these, all these parallels exist. And the one thing that I remember Rita Voltmer saying to me that she couldn't believe that people were still thinking that it was midwives and herbalists, because there really is so much evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, there probably are a few communities where that, those kind of women did end up in difficult straits, as well.
You can never blanket statement anything about it, because Europe is complicated at best today, and it certainly was complicated back then.
[00:32:03] Josh Hutchinson: This idea of a religious cleansing or purification that you bring up, I think is important in the European witch trials. We spoke with Mary W. Craig about Scotland, and when the Kirk became Protestant, they were getting rid of the old Catholic rituals, and they also came down harsh on people who had the still pre-Catholic mythology and what they termed to be superstitious beliefs.
So it was really the heavily Protestant areas that were seeking this cleansing. And there were lower incidents in like the Highlands and Islands, which were still more Catholic. The Kirk didn't have as much control there.
[00:32:55] Karin Helmstaedt: It is super interesting and the other thing that comes to my mind when you talk about that with sort of the religious tension is, and what had a huge effect on the German, the prevalence in Germany, is the governance structure as well. So the governance structure in the Holy Roman Empire was incredibly fragmented. You had all these little kingdoms and fiefdoms and principalities, and some of them in the area that we're talking about with my ancestor were actually governed by religious figures. And in this particular case, there was one Catholic and one Protestant. It was actually a dual influence that was going on there.
And when you had that kind of fragmented governance from the top, what it allowed was less centralization in terms of the laws. And what happened was that you ended up having these situations like a poor harvest or something terrible has happened in a community. And it was the people, it was actually usually a bit of a grassroots movement that decided this person is a witch or that person is dangerous for our community, let's go after them. And the pressure from the bottom was difficult to counter for these sort of fragmented governance structures. They couldn't necessarily control all of these small communities, which is why you had many cases of localized witch trials in this area around the Mosel, and you can just go through all those communities, and there were witch trials everywhere.
[00:34:34] Josh Hutchinson: That's actually another theme that I've noticed in England and New England, that witch trials occurred largely at times when the government had less control. In England, you have the Matthew Hopkins witch hunt, and that occurred during the civil wars, when Parliament and the King were vying for power, and in Connecticut, the colony of Connecticut started witch hunting in 1647. They didn't get a charter from the king to be a colony until 1662, which is when the executions ended before their governor returned with the charter in 1663, they had the last execution in Connecticut, and then Salem also, Massachusetts, the king had revoked their charter, and they just received a new charter in the year 1692, so there was all this weaker central government.
[00:35:37] Karin Helmstaedt: It's interesting that, I mentioned France earlier, and France had a very centralized system, and that meant, for instance, that if you were somewhere in the middle of the country and decided you wanted to accuse your neighbor of being a witch, you ended up having to take that case to Paris and prove it.
And that centralized system alone was what meant that it was much, much harder to actually bring people to a death sentence for witchcraft in France than it was in Germany. In Germany, you ended up having these local witch commissions, which were severely under pressure by their local populations, and with all of the other motors that were happening, the somebody wanting to gain an advantage here or there, and and that's why a lot of real chaos happened, certainly in that period between 1630.
And there's another community in Germany the city of Bamberg, you might have heard of, is down in Bavaria or in Northern Bavaria. And it was just decimated back around the same time, between 1628 and 1632, I think. So again, right smack in the middle of the 30 Years War, and I think over a thousand people were burnt there. And you ended up literally with, I think it was Walter who quoted one of the, there were the writings of some religious man, and I should figure out exactly who that was, that I can quote it properly, but there was, these religious eminences would travel through the countryside. And this one made an observation that the entire countryside was literally smoking pyres. And that's a very powerful and brutal image, and that's what things pretty much looked like around that time. Bamberg is also a very interesting place to visit if you are interested in witch trials, just because it also has a very tragic legacy.
[00:37:37] Josh Hutchinson: I used to live pretty close to there in Schweinfurt.
[00:37:41] Karin Helmstaedt: Oh.
[00:37:41] Josh Hutchinson: My dad was in the Army, so I was a child, but yeah, we were in that region.
[00:37:47] Karin Helmstaedt: Yeah. Beautiful area.
[00:37:48] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, yeah. Gorgeous. I loved it.
[00:37:51] Sarah Jack: Could you tell us what the witch commission was?
[00:37:54] Karin Helmstaedt: It was basically a group of people who were local magistrates, but not necessarily all, groups of local men who had the backing of the local governance, and there were usually about five or six of them that would come together and then create a bit of a power node within the community. And once you got denounced to them, then you had to prove your innocence.
And the interesting thing with the trials, the way they happened in this area of Germany is that they insisted on a confession. You deny that you're a witch, it's not a confession. And so torture was used in order to extract that confession. And once the confession came, then you had admitted you were a witch. You had lied under duress, under the duress of torture, but you were at least able to be executed and have your soul go to heaven. So the whole religious element came into play there, as well, that you had to be exonerated in a religious sense. You had to be cleansed. And that's of course why the bodies were burnt.
It's interesting that people also always think that witches were burned at the stake. They weren't necessarily in in a lot of places. As in Salem, a lot of people were hanged. In Germany, what happened, there were people who were burnt alive, but in this particular community, and with my ancestor, they beheaded them first and then actually just burnt the bodies. But the idea of burning the bodies was to completely cleanse this mortal shell that had been sullied by the devil.
[00:39:48] Sarah Jack: What did the shaving, how did that play into that? Was that part of the cleansing steps or was it humiliation?
[00:39:56] Karin Helmstaedt: That was, yeah, exactly. That was something that happened during the interrogations. And they did in Germany what they called a peinliche befragung, which is essentially equivalent to a torture session. So it's an interrogation that becomes extremely physical and involves a lot of duress for the victims, and there were a lot of things that they employed. For instance, sleep deprivation was probably the simplest and one of the most perfidious techniques, simply because of course, once people had been deprived of sleep long enough and physically harmed so much, then eventually you're willing to admit anything just to make it stop, just to make this agony stop.
But the shaving was for two reasons. One, it was humiliation, especially with the men. The men were shaved completely, beards were completely taken off. But it was also with the idea of being able to locate this devil's mark, which at the time they believed every witch would have. You were pretty unlucky if you had something like a large, conspicuous mole or any kind of conspicuous birthmark. Something like that, of course, could be construed as something like that, and that's one of the reasons that they shaved their bodies as completely as possible. But it definitely also had a, an element of humiliation.
[00:41:11] Josh Hutchinson: And two of those themes you just spoke to are also present in the modern day witch hunts. In your documentary, you spoke with the woman who was shaved, and you showed images of someone who had been burned. And recently in Nigeria, a woman was burned alive, and that's garnered a lot of attention.
[00:41:39] Karin Helmstaedt: Yeah. We haven't talked about Leo Igwe yet, have we? And Leo is someone I discovered really on the basis of the fact that I had learned this from Wolfgang Behringer that there were so many witch trials going on in the modern world, which of course, if you haven't been paying attention to that, it's amazing how many people still comment after watching the film that they had no idea that this was going on.
Researching further, I found Leo Igwe and talked to him, and he has this advocacy group, the Advocacy for Alleged Witches, and the tales that he can tell will just curl your hair. It's happening all over the place in multiple countries in Africa. And it's interesting that, from what I understand, it isn't necessarily there always something where the communities themselves are using the word witch. That's an English word that we've imposed upon it, but the mechanism is the same. Something has happened in the community. Somebody needs to be scapegoated, and it ends up being a woman or an older person, who for some reason is either easy to get rid of, and possibly there's something to be gained by getting rid of that person.
The mechanisms are all the same, but they're not necessarily being called witches. They are being accused also even by local healer people who decide, okay, let's get this person outta the way. So there's a lot of, I think it's just the same societal mechanisms that are happening there, and we call it witch trials, but it's not necessarily how those communities are understanding it with that particular word.
[00:43:28] Sarah Jack: They're finding the culprits of misfortunes and those culprits are using powers outside of natural phenomenon to influence.
[00:43:38] Karin Helmstaedt: What is going on in so many places in Africa, and so many of the cases that Leo Igwe is dealing with, is just utterly brutal situations, what we showed in our film, the women being banished or having to literally escape to these witch camps and witch villages, which are places that are essentially just a refuge for women who can no longer be a part of their family. They can no longer be a part of their community. It's really tragic.
[00:44:07] Sarah Jack: And did you visit a witch camp? I wondered how you got your interviews with those women. They were really powerful interviews.
[00:44:15] Karin Helmstaedt: Indeed. And I have to do a shout out to Isaac Kaledzi, who's our correspondent in Ghana, and we worked very closely with him, and he was able to travel to Northern Ghana because Gambaga is up in the north. It's quite difficult to access. It's also quite difficult because of the language differences. So he had to find a translator and was able to visit and get that footage for us. So unfortunately I didn't get to visit it myself. On the other hand, it's a pretty tough journey. But Leo Igwe has done field work there, so he's definitely been to a number of those villages.
[00:44:50] Sarah Jack: Seeing the captured testimony of the women, seeing them visually, knowing what Leo's message has been, and then it just, it was really brought together well, and I think, I just think it's so important for people to hear from those women.
[00:45:08] Karin Helmstaedt: Yeah, indeed. They don't get a voice often enough. And I think the idea of what Leo is doing is trying to be able to integrate them back into their communities, that sometimes is successful and oftentimes is not. It's really tough, as well, that there doesn't seem to be a lot of political will to change things. There are even cases in some African countries where they've been wanting to bring witchcraft back into the penal code. It's very difficult conditions of course, because every community is so different. All of the countries they're dealing with multiple languages, traditions, make it extremely difficult to penetrate with one clear message about that kind of thing. And I guess Leo's point is that education is the only hope to change it.
[00:46:04] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, he's working on his critical thinking initiative, which I think will be very helpful. But in the documentary, Wolfgang Behringer has some very eye-opening quotes about the scale of witch persecutions today. He says that there are more witch hunts happening today than there were in the European witch trials.
And I'd noticed some more parallels there. You were talking about the witch persecutions in Africa and Asia, and right now we're experiencing climate change. There's famine, there's large number of natural disasters occurring. And that rang a bell with what you're speaking to. Now it's the heat and the storms becoming a problem, where before it was the cold, but it's draining resources and pushing people to great lengths to secure their food.
[00:47:09] Karin Helmstaedt: People need a reason to, they have to understand, find a way to understand what's happening. And I know that with the communities that Leo is in contact with, a lot of those communities are not, they're very rural, and there's not necessarily a lot of formal education. And as long as you've got traditional beliefs in magic and superstition, and as long as those kinds of things are there, in the absence of widespread formal education, that sort of pushes that stuff off in, into the realm of of superstition where it belongs and not actual crime, then yeah, he's up against. It's I guess we can't talk about it enough because we're only gonna make a dent at this point, but a dent is a dent. You have to start somewhere. He's certainly doing a lot of good work.
[00:48:06] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, he definitely is. I also have noticed that there's a lot of religious conflict in many of the areas that are hotspots today. Nigeria, I know, is a very divided country religiously. In Papua New Guinea, we've read about intertribal conflict. So these other tensions are also happening as well as the economic pressure.
[00:48:34] Karin Helmstaedt: Indeed. And I remember when I was talking to Wolfgang, it was just, it was so shocking to me, because I think he mentioned that literally just one country like Tanzania had more people killed than, more than 50,000, which would pretty much totals what happened in the 300 years in Europe. And it's almost bizarre to, or impossible to, even conceptualize that. But I think what's going on there is that populations are so much bigger. The population of Nigeria is literally booming. It's the most populous country in Africa, and it's growing all the time. So I think a lot of these issues of resource scarcity and the overcrowding that you mentioned, for instance, that was even happening in a place like Salem, that's gonna be happening very acutely in a lot of places in Africa, just as one example, because of course it's not just there. Yeah. South Asia, there's a lot a lot of problem with that as well.
[00:49:37] Josh Hutchinson: Speaking to how widespread it is, I even read this morning a case here in the United States, in the city of San Antonio, Texas. Just this morning there was a report from the San Antonio police that a man allegedly shouted, "it's time to kill the witches," and then swung a sword at an acquaintance, cutting his nose. So it's everywhere. It's not Africa, it's not Asia, it's worldwide, the Americas, everywhere.
[00:50:10] Karin Helmstaedt: To get back to the comments section on the documentary, that has been hugely eye-opening, because a lot of people, a lot of people also in our modern times identify with nature religions like wicca. They identify, that's another point that we touch on is that witchcraft is something that is very attractive in turbulent times, like what we're experiencing. And there has definitely been a bit of a renaissance going on. I would say it's been going on really quite a long time. At least five, if not 10 years. I think if you talk to people who are really in, in the mil ieu they will say that they've been noticing it for a good decade.
But a lot of the comments that have come in, because we asked for people to share their stories, and people have been very forthcoming with some of the stories that they've shared, and a lot of stories have been of personal persecution or of the fact that I am this way, I practice this, but I'm very quiet about it, because I know that, and a lot of the cases that are mentioned are happening in the United States, and people do not feel safe declaring or openly saying that they practice a religion like that.
[00:51:28] Josh Hutchinson: And you shared a little about Boris Gershman's study on witchcraft belief and how many people in the world believe in the evil eye and the power to curse someone. And It's widespread. It's every country. The lowest is about one in 10 to upwards of 90% in some nations. In America, one in six people believe that there is this evil witchcraft occurring, not this peaceful, Wicca, nature-based belief. They believe that any form of witchcraft is inherently evil.
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[00:52:07] Karin Helmstaedt: Indeed. And that's, I think there's a lot of clashing with the Christian religious beliefs without going too far into sort of saying that it's fundamentalists, but there are very extreme beliefs out there. And I think certainly judging by some of the comments that have arisen, you realize that some have a very black and white view of how these things can be, but happily, a lot of responses have been ones of respect, with a call for respect as well of all of the different interpretations, that witchcraft can take. And they are many.
[00:52:48] Josh Hutchinson: You talk about how the archetype of the witch, the view of the witch has changed in modern times, and we've seen portrayals in film evolve over time to go along with that. And I wonder if you could speak to any of that.
[00:53:09] Karin Helmstaedt: Yeah, that's the whole sort of popular culture thing, which I guess, it's interesting. When I started researching this, I said, "okay, I'm gonna do a film on, I'm gonna find out about my ancestor, and then I'm gonna do this arc over to witches and witchcraft in popular culture." And it just goes on and on. You get into a kind of a, I don't even know if you could call it a rabbit hole, because that's too small. It's a more like a spiderweb, and it just goes and goes. It feels like a universe and then another universe. And there's so many different levels to how the witch has been portrayed, first of all, in the initial kind of visualizations of her and how that has influenced art and how that has influenced literature and of course literature, the witch in Hansel and Gretel, all of those Grimm's fairytales and the witches that were really not only incredibly embellished, but also romanticized in the romantic period. There were incredibly, yeah, I guess embellished is the word, sort of portrayals of how a witch could be.
It's so interesting, because the witch as a being who is somewhat marginal, as a marginal on, in, in terms of the the core of a village or a society, a small society, is somebody who is an outcast, but she's also feared, she has powers perhaps that people need to be worried about, which is one of the reasons they were persecuted. Those early portrayals of the witch were really something that you could invert and make and claim for yourself, this idea of her being a powerful woman who says my way or the highway of I'm not, I don't need the rest of the community. I can survive on my own and make my own rules. I think that's been a very attractive aspect of the entire concept of witchcraft and the idea that you could possibly then create and influence your own life with magic is something that's different again.
You've got the Wicked Witch of the East and the Wicked Witch of the West, and then of course the Good Witch. And I think it's interesting because those images have also really influenced how we think about witches and popular culture. And they're everywhere. They're everywhere. And they're quite often extremely compelling individuals and extremely, obviously in many interpretations, very sexy individuals.
And I remember when I was a kid, even before I discovered, so I hadn't left Canada for Germany yet, I had not yet made my first foray to Germany or to Europe, so I had no idea that we had a possible ancestor who had been burned as a witch. But I was completely into witch novels and various stories of witchcraft and a lot of that kind of thing simply because they are attractive figures.
[00:56:10] Sarah Jack: I had that same experience when I was like a tween. I was reading any book that had a witch character in it or if the teens or the neighborhood kids were fearful or looking for somebody or if their home was near graveyard. Like any kind of that I could find like that I was reading it, and then when I was 15 I found out that my ninth great grandma was Rebecca Nurse from the Salem Witch Trials.
[00:56:39] Karin Helmstaedt: You're both related to the same person. That is so interesting.
[00:56:44] Sarah Jack: We're related to her through her sister Mary Esty, who hanged. One of our other colleagues, Mary Bingham, is also a descendant of Mary Esty. And then I also descend from Rebecca, cuz their grandchildren married. But it was a great aunt that had been doing family history, and I, for a long time, alls I did was have this little pedigree on a piece of paper, and it said Rebecca Nurse hanged as a witch in Salem 1692, and I just didn't really do much for a long time on that. I just had no concept of the significance of that.
What you said when you spoke to the pop culture and the archetype of the witch, I found so much of what you said very important. So thank you for articulating all of that. And it isn't lost on me that a lot of these countries right now with vulnerable women who are experiencing violence, their culture isn't in a place where western culture is with women in power. They don't have that opportunity to try to seize back power or find an identity like we can here. And I was just thinking about that, how that is definitely, they're in a different, where they fall in the social order, and I mean they have all of that stacked against them now.
[00:58:05] Karin Helmstaedt: Very interesting. It's interesting that your ancestor was also your ninth grade grandmother. So was mine. It is really interesting. When I of course sent the link to this film to my entire family in Germany, because actually I have a lot of relatives here. And it was so interesting that everybody knows that stone, because we have family reunions traditionally every four years or so of the German side, of my father's mother's side. And it's so interesting that we take a Sunday walk up to that stone. So I've been there many times, and we always talk about it and look at the names on the stone, and there she is. But nobody was very interested in finding out more.
So in the end, a lot of them were really delighted that I did find out a bit more and that we now know a bit more about her. And she was quite a feisty piece of work, too, which is I think possibly the finding that I was happiest about, because I felt really like I had been able to sketch her personality, figure out exactly what she was like, read some of these really key entries in some of the protocols, the trial protocols. That let me know what kind of a person she was, and she was a person who really spoke her mind, and that also possibly didn't play well for her. But it's nice to think that you've been able to give this person a bit of a profile, a bit of form again, so that people can understand.
[00:59:37] Sarah Jack: You, were her voice now. I was really, I at her death, her meekness that she expressed with what she said, that's what Rebecca Nurse was like when she was in court, too. It's very interesting. They were strong women, and these are different women, different cultures, same, not quite the same era, cuz Rebecca was 70ish in the nineties, 1690s. But during her examination, often when she was questioned, she was standing up for herself ,not submitting to what they were saying necessarily. And it sounds like your grandmother was much like that.
[01:00:17] Karin Helmstaedt: Yes. And at the end, nevertheless was forced to make this admission and this kind of public apology that is, I think, the most heartbreaking moment. When I was reading all of that with Walter, that really hits your solar plexus, because what you realize is that there was no way out of the whole thing but to lie. And yet, for a woman of that level of religious faith and fervor that they had at that time, lying is also a mortal sin. And so you were lying to get out of this unbearable situation, and at the same time, really not even sure that you were gonna make it to the afterlife or that you were gonna be accepted into heaven, because you've just literally told a lie.
That I think is something that it's very hard for our modern, relatively, areligious existence and state of mind to relate to exactly how, what kind of a conflict that for a person. So that was I think, what really stuck with me, those two aspects for her.
[01:01:31] Josh Hutchinson: . Women speaking their mind is a persistent theme in witch trials we notice in Salem, the women who spoke back that they didn't believe that the bewitched people were actually bewitched, and they refused to go along with the story that they were told. And then the Witches of Scotland Podcast, Claire and Zoe often talk about the figure of the quarrelsome dame that recurred so often in the records.
We're near the end of our time, so I wonder if you have any closing remarks.
[01:02:12] Karin Helmstaedt: I guess just thank you for having me on the podcast and for sharing your stories with me ,because it's, once again, amazing to me how many parallels there are with these stories and it's great to know that there are other people who are so interested in making that period of history come alive.
I think it's very important. We're living through a period here in Europe again where we're looking at how the mistakes of history get repeated and repeated, and it's all the easier to repeat them if people don't know what happened. So these are histories, I think the histories of these women that we're talking about, these victims that we're talking about, they're histories that haven't really been given much time, much space, much publication, as we know now, of course, there's all kinds of stories coming out and a lot of written accounts of even the witch trials in England and Scotland. And I'm planning to also write something about Margarethe, as well. You leave something for posterity for your own children and their children, because that stone is still standing on the top of that hill in Winningen, and people have to know what went on there.
[01:03:20] Sarah Jack: Mary is back with Minute with Mary.

[01:03:31] Mary Bingham: The fun for me is deep diving into the documents to help tell the stories of the people who lived so long ago. When I started my work on Sarah Wilds, I read every online article I could find. Then I read all the entries in every book on the Salem Witch Trials I could find. Most said the same things about her, like she had an unsavory past based on two court cases, which are often quoted way out of context. Finally, I was able to purchase a copy of the Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, my Salem Witch Trial Bible. It is a collection of all the available documents, verbatim and in chronological order.
I studied all of the depositions offered for and against Sarah, the petitions, her jail transfers, and everything else included in the documents, which were now at my fingertips. Looking at the original sources allowed me to get a glimpse of her life, her relationship to her husband and her son, as well as her neighbors.
Not any other book tells us that her son, Ephraim, thought of his mother as a friend. The primary document pertaining to his position for restitution does, whereas that document. In Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt. No other book tells us that Sarah shared a cart with Ann Pudeator on her return trip to the Salem Jail from Ipswich, except Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt. No other book quotes Sarah, when she angrily said to John and Joseph Andrews, "it is a brave world if everyone did what they would." After all, they took a scythe from a tree after Sarah said that there was none to lend. Records of the Salem Witch Hunts mentions this. This book is a must own for anyone seriously studying the witch trials.
Another great source for putting together great colonial stories, Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County. This is the source I used for the story I will tell in next week's minute with Mary about the supposed witchcraft allegation against Joanna Towne, the mother of Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, and Sarah Cloyce.
Tune in next week. It's a great story. Thank you.

[01:06:07] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:06:09] Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[01:06:28] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Weekly News Update.
Witch hunts across time. Witch hunts past. Witch hunts present. Once a person, once a child is targeted as a witch culprit, their old life is over. Nothing is ever the same for them again. The family is never whole. They are no longer in their home with the family unit, living life as it was prior to the accusations. Most often, extended family is no longer close, family is scattered. My ancestors tried for witchcraft were hanged in Salem, and we do not know for sure where their bodies were buried. Probably on family land. Rebecca Towne Nurse is likely on the homestead. Maybe Mary Towne Esty is on hers.
We do know many of the Towne families scattered out into other settlements, other colonies after the Salem witch trials. My ancestor tried for witchcraft in Boston was acquitted, but to date records after the trial giving any sort of timeline for the remainder of her life have not been identified. Her life course was altered. What happened to Mary Hale? Her daughter, my ancestor tried for witchcraft in Connecticut, also acquitted, disappears from the record. We know she and her husband fled their land in Wallingford. We know where some of their daughters settled. But to date, Winifred Benham disappeared from the record after her final witch trial. What became of 4 year old little Dorothy Good, arrested and tried for witchcraft in the Salem Witch-Hunt? What happened to enslaved Tituba after the trials were over? We know nothing of Tituba's fate. Due to uncovered records in 2022, we know the unfortunate course Dorothy's life took. It was unsettled, she never landed on her feet. There was continued turmoil and misfortune. Learn more about those records next week on Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast when this important newly uncovered story is told by Rachel Christ Doane of the Salem Witch Museum.
What happened to those accused witches of the past, is not unlike what is happening today. Today, thousands of people are targeted and hunted. They are believed to have used sorcery or evil to cause misfortune to their family, neighbors, or community. In many, many countries today, misfortunes like dangerous weather and unexplained sickness or death are still believed to be caused by humans doing supernatural harm.
In Ghana, women are hunted as witches, and thousands of them are now in refugee camps. These refugee camps are known as witch camps. The women sent away to them are alleged witches. They are innocent. They are not witches. These are not witch camps. These are refugee camps loaded with forgotten women. Women who have not forgotten the life they were torn from. Women who carry the visible scars and damage on their bodies from the attacks they endured. They survived brutal attacks, but now they are set aside. Their existence is buried in the past that they were plucked from. They are barely surviving, many of them do not survive. Thousands of women did not supernaturally cause mischief and misfortune. They were vulnerable and now they live a life uprooted, suffering from what has been done to them.
Once a person, once a child is targeted as a witch, their old life is over. Nothing is ever the same for them again. The family is never whole. They are no longer in their home with the family unit, living life as it was prior to the accusations. Most often extended family is no longer close, family is scattered.
Awareness of the violent, modern witch hunts against alleged witches is increasing across the world. International media, organizations, governments, and individuals want it to stop and are taking action and are educating about it. The United Nations Human Rights Council is acknowledging the crisis and urging additional efforts by effected states and by all stakeholders. We are all stakeholders in efforts to stop these witch attacks and abuse crimes against women and children. When you see it in the news, read about it and share it. Educate yourself and others. Today you have heard from alleged witch descendant and journalist Karin Helmstaedt. Go watch her documentary today. Share it today. Her documentary, Why Witch Hunts are Not Just a Dark Chapter from the Past, features important interviews with several experts, including Advocacy for Alleged Witches director Dr. Leo Igwe, Witches of Scotland advocate Dr. Zoe Venditozzi, modern attack victims, and witch trial historians. You will see the faces of modern witch attack survivors and hear from their own voice what has happened to them. Please see the show description for the link to watch it.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project has started to collaborate with individuals and organizations in discussion about a future Connecticut State Witch Trial Memorial. This will not be in the place of local community tributes for the individual victims like Alice Young, Goody Bassett, or Mary Barnes, for example. To join us in the early stages of brainstorming and recognizing what descendants and Connecticut residents would like put together to pay tribute and educate, please contact us now.
Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast supports the global efforts to end modern witch hunts. Get involved. Financially support our nonprofit initiatives to educate and intervene. Visit EndWitchHunts.org to make a tax deductible contribution. You can also support us by purchasing books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or subscribing as a Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast super listener for as little as $3 a month at thoushaltnotsuffer.com. Keep our t-shirts, available on zazzle.com, in mind when you start to get excited about Halloween 2023 and buy some fun wear. Sport one of our awesome shirts and introduce people to the podcast or one of our projects by leaving your house looking cool.

[01:11:59] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:12:01] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:12:02] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:12:07] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[01:12:09] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:12:11] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:12:14] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[01:12:17] Sarah Jack: Please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
[01:12:21] Josh Hutchinson: Support our efforts to end witch hunts.
[01:12:23] Sarah Jack: Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:12:26] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

July 13, 2023

Cemetery Conservation with Rachel Meyer of Epoch Preservation

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Show Notes

Welcome to our 40th episode! Enjoy a great conversation with Epoch Preservation’s Rachel Meyer. Epoch, a business on the North Shore of Massachusetts specializing in the preservation of burial grounds and their artifacts, has worked repairing grave sites broadly in Massachusetts including in Gloucester, Ipswich, Newbury, Salem, Revere, Saugus, Groveland, Methuen, Peabody, West Roxbury, and at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead Cemetery in Danvers. You have enjoyed Epoch’s Facebook live worksite tours, and you probably have heard Rachel on other podcasts, so you know that you are in for a treat! There is so much to take away from her gravestone preservation expertise and personable and engaging education style. We also connect historical social injustices to our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Salem Witch Museum Presentation of Dr. Leo Igwe on Advocacy Against Alleged Witch Persecutions

Epoch Preservation Website

Epoch Preservation on Facebook

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:27] Josh Hutchinson: Today's guest is Rachel Meyer of Epoch Preservation, a business on the North Shore of Massachusetts specializing in the preservation of burial grounds and their artifacts.
[00:00:39] Sarah Jack: She gives us the scoop on cemetery maintenance.
[00:00:43] Josh Hutchinson: Learn about gravestone repair.
[00:00:46] Sarah Jack: What is her connection to the Salem Witch Trials?
[00:00:49] Josh Hutchinson: Learn about her experience working the Rebecca Nurse Homestead cemetery.
[00:00:56] Sarah Jack: And how she looked after the Charter Street Cemetery, the old burying ground in Salem.
[00:01:02] Josh Hutchinson: And the Riverview Cemetery in Groveland.
[00:01:04] Sarah Jack: I'm gonna give it to you straight. You're gonna hear why there's better options than grave rubbing.
[00:01:10] Josh Hutchinson: And we'll talk a little about cemetery etiquette.
[00:01:14] Sarah Jack: Epoch has worked in Gloucester, Ipswich, Newbury, Salem, Revere, Saugus, Groveland, Methuen, Peabody, West Roxbury, Hampton, New Hampshire, Somersworth, New Hampshire, and at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead Cemetery in Danvers. You have enjoyed their Facebook live worksite tours. You probably have heard Rachel on other podcasts, so you know that you are in for a treat. I love this interview, because there is so much to learn from this type of important work. And anytime a local shares experiences, you get a closer look than anyone else can give.
What is the meaning of the name of your company?
[00:01:58] Rachel Meyer: Oh, I wanna quiz you. How do you say the name of our company?
[00:02:04] Sarah Jack: Epoch.
[00:02:06] Rachel Meyer: Oh so we, when we became a business six years ago, almost to the day we asked our friends on social media, "what should we be calling ourselves? What should we name our new business?" And they had a million ideas, and all of them were taken. And Josh and I were out swimming at the marina and I was like, I don't know Josh, we gotta come up with a name. And he said, "how about Epoch?" And I said, "I don't think that's how you say that word." And so we contacted our friend Brendan O'Brien. He does Rumney Marsh and Revere, and we said, he's an English teacher, and we were like, Brendan, how would you pronounce E P O C H? And he's in America it's epoch and England, it's epoch. And so we chose the name loving it, obviously means like an era, a time of your life. We're both in our forties, so this is but one era of the things that we've done in our lifetimes, is one of the best eras or epochs.
But we knew all throughout that we were going to have a little bit of, is it epic or epoch? And people pronouncing it both ways and neither way is wrong, and we don't get offended at either. And we actually giggle and I nudge him. I'm like, "see, you chose it. This is awful." But it was a good name, and it was the only one that wasn't taken of the thousand names that we Googled and tried out, you know?
[00:03:29] Sarah Jack: Yeah, I love it. I called you Epic for several years, and then I heard some folks say it the other way, so then I started saying it the other way, so I've called it both.
[00:03:39] Rachel Meyer: Yes. People tell me they have arguments in their household over it, and when they finally get me on the phone, they're like, how do you say your name, and one spouse loses and one wins. So I love it.
[00:03:52] Sarah Jack: That's awesome.
[00:03:52] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. No, it's a great name.
[00:03:55] Rachel Meyer: Thank you.
[00:03:56] Josh Hutchinson: And how did you get started in cemetery preservation?
[00:04:01] Rachel Meyer: It's almost like I, I got started in two bursts. The very first thing I did in a cemetery was I was in Hamilton and I was looking for the gravestone of my own great-grandfather, and I found out he was an unmarked grave in a veteran's lot. So I went through all of the necessary paperwork with the veterans to get him a marker. So this will be the first time that doing something in a cemetery was planted in my brain.
But then I was working as an administrator at the Sargent House Museum in Gloucester, and I was doing NaNoWriMo, but not in November because I don't ever have time in November, which is, for people who don't know, is writing a novel in a month, and I did it, but like the very last part of it was set in a burying ground in Gloucester. So I googled historic burying ground, Gloucester, and this was like nine years ago. And it brought me to First Parish on Centennial Ave. in Gloucester. And we couldn't even walk in. The weeds, I didn't even know weeds grew this tall, but they were up to my shoulder. I'm five seven, and we had to wade through them just to get to the main part of the cemetery. And the main part, you couldn't get anywhere near the gravestones. There were like a lot of syringes and trash back there. And then later, within probably like a week, we found out that there was a whole cemetery even behind that, a small, Victorian era cemetery that was so overgrown that you couldn't see the entrance, you couldn't see any of the gravestones. It was like poison ivy floor to ceiling, when it grows in big vines.
And so I came home, and Josh was painting the house, and I was like, "Josh, we gotta at least get a weed whacker and like weed whack some paths so people can get to the gravestones." And then before I know it, I'm like quitting my museum career and saying I'm full-time going to save gravestones. Took tons of classes, just gained experience the hard way, and now, two years into that project, I was like this is a good time to stop. I'm not independently wealthy. I do need to work. And we also don't live in Gloucester. We live in Ipwich, so it was like a 40 minute drive and I was doing it full-time. So when I started, there wasn't a cemetery commission, and we were able to, out of the volunteers that we recruited, have a cemetery commission for their city.
So we handed the project over to them, and I don't have to do anything. I check in every once in a while. If I see the grass is becoming a little unwieldy, I might make a phone call and say, "hey, I didn't give two years of my life for nothing." But but I pretty much never have to do that. It looks beautiful. They're doing a great job.
So that is the very long story of how I got into cemeteries. And then after that project. I was like, I'm never doing this again. That was so hard. And I had to make people angry at me, cuz I had to call people and tell them, you're not doing your job well or you're neglecting things, and that's never fun. I still have to do things like that sometimes, and it's awful.
And I was just done until about six months later, I wasn't anymore. I went up to Newbury, and I saw the condition of their cemetery. And that one's owned by a church. It's a beautiful cemetery. It just needed, it needed help. It's a very small congregation. They can't manage it. It's giant, and it's it's tied with Dorchester as like the oldest burying ground in the state. And so I think it dates to 1632. And I called them and I said, "can I just like volunteer? I've been a volunteer all this time." And they're like, actually we have a grant. Would you be able to become a business? And Josh and I were like, "who else has this knowledge? Of course, let's become a business." And then those conversations started about names, and the social media that you guys might follow.
[00:07:59] Sarah Jack: That is awesome. So we, we were gonna ask you how much of your job is landscaping, but it sounds like it depends on how they've been able to take care of it before you get there.
[00:08:11] Rachel Meyer: None anymore. So those were self-driven projects, where if we weren't gonna do it, no one was gonna do it. It was more than a part-time job just being out there whacking back Japanese knotweed, which is ridiculous. It was like a acre and a half of Japanese knotweed. And if you know about that plant, it does not go away. Man what's that monster where you cut off its head and two more grows? It's that.
But now people really just hire us to repair their gravestones. If somebody's hiring us to repair their gravestones, they probably already maintain their grounds, so luckily we don't have to do that anymore, because I don't know if I could do that anymore. It's hard work.
[00:08:49] Sarah Jack: We recently have been to an old burial ground in Connecticut, and it had those poison ivy vines in a lot of spots and it's scary. It's like, "that's poison ivy."
[00:09:01] Rachel Meyer: Yeah. I giggle because I have, in this picture in my mind of Josh who's actually sensitive to poison ivy, I am not sensitive to poison ivy. I can touch it without any really repercussions. I hear that can change. But I have this visual memory of Josh literally, as sensitive as he is, like pulling these vines outta trees. He had poison ivy. Nothing too crazy, but just always, it's a, I should send you photos so that you the visual is impressive.
[00:09:31] Sarah Jack: Wow. So it's was coming with the job for him.
[00:09:34] Rachel Meyer: Yeah, I mean he has a landscape background. He was an organic, he has like a certification, organic lawn care and stuff like that. So he already had an idea of how to do things. But me and the other volunteers that jumped on board were like, "oh my goodness, I feel like I'm cutting through a jungle." but it was exciting when you would find something, and it was exciting when someone would contact you and say, "hey, that picture you posted is my grandmother." Cuz these weren't long dead people. We were finding people's like grandparents. And people were getting very emotional cuz they hadn't been able to visit in 20 years.
[00:10:12] Sarah Jack: Wow. That's wonderful.
[00:10:14] Rachel Meyer: Yeah, it's a really good feeling. I highly suggest it for anyone.
[00:10:18] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I'm excited about the region that you cover, because I have a lot of ancestors in the cemeteries that you work in. Like I saw you were working in Groveland recently, and my grandfather's sister and mother and grandparents are all buried there in Riverview Cemetery. I've got a lot of people in there.
[00:10:42] Rachel Meyer: You're gonna have to privately tell me their last names. Two years ago we repaired probably like 15 gravestones of varying ages. This year we're repairing 126, and there are varying ages. They're not just the very old ones. They're also like semi newer, too. Good chances you, some of your family may have made it into our list.
[00:11:03] Josh Hutchinson: Oh yeah. Yeah. I'll definitely have to touch base with you on that.
[00:11:07] Rachel Meyer: We'll plant flowers for them if they're yours.
[00:11:09] Sarah Jack: Wow.
[00:11:10] Josh Hutchinson: Aw, thank you. That'd be so sweet.
[00:11:12] Rachel Meyer: Yeah.
[00:11:14] Sarah Jack: How do your ties to the local history enrich your work?
[00:11:18] Rachel Meyer: So my family goes back in Massachusetts to the Mayflower. We're also, as we talked about, witch trial descendants, also Quaker descendants. We're descended from Cassandra and Lawrence Southwick and their son, I think it's Daniel, who was told he was gonna become enslaved with his sister, and then no one acted upon it, thank goodness, but otherwise I wouldn't be here.
Anyway, so I have family in all of these little burying grounds I work in, but I don't really think very much about it, because, to me, the reward is doing things for other people. No, no matter what burying ground I'm in I'm probably gonna have at least one or two people in it, just going back that far.
But I'm aware when something, they're like, there are certain names I keep in my head, and when I see them in the burying ground, I'm like, oh, there's a Chase. Let's, let's make sure to tell everyone we fixed that gravestone for sure. And there's a Southwick and here's, especially the Chases. I'm very fond of my Chases.
But so I'm fully aware of it, and I think part of my original feelings of we can't let our cultural heritage die, no one else is doing this, I'm gonna do it with my own hands was a dedication to my own ancestors who made it so I exist, and our predecessors that make it so our governments and our towns are here.
You know, It's meaningful, but it's not really at the forefront. We don't use that information to decide what we're gonna repair. Our decisions are based on walking into a cemetery, seeing what's broken, and just fixing what's broken. We don't do a lot of research on who it is, cause we don't have time to. We're very prolific as a business. We leave it to the historians to tell us whose gravestone we just repaired. And I love it. I love it when I'm like, we just repaired this whole lot of Kimballs and I'm descended from the Kimballs, but I don't know a ton about them. And we'll have four or five people being like, "oh, they're my people, and this is all of these vital records," and they just floods through the comments. And I love that I have such smart people around me that can inform me and make it exciting for me, cuz I'm giving them a gift, but they're returning it right back.
[00:13:44] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:13:46] Josh Hutchinson: I enjoy hearing you mention these names, because I have the same names in my family.
[00:13:52] Rachel Meyer: Yeah.
We look a little alike. Not that anyone can see us, but I also have a beard and mustache. Take my word on it.
[00:14:02] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, no. I'll have to connect with you offline about some of these names you're dropping, because I have the same people in that area. Getting back to it, how else are you involved with history and preservation?
[00:14:18] Rachel Meyer: So I serve on our local historical commission. And I think sometimes my views can be, I'm so outspoken that every time I mention I serve on the historical commission, I have to say, "but I'm not speaking as a historical commission member." I've been warned.
So we live in Ipswich. So I'm on the Ipswich Historical Commission, and most people in history know that Ipswich has the largest number of first period houses in America, which is phenomenal. We wanna protect them. The reason why they're there is cuz we were actually poor, a poor town at one point who couldn't build new houses. And so now, like any other municipality, we're facing a lot of new building and stuff that we need to handle with care. So that's why I got involved with the historical commission.
But we've been doing, since I joined, I have to admit that I joined with a mission and when people say, think Rachel joined with a mission, I go, "no, but I did." I knew what history wasn't being told. It bothered me. I know in general, outside of Ipswich, I take on a lot of, not take on, no one asked me to do it. I get in my head that I want to repair a lot of like African-American gravestones, and there's no one really to point them out, like with the gravestones of our white population you might have locals who know they're descended from them and will say, "maybe give this some attention." But that doesn't really happen so much with the black community, because often they don't know they're descended from these really important people.
And so outside of our work as a business, I take on these pro bono projects for Howard Street segregated section, or right now we're working on getting Marblehead a couple gravestones for some important, I don't know how to describe them. Joe and Lucretia Brown, they were tavern owners, but they were also possibly black governors. We had Negro election day here where people voted black governors. But anyway, not to get too off topic. I just wanted to give you some background about the things that interest me.
So when I joined the historical commission, I had it in my head that we talk a lot about colonial stuff, which is something that obviously makes us important, but it's not all that happened. And I wanna tell history in a comprehensive way. So in my time at the historical commission, which has been short, we have put up a plaque for a millworker strike that happened here, where a young woman named Nicoletta Pantelopoulos was shot by police, and so the plaque is to her. We adopted Indigenous People's Day.
Off topic, but also surprisingly in the same vein, we put up a plaque to the writer John Updike, who I think in some ways, because of the scandalous nature of his writing, was also being pushed out of the mainstream for some reason. And recently we renamed a park that didn't have a name after Jenny Slew, who was the first to sue for and win her freedom from slavery. I hedge on it the way I say that, because there were other people I've learned that sued for and won their freedom based on them being indigenous. It's hard to know how exactly how to word her role, but she definitely set the precedence for others to sue and for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. It's just incredibly important to me that we're not just telling the history that brings in the tourists, that we're telling the history that is right to tell, too.
[00:18:03] Josh Hutchinson: What time period are we talking about with Jenny Slew?
[00:18:07] Rachel Meyer: Yeah. So she's early, right? Sometimes when we think about slavery, we're thinking about the 1800s, cuz we're thinking about slavery in the South. But she actually won that case in 1766. And I've heard some scholarship. I'm not a historian, I'm gonna let you figure this out. I heard some scholarship that maybe her great grandmother was Dorcas Hoar. She was white on her mother's side, but I am 100% not a historian. I'd like to know more about why people think that, because it speaks to this idea that persecution is handed down not only in the black community, but possibly in the white community, too.
[00:18:50] Sarah Jack: I like it, because there's more story to tell over the generations, different stories. Like you said, you've got going from witch trials into slavery, there's a lot of story to tell there.
[00:19:01] Rachel Meyer: When I got up and spoke at the select board as myself, not a representative of historical commission, I said that this story is like the perfect show of intersectionality. We have somebody who is being forbidden to sue for her freedom, because she's owned by her husband, and then she's also enslaved.
But also, she proved that her, because her husband himself was enslaved, it wasn't a legitimate marriage. So now she could sue. There's a lot of injustice going on in that story that's a little bit different than some of the stories you normally hear where somebody's born into slavery. This was a woman in her forties, and there's a lot to unpack there, because the reason she won her case was because her mother was white.
It's it's a lot. And then you have somebody like Ma Betts coming around, shortly after her. And you're like, she was up against a hard legal battle. It's, yeah. I don't know. I'm amazed by Jenny Slew's story and it's so complicated.
It was the first time I had heard this theory, too, and I was like, and it was well into the naming of the park. It didn't factor into it at all. And then I heard this, I heard, it was a little lecture given at Salem State, and I was like, whoa, this makes a lot more sense now how she ended up in this position. That makes me feel even more protective of her, that we share witch trial ancestry.
[00:20:37] Josh Hutchinson: What are some of the things that you do to repair broken stones?
[00:20:42] Rachel Meyer: Yeah, so there's a series of rules that we have to follow. So it's the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Historic Preservation. And they're similar to the same rules that you need to follow if you're restoring a house. Things need to be aimed to be reversible. They need to be similar in material to what you are replacing or restoring, the least invasive methods you can use.
So everything that we do is in keeping with those standards. There are sometimes stones that are so hard to repair, but you're like, no, I need to use this particular type of mortar. So the repairs that we do, we used to do a lot of stone cleaning when we started out, and in fact, if somebody wants to start out doing this, I suggest stone cleaning.
We're judicious in the stones that we clean because we didn't wanna clean anything that had an underlying condition that we didn't know how to treat.
So we also piece together gravestones, even if they're a hundred pieces, because most people will give up on gravestones that are, that seem unrepairable. But we actually kinda consider it a challenge. And it's not, no disrespect to the people buried there, but sometimes if it's bad enough, we refer to those gravestones as Frankenstones, because they're literally a hundred pieces held together with mortar, and they're not the prettiest. It's the original gravestone. Somebody could replace it at some point if they wanted to, but the grave is still marked.
So then, apart from just, from repairing them, we can also document sites. We do a lot of stone assessments, where we do a careful history of the burying ground and make maps and go stone by stone and photograph them and take careful notes of their condition and how we'd repair them and get people budgets and help them come up with a plan to move forward.
Sometimes we have a plan to move forward. Sometimes we're just being given 10 gravestones, and someone says, "can you repair these 10?" And we don't go through that whole process, but sometimes we really get to dig into a site and learn its full history, and we walk away feeling really part of that site.
And practically we wrote a book on it, and you can find it at any historical commission. It's cool cuz I'm not a very good writer. You should have read my NaNoWriMo novel. It's why you don't, you're not seeing that novel published. But instead of seeing me work in cemeteries.
[00:23:09] Sarah Jack: I don't believe it. I was wondering what D2 is.
[00:23:14] Rachel Meyer: D2 is a quaternary ammonium solution. In olden days, like with olden days, we're talking 20 years ago. In ye old days, when I was in my twenties, people would just take a couple gallons of water and put like a tablespoon of ammonia in the water and clean gravestones with that. It's not advisable, cause people tend to go a little heavy on the ammonia.
And so D2 is a quaternary ammonia compound. So it works by, so we clean the gravestone with really just water, skewers, gentle brushes, and then we spray the D2 on afterwards, and it gets into the pores and it works over time with the rain to clean any of the biological growth out of the pores of the stone and also lightens the color of it.
If you go into a graveyard and you see some glaring white gravestones, it was probably recently treated, that growth will grow back in probably five years. You'll start four or five years, you'll start seeing like a little bit of a green haze and at that point what you do is you mix the D2 one to one and you do a maintenance spray, and that'll stop you from having to scrub it again, cuz it's, cleaning a gravestone mechanically isn't something you wanna do over and over again. It's kinda like gravestone rubbing. You don't wanna keep interacting with a gravestone over and over. It's not good for it.
[00:24:28] Sarah Jack: I had seen that you have a recommendation what people can do to capture images instead of gravestone rubbing. Do you wanna talk about that?
[00:24:37] Rachel Meyer: Yeah, sure. I think this is like one of those divisive topics. It was never, it's never meant to shame somebody who grew up doing great. Like I get a lot of comments that are like, I've been doing this since I was a child," and I'm like, "I'm not mad at you." We didn't have cell phones then. We didn't have this ability to capture everything in front of us in real time.
So you know it, it's okay, but if you want these to last for another few hundred years, that practice has to stop. So what we like to do is on a sunny day, we take a full length mirror with us to the graveyard, and you can stand quite far away from a gravestone to catch the sun. And we reflect the sun back onto the gravestone, and we can create different shadows using the mirror. It's really cool. If you go on our Instagram, you can see a lot of these shots that are like, that's because we used a mirror on them.
I was also recently taught this really cool technique by our friend Andy Perrin. A few people have showed, there was another lady. It's her Instagram is Where the Dead Lie. If you go on, you'll see all these awesome like 3D renderings. And she sent me some from Old North that you could 3D print. So a friend of ours is starting to 3D print these gravestones from her renderings. But if you have an iPhone, you likely have Lidar on your iPhone, which does an amazing job. I don't. I am one of those uncool people that has a Galaxy Note 1000 wherever we are in the chain. But you can still take like dozens of photos around the gravestone and create just with your cell phone, a 3D rendering of a gravestone. The possibilities are absolutely endless. And then we have this friend, Andy Perrin. He takes those 3D renderings and he's come up with a process where he can put them through some software that he's created, that at some point I hope he sells to the public, that makes it incredibly easy to read these gravestones. They almost look like x-rays. They're like works of art. They come out so beautiful. There are other options besides repetitive gravestone rubbing, and it's, I always feel bad when people are like, "but I teach gravestone rubbing, but, and I teach to do it the right way."
And it's there's not a right way to do a gravestone rubbing on a gravestone that's just been conserved. You're pushing on it. The materials we're required to use are soft. Enough people do that, our mortars are gonna crumble out. We saw that a lot in Salem where people would repeatedly sit on gravestones, and the conservators, who did work probably a year and a half before, all their mortar was crumbling out from the repetitive interactions from the public. We really don't like gravestone rubbing it. It's not we don't like gravestone rubbers. They're okay. It's just the act that we don't really like.
[00:27:30] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I've been to Salem years ago in October to the Charter Street, and that was before they put in the crowd control. And yeah, people were just walking all over off the path, sitting on things, leaning on things, and overall very disrespectful. And I'm really glad that they limit access now. It's been very helpful, I think.
[00:28:00] Rachel Meyer: I think most people who know me from that time because, so at that time, you're describing a few years ago, I was the stone conservator for the City of Salem. So I did stone conservation work in all five of their historic burying grounds. I worked for the DPW, and they had never had an on staff stone conservator. They invented the job for me and my fir, so I, I'm waiting for the groans to hear this. So I'm from the area, and my very first job as a teenager was at the Salem Wax Museum, and I worked there for two years. And by the way, I had the most fun, like it was the most, it was the most fun, regardless of how people feel how they interpret history.
My boss was actually really fun. I really liked him. But it's right next to Charter Street Cemetery, so I've been watching that cemetery very closely since I was 16 or 17 years old, working right next door to it and progressively as Haunted Happenings got bigger, it just became wild, people going in there in costumes. Most people that went in there actually commented to me that they thought it was a movie set. They didn't understand it was a real burying ground.
And so when I worked for the cemetery department, I was in there all month one October, and I nearly lost my mind. Like I flipped out. And at this point they had a little bit of crowd control going on when I was there all month. But I was like yelling at people left, not yelling, trying to politely tell people, don't sit on that tomb, do you mind staying on the path? A million different little things. And I felt like I was being some sort of a nag and ruining people's tours, but that wasn't the intention. The intention was that the tourism in Salem was unmanageable for our historic resources, and we needed to dial it down given that it's an actual burying ground and not a movie set.
So I went on, not a rampage. That sounds worse than it is, but I contacted the media. I gave a proposal that they didn't even want at the cemetery commission that they kept saying, "this is above your pay grade." And I said, "these are my ancestors, and I'm its gravestone conservator." It would be like being in the PEM and being an art conservator and seeing somebody throw paint on a painting and having to just sit there and not say something because it might upset the tourism industry or something.
And as you can tell from photos and coverage of tourism in Salem, it hasn't affected the tourism industry to show respect to Charter Street Cemetery. It was constant, people putting candles on gravestones and letting the wax run and parts of the wall falling into the graveyard and me having to put it back up over and over again.
I don't know if I was part of this discussion about the new welcome center, but I think that I had left that job the second season, because the conditions were hard. It's not like the other towns where I work in, where it's nice and quiet and I can think. There was a lot of, there's a lot. I don't know how to say this politely. Salem isn't the usual, it's not the usual place we work. It's different, and it can be chaotic and hard if you're in a cemetery.
But shortly after I left, they made that agreement with the PEM to put a welcome center in the historic house. And we've taught a couple workshops there since. And it was absolutely beautiful. I loved doing it, and I loved seeing how much quieter and respectful it is. And there were certainly still people being disrespectful of the staff that's working there. So no one, none of your listeners are going to be doing that, but if they know people who are, tell 'em to stop it, cause you know, there's no reason to come into somebody's town and visit their historic resources and be rude to the people protecting them, which happens a lot. And those people are working hard. That visitor center's open year round, even in the cold. That's amazing.
[00:32:12] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I'm so glad all those changes have been made though, for all the reasons you said. The first Hutchinsons that came to America are buried in there, and I was there this last May, and it was just night and day different from October seven years ago. So part of it's seasonal, I know, but just the changes and how access is controlled. It was so good.
[00:32:40] Rachel Meyer: It's become less seasonal. Like I was there in January, I live like 25 minutes away, and I'm from there. So I was there in January, and there were a ton of tourists, and that's not usual. And I'm not sure if it's because of the sort of end of the public health crisis that people are like, "let's get out to Salem year round."
But I was actually very surprised at how many people were there in the dead of winter and it was very cold. So I think their tourism is only amping up more and more. So those conversations about how to protect our cultural heritage and the cultural heritage of the people we've been ignoring, not just our cultural heritage, but the cultural heritage of the black, the indigenous people of Salem, is a conversation that needs to happen continuously, and luckily I serve on a lot of boards and commissions where I hear that work being done.
I don't see Salem's tourism going down, and I don't see the parts that we all groan at that are offensive going away, but maybe we can amplify the things that aren't offensive and the things that do warrant our respect. And maybe that'll drown out a little bit more the other stuff that we're all like, "oh, did I really just see that?"
[00:33:58] Sarah Jack: Thank you so much, Rachel.
And Josh and I'm not gonna speak for Josh, but I and Josh, we really agree with you. We support that, all of that. I was wondering what people need to do to take care around gravestones, but then I'm also wondering, are there any other old habits that people need to stop doing?
[00:34:22] Rachel Meyer: So beyond the gravestone rubbing, I don't like seeing people sitting on tombs. They're a lot more delicate than you think, and sometimes the damage to them isn't immediately obvious. Sometimes you're creating micro cracks in the stone and then water's getting in and heaving and it's, it, sometimes you are starting the damage and you don't see it immediately, but it, the damage happens over time.
Just picnicking on top of tombs. I'm actually a big fan of picnicking in some, I like when people picnic in cemeteries. I like when people use cemeteries. I don't necessarily like it if people are having like a yoga class in between the stones, and people are trying to visit their ancestors.
But we have a local graveyard here in Ipswich that has this like stairway that goes, it's treacherous. It's like a famous stairway right up the center of Old North, and people just run up and down the stairway all day long. And I think it's the best thing. And because I can't do it, sometimes when they get to the bottom, I like to heckle them and say, "is that all you got in ya?" Whatever. I have to amuse myself.
But there, there are a lot of behaviors that some people mind and others don't. I don't mind. There's very little that I do mind. It's literally just interacting with the gravestones in a way that is gonna wear them out over time or somehow disturbing grieving people or dancing on someone's grave or stuff like or wearing gigantic dinosaur costumes into a burying ground and in an old cemetery in Salem, that'll bum me out. I don't mind if you're dressed as a flock of bees, but you can't even see out of that dinosaur costume.
[00:36:01] Sarah Jack: That dinosaur costume is like my favorite thing to see every year. I don't wanna see it in a cemetery, but I cannot wait to see that thing coming down the sidewalk every year.
[00:36:11] Rachel Meyer: Imagine being at the entrance to Charter Street, and the people have to be like, "sorry, you have to take off your dinosaur costume." What a shock. Like I wonder who's in there. It's like peeling away a skin, somebody should dress as a nesting doll, just have another dinosaur costume.
[00:36:30] Josh Hutchinson: Wow. What are maybe some misconceptions that people have around graves and gravestones?
[00:36:38] Rachel Meyer: I don't find them morbid. When I'm in a, I don't feel a morbid feeling at all. I feel more a feeling as though I'm at the beach. It's like a calm, almost spiritual feeling that you get when you're near water is how I feel surrounded by all of this carved slate and these majestic trees and moss and birds and foxes and whatever. I don't find it morbid compared to listening to the news or being out in the world in general and hearing people fight. I think that they are in a way maybe reminders that we're going to die, of course, but they're also reminders of how much longer we get to live than they did. A lot of these people didn't make it through infancy.
And maybe they're a reminder of how grateful you should be about our medical advances and not having to walk 20 miles to the meeting house every Sunday, or whatever it may have been for them. So for me, that's probably the biggest misconception is that they're depressing. How about you? Have you heard any ideas that you're like, "ugh?"
[00:37:57] Josh Hutchinson: I wanted first to just comment off what you just said. I find them very relaxing places. Most of the time you go to a cemetery, it's very quiet and people are, it's like a outdoor library, just the way that people usually approach a cemetery with respect and quiet voices and you can't get a whole lot quieter and more peaceful, I don't think, which is appropriate being a place of rest.
And yeah, I just think about the people and the history and their stories, and that's what I think about, not ghosts or I'm gonna feel a chill when I go to the grave sites. It's not anything like that's not. That is that dark tourism. I don't get that kind of feel at a cemetery at all. I just feel so peaceful, even when I'm looking at my own ancestors. That's such a profound feeling of a connection with them. I enjoy being in cemeteries.
[00:39:09] Rachel Meyer: Yeah, I think you touched on something that is a misconception probably about us as people is that we are really into the occult. But we don't, I tell people I don't wanna disappoint people who are like, "tell me about all the ghosts," and I'm like, "no, my, my family, even the dead ones don't wanna talk to me." They don't wanna interrupt my work. They don't want me to drop a stone on myself. They're just not talking to me. Very occasionally I'll, I don't mind a ghost story if I know it's about a fictitious person, but I don't like perpetuating this idea that anybody's family isn't at rest, even those that are 400 years old.
I definitely have friends who do paranormal investigations, and I couldn't love these people more, and we just don't talk about it. People just assume that a lot of creepy things happen while we're in cemeteries. And actually, I feel very spiritually alive in cemetery, more of a connection to my own spirit there than ghosts or anything like that.
So I don't know if this is a New England thing. So here, our local culture, it isn't enough to have something historical happen. So say you say Giles Cory was pressed in the general vicinity of Howard Street Cemetery. You can't end it there. That's not culturally what we do. You have to follow it with, "and he roams the cemetery forever," so which is half adorable. I don't know. It doesn't bother me as much, as long as people aren't passing it off to, I don't know. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be such a gimmick, the witch trials.
But there have been times. I worked in Howard Street Cemetery repairing a gravestone, and there was this white rat that came through. It was super friendly, like it was clearly someone's pet who got loose, and I called the police. There's probably a log of police calls that I've made in Salem that are half lunacy, but I called the police to see if they could get me a cage, because I was surrounded by my tools. I couldn't abandon them to find a way to catch this white rat that was clearly a pet, and it disappeared behind a gravestone. But I told everybody it was Giles Cory's familiar in that. I nearly named it Giles Cory, but I know that's not true. It's just a little dark gravestone conservator humor, but I'm definitely a citizen of the North Shore with my strange little, let's add on "and he wandered the halls forever." I'm from here.
[00:41:40] Sarah Jack: That's great. Yeah, I I love spending time in cemeteries. My father is in one now, so I go for a different reason. I look around him, and I think of all the stories. I know his story, and then I think about what are these stories around him, and that's really one of the things that I'm curious about when I'm visiting.
When we were in Connecticut last month doing a speaking tour with Dr. Leo Igwe, we went to an ancient burial ground in Windsor. And man, I just, I could have spent hours there just looking at the names, whose grouped together, what do these stones look like? What year were they? What do they say? And I love the fun stories, too, the lore, but I want the actual stories to be pulled out and talked about, too.
What can we learn from looking at stones and what do they tell us? What stories do they tell us?
[00:42:38] Rachel Meyer: Yeah, so I'm more of an art conservator than a historian. So for me, a lot of these people, you can tell their stories in other ways. The ones that actually have gravestones, where the ones that don't you, they're hidden and lost, but you can usually interpret their story by looking at a house or something else.
One thing that people don't talk about in the general vernacular are the actual artists and carvers. So those are the people that I really try to push to the forefront, because you haven't heard these names before. You don't understand how they're connected and what a gentle little web it is. How some of them married into each other's families, and that's why we have all these generations and why some people seem to carve in the same sort of style and with the same material and others carve in another with slate, or you know, those are the faces that I'm trying to get out there, the talent.
Even with contemporary gravestone carvers, it's really important for me to push them and promote them and say, "hey, these people are doing great work." Because they're gonna end up in graveyards where the focus, and rightfully so, is on the person, on the gravestone. But all that art is going overlooked, and some of those gravestones are pure art. Some of them of course are mass-produced in the sense that they were carved ahead of time, and someone came in and bought them. But some of them are specific to the person buried there. And it's not easy carving slate. I've tried, that's not my future.
There are lots of people who give tours of the history, but I'm obsessed with the stone carvers and their artwork. If somebody off the street could name one gravestone carver, like they can name one painter, I'd feel like I did something. I don't, I'm not holding on hope.
There's quite a heritage of stone carvers specifically here in Ipswich, where John Hartshorn lived, and there's a lot to know and a lot to learn and I'd love to tell you all about it. But this would have to be a four hour long podcast.
I went through Old North Burying Ground, I think it was two days ago, with some teenagers from a summer program here in Ipswich, and they were teenagers that kind of did just like people go up and down the stairs in the middle. They did a little bit of that without looking around before, and a couple of them were just absolutely captivated, being allowed to take their time to observe the artwork on the stone. And I had one of the kids read the entire inscription on the Reverend Nathaniel, I can't remember his last name right now, but I had her read the entire inscription, and where she made mistakes, I pointed out, you're making that mistake, because we no longer use the long s we no longer say AET. We no longer shove weird letters in weird places cuz we forgot them or we now spell words the same way each time instead of spelling them five different ways on the same gravestone. It was really fun just to have a kid try to read a gravestone and say, "you're not having trouble because there's something wrong with you. It's because this is outdated. And yeah, there are two years on that gravestone. Why?"
It's a blast to fully engage a young person in this. It's not always easy to get young people to put down their devices, but these kids were so smart and so funny and so engaged and curious and asked so such great questions that I think we need more of that, less tours, less I'm gonna tell you what's important about this cemetery and more self exploring with young people, allow them to walk around. I gave them flags, and I said, "I'm gonna let you just wander around for 10 minutes, and I want you to put a flag next to the gravestone you wanna talk to me about." And then we just went around, and I asked all their questions and we explored it further. So it was really guided by them, and I think we need more of that, letting young people explore their own enthusiasm and curiosity, rather than telling them what we think they should know. Maybe I lost my calling as a teacher.
[00:46:51] Josh Hutchinson: Oh that's great. And so they were interested in the art then?
[00:46:57] Rachel Meyer: They were interested in a little bit of everything. They had the same questions that I probably would've covered if they didn't ask them, like, why does this gravestone so small, and why does it only have initials? That's called the footstone. They had really smart questions. I noticed that the name on this one's the street I live in on. Do you think they're related? You know it, their questions were fantastic, and it opened up a lot more conversations and a lot more actual engagement from them than if I was telling them what was important about that burying ground.
[00:47:27] Josh Hutchinson: And talking about the art, I love to view how it's changed over the ages, how those, the symbology has evolved is very fascinating to me. What's can you tell us about that? About what are some common motifs and how have they changed?
[00:47:49] Rachel Meyer: It changes obviously with our culture. I think early on people weren't really going to come back and visit too often. So we had embedded fieldstones. We didn't have a lot of access to carvers. So people would take fieldstones that they find, and they would put 'em upright and they'd put 'em in rows and that's how they would mark graves. That's likely how Rebecca Nurse's grave is marked. That's how George Jacobs' grave was marked. And so then gravestones came into being when we got some stone carvers. Not all the stone carvers were particularly good. Some of them were just like like struggling to put some names on a gravestone. That's probably the 1660s. We have some fieldstones that are actually carved, but they're not carved with motifs, and you can't read them cuz there's not a lot of contrast between the carving and the stone. And then you go into the winged skulls and the crossbones and the you better behave yourself cause and don't get too full of yourself thinking you're gonna live forever, cause you're not, you're gonna be just like me someday.
And then into sort of around like the late 1700s around the Revolutionary War, we start chilling out a little bit. We start carving on marble, and sandstone was around during slate, too, but we don't have as much of that as is in Connecticut. In Massachusetts, we have a little bit, but not a lot. But here, Massachusetts, around the Revolutionary War you really start getting into marble, and there's overlap, there's still slate, but it starts becoming willows and urns and the things that you are feeling now when you go into a cemetery. Serene motifs.
Not a huge amount of originality. There are some carvers of willows and urns that definitely stand out to me, like Benjamin Day with his stout columns and very finished, almost presidential that he has these columns on both sides of the gravestone and just feels very formal, and they're beautiful, but they don't really vary from gravestone to gravestone.
And then, of course, contemporary gravestones can run the gamut from playful to as boring as you could imagine. It's almost like some people are still like, "I'm not that into gravestones. I'm just going to get the name on there and mark the grave." And then some people are hugely creative. Some people still use slate and marble.
You were saying that you had lost your father. When I lost my mother during the pandemic, I didn't have any choices for gravestones. I got her a flat granite plaque. That's what we were allowed to have in this cemetery. It meant a lot to me, not because the gravestone itself was special, because it's not, not really. I tried to make it a little special, but because I managed to get her a gravestone when everything was shut down. And I, I wonder sometimes that people are like, so find a grave has different like virtual cemeteries. So she's in several virtual cemeteries for covid deaths. And I wonder sometimes are people gonna see the date on that gravestone and think her daughter really tried, or are they gonna say, "Rachel's a gravestone conservator and got her mom the most boring marker on the planet?" Which wasn't the intention, it was just to mark her grave, for me to have that peace of knowing she wasn't in an unmarked grave.
And as off topic as that, that is, I think that we have to keep in mind that not everybody has money, and not everybody can do large monuments. And it's not a choice sometimes. There are still people in unmarked graves, and I wish that I could start a nonprofit that would help people to afford marking graves, because you see it all the time, people doing GoFundMes. It's incredibly off topic, but I feel like we're going back to people not being able to mark graves.
[00:51:43] Sarah Jack: I actually, I have two friends that passed 11 and 10 years ago, and they have unmarked graves, and I was so shocked that could happen. I wanted to go visit, and then I found out that the family hadn't been able to give them any type, and it is, it's shocking.
[00:52:02] Rachel Meyer: And there should be a minimum, right? There should be a minimum thing that a family should be able to count on. Taking away the idea that some people want like green burials and stuff like that, the bare minimum of dying on this planet, if it is your spiritual belief to have a grave marker, should be getting a grave marker. That shouldn't be a thing for the rich.
So I don't know how to make a nonprofit, but I just feel like there's a need there for people to, even just, there are a lot of vampire stones out in the world. I call them vampire stones, which is somebody couldn't afford to put the death date on it, but it has all the other information, as though they never died.
And you, I don't think that family should have to worry about if your mom and dad didn't have life insurance, that nags on you, having a family member in an unmarked grave. For some people that really bothers them. I don't know how to solve it, but maybe I'll spend time doing it.
[00:53:00] Sarah Jack: We'll try to put our heads together with you on that, but, and I don't feel like it is totally off topic. I think those struggles that are happening right now, people need to have their eyes open to it. And also, when you go back to those that were executed as witches, we don't have graves for them.
[00:53:20] Rachel Meyer: Or enslaved people.
[00:53:21] Sarah Jack: Yes. And enslaved people.
[00:53:24] Rachel Meyer: Yeah, that's the importance of memorials and memorial markers. Like a memorial marker can be placed in a cemetery even if you don't know the person was buried there, right? That was the conversation I was having today about the Bradbury grave in Salisbury. I was under the impression it was a replacement, and when I had looked at it to begin with, I knew there was no evidence that there was a actual burial of the Bradburys there. It was a footstone. There was some fragments that identified them as the broken footstone of their son. So there's no evidence that they were buried there. So nothing was done wrong. I was just trying to find out what changed. Was there new evidence? Is that why we're calling them replacements?
But they are memorial markers. And of course she wasn't hanged in the witch trials. That's not why she's in an unmarked grave. But I also think that all of these memorials that we set up, the one next to Charter Street, the one over in Proctor's Ledge, the one out in Danvers, they serve a purpose for people who can't visit a grave, and the park for Jenny Slew, maybe it won't. I don't know if it'll mean as much to the community that we're hoping to engage as we hope it will, but it's a place to go. I don't know. I don't know how to do right by everybody, but I feel like it's a step in the right direction.
[00:54:45] Sarah Jack: Absolutely.
[00:54:46] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we're definitely with you on the memorials, because we talk to a lot of descendants of witch trial victims, in particular, and they don't have any place to go if there's not a memorial, because you don't know where the person was buried, if they were buried at all. It wasn't marked. So we have no idea, and people go to visit these towns where their ancestors were from, and only to find out that there's no marker for them.
[00:55:20] Rachel Meyer: Or it's something funny, like I went to Amesbury. I don't know the family, so I don't wanna, I'm not trying to insult them. I went to Amesbury to see where Susannah North Martin lived, and there was a monument, like a tiny little boulder monument with a plaque on it, but it was like underneath a basketball hoop.
But recently, I think they named a stretch of the highway that went across her property after her. So whenever I drive by through that, I'll be able to say, "hey, Susannah, how you doing?"
[00:55:50] Sarah Jack: And you're a Susannah descendant.
[00:55:52] Rachel Meyer: I am. It's so funny, I was talking to someone how we're so proud of the accused that we're descended from, oh, proud may not really quite be the word, but we definitely gather around them, but we don't gather around the accusers that we're descended from. And there's a lot of, all of that, like in any given descendant of the accused, there's probably an accuser close by. Yeah, I don't mean to laugh, but it's human nature to rally around the person that the injustice and not own the fact that you also come from the part that you don't wanna look at. And maybe we should be looking at both.
There was a ancestor in my line from Ipswich, and when I found her on Ancestry, Ipswich was literally spelled I P S W I T C H, just to like call. It was cute. It was whoever put that up, their way of being like, hey, and I think she accused someone. I feel like her first name was Rachel. You would probably know a lot more about this. She accused someone, because her baby was sick, and then this person came around and the baby got better, and then when the person left, the baby died. She accused a local of witchcraft. I'm not sure it was anyone who hanged.
I actually live pretty close to what was called the old jail, but probably had no relation to the witch trials at all.
[00:57:05] Josh Hutchinson: You made a really good point about how we have accusers in our lines, and we tend to not talk about them as much, but we need to, because we need to understand why the witch trials happened, and you understand it by thinking like the accusers would've thought, what were they afraid of? And you have to understand where they were coming from or else you don't understand why it happened.
[00:57:31] Rachel Meyer: Yeah. And the witch trials is different than other sort of social atrocities where there's a very clear definition between two groups, and one group is doing a thing to another group. This is one group doing this to themselves. And I know there's a million reasons why. I'm pretty sure I've heard most of them throughout my life from ergot to more serious things like mental illness and sexism and land disputes and just sticking out.
I think, in my family, I feel like a possible thing that isn't talked about as much is Quakerism. Like my family is very Quaker going up to Susannah North Martin and being a descendant of the Southwicks. Cause it hasn't gone unnoticed to me that she was, that they were named as caretakers of some of the Southwick children. So I wonder sometimes I hear a lot of theories about it, and I know not every case is exactly the same, why they were accused, but I wonder if people aren't paying attention to the fact that it became illegal to go after Quakers only three years before the witch trials. I think people may like underplay how hard it was to actually be a Quaker, too. They were so disruptive.
I don't take myself very seriously. Maybe that's another misconception.
[00:58:48] Josh Hutchinson: You're not stoic and kind of numb to everything.
[00:58:55] Rachel Meyer: I think some people think I should be more stoic, but yeah. You can only be you.
[00:59:01] Sarah Jack: That's right. And only you can be you. Nobody else can.
[00:59:05] Rachel Meyer: That's true. Do you wanna talk about the Rebecca Nurse Homestead Cemetery?
[00:59:10] Josh Hutchinson: That would be amazing. Yes.
[00:59:11] Rachel Meyer: Yeah. So I'll give you a little background about how we got to working there. Dan Gagnon, who is literally one of my favorite people, contacted us and said, "someone said that you repair gravestones. He didn't know this, but years before, someone said there might be a gravestone in our basement."
And I was like, "do tell," but several years later, Dan said, "we actually have quite a few gravestones in storage and it's time to get them out of our building." And I was like, "okay, let's do this." And so he went for a grant with Essex National Heritage, and they got it, but I wasn't sure they were going to get it, because it was the beginning of Covid and everything was shut down.
And I was like, there's no way that this is a priority to anybody right now. But I don't remember what month it was in, but they were like, "no, you got the grant. Come start working" in like July. And like we were talking about, my mother had just died. So Dan doesn't know how precious he is to me. So not only am I working in a burying ground that has ties to the witch trials, so my ancestors, I'm able to break away from just the awfulness of what was going on in the world and do all of these live videos and engage with people in there who are stuck in their homes in this really exciting way. And I hope that the people who are watching them felt like they were getting the gift that we were trying to give them. But if you go back to our Facebook page, if you go to the beginning of when the pandemic started, so summer of 2020, you'll see tons of live videos of us digging, of the things that we found, of us putting gravestones together, of us trying to entertain people in any way we knew how.
But we were hired to repair. We've repaired almost every gravestone in that cemetery. And when we got digging and got underneath some of the gravestones, someone had taken all the foot stones and threw them under the gravestones to support them, and they weren't corresponding with the gravestone that they were in. So we were like pulling together this puzzle. Like we would be in one of the Putnam, underneath John Putnam's grave, and we pulled out like four or five footstones from other graves and running around trying to figure out whose footstone that was. Sometimes they were broken and we put tons of them back into place. There are still some that we had to bury that maybe we could repair at another time. But the, just the amount of lost gravestones we found on top of also returning all those gravestones that they had in their storage. It's like a different, completely different place than it was when we started. And so then year two, we were hired back to just finish up a few different projects there. And we had a grant from the local cultural council, very small grant, but I feel so protective of that graveyard.
I wonder sometimes what Dan thinks of me. So one of the things that I do is when I make art and then so sculptures and then I make molds of my art and when I mix too much material, I'll pull that material in the molds and I end up with all these magnets and artwork and all of this, and every year I drop off like a couple dozen magnets at the Rebecca nurse homestead for them to sell as fundraisers, whether or not they want them. I just do it anyway. So if you go into their gift shop, you can probably buy some of my magnets from graveyards. But I'm also like fiercely protective of the burying ground.
At the beginning of every season, I email Dan. I'm like, "how did everything hold up? Any, cuz trees fall during storms?" I'm sure you've been to their homestead, and the cemetery is unprotected on three sides, so any wind would brush right through and could take out a repair, since we have to use really soft mortars. But everything's been holding up so far.
We had to re-repair Phineas and Ruth Putnam's gravestones, cuz they were really low breaks and then there was a wind storm and it knocked them right over. So we had to redo those. We just come right out and maintain them and no one needs to ask us, because I want everything to be perfect there. I want people to feel as proud as I feel going in there. I don't see myself stopping feeling protective over that burying ground until I'm just not able to do it anymore. But I think about it all the time, and it's my first thought, "have they opened for the season?" I want everything to look good for the visitors. I would never charge them another dime. It's important and special to me, and here are my magnets that you didn't ask for.
[01:03:50] Sarah Jack: As a Rebecca Nurse descendant, I'm so grateful for what you did there and hearing about your care for that land and those memories and those graves, it's very touching to me. I visited for the first time just under a month ago, and it was a brief visit. We were there. Dr. Leo Igwe was gonna be speaking in the meeting house, and we had just, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes before, and I got to walk through the field, go into the cemetery, and I can't wait to be back. I would love to be able to just sit there and soak it in. I was really taken by the trees, as well, cuz they're just so huge and, but everything was perfect, what you've done there has left it perfect. It was beautiful. Everything looked so wonderful. Thank you for that work.
[01:04:44] Rachel Meyer: That place smells good. The pine, it just, every once in a while we work in a burying ground that just smells like a car air freshener tree. And that's one of them. You just go there, and you're like, this is amazing. Dan feels strongly that Rebecca Nurse is buried at that cemetery, and I don't disagree with him.
I haven't read a lot of, I haven't retained, I should say, a lot of the documents around her burial, but, so there are actually a series of embedded fieldstones in a row and I feel, that's how we buried our early dead, so I feel strongly that those embedded fieldstones are early burials. You don't know whose they are. I can't say which one would be hers, but it makes field of someone who you were trying to conceal. Then the cemetery growing around them when it became a little bit less scandalous and unlawful to have these burials. But you can tell these embedded fieldstones, because they are in a line and one even has an embedded fieldstone footstone.
Like I was told George Jacobs' grave was found over near Hollywood Hits in Danvers is that his bones were found in between two embedded fieldstones, which tracks. That makes plenty of sense. And then they were disinterred, and they were put into storage and then reinterred in the Nurse Homestead with the new gravestone.
So what I know of early burying in New England, burying those very early people, you see it in slave graves, too. Like we're, we just did a gravestone assessment in Lynnfield, where we uncovered a section for people of color in the back, and there were embedded fieldstones there. We found it on a very old map. We weren't digging through and finding people, but it's, it tracks with trying to hide, either trying to hide a burial, somebody not getting enough respect, or there just not being a gravestone carver in town yet, so I wouldn't doubt if one of those sets of embedded fieldstones down at the cemetery are hers.
[01:06:55] Sarah Jack: Thanks for talking about that. When you talked about feeling responsible, protecting the burials there, I just find that so interesting. When I look at her whole story over these centuries, people have felt that way, her descendants, the community, to her history. There's so much that we know of her, so much that we have of her because people have taken responsibility for that memory. I find it very interesting how that just, there's so many different ways that comes into play when you look at her story and then when I hear you speak to that, too, I'm like, that's really interesting. It's very amazing. .
[01:07:41] Rachel Meyer: She died with my 11th great, I think it's 11th great grand. They died on the same day. That means something to me. There's also something about Rebecca Nurse, where she is impossibly wholesome in a way where it's not that other people weren't, but with some of the others, other people accused, you get it. You're " she spoke up, she was a little different. She owned things that she shouldn't have been allowed to own per that time in history or whatever it was." But Rebecca Nurse, it's like that's just weird. She was clearly not somebody I would accuse of witchcraft. I don't mean to laugh about that, but maybe I'm the kind of person I would accuse of witchcraft, but I look at her so pious and attending church and doing good, taking in people's kids, like why would you accuse her? Am I correct in saying that she was originally found innocent and then found guilty later?
[01:08:37] Josh Hutchinson: That's absolutely correct. She was acquitted. And then Justice William Stoughton, the Chief Justice, instructed the jurors to reconsider. He had misinterpreted something that she said. When another accused person came in, she said, "oh, you brought them in. They're, they were with us." And she meant that they were another prisoner, but they're like, oh, she meant that they were another witch.
[01:09:10] Rachel Meyer: That isn't the only thing that I've worked on that was connected to the witch trials, that some of the things that I work on, I'm thinking about just the people who would be like, haha, you said the wrong thing. I worked on the gravestone of Sheriff John Harris here in Ipswich. We found very little of it, so we had to just put it in a tiny base. But, I think he was somebody who carted people from Ipswich to Salem during the trials.
And then there's a strong connection at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, because it feels like a complete picture. You have a house there and all the history there. But there's a lot of people who were accused in all kinds of burying grounds around here, including also people who played some pretty nefarious roles in those trials that you're like, cool. I was over at Abbott Street Cemetery giving a tour. We've been talking a lot about restoring Abbott Street Cemetery with Historic Beverly, and we were over at the Reverend John Hale's gravestone, which is carved by Nathaniel Eames, is this really dramatic slate stone with these wings that, it's just unbelievably dramatic.
And I had read the Modest Enquiry that he wrote after the trials, and it was my first time reading it and I'm so on the fence about Reverend Hale, cause I feel like I'm reading this, and part of me knows he's doesn't believe in witchcraft, like a big part of me is this is a member of my congregation that was accused and let's, I'm just gonna have an aside with her and see if maybe we can work this out.
And you're reading that pamphlet and there are times as a first time reader where you're like, "and say it. There's no such thing as witches. Say it." But he never says it. And he's talking about spectral evidence, and it's like literally painful that in his time it's hard to be like, is he kowtowing to those that he answers to? Or is he believing what he's writing but not being able to really go the distance? Because the way he's speaking, it's as though he clearly didn't believe in the whole thing, but he feels only allowed to say we don't believe in spectral evidence. I don't know. As a first time reader, I got a certain, just a real feeling of letdown about that pamphlet. Go all the way. Come on, Reverend Hale. You can just say it. And he just didn't say it. There are all these middle people that weren't bad, but they were also like not helping completely, you know?
[01:11:48] Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.

[01:11:59] Mary Bingham: Most men in colonial America were farmers by trade and designated a portion of their farm, usually by a corner lot, to bury their loved ones. This was almost certainly so for Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor. I will return to their stories in one moment. Generally speaking, the body of the deceased was laid out at home no more than two days after the death. Mourners would come, pay their respects, and drink some liquor specifically set out for them. Then they would congregate outside the house until it was time to carry the oblong wooden coffin to the burial ground. It depended on the length of travel from the home to the burial ground as to how many sets of bearers would carry the coffin.
Usually the elderly men carried the cloth that covered the coffin, and the first group of younger men carried the coffin a designated amount of time before another set of younger men took over for relief. The burial was simple, without symbols, and in silence. Messages from the mourners were attached to the frame on which the coffin rested. Those messages were removed before burial, and in some cases were published.
The penalty for the capital crime of witchcraft in the colonies was hanging. The bodies were then cut from the gallows or the tree and thrown in a nearby crevice. It was confirmed by a ground penetrating technology circa 2017, before Proctor's Ledge was confirmed as the hanging site, that no human remains were there.
So let's go back to 1692. What most likely happened is the families came in the darkness of night to bring their loved ones back to their farms to be buried. In the case of Rebecca Nurse, she was eventually excommunicated from her congregation. Thus she would not have a proper burial. Tradition states that her family did in fact come later for her remains and return them to her property. No historian of which I am aware has argued against this tradition. We all believe with almost 100% certainty that Rebecca is buried on the beautiful burial ground on her property.
Most likely this was the case for John Proctor, as well. In John's case, there was a document that Emerson Baker and Kelly Daniel found at the Peabody Historical Society where Proctor descendants described where on his property he was buried, by a stonewall near what is today the high school in Peabody, Massachusetts.
George Jacobs' remains were found on his property. He was eventually interred at the Nurse family homestead in that burial ground. For more information on the memorialization of Rebecca Nurse and George Jacobs, please listen to the following Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast episode titled "Dan Gagnon on the Salem Witch Trial victim George Jacobs, Sr." For more information on the burial of John Proctor, please listen on YouTube to "America's Hidden Stories: Salem Secrets." Thank you.

[01:15:38] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:15:40] Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[01:16:00] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), weekly news update. Thou Shall Not Suffer podcast records in the United States, but is important to us that we connect and partner globally as much as possible with all communities around the world. Witch-hunt violence has and does continue to impact every corner of the earth in some way. The world grows more connected, and we must collaborate collectively to end witch hunts.
Dr. Leo Igwe, director of Advocacy for Alleged Witches will be going on a speaking tour of the Scandinavian countries in August of 2023. If your group is interested in hosting Leo, please inquire as soon as possible. His speaking topics include blasphemy, freedom of religious belief and humanism in Nigeria, advocacy against witch persecution, and critical thinking in educational reform in Africa.
We had the pleasure of hosting Leo this past May for a speaking tour on his advocacy against witch persecution presentation in the United States in New England. You can view his May 15th Salem Witch Museum presentation on the Salem Witch Museum website. See our episode show notes for the direct link. When you host Leo, you'll be enriched by his conversations and presentation content. He is a relatable expert that is exceptional at engaging his audience and communicating the urgency of his presentation topic with facts, on the ground experience, and familiar scenarios that help attendees connect to what he is teaching.
We had the pleasure of hosting him at three historical museums, a university, and the Connecticut state capitol. Holding these events with Leo grew and benefit both Leo's and our organization's social and professional network in a powerful way. Be creative and consider how one of his topics could fit your organizational events and social justice work. Please use your social connections to support him, and bring him to your Scandinavian community this August. It will not only bring diverse education to your event, hosting Leo supports his important social justice work, and amplifying his work impacts men, women, and children living in our world now who need global advocates.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project has started to collaborate with individuals and organizations in discussion about a future Connecticut state witch trial victim memorial. This would not be in place of local community tributes for the individual victims like Alice Young, Goody Bassett, or Mary Barnes, for example. To join us in the early stages of brainstorming and recognizing what descendants and Connecticut residents would like to put together to pay tribute and educate, please contact us now.
Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast supports the global efforts to end modern witch hunts. Get involved. Financially support our nonprofit initiatives to educate and intervene. Visit endwitchhunts.org to make a tax deductible contribution. You can also support us by purchasing books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or subscribing as a Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast super listener for as little as $3 a month at thoushaltnotsuffer.com. Keep our t-shirts available on zazzle.com in mind when you start to get excited about Halloween 2023, and buy some fun wear. Sport one of our awesome shirts, and introduce people to the podcast or one of our projects by leaving your house looking cool.

[01:19:21] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you Sarah.
[01:19:23] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:19:24] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:19:29] Sarah Jack: Join us every week.
[01:19:31] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:19:34] Sarah Jack: Visit at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:19:38] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[01:19:41] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more and to give a tax exempt donation.
[01:19:50] Josh Hutchinson: And please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to us. That will help us out significantly.
[01:20:01] Sarah Jack: Thanks for taking the time to do that.
[01:20:04] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and beautiful tomorrow.

July 6, 2023

Dr. Leo Igwe on the Deadly Witch-Hunts of the 21st Century

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Show Notes

Dr. Leo Igwe, activist and Director of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches gives a gripping update about the witch hunt crisis in Nigeria and other African Nations. Leo teaches us the historical and societal patterns and parallels of witch hunts past with modern day witchcraft accusations. We discuss the urgency of immediate interventions and how the landmark witch trial exenteration legislation in Connecticut resonates to the rest of the world. This episode is a call for worldwide collective action against witch fear, a call to create safe communities for the vulnerable citizens in our world communities and a plea for you to spread the word with transformative conversations using your social reach.

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Transcript

[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:29] Josh Hutchinson: We recently got to spend a week with today's guest.
[00:00:33] Sarah Jack: We toured historic witch trial locations in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
[00:00:37] Josh Hutchinson: And he gave five talks in five days about modern witch hunts.
[00:00:43] Sarah Jack: We had a wonderful time together in person. Be sure to check our social media for pictures.
[00:00:48] Josh Hutchinson: And now Dr. Leo Igwe joins us from Morocco for an important episode about 21st century witch hunting.
[00:00:57] Sarah Jack: We learn more about the current situation.
[00:01:00] Josh Hutchinson: And how past and present witch hunts are connected.
[00:01:03] Sarah Jack: Listen to the questions he asks us, the questions he's asking you.
[00:01:08] Josh Hutchinson: Stay tuned to learn how you can help end the witch-hunt crisis.
[00:01:12] Sarah Jack: Dr. Leo Igwe is director of Advocacy for Alleged Witches. He works tirelessly to end witch-hunting in the modern world. His organization supports the victims and works with authorities to respond to attacks on people accused of witchcraft. Listen carefully to what he is telling us about the situation and how we can help end the crisis by taking action together.
[00:01:32] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much for joining us today. We know you're super busy.
[00:01:37] Leo Igwe: And thank you for having me as usual. And this is a special edition, I'm sure, cause this is a first edition we're having since the resolution passed.
[00:01:45] Sarah Jack: So much has passed since we saw each other, since we talked, especially since the first time we recorded. This is exciting and special conversation.
[00:01:56] Leo Igwe: That was before of course I visited and I was able to, I went to the Salem Witch Museum and all the memorials there and all that. First of all, I want to say congratulations to you all for what you've done and the efforts you've made, and that nothing has connected, nothing has really resonated with what I've been doing here than what you just achieved in Connecticut and generally what you are trying to do in terms of remembering these people and honoring them as victims.
What applies at the moment is like people want to forget them. There's this kind of silence, there's this thing that, or some people use it for entertainment, or some people use it like the tourist thing. Okay. You take people around, showed people where people were murdered, people were hanged, tortured to death. And of course it's of tourist value. But these are human beings, for goodness sake. Yeah. Let's pause for a moment that these are human beings, and have we really paid the tribute we're supposed to pay? Yeah. Yes. What happened them is part of our history, no doubt about that. Fine. But have we really paid them the tribute, or we just talk about them like as in passing and use them to entertain people, use them to make money and that ends it and all that?
It was very inspiring coming around and getting to see all that's been going on in terms of honoring the memory of the victims in Connecticut. And like I said, it is part of the goal. What you're doing there, it underlies what I'm trying to do here. Yeah, when people are tortured to death, we shouldn't just push that aside, there's a need to understand what happened, need to make sure that justice is done, yes. So it is that sense of justice. It is that sense that people should focus on the miscarriage of justice that has taken place, instead of trying to talk about it as something that maybe should be used either for entertainment or lectures or to understand how primitive people were in the past. I think that's what resonated.
And I'm looking forward to also see how we can continue to use this to educate people. Yeah. And like I said, I noted in my lecture, Americans should not think that witch-hunting is a thing of the past in America, because they tend to be speaking to a very tiny segment of America that belongs to the past, actually, not to the present. Because if we are to look at it today, it is important they translate the resolutions, the memorials into educational programs, enlightenment programs, with the message never again. Yeah. It belongs to our past, but we can have it today, because a lot of people are migrating from different cultures.
The demographic tapestry of America is changing every day, and a lot of people are coming from Africa and Asia, and they become American citizens, and they hold these beliefs. So a lot of witchcraft accusations that are going on, but even though one cannot say the extent of the abuse, but it's important that we understand that these things are not much in the past and that honoring the memory of the victims could be a way America could tactfully and strategically position itself to make sure that the right message is sent to anybody who could indulge in such in the present and also in its future.
So that is on that side. Then on our side here is also, it resonates because for us, of course, I'm going to use it, or we are going to use it to also tell our lawmakers they need to do more. Yes, I was fascinated by the debate on the floor of the Parliament, State Assembly, as the case may be, how the parliamentarians were discussing and articulating this. For many parliamentarians in my own part of the world, they don't care. It, it sounds like something you are coming to disturb them. Yeah. So meanwhile, they should be abreast with this. So if it is something that is going to help us in my own part to begin to lobby the parliamentarians and say, "look at what is going on, look at how the lawmakers took a very great step to honor the memory of these people." But we're not actually talking about that yet. We're not there yet. We're even talking about taking steps to stop it, what is going on now? So that is why what has happened and what you are doing at your end of the world is very important today.
And again, I will not get tired of saying and repeating it. Whatever happens in America resonates a lot. Yes. And it is important that that leadership that has been missing, yes, because what has been missing, because it has been that silence. Oh, it belongs to the past, and you should be silent about it, even in the present. That shouldn't be the case. Yes. So it is also a message that people should have to break the silence when it comes to these victims and what they go through. And we should not hide it, because I was at the Salem Witch Museum and I saw all these monuments and moldings of people who were being hanged, and I was imagining the real thing. I wasn't even looking at that. I was imagining what happened in real life. And I was imagining myself being in that position. I was asking myself, "what is this?" Okay. And to say that a lot of people are going through such today, it means that we have not done enough, and there should be no sense of complacency anyway.
And that the memory, the tribute we are paying to the victims in the US, will not be complete until it includes and embraces the efforts to stop this, make sure that what these people suffered 300 years ago, over 300 years ago, thereabout, that people are not suffering this today, and that we should not end it there so that any area is going on, it should be something that we should include even in our lectures, in our education. And there's this idea that, yeah, while we remember those who were tortured, killed, murdered, executed 200 years ago, we should not forget those being tortured and executed today.
So doing, we bring this sense of globality. We bring a sense of universality. We bring a sense of connection. Because very often some people pride in saying, "oh yeah, it happens in my own part of the world." No, the world is more interconnected today than the way that the world was when this thing happened, so we cannot continue to use the idea of the world in the past to use it for today, and that we should begin to see this as, in quote, in this holistic form. So that, as we are going about remembering these people and honoring their memory and remember how they were tortured and what happened to them, we should also have somewhere remembering that in Malawi people are still being stoned to death and that elderly women are suffering the same thing, that in Nigeria, people are still tortured, set ablaze, suffering this, made to confess to crime they never committed, some will refuse till the time they get killed. And there are a lot of parallels, there's a lot of common pattern in terms of what people suffered so that this will help us send the message. And I think that this will be very valuable in our efforts to end witch persecution, let's say in Africa and in other places where these atrocities are still taking place.
[00:09:45] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much for that. You mentioned the visit to Salem, and you were able to visit the memorials in Salem and Danvers. What was your experience like there? What were you feeling? What were you thinking about?
[00:10:03] Leo Igwe: First of all, I was trying to imagine what happened 300 years ago. Yes. And because in the course of my scholarship trying to do the academic thing, the way they explain it is like, is a dead thing. For me, coming to this place is like reliving. It takes me back, and I was like imagining. I was like trying to imagine what transpired, trying to replay it in my mind based on the stories I've heard. Okay. So then I was like, another thing going on in my mind was like, still after 300 years, there are three descendants of these people feeling connected and feeling it as if this happened yesterday. Okay. It was inspiring to me, because I don't think that injustice has an expiration date. Because it happened 300 years ago. It's not, I can still relive it.
When I went to the museum, I saw the stone being pressed. That I think is a moment like that of the stone being pressed. I wasn't looking at something that was really turning to me, or I was looking at something that was, I was chilled. There was this kind of, I was stiff with the kind of pain and anger and worry at the barbarity, so I tried to, I reconnected with people ordinarily. Or with something ordinarily, I was meant to think, oh, it happened. When you amidst a lot of Westerners, when they talk about this witch hunting, they make hand like this, as if it's like a fly, oh this thing happened 300 years ago. Okay.
But they were human beings, flesh and blood, and they suffered it. And why it was very touching for me was that because I live in a world where people are going through the same thing. So it wasn't like old then, it was like I was seeing the man who was burned, I was seeing the woman who was set ablaze. I was seeing another woman who was being tortured to accept what she did not do.
They replayed the trial whereby somebody was acquitted. Then people would scream. Then the somebody was, the person, the same person was eventually convicted, and I recall in Malawi the judges will tell you that they don't want to acquit some people, because when they allow them to go home, they could be killed, so they sentence them to prison. That kind of thing. So all these things were going, emotions were all boiling in me, trying to, first of all, see how though it, how present something that people claim to be, something that happened in the past. That's one.
Number two, I was also moved by the fact that the descendants of these people are still there. And I could still see the emotion, because as an academic person, they try to tell you to be detached from things like this. And I'm not studying sticks, I'm not even studying stones or rocks. I'm studying human beings being killed and tortured. I'm studying human beings traumatized and pained and murdered, set ablaze, stoned to death.
It gave me an opportunity for the first time to really express myself. So, for instance, when we went to that memorial, I think that should be in Salem. Yeah. Where I paid tribute for the first time. I got there so close, and that's the closest I have been in my life. And that's the point I have really openly a little, I broke down, and tears came, because these tears have been there. I weep all the time they give me this news, but I've never had that space to really shed the tears. So it was like letting it out.
At the point it came, I was not prepared, but it just came, so I could now connect with these people who ordinarily, like now many of them being stoned, like they send me pictures, a woman being dragged and being stoned, I feel like crying immediately. But sometime you don't cry, start calling the police officers. Start calling, "okay, what are you doing?" Those things. I'm just, I was just pretending. I feel like crying. That's the first thing I wanted to do. But I will not cry. I'll be calling police officers, disturbing them. "Could you get to the venue? Could you make arrest?" And all that. So somehow as I was going, I was not, I had this opportunity to really express, and all that, yes, knowing that this wasn't actually taking place, but bearing in mind that this actually took place. In other words, it's part of our history as human beings. So that was the emotions that was going on in my mind.
And again, I was somehow was so happy that circumstances had made it possible for me to connect these histories. Which ordinarily, as an academic person, I should go back to any part in Africa or Nigeria or somewhere and be still be talking about the same people, sending researchers to go and be interviewing the same people, study how they are, how they're feeling, and coming back to classroom to earn money. Very important they are, but that's not my goal. This is a tragic situation. Yes. And it is a humanitarian crisis. I was happy to make these connections, and I'm hoping to use it in trying to help solve the problem, minimize the problem, reduce it, or if possible, bring it to an end.
[00:15:30] Sarah Jack: Do you wanna talk about the solving part or do you wanna talk more about your experience? Like with looking at the documents, do you want us to ask you a question about looking at the documents or Winthrop or anything?
[00:15:43] Leo Igwe: I think that one of the things also, I was happy with getting to understand the roles politicians played. That was another issue. Because there's always this idea, how did it end? And of course, they tell you this thing like, as if it's a little story, you know, a flip of paper, pen, they tell, oh, it ended. But this is a tragic situation. Stoning people, torturing them, pressing stone on them, a tragic situation that ended, so the role politicians played, and that's why I said I was very inspired when they told me about John Winthrop, Jr. And there's a need for us to challenge our politicians, yes. And I think, like I did when we made a presentation at the Capitol, I think that there's a need for us to tell the politicians that they're in positions to do better. They're in a position to take decisions that can benefit others, that can save lives. Yes. Let me just put it literally that way.
And that is why it is important. We will continue to celebrate the memory or the life or the interventions of John Winthrop, Jr. So that we also use that to inspire and get politicians that there's something they can actually do, because oftentimes they tend to be helpless or they think, oh yeah, it's the people. No, there's something they can actually do. So I was very inspired by that, and I may exploring ways of how I can use that story also to inspire politicians here and make them understand that we need more of John Winthrop, Jr. I told Senator Anwar and Representative Jane, I told them that you can be, and they have become that. They just stepped into the shoes. So I want to see how I can take that story beyond Connecticut to other places. And I tell politicians, you can also step into the shoes of Rep. Jane and Senator Anwar. Okay, so it is important.
So there are so many aspects of what transpired within my visit. There's a takeaway, and I'm hoping that I'm going to use that. And it must not always be politicians, decision-makers, wherever they find themselves, judges, police officers, they can all step into the shoes, because I know very well that if they are ready to do their work, we can see these atrocities, they will end, or they will drastically reduce. It becomes something like when you do it, it's just like when you committed crime, the whole society goes as a, it's not like the whole society resigns to it or want to sweep that under the carpet. So I was inspired by the role the governor, John Winthrop, Jr., played in ending that, and I hope that I'm gonna use it also as an inspiration or a way to lobby politicians, decision-makers, chiefs, and people in authority that there's actually something they can do.
Let me tell you what I found inspiring was that somebody was accused, and I think she instructed a person who went down. Was hidden, the person has to hide or, I think either the person's supposed to be punished or something like that. But there was a kind of try to protect the person from either being harmed or being punished. So there was a kind of a story, I don't know the best, I don't know, maybe you can help me with the story again, but try to protect the person.
So it's not just all about the law and decision-making. You can actually take personal interests and tell the person, "come and hide. Come and hide in my house until the tension comes down." So there's a lot we can do. Yes. Because one of the things that led me to this work is that when you interview people, they try to say, "yeah, what do we, what can we do?"
The mob, who are the mob? They're human beings, so if people feel that there's little they can, there's a lot they can do. These people can run to your place. You can hide them for some time. I've hidden them. For some you not, you're start engaging the people, and from there you can now save a life.
So what I'm trying to say is that going through this and understanding some of these dynamics as to what played out during that era and how it ended, was a great source of inspiration to me and how I hope I'll use that to see how I can rally a lot of people who ordinarily are resigning or who think they cannot do much to do this, to know that they can do something, and from that we could start hoping, seeing an end to this tragic situation.
[00:20:02] Josh Hutchinson: That was the story of Katherine Harrison from Connecticut. She was convicted of witchcraft. They overturned the conviction. She had to move to New York, and as soon as she got there, people tried to run her out of town. So a man took her in and housed her. And yeah. And you're saying that's symbolic of the type of action that people can take.
[00:20:30] Leo Igwe: But could take. Yes, could take.
[00:20:33] Josh Hutchinson: So what kind of action can listeners take if they're hearing this right now?
[00:20:39] Leo Igwe: Let me tell you the joy of today's world, cause we might all be thinking about all the dangers we face and all the risk we roll and all that. Let me tell the joy of today's world. You can do something from wherever you are. Yes. We are continent apart as we speak now, no, but we are putting together a program. People are going to listen without knowing that we are continents apart. We are hours and hours ahead or behind each other. Okay? So we have in our hands facilities like telephone or our phones and things like that. Now drawing attention, some relevant authorities, and they're there, there are a lot of, there are a lot of organizations, let's say, in different parts of the world that you can use to, "Hey, I don't like this. What is going on?"
Or provide platforms. Because one of the challenges actually we have, for instance, in my own part of the world is that a lot of people don't even want you to talk about it. A school owner told me, "Leo, come here and teach us critical thinking, but don't come here and tell us that witches don't exist," or something like that. Sometimes there's even this prohibition. They don't want you to talk about it.
Okay, so first of all, you can help begin the conversation, yes, somewhere. Now there are a whole lot of Africa-related issues coming up. I know that whenever Africa comes up, there's always this stereotype about it, but we can open these spaces to looking at, okay, it happened there, it's happening here, making some comparison, and also looking at some of also universal trend, misogyny, patriarchy. This is an not peculiar traffic. These are things you find embedded in some of these issues.
We can bring a perspective using witchcraft. Others can bring a perspective using some other thing happening. But it is patriarchy, it is misogyny that is being played out, miscarriage of justice, mob violence, these things can take dimensions. What I'm trying to say here is that if you really feel pained by what's going on, and if you really think that we need to end this, we also have to be very creative about what we do, yes, in terms of how we integrate it. Though there's a lot going on in the world today, you can really draw attention to it, so it has so many dimensions. It has a human rights dimension. It has a women rights dimension. It has a children's right dimension. It has a policing dimension. It has a security dimension. It has a rural development dimension, urban development dimensions. But the fact there is that, what I've noticed is that same idea that it doesn't matter, that idea of minimizing it, that idea of trying to wish it away. It has also been institutionalized so that people find it difficult to mainstream this.
Imagine the situation whereby we have conferences on development in Africa and we have a section and looking at the intersection between development and witch-hunting and witch persecution. But of course, you will still see the people in authority wish them away. Meanwhile, the person who is covering it or trying to brush that aside, people are being persecuted and killed in the person's villages back in Africa.
So that is the tragedy. The thing there is that we really need to wake up. We need to change our orientation. We really need to admit that this is part of our history and confront it. Because if we don't confront it, it will remain there. And because a lot of people, when I was traveling around and speaking, I keep hearing, "oh, I don't know that this thing is taking place." and, okay, if you don't know, what did you go to school to do? So if you don't dunno, what is your internet do? Because I want to tell you, put this online and put witch hunt in Malawi. You will see terrible pictures, and you know they will not give you the news. Internet will give you images. Okay? So how can you say you know a lot, you don't know that this happening? There's always a way I feel when people tell me, "ah, but I don't know about this." Like, where are you coming from? Where have you been living? Okay.
The fact is that many people don't know. Yeah, that's a fact. And I don't think that all these people I met in different parts of the US are lying. They're not. They were not lying. Ok. Many people don't know. So the first is that we have to know. What you can do is that, please, you need to know wherever you are. Please go online and try to see what is going on. And from there, begin to figure out what we can do and let that mainstream.
Like now, I went for a conference, African studies conference in Cologne. Yeah. Because of my travel arrangements, I couldn't submit any abstract on witchcraft persecution and things like that. There was no talk about it at all. Instead, they were talking about, some anthropological African sense of engineering, some very, queer, somewhat interesting kind of thing. All this idea of, oh, Africa has this little sense of engineering. They'll not be going into the villages and thinking about certain things. Nobody will even replicate anywhere. Okay. So you see a lot. Being people overlooking it, people pushing the matter aside, not even for grounding, not even bringing it. And because of that, a lot of people will finish going to the university. They say they don't know.
So please what you can, the world needs to know, you can help us from wherever you are to inform the world. Because you know why? If people are informed, and I think they'll be in a better position to take action, so that one of the reasons why people are not taking appropriate action is that people are not informed or being informed. And again, don't wait to be informed. After listening to this, go online, and again, after getting informed, inform another person. From there, it start growing. And action can now come from different angles and different dimensions, because I want to tell you, I want to get partners. I want to get people who can help me. Like now they're burying people alive in Zambia. I cannot be in Zambia. They're burying people are alive in Nigeria. I cannot be in Zambia, I cannot be in Nigeria. They are burying people are alive in Côte d'Ivoire and some other places, they told me. I cannot be there. Burkina Faso. So the problem is huge. I need a lot of people to get involved, and people can really get involved when they get informed. So if what you can do is to help us inform the world, you are helping us a lot. If whatever you can do is to help us mainstream it in conferences and programs and discussions and workshops and all that, you are doing a lot, because I think that immediately we win the information war. In other words, get people more informed. I think that it will put us in a better position to address the problem. Cause I don't want to come back, let's say in the next visit America again. I'll be going around in the next two years and people, are still telling me, oh, "I dunno what is going on. I dunno what this is going on." Please, if you're listening to this program, please inform people it is there. So that what I want to be hearing is that, "what can we do? This is my suggestion. Can we get this done here? Can we issue press release? Can we send a letter to this president, this parliament? This is action oriented?" So for now, between now, the next time I'm visiting is information. We have to win the information war. We have to get people informed. Then after that, we now take the action phase. And hopefully that will help us see how we can begin to contain and end these horrific abuses.
[00:28:00] Sarah Jack: One of the things that it brings to mind is Americans tend to make light of when they figure something out. There's a meme or a joke that goes around that says, I was this many days old when I found out there were witch hunts or I was this many days old when I found out how to open this. It's like like a joke in a sense. And I hope that people start to understand that.
I don't think that right now Americans are surprised when they learn things about history that they didn't know you. You mentioned people are educated yet there's some significant holes in the education and then it's on the person to fill those holes. And I think we're in a phase as a culture, some of us are, where we're realizing, oh, we have these holes in our understanding to fill. This is something that is greatly impacted by that and other injustices and vulnerable people who suffered because of what was happening and then we don't know about it still. So this, what you're speaking to right here is extremely significant, obviously, to our modern victims, but to helping the citizens of the United States and of the world understand how critical it is that we do know, that we are getting to that next phase where we're taking action and asking which action shall we be taking? Not, oh wow, this is still so surprising. We have to get past the, this is surprising.
[00:29:41] Leo Igwe: Yeah. We need to, because, we have all the facilities not to. Not be, keep telling us This is surprising again. Yeah. Because it'll not be looked differently as if, okay, you it that this person really doesn't want to take the necessary steps. And that's why I said, there's a need for us to go through, past that phase and understand why we are still using that this is surprise, or this is not, I've not known this, I don't know this, I didn't get to know this. We need to find out a reason for that and address those reasons so that we can make progress, because we just need to make progress in this.
And I want to tell you that when I announced this program in 2020, when I announced it, some of the journalists were like, they were thinking that, "oh yeah, this is like a pipedream." So there's this idea that yeah, this program, even if you engage in this, nothing is not going to come out. So it is not something that you should bother about. Yeah. Okay. So the silence has turned to inaction and despair and you other feelings that, so you don't, you, people just don't want to get into it, okay?
Now, I would like us to see what we can do to overcome that, because that's exactly the mentality. Where will you get the resources for this? Whom are you going to work with? Who will support you? There are so many questions that they ask that border on "why get into this? People have forgotten this, or people don't want to pay attention to this. Why not allow this to continue the way it is?" So we really need to send that message that it is no longer going to be business as usual. And that's exactly what you did in Connecticut. You, you said, the message said, "no, we're going to remember these people. Sorry. These people are this, these people are that." And like the little I know, if I'm wrong, you correct me. The attempt somebody made in the past some years ago did not succeed and these were not succeeded in such way as if they just kept the votes, maybe the successful votes in the past and now added a few more to it. And they now passed the resolution right away.
What am I trying to say? Let us start very small, because we have a problem. It is clear. We have a problem. Okay. And like I said, the woman murdered by witch hunters in Cross River in southern Nigeria, the daughter lives in the U.S. And from the immigration pattern, the daughter will end up being an American, if not she's American already. They're gonna have children. In other words, the grandchildren are Americans. Okay? This thing is not as distant. And the attitude of I don't know, or it's surprising is bordering on, we're being negligent. We're really failing to do or know or understand or address a problem we should be addressing. And like I said, we can start now, before it becomes something that will now involve human resources and the, and all kinds of issues and all that. It gets more complicated, so what I'm saying there is that it is important that we change our attitude towards this. Yes.
And what has happened in Connecticut is that this can be done. All of a sudden people took it seriously, and it resonated with them and it passed. And that we can take that sense of optimism, that sense of the fact that we can really change the attitude, towards other sectors. So that, because you know what I was thinking when I was coming, when I was returning from the United States, I was like thinking the next 50 years, the next hundred years, people may not even remember the individual actors who contributed. People will not ask, oh, were there oppositions? Were there setbacks? Were there people who didn't want to vote? People will be with the questions that, okay, what did you do? You did, you helped something, you helped another memory of this. That's only thing they want. And that's it. So they won't bother. How long did you go, the letters you wrote? How many times? Sarah flew from Denver to Connecticut. Did you come by road to do for this hearing? What did they tell you at the hearing? Some of these tiny bits, which we feel through this, a bit frustrating or something, in the course of this. What happens that, oh, what did you do? You worked together and honored the memory of these people, period. So what I'm trying to say that a hundred years from now or something, people may not ask, "okay, Leo what you're doing? Did you get support from Sarah or Josh or End Witch Hunt organization?" The question is that this thing ended.
And maybe if properly documented, they will not be reading the tiny bits of how they came together. And so what I'm saying is that we're in the position to do this now. Let's not stop. Let us not allow anything to stop us from leaving a legacy that people will look back tomorrow and draw inspiration from. Yes. So let us not make excuses because the generations coming will blame us. Yeah. They may not blame us individually and all that, but they will look at it as just like we're looking at the people who were pressing stones on human beings who were, we're looking at them and said, ah, yeah, these people, they didn't do well, as they say in Nigeria. That's the way they say it in Nigeria, "these people didn't do well." Okay. You'll say that. Yeah. So we have opportunity to do better. We have opportunity to do some good, and the next generation will be happy.
They won't ask, "how did you do it? Did you get the resources from outside or inside? From white or black or yellow or green or in between?" No. They just want to hear that this problem, you have, you did something and it ended it. So what am I trying to say? The world is changing and we have a problem, and we may not know the kind of world that will be coming of less in the next 20, 50 years. It might be world whereby if you said, "oh, because I'm in America, we didn't do this" to stop it in Malawi, they will not, I don't know. They will, should I say pass your memory or cause I know that they will not be happy with you. Okay.
So it is important we understand this and look to the future and understand that if we're in a position to stop this, somewhere else, if we're in a position to use what we're doing in one part of the world to help end this in another part of the world, let's do it. You may never know, like I said it, nobody knew that I would ever get connected with what happen in Salem. Nobody. Yes, and this John Winthrop, Jr., I know in his widest imagination, he may not know that there's somebody like me, who looks like me, who might be talking about him today, and I want to let you know that the same thing applies to all of us listening to this. You may never know who might be there tomorrow thinking about this, honoring the efforts we are being made today. So let's make the efforts, if we can. Let's stop this, because we might actually be doing something that might resonate with us, whether we are in the U.S., whether in America or in Africa or in Europe.
[00:36:32] Josh Hutchinson: Is there more that politicians in the United States and internationally can be doing right now?
[00:36:40] Leo Igwe: Yes. I wish that they could do more. Yes, because I know that politicians getting them to do things is really hard. But of course, when, when they decide to do it, yes, it gets done at least a good one. As we saw in Connecticut.
I want them, if they can, to take this resolution a bit further. Yeah, take it beyond the states, because I want us to put this on record. Witch-hunting is not a thing of the past in the United States. Yes, any politician. Because the next thing you're going to hear in the next few years when maybe cases start coming up, "oh, I didn't know. We didn't know this was going on." I'm telling you now. Listen to this program and understand now that witch-hunting is taking place in the US as we speak. And that politicians, they have demanded to help in putting place mechanisms that can save lives, protect the people, and guarantee a better and safer living of people in the communities. And they can do well if they can take this up and use it to send a very clear message, like I said. Yeah, I know they have done it at the state level. If they can take it a bit further, it'll very appreciative, because it'll keep sending the same message which they have sent in Connecticut, which is, "America, this belongs to our past." Yes. And whatever migration ways we get, it belongs to our past. Okay. And that can be a measure that can save America maybe millions or billions of dollars.
Time to start investigating and start getting into a necessary debate that might border on racism, neocolonialism, and all that, because it might be affecting migrants. So let's have politicians who think ahead, that's a question. So politicians should not just only think back to understand what happened. They should also think ahead and put in place mechanisms that can also make sure that this doesn't repeat or if it is going on, it just fizzles, it just fits away. So they can do more. They can do more. And again, politicians are not operating in islands.
I'm attending a conference organized by Interparliamentary Union, IPU. Okay, so parliamentarians are here. Yeah. But they're organizing something on interfaith dialogue, and they're inviting humanists for the first time. So I am still trying to understand what so I don't want to rock the boat on my first invitation. So I'm coming down just to understand the landscape, because I will really bring this issue, but I don't want to bring it and get disinvited, and I'm again representing the humanist association. So I'm trying to understand this.
So parliamentarians work together. Politicians work together so they can use their network to also send a message to their colleagues and said, "what is going on? Do you need help? We can help you." So they can use their network to also address the problem.
The thing that, like I said, is that there's always this feeling that there's nothing we can do about it. Or even if we do something, it will not be effective. And this has made us to live with a situation, with a problem that we can solve, and this will made us to be ignorant of something we should know about. So there's a need for us to change this attitude. Politicians have to change this attitude. And it is only by changing this attitude, it's only by understanding that today politics is not just local. Politics is also global. And there's a lot we can do by tapping into those global mechanisms and dynamics to address problems like this, which are problems that could, may end up affecting us sometime. Yes.
Like I noted in one of my presentations, the migrant communities in the UK have recorded cases of witch-hunting, because many of them came with their churches, and these are witch-hunting churches, witch-exorcising churches. And from there, the whole thing started rolling in and of course the government went into it. They started an, in fact, they started a particular program, all sorts of things. Their metropolitan police, everybody got involved. Like I said, if they had acknowledged this and begin to address it, and all of that, I don't think it would've gotten to that.
Let's face the reality as it is, and I think that is how we can begin to address this problem in the 21st century manner. Yes. In a manner that suits this century with all the dynamics playing out today in the world.
[00:41:42] Sarah Jack: I was wondering what does memorialization for modern victims, what should that look like? What should that be doing?
[00:41:52] Leo Igwe: Is a question I've asked and of course I'm trying to get an answer first. Now, let me tell you the challenge we have. Like myself, I have not been able even to visit the sites of many of the modern victims, because it's always tense, because people might attack you, because they think you are behind the police officers, they're prosecution. Because when I'm moving police into those places, it becomes very tense.
I've not been able actually to go to pay personal tribute to these people to see their gravesite. The closest I have gone is the one I did in the US. So just to let you know how what happened in the US you know how I got connected, because many of those places when they happen, I move in with, I bring in the police, and the place become tense, so we cannot actually go in. In fact, some places, police officers could not go in. It was as bad as that. Not to talk of the person who is responsible for bringing the police officers. So first of all is that we have to create an environment where we can actually memorialize these people. That is the first step.
Okay. Now doing that sends a message. Okay, because that's exactly one of the things I saw I'm going to be doing anywhere we are able to be sure it'll be safe or won't be able to do something there that when you finish it in the night, they will come and scatter it or destroy it and things like that. We will do it, because it sends a message, a very clear message, but sometimes there'll be resistance.
Cause a lot of people don't want that message that this person should be honored, that this person, is like when you do it, like in my organization, they say you're encouraging it. Yes, you are supporting it, or you are one of them. Yeah. So many misconceptions will be rolling, in which mind, if you don't manage them very well, it turn to, it'll turn to violence. Memorializing, honoring their memory is something very important because of the messages we send, but we are still yet to get a clear one, because like now most of them, either the cases are in court, people are running away. If you come around there, you're a stranger, people run away, or people might harm you, or waylay you on the roads, attack you or kill you or things like that. So it is always very dangerous.
So it's something that we have to allow some time before we can begin that process. I'm also looking at something like having maybe a Memorial Day, something like that, whereby we could just meet in the city and invite family members. Okay. To come around and we talk about the people that passed away and what they're doing. So I'm thinking, like I said, it is still something I'm struggling to do. For now what is very likely is having something like a day or an event where we remember them.
Last year, we tried doing something like that, but we didn't call it memorial. We call it honoring our heroes. A lot of people, whistleblowers, people who tell us, who draw our attention to that. So we gave them a kind of an award, just incentivize so that people, when these things are happening, they'll be able to either to inform us or tell us. So that's a bit of what we did. And some of the victims we brought them, too. Some of the survivors, they now told us what they went through, what they passed through. So that's what we, that was.
We might bring in a layer of memorializing it, though just one day, whereby we might also get people from those families. The challenge we usually have is that people have so much trauma after this, because the direct descendant children are the people there, and sometimes they want to forget. They want to get over. They don't want to be recalling what their mother went through and all that. And I also don't want to be instrumental to getting them to relive what they feel they want to forget. So you can see the whole thing playing out now.
I want to get my society to move fast to where you are now, but you know, It's gonna, it's not gonna be very easy, and all that. Again, I also would of course not create a situation that will make people traumatizing them more and all that if they want to forget it. We also, we always allow the family members to decide what to do. Yeah. If they don't want to come, that's fine. If they want to come, we give them the space, incentivize, and make them feel very good.
So the memorial thing is something we will have to think of about carefully, but it'll help in sending a message, especially to the wider public, messages of deterrence, messages that, ah, don't do this thing. This is and all that. An indirect way of telling people, stop this. Yes. Without really going to there to tell them that. So it is something we have to think of carefully, think about carefully and plan in such a way that we can use it as a resource of education and a resource also of sending a message to the whole society.
[00:47:01] Josh Hutchinson: I think the delicateness that you're talking about, you have to be so sensitive to all these issues itself helps to bring alive how real this problem is and how it's not just in the past, because this is a very fresh wound, and new wounds are being added daily, unfortunately. So I think for, as an American who has that, this was 300 years ago mentality, that's impactful to me to know just how fresh these wounds are, how the tears are not dry.
[00:47:50] Leo Igwe: Like I said, I'll think about it carefully and because many families of victims, they're always happy that people are honoring them or providing them the psychosocial support. They were, they're always very happy. But I'm trying to make sure we do it so we don't impose it on them. It's not like it's sound imposition, it is actually something that could help their healing. Yeah. So I'm always out of ideas when I meet them. Cause I don't know whether to cry. I don't know. I know what to, whenever I meet them, it is like, what do you want? I take them sometimes. So that, okay, you want me, I can put them out in a hotel for some days, just try to see how I can get them back to the normal all this day, because they're always very traumatized.
So what I'm trying to say is that, yeah it is something that I will have to think about creatively and see how we can do it as part of an effort to provide them support, not necessarily against their will, get them to be reliving their trauma. Okay. Uhhuh. Yes. So it is, like I said, it's something I have to think about and and also we have to also do it in such a way that of course it doesn't provoke the situation.
We move it away to a venue where we can bring them there, and we talk and we do our thing, and in fact, make sure it serves the goal. Which is to provide them some kind of closure, to provide them with some kind of support, and then send the message of deterrence to the wider community. I think for me, this is what I could see when it comes to this memorial thing, but we have to really plan it out very well to make sure that it achieves that goal.
[00:49:30] Sarah Jack: That's very good. There's some similar dimensions when you look at the exoneration effort in Connecticut or any of the ones that have occurred in the United States. Some descendants, it's so traumatic and raw for, they really can't get involved, but they want to see it happen. So like after HJ 34 passed, we heard from so many descendants who were just, they were healing, because they saw that their ancestor, their name was made right. But they needed to do it outside of the action. They personally couldn't do more, because of how they were coping with that history. There's just all those different layers for different people. It's not the same. But I understand, I've learned from hearing from people that the trials have really affected descendants in different ways. Of course, living family members in Nigeria who are literally having their life and family torn apart from it, that is real life happening right now. But I see that over the timeline, over the world, these have really caused deep wounds and everybody comes to face it in a different way and heal.
[00:50:54] Leo Igwe: Everybody faces in a different way, and what we try to do is try to identify if anybody that is facing this in a way that connects with us at our campaign, and we try also to process it in a way that we don't hurt somebody else who is a process it differently. Yeah. So that is, is a delicate balancing we try to do, because sometimes even from the point of view, when it happens, immediately happens, let's say what I mean by when it happens is that, oh, somebody's killed. Sometimes some family members don't want, because whatever you're going to do will not bring the dead person to life, okay?
But of course we tell them sometimes you can get a person to send a message that was, that's invaluable. Okay. But some of them cannot connect with that. Yes. Yeah, some of them cannot connect with that. So sometimes we might get one person, there was a particular family is only one person, and the lady who connected what we're doing, and we were able to provide a lot of help.
So in fact this man was beaten, they wounded him, I think broke his arm or something, because of witch-hunting, and I wanted to capture his story. Okay. So he said he wasn't interested. He said he wasn't interested, that he has handed everything over to God, that God should be the one to pursue it. It pains me, but that's how he, that was how he wanted it. So that was how we stopped on that case.
Another man came all the way to our event and sat very early before we even arrived at the event and was there, recounted his own story of what happened? He of course, his own, he was, it was the son that wanted to attack him and beat him and all that. So he was able to resist the son, and there was this kind of fight and the villagers came. So the son went and smashed the windscreen, the car, tried to vandalize and all that. So he came and narrated it and we were able to support him and just use that to send a message like we're saying, but that's what we used that for. But sometimes some people can't connect with that.
And that's also is also hampering our ability sometimes to send a message to the wider public. Cause if we don't get these people to work with us, if we don't get these people to tell us the story, or even come out to tell the world their story. Because what happens there is that we hear the accusers. We hear them, the accusers. Very often we, we don't hear the accused. And even when you're hearing from the accuser, you will be hearing from a third party, "oh that woman said." Now the woman now be so traumatized to come out openly and tell the word, look at what happened. It takes a lot, sometimes even years before the person can be in the form to, even if, I mean you are calling the press, many of them get apprehensive. They think that you might be worsening their situation. So what I'm saying, I'm just confirming the fact that people relate with this differently, and we are also trying to navigate that.
Bear in the mind that we want to help these people. We don't want to harm them for that. Yeah. So we don't want to go about it in a way that we get them to feel hurt, so all, so what, that's why we have, I said we have to be very creative about it. Those who are ready to connect with us, we take them, we use their memory, we try to see what we can do. We use their stories. We go to the media, hoping that the message will keep going out.
Then why we allow others to make sense of it, find closure in a way they want, so that we will not be like, maybe try end up maybe further traumatizing or interfering. Some of them feel that you are coming to interfere in what is actually their family thing, or they think that's something you want to make out of it. You want to use it for your own goal or I realize a particular thing.
So all these are complications. But what happens is that at the end of the day, a lot of people are appreciative of our intervention. They want the support, but sometimes how they relate with how we do, how we take that further, is different. And we always allow them to determine when they want us to stop, we stop and all that. But when those who want to continue with us, we'll continue, because we need them to tell the story in a way that a lot of people will connect better than when we actually tell their story on their behalf.
[00:55:25] Josh Hutchinson: As we wrap up, is there anything in particular you wanted to be able to say today? Is there another message you have for our listeners?
[00:55:36] Leo Igwe: The, I understand that, I mean our listeners mainly in the US I guess anything online, anybody can listen to it. So let me not be an old school kind of thing and say, because this is a podcast in the US it's going to be American listeners only. But what I'm trying to say is that we need to sit up, we need to see what we can do to address this problem, and we need to change our attitude, and you can do something.
Just like we heard about the person who was accused or at a point acquitted and somebody had to take her in and protect her. Just hid her for some time or something like that. You can do something personal there that might change the trajectory when it comes to life, because witchcraft accusation is a life or death issue.
You can do something there. Yes. And like I said, it might be something you take for granted, but it makes a whole lot of difference. Yes. You can share even the link, this very link, you can put it somewhere, you can share it in your apartment, there might be a conference coming up. You just put it out there.
What am I saying? If you can help us send this message. I want people to now tell me, oh, I know that this is taking place. I want people to stop telling me I didn't know it's taking place. Now we have the internet. Now you can listen to this. So share the link.
Let people get to know that it's taking place. So let's cross that, that this aspect, let's get over it and begin to say, okay, now it's taking place. What do we do? So that is one thing, I want our listeners to, see how, what they can do when it comes to that. We need to win this information war, and we need awareness war. So let everybody know that this is taking place.
Now. But if you're also in the position of drawing attention of other departments, organizations, because a whole lot of organizations are doing all sorts of things in terms of development, in terms of human rights, in terms of education, in terms of women's rights and all that. Anything that has some, because witch hunt has so many connections, has connections with security, it has connections with law, it has connections with education. Cause when you look at it, when you go out and listen and watch this video, there must be an aspect of it that you feel connected. Do something about connection. Just do something, this is my message, is do something. Because you can do something, you can share this link, you can draw an attention of somebody, you can connect.
Like when I went to the the Salem Witch Museum? They told me the story. They told the story and ended up with McCarthy, some American thing like that. I was like, oh, hi guys. I don't get this. You're American. You know witch McCarthy, some kind of witch hunting stuff. I'm talking about real real thing. They're talking about politics. You know the thing, the witch hunting story ended up with something like politics. No, I couldn't connect. Immediately, it stopped being what it is in my own world. I couldn't connect with that. So I'm not saying that they should not do it, but let them restrict that as an American one and let them bring in what is going on that place. Let them mention it. You may not have the details, but mention it, because that it was totally absent in the museum.
How do you expect people who get educated there to know that it's taking place today? So we still have work to do. So what I'm trying to draw attention is that there's a need for us to win this information war, this awareness war, this knowledge war, so that when we know this, we can now begin to look at tiny, little ways and actions we can take to begin to address it.
Because there is still this sense people get, no matter how they divided the world, maybe, no matter how people talk about racism and all that, there is still that sense of human connection. And there's this sense I see in the face of a lot of people whom I don't know,. Sometimes I send them money either for medical bills after they're persecuted or I send them money to their relocation. You, when you meet some of them, you still see that connection. And I want to let you know that there are a lot of people who will appreciate whatever you do to help them out of what is actually a life and death situation. And some of the things you could do are actually things you might even take for granted, but which will resonate invaluably, which will change somebody's life in a way you could not imagine.
So this is again, how the world as it is today puts us in a position to make a significant change in the life of somebody somewhere with something that my might appear so significant to us. This is our chance, this is our opportunity, and let's seize it. And just like the senators, the lawmakers in Connecticut, they seize this opportunity and passed the bill and passed the resolution and sent that clear message, overwhelmingly, when those campaigning were like a little worried that it may not happen. You can also create surprises in a way that will even maybe, I may not even, that will be beyond my expectation. By putting together efforts that can send a message that will resonate not only with victims, but also a lot of people who think that nothing can be done to significantly change what is going on in Africa and other parts of the world where witch-hunting is still an everyday reality.
[01:01:26] Sarah Jack: So important, leo, thank you so much. One of the early things that I learned from you, from reading about you before I met you and our first episode where we met you and interviewed you was one of the things that you have just said how you cannot tell the victim stories like they can. And I, so early realized we cannot, I cannot, the podcast cannot tell the story of what's happening in your country and other parts of the world like you can, and you have done that. And I hope that we can keep giving you that opportunity. I hope that this conversation does go on to that next phase of information, the action phase. It needs to. And I think about how, even a year ago, so much, so many people were very unaware that Connecticut had witch trials.
And for the most part, now we aren't, we are not hearing as much, "they had witch trials?" Instead we're hearing, "oh, I want more information," "oh, my family lived in that town," "oh yes." We got over a hump. I know there are still people learning and figuring it out, but we definitely saw a transition in the education and I know that you are going to, that we are all going to see that with this global issue of the witch-hunt, too. I know we are.
[01:02:55] Leo Igwe: And again, like I said this podcast may also sound like maybe something like a platform you just do it and put it out there. Is also important you understand that it's providing also a mechanism, a facility, of information. A lot of people might get to know what they never knew or might get to hear about what they never heard, or may we get to understand the urgency of something they take very lightly, and all that through this. So it, this is also serving, a very important function. And of course I will, I'll thank you Sarah. I thank you Josh for coming together and putting this putting this podcast together and providing this platform and doing this connection. I've said many times, there's always this disconnect. It's like we're talking about different things. That's what they tell us in the academic thing. They think we're talking about different things, and my mind is telling me we're not talking about different things, but they will tell you, okay, we're talking about different things. Explain it differently so that you get scholarship, you get funding, you get this thing when you say it's the same thing and all that, oh, and all that.
So a lot of people keep struggling, misrepresenting situations and all that. From there, they make a profession out of misrepresenting the situation. Okay? We are talking about similar experiences. Yes, it may happen to people 300 years ago, but I'm not interested in those year argument. I'm interested that it happened and that people suffered this thing and are still suffering it today and that we should treat it with that same urgency, with that same pain and all that we relate to the one that happened there.
So what am I trying to say is that your podcast has also helped in giving me that sense of connection. I never found it in the lecture room. I never found it doing my research and all that, because I'm told to see Africa as unique and explain it that way and see how things are functioning for them and all that. But I decided to rebel against that and do it my thing the way I understand, and luckily I have you people now who can see how things are really coming together, and it is like giving me some sense of fulfillment and some sense of hope that at least I'm on track or we are on track at least towards containing this problem and drawing from the world's resources, because I told people the resources are there. There's a way you present a situation, you deny yourself of available resources that would've been there. So I am happy that at least we can pull resources together. We not be addressing the same thing the same way, but we may be addressing the same thing differently. But what is important? What will they ask us a hundred years from now? We don't know how the world will be. Whether the whole world will just be on one phone. If you're on phone, bam, you can talk to anybody like the way you talk to any, you know, and all that. They would say, this thing ended, and let them hear that we did our best. We didn't misrepresent the situation and refuse to use the resources that we have available to address a problem. I know that people when they understand that we tried to present this problem the way it is and use whatever we could east, west, north, and south to address this, and all that. And that we did not celebrate the memory of some people in some part of the world different from others, and all that. Yes, it is a collective memorization and that's a project I think, and I hope that you're going to send the right message, and that is why, once again I'm grateful for you people, for what you're doing and for giving me this platform and also for being very supportive.
[01:06:22] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much for joining us.
[01:06:24] Sarah Jack: And now for a minute with Mary.

[01:06:35] Mary Bingham: It was an amazing gift to spend an entire day with Dr. Leo Igwe last May. Listening to his stories regarding how he and his organization help people brutally targeted for unfounded accusations of witchcraft have made a life-giving impact for me. I consider Dr. Igwe's enthusiasm to end witch hunts very infectious. I have made it my mission to continue to follow his mission and spread information regarding ongoing, real witch hunts on all of my social media platforms, hopefully furthering this education on my own, as well as through the organization of which I am a part. That will help Dr. Igwe to save lives from the hands of those who maliciously track people down, beat and murder these innocent women, children, and men.
Another activist I hope to meet someday is Monica Paulus. Monica grew up no stranger to violence in Simbu province of New Guinea. After discovering she in fact had rights as a human being, Monica challenged herself by moving forth to eventually defend women and children who suffered abuse due to accusations of sorcery. Monica knew how to get involved to get things done. Her involvement with certain groups led to the government to allocate 3 million Papua New Guinea kinas to set up committees. That amount is equal to about 842,000 US dollars. These committees were to address sorcery-related violence.
Monica's life has been threatened many times. Threats have even come from her own family members. She was told to move many times or else get killed. But Monica soldiered on to save others. In Monica's own words, she says, and I quote, "we really need each other at all levels. Human rights is everyone's business," end quote. On the ground, Monica has taken women and children accused of sorcery-related acts into her home for their safety, providing food, clothing, and shelter, even when she did not have much of those items to offer. Monica also helps to bring their accusers to justice in some cases.
To learn more about this extraordinary woman, visit stopsorceryviolence.org. In addition, please visit allegedwitches.law.blog to read more about Advocacy for Alleged Witches, the organization founded by Dr. Leo Igwe. Also I, along with Josh and Sarah, strongly encourage the listeners to visit endwitchhunts.org, the organization of which we three are a part. Any donation or purchase you would make could help to save a life. Thank you.

[01:09:46] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:09:48] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.

[01:10:08] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts is a nonprofit 501(c)(3). Here's our weekly news update.
Here's a course that introduces the study of beliefs and practices past and present associated with magic, witchcraft, spirituality, magical realism, and religion. It's called Witches, Bruxas, and Black Magic. These topics are discussed and include ritual, symbolism, mythology, altered states of consciousness, and healing, as well as syncretism, change, and the social roles of these beliefs and practices.
Stay tuned to where you can enroll for this online class.
On May 25th, 2023, the Connecticut General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. This legislation cleared the names of the innocent accused witches of Connecticut Colony. This milestone resolution passed when the majority of the House, 80%, voted yes on May 10th to pass it to the Senate. Then on the 25th, the Connecticut Senate voted almost unanimously yes, only one senator voted no, completing the passage of HJ 34.
This resolution was successful due to years of collective attempts and efforts from many, many local politicians and residents, witch trial descendants, and advocates from across the United States and the globe. It took every layer of efforts to get this done. Many individuals started it, many carried it, and many finished it.
So, since efforts for witch trial exoneration in Connecticut over the past decades were blocked at every turn, why did the renewed efforts in 2022 move so swiftly? Why did the witch trial victims officially receive state acknowledgement as innocent now within a year? How did this landmark legislation acknowledging innocence of Connecticut Colony's indicted and hanged accused witches gain wide legislative support?
Because a collective group of bipartisan legislators stood together against the witch-hunt mentality. The leaders of the state of Connecticut took a stand together for historic social justice. The mentality that targets vulnerable people, often women and children for the unprovable crime of causing harm and mischief through witchcraft . Not one case of such witchcraft accusation has ever been true, yet thousands and thousands have been punished and killed for it. Yes, annually thousands and thousands continue to be punished and killed for it in over 60 countries.
You have been transformed by the teaching of witch trial history, and you realize now how witch hunts happen is not a mystery. Why vulnerable people are hunted is not confusing. You may have realized the cause of witch-hunt mentality through research, reading, listening to podcasts and hearing academic presentations. There are ample trusted records that teach us about the societal stresses that press a community and influence panic and uproar around devastations that turn into witch targeting.
Remember the university class I announced at the opening of the weekly news update, WGS 4301 Special Topics: Witches, Bruxas, and Black Magic? It's actually no longer available. Fearful alumni of Texas Tech University reacted with moral panic to the offering of this type of common academic sociology and history curriculum on witchcraft-related topics. This Texas Tech course was erased from the online catalog because of the uproar of alumni. To be clear, this class is not an initiation into witchcraft practices that are feared to cause harm and misfortune.
History is record and sociology is science. We need academics to include both so that we act with knowledge, not fear, around witch trial and witchcraft topics. The modern crisis of witch attacks can only be faced and solved when we understand our history and our societal beliefs collectively. Banning this class is a moral panic that perpetuates the fears that cause violence against alleged witches.
Stand up for social science. Stand up for the vulnerable. Look into what you don't know and seek to understand from what we should know about history.
Today you were reminded about the ongoing mob witch hunts that are killing and violently abusing extensive numbers of women, men, and children in dozens of countries now. There are more victims now than ever before in the history of humanity. You are aware of the urgency. You understand the pressing demand for immediate interventions. Respond to the call for worldwide collective action against which fear. State Representative Jane Garibay is quoted as rightly saying, quote, "people working together achieve great success." Join the ones who are working to create safety for the vulnerable citizens in our world communities. You raise awareness with transformative conversations through the power of your social reach. Engaging in, quote, "the study of beliefs and practices past and present" is history and sociology. It is academic.
Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast supports the global efforts to end modern witch hunts. Get involved. Financially support our nonprofit initiatives to educate and intervene. Visit endwitchhunts.org to make a tax-deductible contribution. You can also support us by purchasing books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or subscribing as a Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast Super Listener for as little as $3 a month at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.

[01:15:32] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:15:34] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:15:36] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to this important episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer.
[01:15:41] Sarah Jack: Take action to end witch hunts.
[01:15:44] Josh Hutchinson: Start by telling your friends about what you heard today.
[01:15:48] Sarah Jack: And go back and listen to episode 16, Leo Igwe on Witch Hunts in Nigeria.
[01:15:54] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for taking action this week.
[01:15:57] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:16:02] Josh Hutchinson: Have a productive today and an impactful tomorrow.

June 29, 2023

Echoes of the Witch with Margaux Crump and Jake Eshelman

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day: Call for the abolishment of witch camps

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Show Notes

Echos of the Witch is a photographic documentary project by Margaux Crump and Jake Eshelman exploring American witch executions in the context of cultural memory, power and the land. Operating on the premise that places hold memory and that cultural memory can be deeply rooted, hear from the artists in this reflective episode on how their project captures the land and the people of these historical witch trial sites whether the memories of these persecutions have been honored, altered, hidden, perverted, or neglected. This discussion communicates End Witch Hunts’ message: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

Echoes of the Witch

KZN boy who allegedly killed elderly man he accused of witchcraft, stoned to death

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Transcript

[00:00:00]
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:27] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we speak with two photographers who have been touring the United States photographing witch trial execution sites.
[00:00:37] Sarah Jack: Margaux Crump and Jake Eshelman have captured images relevant to the trials and executions of 54 individuals across the country.
[00:00:45] Josh Hutchinson: We discuss what they've captured and what they've learned along the way.
[00:00:49] Sarah Jack: We had a deep conversation about photography, witch hunts, and humanity.
[00:00:54] Josh Hutchinson: Sit tight for some impactful dialogue.
[00:00:57] Sarah Jack: Margaux Crump and Jake Eshelman are artists and visual researchers. Their project Echoes of the Witch explores cultural memory, power, and the land as they manifest through American witch executions, and it is viewable online at echoesofthewitch.com.
[00:01:14] Josh Hutchinson: Can you explain for us what Echoes of the Witch is?
[00:01:19] Jake Eshelman: Echoes of the Witch is a photographic documentary project that explores cultural memory, power, and the land as they manifest through American witch executions. So really it operates on the premise that land holds memory and what we choose to remember says a lot about what it is that we value.
[00:01:39] So over the course of the last, oh, I guess it's almost four years now, Margaux and I have been traveling across present-day America to document all locations where our records indicate that 54 individuals were accused of witchcraft and executed by the state. So we're looking really at how the land and the people in these sites have honored, held, altered, hidden, perverted, or neglected the memories of these histories and really just trying to tap into really the fact that these histories are still unfolding in a lot of interesting ways in these locations.
[00:02:12] Sarah Jack: Who is the project for?
[00:02:14] Margaux Crump: I think that the primary mechanism I see happening in a lot of the witch accusations is othering of people who are somehow different, somehow a burden, and that still goes on in many different forms. And I think that these histories, like Jake said earlier, are still playing out in a lot of ways, and as a result, just looking at how we treat people who are different than us, I think that makes this work applicable to everyone here.
[00:02:44] Jake Eshelman: The reason it is a website is because we wanted everyone to have access to this history and access to at least some of the images from this site. We have some other aspirations for this project, in addition to, but it was really important to create essentially like an online accessible archive for anyone to be able to visit, to understand what we know, to explore some of the resources that we were able to find. And in that way, like, it's not just for someone to look at, but it's for someone to really explore and dive into, no matter who you are, where you are.
[00:03:12] And the other thing that I think is worth pointing out is that when we listed the names and locations of the people that we have records for of being accused and executed by the state, we also have an allusion to others yet unknown. And I think that this project also speaks to the reality that not all of these stories and not all of these histories have been documented, that there are still to this day instances of persecution that go undocumented and unrecognized. So I think that, even historically, looking through and acknowledging that there very well may be other instances that we just don't know about and people whose stories haven't been honored or told.
[00:03:55] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's so true. We're hoping that out of all these different projects looking at witch trials, some more research will happen and more records will show up, because we want to know everyone this happened to.
[00:04:11] And what are the echoes of the witch?
[00:04:14] Margaux Crump: I think of them like a palimpsest, which would be when you have an old manuscript, they used to scrape the pages down to reuse the velum that they would paint and write on. And over time the old writing would start to raise up and come through the new writing. And to me, the echoes are these places in the landscape where the past is starting to rise up and come up through the surfaces of what's there now. Or it could even be like a strange bush or a strange tree. There's just something a little uncanny or something you pick up on in the landscape, as well. Yeah. Traces.
[00:04:51] Jake Eshelman: Yeah, it could even be something as intangible as a feeling, like a chill or a presence or it's hard to put a finger on, and I think that's part of the interesting aspect of this project, at least for me is as a visual researcher is how do you visualize these very intangible things? Like how do you photograph the idea of absence?
[00:05:10] So, for example, if you're going to a location where records indicate that this was a hanging site, and there's no sort of memorialization there, it's just a gas station next to a railroad track, what, it's really interesting to have the context of this project, knowing this history and then being confronted with an image like that, because it just doesn't match up with our traditional understanding of memory-making and memory-keeping.
[00:05:33] Sarah Jack: What drew you to this project?
[00:05:36] Margaux Crump: When I was in grad school, I was doing a lot of women and gender studies. That's what we called it at the time. And I picked up a Sylvia Federici book. She theorizes how the European witch hunts, why they may have began, and I just, I got so sucked in. It was like I couldn't look away at all. And I started to wonder about, I've always felt like the land speaks, and I started to wonder about the places here where we've had similar history, similar but different. And I just felt a call, "we have to go find them." And we did. We started researching, and that's how it happened. But yeah, it was through graduate research.
[00:06:24] Jake Eshelman: And of course Margaux and I are pretty much a package deal, so when she got interested, I got interested, and it just unfolded from there.
[00:06:31] Josh Hutchinson: And you had worked on projects together before?
[00:06:35] Jake Eshelman: Officially, this is our first above board collaboration.
[00:06:40] Margaux Crump: We're always helping each other.
[00:06:42] Jake Eshelman: We're like silent partners behind the scenes, in each other's practices, which is lovely and amazing, and it was interesting having this first opportunity to have really both of our names on the same project and to have, not like an equal stake, cuz we always do, but yeah, it was just a different sort of context in which to work together, which was, it was great. Very easy and intuitive.
[00:07:04] Margaux Crump: It's funny because a lot of times people will be like, "who takes the pictures?" And I think that's so intriguing, because people are very attached to who clicks the camera. And when we're setting up these images, it's such a collaboration. We're both creating the composition. We're both sitting at the site. We look at the images together, and we readjust. It's definitely a collaborative effort, and yeah, it's funny to see how people read that through photo work.
[00:07:34] Jake Eshelman: I'm also gonna launch into a diatribe, too, because, for me, photography isn't just about making images, it's also about knowing when an image is successful. It's selecting an image too, and that's just as much of the work, if not more than clicking an image.
[00:07:46] Yeah, I think when people ask that question, it betrays a little bit about how maybe little they know about the process of making images, but, no shade. Just one of those things to bring into the fore, because, again, it's like this work is and has been so all encompassing, between finding the locations, meeting people, working with grassroots historians, tracking down the primary source documents, making the images, remaking the images.
[00:08:11] We have certain shots that we've made probably at this point, maybe 20 different times. Cuz something wasn't quite right or something wasn't quite coming through, and, or maybe we have sites that have changed, and we go back, and it's just such an incredible transformation even in just a matter of two or three years.
[00:08:29] And it's interesting, too, because in a lot of these locations where we've been to, we've seen this history come to the fore and unfold in ways. There have been locations where we go, and there's no sort of memory making, but in the last year or so, there's been success with people being able to set up plaques and set up memorials. And it's interesting to be able to have imaged in just a short amount of time how this memory is starting to seep into and demand a sort of collective consciousness beyond just a couple books and, and an archive somewhere.
[00:09:00] Sarah Jack: That was really great, both of you. That was wonderful. And I'm really proud to say that question is not on our list. Who clicks? I was like, oh, phew. Thanks for sharing that depth to what you're doing. That was really important to capture, so thank you. How do you pick your locations and map them out?
[00:09:20] Margaux Crump: That's where a lot of the primary source documents came in handy. In most cases, it's not specified where someone was executed. So it's a matter of knowing, okay, what time period was this? And then looking at maps of those places and seeing is there anything that suggests some sort of like a gallows, like even if it's just like a cartoon on a map. I saw that once for Connecticut, and that brought me to a certain river bend and a certain part of the city.
[00:09:46] And it's okay, it might be like there. And then it's a matter of we go to the place and oftentimes we'll photograph a few different options, like a few different possibilities, but it could be like, I keep bringing up my favorite bush, but in one of the images there was just this bush that was near to the river, and I was like, that's it. I just know. It's that's the spot. Like, we need to photograph the bush. And so yeah, it's a educated guessing process through research and looking oftentimes at old maps would be a way to sum it up.
[00:10:19] Jake Eshelman: I was just gonna say that another layer to that is I think it's really poignant to realize that in a lot of cases we don't actually know. We have options, we have suggestions, inklings and I say we collectively as in like history. And I think that says a lot about what we valued then, the records that we would keep and that we wouldn't keep, and a lot about essentially what we value now, as well. Because, if we don't dig up these histories, and we don't understand or try to map them out, then it's a sort of continual sense of neglect, in my book. At least that's one way to read it. I'm not trying to be didactic. I think that yeah, the fact that we can't, in some of these sites exactly pin down the locations of these executions, it's significant in a different sort of way.
[00:11:05] And as two artists who are really interested in the research process, that was a kind of evolution of how we understood that this project is a little bit different for us, because we have to be comfortable, and we have to embrace the idea that sometimes in certain situations, again, we don't know.
[00:11:21] How do you memorialize a history where someone was executed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? You can't go there, you can't visit it, you can't have any sort of exact coordinates. And that brings up a lot of intrigue for me in thinking about how you honor that story and that place, cuz you can't visit it. You can't put up a plaque there. So it's really interesting how ephemeral and ethereal a lot of these these images end up being, at least for me.
[00:11:48] Margaux Crump: Yeah, with the boat executions, they were individuals who were coming over from, I believe England, and they were headed to Maryland and Virginia.
[00:11:58] Jake Eshelman: Yes.
[00:11:58] Margaux Crump: And so we, in those cases, we imaged the ocean from the locations where they were supposed to land their boat, where it actually came in. And so that's the best we could do.
[00:12:09] Josh Hutchinson: I take it, Margaux, that your favorite location is the bush. Is that right? And Jake, do you have a favorite location, too?
[00:12:18] Jake Eshelman: A favorite location. I don't. I think that piggybacking off of the conversation that we just had, though, I felt the most peaceful, and I think the most quiet and the most somber, with the Atlantic Ocean. And a lot of that is because that is in and of itself not really a location. It's this expanse, it's this seascape, it's the entire horizon, and you feel small, and you feel humble in the face of that. Looking at the Atlantic Ocean in context of this project, knowing the history that we were exploring, it was a very different way to interact with the sea that I've ever had before. So I think that personally that was the most, maybe the most lasting experience that I had in any of these locations. So I would have to say maybe that as a favorite in bunny ears.
[00:13:12] Sarah Jack: As you've gone deeper into your project and moved from one location to the next, how have the previous locations affected your examination of the next? Is there a connection at all, or is it very independent?
[00:13:27] Jake Eshelman: I think each place has its own flavor.
[00:13:31] Margaux Crump: Yes.
[00:13:32] Jake Eshelman: Yeah, it's, I immediately, when you asked that question, I went back to the locations that we were exploring around Boston and just remembering this incredible sense the entire time we were there that Boston just did not want us there. We were not welcome to explore the, this history there.
[00:13:48] Margaux Crump: No one, to be clear, nobody said anything. It was just a feeling.
[00:13:52] Jake Eshelman: It was just a feeling. Yeah. We had a lot of really strange, awful animal encounters. And it was just, it was a very bizarre way of making images. Whereas when you're in a place like when we were working with people in Stratford, Connecticut or Windsor, you're there with people who are on the ground and working to bring these histories to the fore, so it's much more social in that respect. So each location is very different. And I'm sure that there have been things that we picked up here and there that we've brought with us and has influenced the next experiences that we have in the next place. But it's hard to put a finger on that, for me at least. I don't know about you, Margaux.
[00:14:30] Margaux Crump: Yeah, one of the early locations, we both talked a lot about our having to learn to work with something that we didn't find visually attractive, like a dumpster.
[00:14:44] Jake Eshelman: Yes.
[00:14:44] Margaux Crump: And so doing that a few times prepares you for the later sites for sure, because we're not talking about, for the most part, beautiful stone monuments or churches or anything like that. Sometimes you get literally a dumpster, and what do you do with that? And so that was definitely something that we learned from and worked with and built on. And it's still not something I'm super comfortable with, but I can accept it now pretty readily.
[00:15:08] Jake Eshelman: And then when you do encounter things that are beautiful, you're just so relieved and excited and jazzed, or at least I am. Because I think for both of us, beauty is really important in our work broadly, in this project and also throughout our practices. So to be forced to let that go a little bit in lieu of, you know, photographing, sometimes what we photograph is really ugly, and I mean that in every sense of the word, right? And to have to bear witness and have that responsibility to face these places and to make these images, even though it's, oftentimes it's the last place I want to be, the last thing I wanna be looking at, but that's important too.
[00:15:47] Josh Hutchinson: And on your website, we saw that you list the victims. Have you been able to visit locations associated with all the victims?
[00:15:57] Jake Eshelman: Yes.
[00:15:59] We've been doing this project since 2019, and I should probably sit down and add up the amount of miles that we've traveled cumulatively by car and plane and walking and all that sort of stuff. I think it'd be really amazing. But yeah, this has been very much a labor that's been carrying us through essentially these last four years. It's been very involved.
[00:16:20] Sarah Jack: Is there anything that you would wanna speak to that's been surprising? The experience, what you're finding, what you've learned working together, anything like that?
[00:16:31] Margaux Crump: I was surprised. I did not expect when we started this that we would make so many lasting connections with people. I didn't expect that. I imagined this would be a lonely, little journey and something that we were just two crazy people working on their own. The community surprised me. The community that's still growing and forming and yeah, it's really beautiful, and I'm moved by it all the time. And also how helpful people are who research this for others who are trying to contribute, as well. That's been beautiful.
[00:17:09] Jake Eshelman: I also had a surprise, and this is probably a bit more personal, and I hope this doesn't offend anybody, but when we were going to Salem, I was bracing myself, because I was concerned about the dark tourism, about T-shirts with different slogans and stuff on them, but just, didn't quite suit my taste, and I was worried that it would be a sort of memory making that was just across the board.
[00:17:37] And what surprised me was there's actually a lot of incredible memory making in Salem. There is of course dark tourism there, no doubt about that. One of the things that just completely blew me away was we in the course of this work, ended up connecting with a theater company. I believe it's called History Alive Theater Company in Salem.
[00:17:57] And what they do is they have this one production called Cry Innocent, where they base everything around the transcripts that they have available of the arraignment of Bridget Bishop, who is the first woman in Salem to be accused and executed for witchcraft, and through these productions, it's all interactive, such that the audience essentially serves as the jury, and they get to interrupt the production to ask questions, to cross examine people if they want.
[00:18:24] And at the end, they end up voting as to whether Bridget is guilty enough to go on and actually stand trial, or if she's gonna be acquitted in this new history timeline that they're weaving. And it was really astounding to meet with a lot of the members of the theater company and with the director and to understand the devotion that they have for this history and for bringing it alive, hence the name.
[00:18:47] And the reactions that they've had from audience members, from everyday people, and even just some of the things that the actors and actresses have shared with us about the experience of being involved in this production. It was really moving for me to be able to see these productions and talk with them and to photograph the whole process around it.
[00:19:05] And it's been one of those things that gives me a lot of hope for histories like this or like these, that there are people out there who can take something that is awful and reimagine it and re-envision it in a way that makes it relevant and immediate to our current situation, our current culture and draw those parallels and encourage people to think about these things in their everyday life.
[00:19:27] I think a shared goal that we have for this project is trying to get people to see, oh these people were executed in the 1600s and 1700s, but we still today persecute people. There's still othering happening, there's still oppression and suppression, and I really we're not over this by now? We're not done with it? And I think that anything we can do to help encourage people to think about this history, not as something that's in the past, but something that we need to address now and moving forward I think is, I think it's really important.
[00:19:59] Josh Hutchinson: I agree. That's so critical to get people realizing witch-hunt behaviors have been passed on from our ancestors. We're not different people than they were, and maybe it's different times and different technology, but, underlying, it's the same humans.
[00:20:19] Jake Eshelman: Yeah, I think so.
[00:20:22] Josh Hutchinson: And we've been fortunate through the podcast to be able to connect with playwrights, actresses, writers, a ballet company that are all doing these performances and artwork. To bring up just that point, that Cry Innocent tries to make that you mentioned, just to get people thinking. And the arts, I find is a really good way to hit people and get them thinking about things.
[00:20:56] Margaux Crump: I agree.
[00:20:57] Jake Eshelman: I've been doing a lot of thinking about the value of artistic research, the methods that we use, and the things that are possible through these approaches. And I keep on going back to there was a report that someone issued one of the COP summits, I think it was 2022. And their report essentially said that artistic research is really valid, because it can access spaces, it can access people, it can build communities in ways that traditional ethnography can't, and those approaches, they produce different kind of insights and different kind of data, right?
[00:21:33] And that's worth supporting, and that's worth pursuing, because really at the end of the day, like you said, the humanities are a big part of how we see and understand our world, right? The stories that we tell and that we reimagine, and I think that's super valuable to really give people the context to look at their lives and look at their surroundings in a different way.
[00:21:58] Sarah Jack: That's really good. In the light of the things that we've been discussing here and all the layers, can you explain or speak to the first piece, cultural memory, and then I have, we have it broken down to cultural memory, power, land. Speak to it as you are interested to.
[00:22:18] Jake Eshelman: Cultural memories. The way that I interpret that is we have these ideas that get passed down, right? And even things that are apocryphal that aren't necessarily true that we take for face value and that we incorporate into our lives, into our outlook. And I think that with the history of witch persecutions and witch hunts and things like that, those are deeply ingrained into how, at least we, Margaux and I, in the culture that we grew up in, see the world. And I think that you mentioned breaking down cultural memory and power, but I think that there's a lot of power structures innate in the cultural memory, right?
[00:22:54] It's things that we choose to remember, right? It's things that we choose to forget and suppress. And when you take that sort of lens and apply it to a history like the history of witch persecutions, it becomes really interesting to see, okay what do we conveniently forget about? What do we conveniently not document? What do we conveniently not talk about even? And what can we interpret from those sorts of omissions or those sorts of master narratives that go above and beyond those sort of quiet moments? And I think that really for me this project is a way to probe the sort of cultural memory-making though that we have as just broadly as a culture and to see, okay, is this serving us? Is this honoring these histories, or is there another sort of impact or motive, or is something else unfolding from this that maybe we could revisit and learn something from?
[00:23:50] Margaux Crump: I also think part of cultural memory is how we hold the archetype of the witch in oftentimes popular culture. And like why, what is it about a lone older woman, for instance, living at the edge of a wood that is inherently fearful, is inherently dangerous somehow? Why do we believe that? And or another aspect of it is like the seductive witch, the seductive woman, and the danger in that, and certainly not all the people accused are women. I'd like to be very clear about that.
[00:24:27] But I think that archetype of what is a person with power who's somehow at the edge of society, that's a powerful thing to ask ourselves. Do we still find that we're wary of those sorts of characters? Why is it that they still have such a hold in our imagination? Why are there still so many movies and books that capitalize on that archetype? And yeah, it's a very deeply rooted part of many of us.
[00:24:58] Josh Hutchinson: And in the context of the project, what does power mean? How does that play in?
[00:25:06] Jake Eshelman: The first word that came to my head was obfuscation. And I think that where that's coming from is a sense that we have, these histories exist, right? And yet we don't talk about 'em. We don't learn about them. And to me it seems like that is a sort of power play, right? That you have lineages of people who have been in control, who have presided over witch persecutions, who really don't want that to come out.
[00:25:40] And the reason I bring that up is even just thinking back to some of our experiences in those, these locations without of course like naming any names, there have been instances where there people who are doing this research may descend from people who have been executed. They may descend from people who were accusers or who presided over things. And in some of the attempts to memorialize some of these histories, some of the descendants of families whose last names happened to be listed as accusers were not thrilled about having their last names included on these plaques. So they were removed and edited. And that's one of those sort of situations where it's okay, yes, these histories in the past, but also they're very clearly still alive, right?
[00:26:31] 300 years in the scheme of things, if your family has lived there for generations, it's not all that far away. So I think that there are these lingering moments where you do have these expressions of power, whether it is through like editing or redaction or just plain, downright omission.
[00:26:48] But as Margaux said, you also have these really interesting understands that power being attributed to the archetype of the witch, right? So when we think about the history, if someone was accused of practicing witchcraft, they were in a sense rendered powerless, right? Because no one would believe them. They were already probably already othered. Then they were ostracized and executed, right? They got gone. And now it's been interesting because in a lot of contemporary and pop culture, when you think about the witch archetype, a lot of people are interested in it, because it offers a symbol of subversive power, right?
[00:27:27] People will adopt the sort of archetype. And I'm saying this, very generally, I'm not, pointing to any specifics, but there is a tendency, I think, that at least exists where people can adopt the persona of a witch as a way to empower themselves, right? And it's a really interesting shift between the history of people who were powerless and the contemporary experience of people who are looking to that history or even projecting onto that history to get a sense of power surrounding the witch archetype.
[00:27:58] Margaux Crump: I should say another thing that I didn't expect to find as playing a part of power in the project with shame and the power of shame. And that ties back to what Jake was mentioning about what is edited out, what is hidden, what we try to forget. And a big part of that I think is shame, but we don't wanna look at anymore, we don't want to face. And shame can really control a person and a culture. So that's definitely part, I think, of the power in the project.
[00:28:26] Sarah Jack: I was just thinking about Bridget Bishop, she just had this tribute, and she definitely, there's one image of her that she's known through, the seduction. Some of that, there was testimony suggesting, but then we also know about her struggles in her personal history in life, and that kind of gets hidden. That story is hidden there, but then some of that could be even considered shameful. It's it's all very complex, but I like that we can break apart all these different ways of looking at these individuals, and I hope that when we consider these different aspects of how we look at them, that we learn from it.
[00:29:14] Was there anything interesting from the tribute this past weekend?
[00:29:19] Margaux Crump: Was beautiful. They did a beautiful job.
[00:29:22] Jake Eshelman: It was very well done, very respectful, very moving. Yeah, it was, at least for me, I had a hard time with realizing that, okay, this is a one-time only event, I need to make these images, because I wanted to keep on stopping and just put the camera down and participate, cause it was just everything that they were saying and sharing, and the way they went about that memorial or memorialization was, it was very moving.
[00:29:47] Margaux Crump: Even down to the flowers that were brought, everything is very symbolic. A lot of herbs, little bundles were tied and placed.
[00:29:55] Jake Eshelman: From gardens.
[00:29:56] Margaux Crump: Everybody received recognition that day, and there was song, beautiful songs were sung and yeah very respectful and somber.
[00:30:06] Jake Eshelman: Yeah. And I was really pleased to that both the number of people who were there, that's not a, like the audience, but the people who wanted to be a part of this. And their participation, as well, because they brought a lot of flowers that everyone was welcome to take and place. And that was really interesting to watch how that unfolded and the way that people would linger on specific stones or near specific names and what those interactions were like. Yeah, it was really interesting to be a part of it and to be able to witness it.
[00:30:35] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, her story has touched so many people. It's good to honor her and pay your respects. I'm so glad that happened.
[00:30:46] Margaux Crump: Yeah, me too. I think a lot of her being alone when she died, where everybody else was in a group. Everyone in Salem was in a group except for Bridget. And yeah, she really, there's something about her that just really pulls at the heartstrings and so many people do feel very connected to her story.
[00:31:08] Sarah Jack: Do you guys wanna speak more to the land?
[00:31:11] Margaux Crump: I think of the land very much as an active participant in our project. Like we really work to listen to the land when we're in a location and to let it guide us. And oftentimes we talk about them as portraits of the land. Like the land is a being, it's alive, and it speaks in very different ways. And sometimes it's symbolic and what it reveals and conceals is always changing. And that's, I think what has kept us at this project for so long is that it's still shifting so much in terms of what a land is showing. So I think that's, for me, a very important part is recognizing that in our worldview, the land truly is a collaborator. And we couldn't do it, we couldn't do this at all without the land.
[00:31:59] Jake Eshelman: Yeah, there have been really interesting moments throughout the course of this project where the land takes a front seat in this work. And I'm thinking that there in Stratford, there's a an ice cream shop called Goody, Bassett's Ice Cream Shop, and it was named after one of the women who in that community was tried and executed for witchcraft. And we were talking with the owner about the history and just about his ice cream parlor and everything, and it was interesting, because he got the lease on the building, he opened up his ice cream shop, and he found out later that the remnants from the gallows brook, or at least this is the thought, that it runs directly beneath his ice cream parlor and now it's essentially a drainage ditch out back. And it's this interesting moment, for me at least, where you have this history, you have this memory making, and then like brooks, they shift and they move. And this one was essentially covered when they installed the train tracks, but somehow the remnants ended up going of all places right underneath. And it's, I think a lot of people could look at that and not know what to make of it. I count myself as one of those people, but it's also just very interesting, and it's very fun to see how the sort of agency of the land can pop up and influence this project and be a part of this history as it evolves.
[00:33:24] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I just wanna say we got to eat Goody Bassett's ice cream a few weeks ago at the Goody Bassett Ball, and I approve.
[00:33:37] Sarah Jack: I met the owner picking up my scoop, and I let him know that I worked at an ice cream shop for years and I knew how hard he was working. I was like watching and I'm like, I think that's the owner. So when I got up through the line, I'm like, is this your business?
[00:33:51] Jake Eshelman: Such a small
[00:33:52] Sarah Jack: world.
[00:33:52] Josh Hutchinson: On a more serious note, you started your project shortly before the pandemic hit. How did that impact you?
[00:34:03] Margaux Crump: Oh man. Everything came to a standstill. Yeah, we didn't travel for the project, and all of the leads we had on a possible publication, everything just went silent. And basically, once the worst of the pandemic lifted, and we felt like it was time to revisit the project, it was almost. Frankly, we went to every single site again. We just did it again, because it had been so long in between, and the break, I just felt like we lost so much momentum.
[00:34:41] Jake Eshelman: We did. And I think the break also, though, the silver lining was that it gave us a lot of time to think and to sit with these images, right? And to sit with the work that we'd done and to have clarity about the images that we needed to make about the stones that we're still yet to, for us to flip over. So on one hand it was a big pause, but on another hand, I think it was a supercharging of this project because we realized that there was, there's so much more that we needed to do to really flesh out this project in the way that it wanted to be in the world.
[00:35:17] Margaux Crump: And it's still not done. We're close.
[00:35:19] Jake Eshelman: We're still not done. I know.
[00:35:21] Sarah Jack: So I was gonna be asking how will you know when it's time to wrap up the project, but it sounds like it's going to tell you.
[00:35:30] Margaux Crump: It definitely tells us. Yes, absolutely.
[00:35:33] And it's when they stop nagging me. It's if an image doesn't feel right, it just like pokes and pokes and pokes at me. And I can't let it go. I just know, I know it's not done. And so once they all get quiet, it's once they start resting, once everything just get rests, then it, I think it'll feel complete. But there are still like little images raising their hands and saying me, me, me, I'm not done. Oh, yeah.
[00:36:02] Sarah Jack: That's so interesting that you used the word rest. I don't know if you know that my Twitter handle is @restingwitches.
[00:36:08] Margaux Crump: No, I, I did not.
[00:36:10] Jake Eshelman: Neither of us are on Twitter.
[00:36:12] Sarah Jack: I'm on there quite a bit. Before I got into these bigger projects with the Exoneration Project and the podcast, that was one of the places that I started rooting around, seeing who's talking about the accused, what are they saying, what sources can I find, what places, like all those answers I was digging around on there, and I had at that I don't remember if I realized about my third accused ancestor at that time, but Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty meant a lot to me then. And I just felt they're resting, but this history is not.
[00:36:48] Jake Eshelman: I love that.
[00:36:50] Margaux Crump: Yeah. Yeah, and it's been interesting, kind of riffing on that, what sites feel like they're resting and which ones don't. And you never know what to expect when you get to a place. But there definitely have been some where I've sat back like, wow, it's quiet here. And there are others where it's just boisterous and loud and things are moving and yeah, it's definitely not all resting yet.
[00:37:17] Josh Hutchinson: We've touched on this in some of the questions, but what are you saying through the project?
[00:37:24] Jake Eshelman: Well, I'm saying, look. Yeah, look, look at this. And I say that with a giggle, but I'm also very serious about it. I think that there's great responsibility in acknowledging and respecting history, right? And especially when it's a history that is still pervasive in our everyday cosmologies.
[00:37:46] So my goal is that when we look, my goal at least, and I'll of course let Margaux speak for herself, but when people look at these images, I want them to see this sense of absence, the absence of memory-making or the beauty of memory-making, like what I was saying with History Alive in Salem.
[00:38:06] And to really just sit with that and spend time and think about, critically, why did we do this to one another? Why have we done this to one another? Do we have to continue doing this or can we rewrite a new story or for us, for our culture, for our individual relationships? And if so, what's possible when we don't spend our time essentially attacking one another for stupid shit? God, I can't take me anywhere. All right, Margaux, you take over and be more eloquent.
[00:38:36] Margaux Crump: Jake did a beautiful job covering some very important things that we're saying, and to add to that, one of the things that I know I am working to say with Echoes of the Witch, that archetypes are very powerful, and the archetype of the witch is a very powerful figure. And that archetype is far more complex than we often let it be. And I'm a big believer in blurred lines and complexity and of breaching boundaries here and there. And I would love to bring more complexity and ambiguity to that archetype to be a part of that, because it's not going away at all. And it's beautiful in many ways. And I love how it's changing and transforming.
[00:39:29] But I want to keep into our memory, how in the past it was a very different thing. It was not a deeply empowered figure and allowing that to still infuse into what we today think of as the witch, because part of the witch's power is that they overcome. They're resilient and they're constantly transforming themselves. And I think that mirrors in how so many of these sites have transformed over time.
[00:40:01] I think another thing is the power of transformation and that we're all capable of change, and we're capable of transforming our culture and our values.
[00:40:09] Sarah Jack: And are you already seeing the project transform people you've met? What are you seeing them take away from your work already?
[00:40:18] Jake Eshelman: When I've shared this work with people, they tend to be surprised that there were so many here in the U.S., present-day U.S, whereas I was surprised that we only had records for 54. I thought there would be a lot more. So it's interesting just to compare where people are when they come to this project.
[00:40:42] And I also get a lot of questions about there's so much emptiness in a lot of these images, and I'm grateful because people pick up on the fact that in a lot of places there is no sort of memorialization. That this is a history that is largely, you know, uncovered, undiscussed. And I think that watching that realization on people, on their faces when they spend time with this project and it sinks in, that's a moment where I feel like this has legs and that this is successful. Because you can see the wheels turning. You can see people go, "oh God, wow. This is, it's a dumpster." and it's just, it's a really interesting process to watch people take it in and really just sit with it.
[00:41:32] Margaux Crump: The people who have reached out, who are descendants, who don't have access to the place where their ancestor passed, I didn't know whether that would happen or not, whether to expect anyone to reach out, and seeing and witnessing how much it matters to them to be able to point to a specific spot. It might not even necessarily be the exact spot, but at least it's within reasonable doubt, the spot. And that somehow is bringing them, I'm not going to say closure. I don't have a word. I don't have a word for that, but there's something about it that's of value. And I don't know whether I could say that.
[00:42:14] Sarah Jack: A connection. It helps them connect.
[00:42:16] Margaux Crump: Connection. It absolutely helps them connect to their own mind and their history. Yeah I don't, I'm not gonna say that's transformed anyone cuz, I can't speak to that for those people. But it certainly has transformed me, and I also, it really resonates with me when people who are present-day practicing witches find the project meaningful. Because it's work that needs to be done, and they feel into that, the importance of being able to feel safe in the world, because for a long time they could not be so open with their beliefs and their practices, and for them it's important work, as well.
[00:43:01] Josh Hutchinson: We're very into memorialization, and I'm so glad that you've been working on this project, because it is, in lieu of plaques and statues and things like that, this really is a great memorial to the victims. So I thank you for doing this.
[00:43:25] Jake Eshelman: Thanks for saying so.
[00:43:26] Josh Hutchinson: And you mentioned there were there are 54 victims, and that brings to mind one of the things I really love about the project, which is that you cover the whole United States. It's not the New England Echoes of the Witch or the New England plus Virginia and Maryland. You're covering New Mexico, and a lot, so many people don't know that there were witch trials right here in the southwest.
[00:43:56] Jake Eshelman: We were surprised to learn that, too.
[00:43:57] Margaux Crump: And I'm from Texas. You would think I would've maybe gotten an inkling of that, but no, we did not discuss that in school. Yeah. That's something that has surprised people with the project. I have yet to meet someone who knew about the New Mexico accusations.
[00:44:14] Josh Hutchinson: I only learned about them after we started this project myself, just researching, what other witch trials might there have been in the US and came across, Abiquiú, New Mexico and I really want to go there. What were your impressions of that location?
[00:44:36] Margaux Crump: It's very Georgia O'Keeffe focused, if I'm gonna be honest.
[00:44:43] Most of the work that we did there was in Santa Fe rather than Abiquiú. We did visit Abiquiú. It's a little harder to get information for that area, and the Santa Fe location was very interesting, because the Governor's palace still stands where, cause in, in New Mexico, there weren't trials, per se, the way there were trials in New England. There were accusations, and the Spanish church was involved, and the people who passed in Santa Fe passed in prison. They weren't officially executed. Within our project, we counted people who were in prison and died. But the Governor's palace still stands, but the jail is missing, and the jail would be in the middle of the road to the best of anyone's guess. And there, if you go inside the palace, which is attached to, I believe, the History Museum.
[00:45:35] There is a plaque, like a didactic, a large didactic on the wall that talks about the missing jail cell and has some handcuffs that they uncovered during archeological work, but there's no mention of the men who died there under those accusations. Yeah, it's a very different history than the New England trials and executions. It has its own distinct cultural moment. Yeah, it's, I'm still educating myself about all of that.
[00:46:04] Sarah Jack: Thanks for speaking to that difference, because that's one of the things we've been learning when we're looking at the modern mobish attacks that are happening to women and children, how the different places, times, cultures, circumstances, beliefs really played into how they played out. And I think that helps, that is such a big part of bringing it all together and starting to recognize witch-hunt mentality, and that it's not just one thing. And Margaux, when you spoke to people feeling safe, being able to find a more safe feeling in their practices or for whatever reason they may have not felt safe before from this project.
[00:46:55] I think that is a really amazing gift that you are giving. So thanks for bringing that up too. It's not totally connected, but I think about in South Africa one of our podcasts' guests, Damon Leff, who's been an advocate there. He has fought against the discrimination of pagans there, and there's that safety element too. They aren't safe when they're not protected. And our history of these victims who died, they weren't safe, and they were vulnerable and harmed. And so I really do like that we can create more safety, hopefully, for everyone who needs it.
[00:47:39] Jake Eshelman: Just one thing I wanted to bring up just for clarity, you mentioned the real reality of like mob-style persecutions and things like that. When we say 54 people throughout present-day U.S., we are looking specifically at cases where we have trial records and executions, right? So these are what we are considering executions by the state, right? This isn't your crazy mob who gets an inkling who goes to neighbors or whatever and does whatever awful stuff they do to people. We wanted, because we are looking at cultural memory, right, and this idea of power, it was really important to not only kinda narrow the scope of this project, but to also do so in a way where it really was looking at, culturally these are to a certain degree culturally-ordained executions, if you think about it, socially-ordained or politically-ordained executions. And that says a lot, because it represents at least a majority of the culture, right, a majority of the people who are in a municipality. So I think that has a totally different read than looking at very specific instances of mob mentality, because we really wanted to look at something that had a large critical application to a large swath of our culture and our cultural history.
[00:49:04] Margaux Crump: Part of that was also that you'd actually be surprised the number of contemporary murders where someone was, oh, she or he, or they are a witch and they've been murdered. And that's very recent, and I don't think our project would ever end. So we needed to create a framework.
[00:49:25] Jake Eshelman: That's when this project will be successful for me is when this project can end, when we don't perpetuate these histories, that's when this project has done its work in the world.
[00:49:35] Josh Hutchinson: I recall reading about a case last summer where someone was murdered in the United States for supposedly bewitching someone else. That happens regularly. And you have in the news right now the Lori Vallow case, which is similar, believing in supernatural activity around the children. And so it's important for people to know that these behaviors are still present, and we haven't evolved past that somehow, and we need to work every day towards getting past that.
[00:50:18] Jake Eshelman: Yeah, and I think that acknowledging and spending time with this history is important, because it demands a sort of respect for the history, right? And again, without naming names, you have today really prominent politicians slash crooks slash businessmen who get on Twitter and talk about how there's a giant witch-hunt against him, and he's the persecuted one. And that's just such an egregious statement for me, but it's also part of how culturally some people choose to handle these stories in this history or to co-opt them, or, I don't even know if there's a verb for how gross that is, but whatever that verb is to that history.
[00:51:10] Josh Hutchinson: There's been a lot of discussion about that on Twitter recently with his counterpart in Britain declaring he's been the victim of a witch-hunt, as well. And we've seen a lot of the witch trial academics out there basically shouting, "don't call it a witch-hunt, that's not fair to the victims of witch hunts."
[00:51:38] Margaux Crump: Yeah, and I think that's where that word power comes back in, because both of those individuals have an extreme amount of power.
[00:51:45] Sarah Jack: I don't even know what word for this, but I was thinking, I was looking at these comments that were coming out, wanting to engage, wanting to say the right thing myself. I have all these feelings about it, as well, but it's so you have maybe, whether it's these guys or any other possible male losing power that would choose to call it a witch-hunt, it's an acknowledgement that the person being hunted is losing power.
[00:52:12] So I'm like, okay, so okay, we're acknowledging that actual accused witches were powerless. That's an important message, but to victimize themselves with such a atrocious history on the innocent.
[00:52:30] Jake Eshelman: Pretty much.
[00:52:32] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, and when you talk about the, between the early modern witch hunts and all the witch hunts that have happened since around the world, there's probably hundreds of thousands of people who've been victims of witch hunts and real witch hunts. And it just trivializes their suffering, and it's really a pet peeve of mine.
[00:52:57] Sarah Jack: I really like, Jake, how you mentioned that your project and work like this, when we're sharing the history, teaching, delving into it, that it starts to build up that respect for the history and that the world does need to respect what has happened to a huge portion of our humanity and continues to happen, and I definitely, I feel like looking at what I've observed over the last four years, that's about the timeframe that I've been actively trying to jump in and do something about it. The conversations that I'm seeing online, some are changing in a better way. I'm seeing bigger questions asked, more information coming forward. So I feel very hopeful that things can keep having momentum in the right direction.
[00:53:52] Jake Eshelman: The bar is low. Maybe we can count that among our many blessings is that any sort of increase in conversation and bigger questions is you know, pie in the sky. But to your point, no, I think it's absolutely wonderful and very affirming and very fulfilling to, to not only see that, but to hopefully have some sort of modest part in encouraging some of that. So I think, hopefully, Echoes of the Witches is one of those things that is at least contributing or providing resources for people for that end goal.
[00:54:20] Josh Hutchinson: All right. Here's a question. What have you learned about humanity through the project?
[00:54:29] Jake Eshelman: Talk about big questions.
[00:54:32] Josh Hutchinson: That's the $64,000 one.
[00:54:34] Jake Eshelman: Yeah, man. What have I learned about humanity?
[00:54:39] Margaux Crump: I have learned, and I probably already knew this, but it's been hammered home a few times, that humanity has a very long memory and a very short memory, simultaneously. I tend to be very introverted. I'm very happy to be at home alone with my cats and with my partner. And sometimes this project reinforces that, and sometimes I am moved to tears by how beautiful we can all be with each other. And I like those best. Those moments are my favorite.
[00:55:16] Humans are complicated. We all know that, but sometimes I think we want to forget that. We want, we can try to simplify things. And in a history where there really aren't a lot of answers, a lot of concrete answers, you have to accept things for their muddy edges and the uncertainty and the just the messiness, and I think humanity can be a bit like that, too. We can be a bit messy, and sometimes we're beautiful messy, and sometimes we're messy messy.
[00:55:59] Jake Eshelman: Yeah, that was beautiful. Yeah, I'm not sure that, I think that's all wonderful, and I think that's valid, and I absolutely feel the same way. The only thing that I can add to that is essentially just a different flavor of what Margaux said, that I feel like I have confirmed some things that I've wondered about in terms of humanity.
[00:56:22] In undergraduate, I studied classical studies, so ancient Greece, ancient Roman culture, and through that, I had an inkling that people are people, the only difference is today we're wearing baseball caps and we carry automatic weapons. But really we're the same in a lot of respects as we always have been. Some of our circumstances may be different, some of the things that we worry about may be different, but ultimately there's a continuity there. And Margaux said, like we, we have a very long memory when it suits us and a very short one when it doesn't. And I think that even in spite of the fact that I think we are the same as we have been in a lot of respects, I think that there are these moments where you can see that we are evolving and that we can change for the better, and that we can decide to act and behave in a way, in a world that makes it a better place for everyone. And not just humans, like actually everyone. And those are the moments that, that give me hope and make me feel uncharacteristically optimistic.
[00:57:30] Sarah Jack: Is there anything specific that you have felt change in yourself from doing this project?
[00:57:38] Margaux Crump: Yes, I have had to be much more. Through doing this project, I have found a new safety in my own voice. At first I was, I knew I needed to do this work. I was very nervous. I'm still nervous some days about the ramifications. Even having to ask people to make images in certain places like that made me nervous. I felt unsafe. And sometimes I would talk to the people who in that site I was there to do work around. By people, the people who are gone now and feeling into that and into their stories gave me the courage to push through my own fears and to grow.
[00:58:34] Jake Eshelman: I've had to this whole process of researching and traveling to these places and interacting with the communities and making these images. There's a humility in it that I think has really benefited me in my practice and just the way that I moved through the world. But also to Margaux's point, it's been validating to realize that we, Margaux and I, through this process we have tapped into our power of observation, our power of sharing, our power of cultivating, creating community through this work. And I think that is one of those sort of benchmarks in my creative and research practice where I realized that our approach is valid, our ideas are valid, our interest in this subject matter is valid, and that it's capable of being met, which was great.
[00:59:27] Margaux mentioned that we're still have a little bit of trepidation around this work, around sharing it, around doing it in the right way, about being responsible about it. But thus far, the reaction that we've had from people both solicited and unsolicited has been very supportive and very affirming, so I would say that delving into this project and building it up has given me more confidence in my perspective and in the kind of work that we can create and put out into the world and hopefully enable it to do its work right in the world and create positive sort of reverberations that go out beyond what we could imagine.
[01:00:09] We don't see how this work actually hits people, right, all the time. It's pretty rare that we get to share this with someone for the first time and be able to gauge their reaction. Really what's happening is that people are quietly trickling in or someone shares it with someone else and they're having this experience, the work that, that we can't even, we don't know about it. It's just off somewhere in the ether doing its work. And I hope that through this process that this project and also projects that we may collaborate on in the future, will have a similar sort of mechanism.
[01:00:39] Josh Hutchinson: And how can people support your project?
[01:00:43] Jake Eshelman: Telling people who might be interested is always a great place to start, sharing this, spreading the website. That's all very helpful. It seems so silly to ask for attention, but it certainly helps when people are interacting with the work and sharing it and talking about it. So I'd say that would be the big thing. The other thing I can think of is that if you have resources and you have knowledge regarding this history and you wanna share it, not only with us, but with the rest of the world, please send it our way. We're always looking for that kind of additional knowledge and insight and information. Oh, and if there are any curators listening, give us shows. We love the idea of having this as a solo exhibition, really bring people into the work through our material culture.
[01:01:29] Was that too shameless?
[01:01:31] Sarah Jack: No.
[01:01:32] Josh Hutchinson: No. No.
[01:01:33] Sarah Jack: What is next for you guys after the project wraps? Or when do you start? You mentioned that you have your individual projects. When this starts to wrap and you may wanna do another collaboration, do you already have some ideas? Do you think you'll be surprised by it?
[01:01:50] Margaux Crump: We tend to work on many things at once, so there are always multiple projects happening. I have a feeling that this October Echoes of the Witch we will actually finish making images for. But before that, Jake and I will be in Wales this summer doing a project looking at the deep ecology of sacred springs and holy wells, so that, that is next. That's very soon. We actually leave July 4th for the U.K.
[01:02:21] That's its own project, and it's very different for us, because we are not the only people involved. It's going to branch out and have a lot of different collaborators depending on the location. We have someone we're already working with in the U.K.. We actually have an intern who's working with us, which is very exciting.
[01:02:40] It's also a project that doesn't have a strong plan yet, which is very different. Echoes of the Witch had a tremendous amount of research. I knew exactly where we were going. I'd created maps. And this project tracing the sacred springs and the holy wells is very in the spirit of the water, we're really gonna go with the flow and see where we end up and what calls to us and who we meet and what they think we should look at and who shares what. And it's very different. I'm very excited. I think it'll be a good change of pace.
[01:03:12] Jake Eshelman: There are also through lines, too, because we're looking really, as Margaux mentioned, at the deep ecology of these sites throughout Wales. And it's interesting, going back to our conversations earlier about the idea of land as being sentient, right, of having agency and being able to interact. And this project that we're discussing in Wales very much centers on that kind of idea. Like how do you photograph the spirit of a place? And a lot of these interesting challenges. How do you photograph the mythological invisible beings, whether they're from stories or whether they're microorganisms that are in these places?
[01:03:43] And it's gonna be a very interesting exercise at really the limits and possibilities of image-making, of ecology, of all these things that we tend to be interested in, wrapped up into to one project. Definitely stay tuned. We'll be sharing a lot of our adventures and, of course, our misadventures on social media and through our email newsletters and things like that. So hopefully it's a good time for everyone. And if not, at least it'll be entertaining and significant.
[01:04:11] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much for all your wonderful answers. Is there anything else you want to add to the conversation before we go?
[01:04:21] Jake Eshelman: I would just say thank you, to all the people who've done the research before us, to all the people who have supported this work, enabled this work, who put us in touch with other people, people who've expressed enthusiasm about what it is we're doing, people who've seen our images and cried, people who've seen our images and gotten excited because they saw something of their sixth great grandmother.
[01:04:43] Yeah I guess ultimately the thing that I wanna put out there is just gratitude for the ability to do this work and hopefully to have this work enrich the history for people who are looking for it and for people who aren't looking for it, cause I think that's just as, as valuable.
[01:04:59] Margaux Crump: Thank you for saying that, Jake. We definitely could not have done this work without the very strong community that surrounds this history. And we're just one in a beautiful concert of individuals who are working around this. And yeah I'm grateful as well for everybody who's made this possible.
[01:05:20] Sarah Jack: And now for Minute with Mary.
[01:05:23]
[01:05:30] Mary-Louise Bingham: I have heard descendants say to me on several occasions, "I wonder what my ancestor who lived two or 300 years ago looks like?" I have wondered that many times myself. A few days ago, when Sarah, Josh and I met to discuss this week's wonderful episode, Sarah pointed out that we three, who are direct descendants of William and Joanna Towne through their daughter, Mary Towne Esty, all have the same rosy colored cheeks and cheekbones.
[01:06:02] My interest was now truly piqued. I looked at pictures of my siblings, same cheekbones, although some are not as rosy as mine. I looked at my distant Towne cousin, with whom I work almost every day, Cindy Hobbs, and her family, all the same rosy cheekbones.
[01:06:22] I then looked at pictures of other Towne descendants on the internet. There they were, again, those same cheekbones. So it might be safe to say that most Towne descendants share the same wonderful feature. Now that we know this, maybe we can all paint a picture in our own imagination of how we view William and Joanna Towne in our own mind's eye, based on our cheekbones and other similar features we share.
[01:06:51] I also looked at pictures of two of my other famous ancestors, Thomas Dudley and his son-in-law, Simon Bradstreet. Ashton Kutcher looks more like Thomas Dudley than I ever will, but I do share a resemblance to my 10 times great grandpa, Simon. Great Grandpa Simon and I have the same eyebrows, eyes, same circles around our eyes, same nose, and the same mouth, with one difference. Grandpa Simon has a natural smile, whereas I have a natural frown.
[01:07:24] It was really cool to discover from where some of my looks came, and though I will never know what many of my other ancestors look like, I must remember one more very important thing. When I look in the mirror, I remember that because of them, I exist.
[01:07:42] Thank you.
[01:07:42]
[01:07:50] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:07:52] Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[01:07:55]
[01:08:12] Sarah Jack: Awareness of the violent, modern witch hunts against alleged witches is increasing across the world. International media, organizations, governments, and individuals want it to stop. The United Nations Human Rights Council is acknowledging the crisis and urging additional efforts by affected states and by all stakeholders.
[01:08:31] We are all stakeholders in efforts to stop these witch attacks and abuse crimes against women, men, and children. When you see it in the news, read about it and share it. Educate yourself and others. Witch hunts that are happening now are fueled by the same influences that incited panic and hunting in the past.
[01:08:49] The Salem Witch-Hunt was not different than what is happening now. Those that were executed in Salem were as innocent of their charges as the victims targeted today. Human agency is behind past and present alleged witch executions. Misfortune is not due to human agency in the way that accusers imagine and punish for.
[01:09:08] We must help change this moral panic against vulnerable community members by standing against witchcraft fear. We are seeking to change a behavior that has been present for thousands and thousands of years. We can reflect on what is known of historic witch trials and evaluate the alleged witch attack crisis that is happening in our own time and place. If it's happening on a continent now, it's happening in your time and place. This world belongs to us and we can end witch hunts.
[01:09:35] Think and speak like Member of the Executive Council Nonhlanhla Khoza of South Africa. Quote, "It is alleged that Mchunu was brutally murdered by a local boy at the weekend, accusing him of witchcraft." Then, quote, "it's alleged that the community also stoned the boy to death after he was seen following the pensioner."
[01:09:53] Khoza, the KZN Member of Executive Council for Social Development, condemned the killing of Solani Mchunu. Quote, "as the community of this province, we should understand that every individual has the right to life, dignity and freedom from violence. Therefore, targeting and persecution of individuals based on accusations of witchcraft is not only morally repugnant but also a violation of fundamental human rights."
[01:10:19] MEC Khoza said witchcraft-related violence is a deeply rooted issue that requires immediate attention and concerted efforts from both the government and society as a whole. She said it was crucial for communities to foster understanding, tolerance, respect for diversity, recognizing that myths about witchcraft do not justify violence.
[01:10:39] Quote, "we call upon the law enforcement agencies to conduct a thorough investigation into this heinous crime and ensure that perpetrators are swiftly brought to justice. Quote, "it is essential that legal systems send a clear message that such acts of violence will not be tolerated and that those responsible will face the full force of the law."
[01:10:58] She appealed to the public to prioritize the protection of vulnerable individuals, particularly the elderly, who may be more susceptible to accusations of witchcraft. Khoza said a team of social workers had been dispatched to both families to provide adequate psychosocial support, including trauma debriefing and trauma containment.
[01:11:17] Khoza is echoing the message that Thou Shalt Not Suffer has been sharing. You have been listening to her same plea from advocates on this podcast. The crisis is real. The plea is real. The solution is real. You are the real solution.
[01:11:31] Now listen to this quote a second time, considering it could be any violence to anyone that is important to you. Quote, "we should understand that every individual has the right to life, dignity, and freedom from violence." I know you agree with that. Therefore, this should feel pressing to you. Quote, "therefore, targeting the persecution of individuals based on accusations of witchcraft is not only morally repugnant, but also a violation of fundamental human rights."
[01:11:56] Get involved now. Witch hunts did not end.
[01:11:58] Read our show notes for links on guests, books, news, and supporting the podcast. We need your support. Get involved. Contact us at endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop or merch from our Zazzle shop.
[01:12:11]
[01:12:27] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:12:29] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:12:31] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:12:36] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[01:12:38] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe in whatever app you use to get your podcasts.
[01:12:42] Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:12:45] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[01:12:48] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Talk about it. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:12:54] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:12:58]

June 22, 2023

Connecticut Witch Trials 101 Part 6: 1692 and Beyond

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Show Notes

This is Part 6, the final installment of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast’s Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series. This episode completes the overview of Connecticut’s known witch trial victims with only fact backed, trustworthy research and sources. Take advantage of the expansive bibliography and do some educational reading. Dig into the research with us. This Connecticut witch trial history introduction series has been created with thoughtful inquiry and consideration of historian expertise, historic record and available archived material. Next you will be ready for Connecticut Witch Trials 201, but hold up, first we have more 101 series’ coming your way this summer and fall: Salem Witch Trials 101, Modern Witch Hunts 101, and 18th-21st Century Witch Hunts 101. All of our series and episodes work to teach the world regarding witch hunts: How do we know what we know? We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Transcript

[00:00:00]
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: This is the sixth and final episode of our Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series. We'll cover witch hunting in Connecticut from 1692 onward.
[00:00:38] Sarah Jack: We begin with the story of the other New England witch-hunt of 1692.
[00:00:43] Josh Hutchinson: The Stamford-Fairfield Witch-Hunt of 1692 began with the alleged possession or affliction of Katharine Branch, a servant in the household of Lt. Daniel Westcott.
[00:00:55] Sarah Jack: On May 27th, Lt. Westcott complained to the authorities that his servant had been bewitched for more than five weeks.
[00:01:03] Josh Hutchinson: Contrary to popular belief, the 17th century colonists did not jump to conclusions when a person presented symptoms of affliction.
[00:01:13] Sarah Jack: In Salem, Samuel Parris's daughter and niece were afflicted for about six weeks before the first complaints were filed against any suspected of witchcraft. In fact, the girls were afflicted for a month or more before witchcraft was blamed as the cause of their maladies.
[00:01:26] Josh Hutchinson: In the Stamford-Fairfield witch hunt, several neighbors were indeed skeptical of Katharine's fits. Rather than rush to judgment, some conducted experiments, as we'll talk about later.
[00:01:39] Sarah Jack: Author Godbeer says Stamford people did not assume blindly, but tried experiments to determine.
[00:01:45] Josh Hutchinson: Richard Godbeer says, "what matters is understanding what people believed and thought was going on and what shaped their behavior."
[00:01:54] Sarah Jack: After five weeks of dealing with an afflicted servant, Daniel Westcott was convinced that she was being afflicted by witches, so he complained to Major Nathan Gold, Captain John Burr, Captain Jonathan Selleck, and Lieutenant Jonathan Bell.
[00:02:09] Josh Hutchinson: He described the affliction of his servant to them.
[00:02:14] Sarah Jack: Katharine's fits started in April of 1692 while she was gathering herbs.
[00:02:20] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "she was seized with a pinching and pricking at her breast. She being come home fell acrying, was asked the reason, gave no answer, but wept and immediately fell down on the floor with her hands clasped."
[00:02:35] Sarah Jack: This condition lasted two days.
[00:02:38] Josh Hutchinson: Then Katharine said she saw a cat.
[00:02:41] Sarah Jack: She was asked what the cat said.
[00:02:43] Josh Hutchinson: I really seriously wonder here, why did they ask what the cat said?
[00:02:50] Sarah Jack: You mean like how they assumed it was talking to her.
[00:02:54] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Why would you assume that the cat was talking? Because she said she saw a cat. And your first question is, what did it say? Not what color was this cat? How big was it? Where was it? We didn't see a cat.
[00:03:08] Sarah Jack: They knew their witch lore.
[00:03:11] Josh Hutchinson: I guess, but it still seems strange to ask that question.
[00:03:16] Sarah Jack: It was a leading question, which could have planted ideas in Katharine's mind.
[00:03:21] Josh Hutchinson: A theme to remember. At any rate, Katharine said that the cat had promised her fine things and that, quote, "she should go where there were fine folks."
[00:03:34] Sarah Jack: Her fits continued.
[00:03:36] Josh Hutchinson: She was asked about the cat again, only now there were multiple cats.
[00:03:41] Sarah Jack: When they spoke, they told her they would kill her.
[00:03:44] Josh Hutchinson: She saw a table of meats in a room with 10 sitting and was invited to eat.
[00:03:50] Sarah Jack: I have to just stop and say, I think a lot of us think our cats are thinking those words. We just can't hear it. So I can see how if someone is in hysterics at all, them imagining a cat saying it would kill them, it's not that far of a leap.
[00:04:11] Josh Hutchinson: No, people probably have that dream all the time.
[00:04:16] Sarah Jack: 13 days passed, and she was still afflicted.
[00:04:20] Josh Hutchinson: At one point she had 40 fits in one night, and for the first time she blamed witchcraft.
[00:04:28] Sarah Jack: She cried out, "a witch. A witch."
[00:04:31] Josh Hutchinson: And said that she felt a hand.
[00:04:34] Sarah Jack: The next week she saw, quote, "a woman stand in the house having an silk hood and a blue apron."
[00:04:41] Josh Hutchinson: The evening after that, quote, "she meet an old woman at the doors with two firebrands in her forehand. The woman had two homespun coats, one tucked up around her, the other down."
[00:04:56] Sarah Jack: The following day, she named Goody Clawson.
[00:04:59] Josh Hutchinson: And then she saw Clawson often for a week.
[00:05:03] Sarah Jack: "She said in her fits, 'Goody Clawson, let's have a turn at heels over head,' withall saying, 'shall you go first or shall I?' Said she, 'if I go first, you shall after.' And with that, she turned over two or three times, heels over head."
[00:05:17] Josh Hutchinson: Sometime later, she saw, quote, "a short old woman and lame, calling her Hook Back, Crump Back, having on a homespun coat and waistcoat and a black cap."
[00:05:29] Sarah Jack: Quote, "her master being gone a deputy to the court of election at Hartford," she named Mercy Woodbridge, then changed it to Holbridge, who lived in Campo.
[00:05:39] Josh Hutchinson: At some point she saw a, quote, "a black woman, thick lips, and of a middle stature, neither old nor young who had on an old large Samar, a dirty shift, and a dirty cap."
[00:05:54] Sarah Jack: Quote, she cried out in her fit, "Mercy, why do you meddle with me? I never did you any wrong. What's that to me, if my master did?"
[00:06:03] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "The woman told her that he had wronged her in giving in evidence against her."
[00:06:08] Sarah Jack: Quote, "sometimes for several days together, she'd be almost wholly dumb. At other times, singing, laughing, eating, riding."
[00:06:18] Josh Hutchinson: This is another thing that reminds me of Salem. There the afflicted persons would at times be well and, at other times, be in their fits.
[00:06:31] Sarah Jack: Katharine supposedly levitated, "she was carried up against the planches."
[00:06:37] Josh Hutchinson: The next night, Wescott, quote, "saw her move on the floor upon her back without stirring hand or foot to make that motion."
[00:06:47] Sarah Jack: Katharine was examined by the court on May 27th, 1692.
[00:06:52] Josh Hutchinson: She named Goody Clawson, Goody Hipshod, and Mercy Holbridge Disborough.
[00:06:59] Sarah Jack: She said, quote, "she went thither [to Compo] on foot by day, and that Mercy was her pilot thither and back again."
[00:07:08] Josh Hutchinson: On May 28th, Elizabeth Clawson was examined at a court in Stamford.
[00:07:13] Sarah Jack: She did, quote, "absolutely and peremptorily deny herself to be any such person."
[00:07:19] Josh Hutchinson: She did admit to quarreling with Daniel Westcott eight or nine years before.
[00:07:24] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth was searched by five women.
[00:07:27] Josh Hutchinson: Mary Ambler, Sarah Finch, Betha Wood, Sarah Trehearn, and Martha Holmes.
[00:07:35] Sarah Jack: Nothing unusual was found.
[00:07:37] Josh Hutchinson: Mercy Disborough was also examined at a court in Stamford on May 28th.
[00:07:43] Sarah Jack: Mercy, quote, "denied herself to be any such person or that she any ways knew or was privy to any means whereby the girl was so afflicted."
[00:07:51] Josh Hutchinson: She averred that she never saw or knew of the girl before now.
[00:07:57] Sarah Jack: Disborough's body was searched by seven women, Mary Ambler, Sarah Finch, Bethia Wood, Sarah Trehearn, Widow Hardy, Martha Holmes, and Elizabeth Clemence.
[00:08:08] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "they found a teat or like one in her privy parts at least an inch long, which is not common in other women."
[00:08:18] Sarah Jack: Back in court, Katharine Branch is lying on the floor, looked at Disborough and said, quote, "'tis she, I am sure tis she' and presently fell into a like paroxysm or fit as she usually is troubled with."
[00:08:31] Josh Hutchinson: Clawson and Disborough were searched again, and the jury of women returned the same findings. Clawson was clean, Disborough had a teat.
[00:08:41] Sarah Jack: On June 2nd, a special court was held in Fairfield.
[00:08:45] Josh Hutchinson: Mercy Disborough asked, quote, "to be tried by being cast into the water" to, quote, "vindicate her innocency."
[00:08:53] Sarah Jack: Mercy Disborough was water tested on a Monday.
[00:08:57] Josh Hutchinson: And she said, quote, "do you think that I would be such a fool as to be hanged alone?"
[00:09:03] Sarah Jack: On June 4th, 80 neighbors signed a petition defending Elizabeth Clawson.
[00:09:09] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "since we have known our said neighbor, Goodwife Clawson, we have not known her to be of a contentious frame nor given to use threatening words or to act maliciously towards her neighbors, but hath been civil and orderly towards others in her conversation and not to be a busybody in other men's concerns."
[00:09:29] Sarah Jack: At court on June 6th, Mercy was examined.
[00:09:32] Josh Hutchinson: And witness Thomas Bennett said, quote, " Mercy Disborough told him that she would make him as bare as bird's tale."
[00:09:41] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Bennett said, "Mercy Disborough did say that it would be so pressed, heaped and running over to her," after some difference that was about a sow of Benjamin Ramsey's."
[00:09:51] Josh Hutchinson: This was apparently a reference to Luke 6:38. In the King James version, this verse reads, "give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, and shaken together and running over shall men give into your bosom, for with the same measure that you mete withall, it shall be measured to you again."
[00:10:14] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth definitely felt like she was getting told what goes around comes around.
[00:10:19] Josh Hutchinson: She definitely saw it as a threat that you're gonna get what you give and so expect payback.
[00:10:30] Sarah Jack: Thomas Bennett lost two calves. Within two weeks of this loss, he lost 30 lambs. Later he lost two more calves.
[00:10:39] Josh Hutchinson: Henry Gray said, quote, "Mercy Disborough said she could not abide that said Henry Gray ever since he bought a parcel of apples of her mother, Mrs. Jones." And Elizabeth Bennett Senior and Elizabeth Bennett Jr. both confirmed this.
[00:10:55] Sarah Jack: Quote, "about a year ago or something more than that, he had a calf very strangely taken and acted things that are very unwonted. It roared very strangely for the space of near six or seven hours."
[00:11:06] Josh Hutchinson: Also, a lamb acted in a very strange manner and died.
[00:11:10] Sarah Jack: Two or three months ago, he tried to bargain with the Disboroughs for a calf, but they couldn't agree to a price. Mercy was supposedly pissed. Quote, "Disborough's wife was very angry and many hard words passed."
[00:11:23] Josh Hutchinson: Also two months ago, he lost a cow.
[00:11:26] Sarah Jack: A heifer was ill, so he cut off part of the poor cow's ear and then whipped her with his cart whip. When she ran, he continued to whip her until she was well.
[00:11:35] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, WTF is up with these people and the way they treat animals?
[00:11:42] Quote, "the calf he had of said Disborough looked like a new calf. The hammer strokes and crosses was plain to be seen in the calf from the time he had it until a short time before he carried it home, and then in about a quarter of an hour, the calf changed its looks and seemed to be an old calf that had been used about 20 years and that sundry nails appeared, which he could not see before." It was some kind of something made out of a calf skin that they called an old calf and would've had hammer strokes and stitches in it.
[00:12:25] Sarah Jack: So Henry was at his brother Jacob's house, and Mercy was there. She said, quote, "that because he would not have the cattle, she had said that it should cost him two cows, which he told her he could prove she had said."
[00:12:39] Josh Hutchinson: That same day, and Gray believes at the very same time, one of Thomas Bennett's cows was taken strangely, and Bennett used his cart whip to torture that animal until it acted well again.
[00:12:55] Sarah Jack: And the same day, Gray got home, and his wife told him that she had to call for the cart whip to whip a strangely affected calf, but it got well before the whip came.
[00:13:04] Josh Hutchinson: Ann Godfrey went with young Thomas Bennett's wife to Disborrough's house and, quote, "told Mercy Disborrough that Henry Gray's wife said she had bewitched her husband's oxen and made them jump over the fence and made the beer jump out of the barrel."
[00:13:22] Sarah Jack: Quote, "Mercy answered that there was a woman came to her and reviled her and asked her what she was doing. She told her she was praying to her God, and then she asked her who was her God? Also, she told her that her God was the devil. And Mercy said she bade the woman to go home and pray to her God. And she went home, but she knew not whether she did pray or not."
[00:13:42] Josh Hutchinson: Ann couldn't sleep one night.
[00:13:44] Sarah Jack: Quote, "she heard a noise about the house and also heard a noise like as though a beast were knocked with an ax. And in the morning there was a heifer of theirs lay dead near the door."
[00:13:54] Josh Hutchinson: Another time, Ann had a sick sow, and Mercy came by. Ann told her folks wanted to subject her to the water test, but she wouldn't need any water test if she didn't unbewitch Ann's sow, which soon got better.
[00:14:10] Sarah Jack: John Grumman Sr., about five years ago, his child was ill. Young Thomas Bennett threatened Mercy Disborough and told her to unbewitch the child. She approached it, the child, and stroked it and said, quote, "God forbade that she should hurt the child. And soon after the child was well."
[00:14:28] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Bennett Jr. said he had threatened to tear Mercy's heart out.
[00:14:33] Sarah Jack: Eleazer Slauson said, quote, "he lived near neighbor to Goodwife Clawson many years and did always observe her to be a person for peace and to counsel for peace. And when she hath had provocation from her neighbors, would answer and say, 'we must live in peace for we are neighbors.'"
[00:14:50] Josh Hutchinson: And Clement Buxton confirmed this testimony.
[00:14:53] Sarah Jack: Joseph Stirg and Benjamin Dunning heard Mercy Disborough, quote, "say if she were hanged, she would not be hanged alone. He told her, she implicitly owned herself a witch."
[00:15:04] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Haliberch the jailkeeper said Mercy Disborough told him and others that she had been tormented all night. Haliberch told her it was the devil. She agreed and, quote, "said that it told her that her soul was damned for yesterday's work."
[00:15:23] Sarah Jack: Mercy later owned this account in court and said, quote, "she believed that there was divination in all her troubles."
[00:15:29] Josh Hutchinson: Joseph Bulkley confirmed Haliberch's testimony.
[00:15:34] Sarah Jack: Samuel Smith, Sr. also confirmed Haliberch's testimony.
[00:15:38] Josh Hutchinson: Joseph Wakeman said, quote, "he heard Mercy Disborough say that she trusted in the Lord Jesus, and if he deceive her, she would not have others to trust in him."
[00:15:50] Sarah Jack: Daniel Westcott, June 7th, 1692, said he went to Elizabeth Clawson's house on June 6th and talked to her about her actions and asked if she would be ducked. She said she'd do it, if Stamford minister John Bishop and the authority said it was reliable.
[00:16:05] Josh Hutchinson: Later that night, Katharine Branch had her worst fits yet.
[00:16:10] Sarah Jack: That night, Daniel's child climbed out of bed.
[00:16:13] Josh Hutchinson: When Daniel returned the child to bed, he lay beside Katharine Branch, quote, "to hold in her fits, which being straining, lolling out her tongue, and jumping up and down, and she took hold of my hands, and immediately something whipped me across my face like a cord that I both felt and heard the stroke, and it smarted for some time after."
[00:16:36] Sarah Jack: On June 13th, Katharine Branch testified to Jonathan Selleck in Stamford.
[00:16:41] Josh Hutchinson: She claimed she'd never heard the names of the people she had accused until, quote, "they themselves told her, which appeared to her."
[00:16:49] Sarah Jack: Quote, "there is a girl and a woman, which the said Kate calls the girl's mother appear to her and they say they live in Fairfield, but their names she cannot tell and that also there is two more appears to her, the one from New York called Mary Glover, as she told the said Kate, and the other name Goody Abison from Boston, as the abovesaid girl told Kate her name."
[00:17:09] Josh Hutchinson: IRL, Goody Glover of Boston had been hanged in 1688, and a Mrs. Mary Obinson was named on October 10th, 1692 by the afflicted girls of Salem. Obinson was not arrested.
[00:17:24] Sarah Jack: Katharine named Goody Miller, who was formerly called Goody Hipshod or Goody Crump.
[00:17:30] Josh Hutchinson: Katharine claimed that Goody Miller and Mrs. Abison, as she called her, were the ones who actually took Daniel Westcott's child out of the bed and laid it on the floor, and Miller again took the kid out of bed last night.
[00:17:45] Sarah Jack: On June 28th, Katharine testified to Jonathan Selleck in Stamford. Last Saturday. Elizabeth Clawson appeared to her and afflicted her worse than usual, held her head back, pulled her arms, and pressed upon her. Clawson afflicted her again, quote, for a night or two following.
[00:18:01] Josh Hutchinson: Since Clawson was jailed in Fairfield, only Goody Miller appeared and afflicted Kate.
[00:18:07] Sarah Jack: Daniel Westcott backed her up, saying, quote, "that on said Saturday night, his maid Kate was extremely afflicted, making a terrible screeching noise, crying out, 'Goody Clawson, Goody Clawson, why will you kill me? Why will you torment me so?' Her head being bent backwards down to her back, I went to lift her up. She was so extreme heavy that she seemed to me to be three times heavier than that at other times, and said maid said, often, 'get off of me,' two or three times. In said fit, said Kate shook and the bedstead so terribly hard. It much a frightened us."
[00:18:40] Josh Hutchinson: John Finch was a witness that Saturday night, quote, "and tried to lift said Kate and found her so extreme heavy that he never found nor felt any the like.
[00:18:50] Sarah Jack: After the interview, Kate walked 40 or 50 rods from Selleck's house and fell down and, quote, "looked black in the face."
[00:18:58] Josh Hutchinson: Jonathan's son, John Selleck, and cousin, David Selleck, brought her back to the house.
[00:19:05] Sarah Jack: Quote, "In coming out of that fit, fell a screeching crying out, 'you kill me, Goody Clawson, you kill me.'"
[00:19:11] Josh Hutchinson: Kate had terrible fits all night and sometimes spoke to apparitions.
[00:19:16] Sarah Jack: She said, quote, "I will not yield to you for your witches, and your portion is hellfire to all eternity."
[00:19:22] Josh Hutchinson: She said, quote, "Goody Clawson, why do you torment me so? I never did you any harm, neither in word nor action,' saying, 'why are you all come now to afflict me?'"
[00:19:33] Sarah Jack: She named Goody Clawson, Mercy Disborough, Goody Miller, a woman, and a girl, quote, "whom she called Sarah."
[00:19:40] Josh Hutchinson: She said, "is Sarah Staples your right name? I'm afraid you tell me a lie. Hannah Harvey, is that your name? What is the woman's name that comes with Hannah Harvey? Mary Harvey, the mother of Hannah Harvey?"
[00:19:55] Sarah Jack: More cats appeared to Kate.
[00:19:58] Josh Hutchinson: Also a creature, quote, "with a great head and wings and no body and all black appeared."
[00:20:07] Sarah Jack: She asked Hannah Harvey if it was her father.
[00:20:09] Josh Hutchinson: She named Goody Staples, grandmother of Hannah Harvey, mother of Mary Harvey.
[00:20:15] Sarah Jack: "She fell into a fit, singing songs and then tunes, as Kate said, gigs for them to dance by each taking their turns."
[00:20:24] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "then said Kate rehearsed a great many verses which are in some primers, and also the dialogue between Christ the young man and the devil, the Lord's Prayer, all the commandments and catechism, the creed, etc., and several such good things."
[00:20:40] Sarah Jack: Quote, "some persons attempted to cut off a lock of the said Kate's hair when she was in her fits but could not do it, for, although she knew not what was said and done by them and let them come never so privately behind her to do it, yet she would at once turn about and prevent it. At last, David Waterbury took her in his arms to hold her by force that a lock of her hair might be cut, but though at other times a weak and light girl, yet she was then so strong and so extreme heavy that he could not deal with her, nor her hair could not be cut."
[00:21:10] Josh Hutchinson: On June 29th, quote, "Katharine Branch coming into her senses about nine of the o'clock in the morning, being questioned what she saw and who afflicted her the night past, saith that going homeward she was met by Goody Miller riding upon a black cat."
[00:21:26] Sarah Jack: Jonathan Selleck sent letter to Nathan Gold Magistrate dated June 29th, 1692.
[00:21:32] Josh Hutchinson: He told Gold that his son, John Selleck, would fill him in on the details of the wild night with Kate.
[00:21:38] Sarah Jack: And he related a story about trying to have Goody Miller arrested in Bedford, New York, where she was under the protection of her two brothers, Mr. Theale and Mr. Ambler who was there. Quote, Mr. Pell and Justice Theale would not do anything," even though Kate was taken there and identified Goody Miller.
[00:21:55] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "Abraham Andler told Daniel Wescott he knew what would become of her if she was sent down to us here. He not being willing to do it."
[00:22:05] Sarah Jack: Selleck said that the New York Attorney General would not order Goody Miller taken into custody. Selleck encouraged Nathan Gold to send to the governor of New York to request the extradition of Goody Miller.
[00:22:16] Josh Hutchinson: Selleck suggested that he could write to Colonel Caleb Heathcote, an influential landowner in New York, quote, "who hath the greatest interest in this present governor of any man in New York."
[00:22:29] Sarah Jack: On June 30th, Mary Newman said that two years ago she had an argument with Elizabeth Clawson and exchanged words. The next day, three of Newman's sheep died suddenly.
[00:22:39] Josh Hutchinson: On July 12th, John Tash swore his testimony before John Reynolds in Greenwich.
[00:22:46] Sarah Jack: About 30 years ago, Goodman and Goody Owen asked him to go to George Woolsey's house in Jamaica, Long Island with Mary Staples.
[00:22:54] Josh Hutchinson: Riding a horse with her behind him, they came to a rough slough, and he couldn't sense her behind him, so he reached back to her and felt nothing. When they got through the slough, Staples was back on the horse. This happened at the same spot on the way to Woolsey's house and on the way back.
[00:23:12] Sarah Jack: John Pettit, august 4th, 1692, Stamford. Quote, "John Pettit sayeth that he heard Daniel Westcott's wife say Kate told her that there came a fine man to her and told her that her brother was dead and that he would not trouble her no more in three weeks."
[00:23:29] Josh Hutchinson: On August 24th, Jonathan Bell wrote, quote, "Daniel Westcott came to my house upon the Saturday before he went to May Court and told me that his maidservant said that there came a gentleman to her that told her that her brother that was at Christopher's was dead, upon which she cried and was sad and told her that she should have no more fits this three weeks."
[00:23:53] Sarah Jack: Susannah Bell testified the same.
[00:23:57] Josh Hutchinson: That same day, Samuel Blatchley said that Abigail Cross said that Abigail Westcott Daniel's wife, mentioned Mercy Disborough's name in the presence of Katharine Branch. Abigail Westcott replied that Katharine was in a fit when she said that.
[00:24:13] Sarah Jack: Also on the 24th, Lydia Penoyer related that Katharine Branch told her that she, Katharine, quote, "never told Joseph Garnsey and Nathaniel Wyatt that she was possessed."
[00:24:25] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "she heard her aunt Abigail Westcott say that her servant girl Katharine Branch was such a lying girl that not anybody could believe one word what she said and said that she heard her aunt Abigail Wescott say that she did not believe that Mercy nor Goody Miller nor Hannah, nor any of these women whom she had impeached was any more witches than she was, and that her husband would believe Katharine before he would believe Mr. Bishop or Lieutenant Bell or herself."
[00:24:56] Sarah Jack: Katharine Branch and Daniel Westcott testified before Jonathan Bell on August 25th. Both testified that Katharine was afflicted in her sleep and her head was drawn back to her back.
[00:25:07] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "he got up and found her head drawn backward to her back and her body bowed upward a foot from the bed and her breath stopped."
[00:25:16] Sarah Jack: On August 29th, Joseph Bishop reported that he had asked Katharine what she saw in her fits. She said, cats. Abigail Westcott pressed her on it.
[00:25:25] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "Katharine answered, 'cats, if they be cats, they are no ordinary cats ,for ordinary cats can't turn themselves into a woman and then into a cat again and sit on the rail and jump on the wheel.'"
[00:25:38] Sarah Jack: Abigail Westcott asked Katharine to describe the woman she wore, quote, "serge cloth and the best homespun. I think she had pretty thick lips."
[00:25:48] Josh Hutchinson: In undated testimony, Joseph Garnsey told a story about an experiment performed during one of Katharine's to see if she would react when threatened with a knife in real life. She immediately snapped out of her fit and ran out of the room. The experiment was tried again, and she again came to. This time, she said, "I am possessed with the devil, and he appeared to me in the hen house in the shape of a black cat and was earnest with her to be a witch and if she would not, he would tear her in pieces."
[00:26:22] Sarah Jack: Then she said she saw the devil. According to Garnsey, quote, "just at this time to my appearance, there seemed to dart in at the west window a sudden light across the room." Kate saw the devil as a white dog.
[00:26:35] Josh Hutchinson: Kate told Garnsey she had seen the devil appear in the shapes of Goody Clawson, Goody Miller and Mercy Disborough. The devil told her that it was really him.
[00:26:45] Sarah Jack: "She said she could not tell. They might be honest women, for ought she knew, or they might be witches."
[00:26:52] Josh Hutchinson: Nathaniel Wyatt confirmed Joseph Garnsey's testimony.
[00:26:57] Sarah Jack: In undated testimony, Ebenezer Bishop testified that during a fit, Katharine Branch, quote "said, 'now they are going to kill me and crying out very loud that they pinched her on the neck and calling out that they pinched again. I sitting by her, I took the light and looked upon her neck and I see a spot look red, seeming to me as big as a piece of eight. Afterwards, it turned blue and blacker than any other part of her skin, and after the second time of her calling, I took the light and looked again, and she pointed with her hand lower upon her shoulder, and I see another place upon her shoulder looked red and blue, as I saw upon the other place before, and then after that she had another fit."
[00:27:35] Josh Hutchinson: Hannah Knapp corroborated Bishop's testimony and added that she saw scratches upon Kate.
[00:27:42] Sarah Jack: In an undated testimony, Abigail Cross said, quote, "upon some discourse with Daniel Westcott about his girl's dissembling, said Daniel said that he would venture both his cows against a calf that she would do a trick tomorrow morning that nobody else could do."
[00:27:56] Josh Hutchinson: Abigail asked, "can you make her do it when you will?"
[00:28:00] Sarah Jack: Daniel said, "yes, and when I will, I can make her do it."
[00:28:05] Josh Hutchinson: Nathaniel Cross corroborated his wife, Abigail's testimony.
[00:28:09] Sarah Jack: Abraham Finch, Jr. testified that quote, "he being a watching with the French girl at Daniel Westcott's house in the night, I being laid on the bed, the girl fell into a fit and fell across my feet. And then I looking up, I saw a light about the bigness of my two hands glance along the summer [beam] of the house to the hearth ward, and afterwards I saw it no more."
[00:28:31] Josh Hutchinson: Kate said, "Goody Clawson came in with two fiery eyes."
[00:28:35] Sarah Jack: David Selleck was lying on the bed beside Katharine while Abraham was lying on the chest. David started up and said, "she pricked me."
[00:28:43] Josh Hutchinson: "The French girl answered, no, she did not. It was Goody Crump, and she put her hand over the bedside and said, 'give me that thing that you pricked Mr. Selleck with.' And I catched hold of her hand and found a pin in it, and I took it away from her."
[00:29:00] Sarah Jack: On another occasion, Elizabeth Clawson said, "she had not confessed, nor would not confess as long as she had breath to draw or to that effect."
[00:29:09] Josh Hutchinson: On August 29th, 50 year old man Samuel Holly, Sr. stated that, quote, "being at the house of Daniel Westcott in the evening, I did see his made Katharine Branch in her fit that she did swell in her breasts as she lay on her bed, and they rises like bladders and suddenly passed into her belly and a short time returned to her breast. And in a short time, her breasts fell and a great rattling in her throat as if she would've been choked. All this I judge beyond nature."
[00:29:43] Sarah Jack: Daniel Wescott confirmed this testimony and added, quote, "that when she was in those fits rattling in her throat, she would put out her tongue to a great extent I conceived beyond nature, and I put her tongue into her mouth again, and then I looked in her mouth and could see no tongue, but as if it were a lump of flesh down her throat, and this oftentimes."
[00:30:04] Josh Hutchinson: On August 30th, Daniel Westcott said, quote, "as she lay on the bed at her length in her fit and at once spring up to the chamber floor without the help of her hands or feet. That's near six feet, and I judge it beyond nature for any person so to do."
[00:30:21] Sarah Jack: On August 31st, John Knapp confirmed what Daniel Westcott said the day before.
[00:30:26] Josh Hutchinson: That same day, David Selleck said, quote, "in the night when said Katharine was in her fit, she, looking off the bed, said, 'Goody Miller, hold up your arm higher that the black dog may suck thee better.' Again, she said, 'Goody Miller, I never thought so much before, for now I'm sure you are a witch, for you have got a long teat under your arm.'"
[00:30:50] Sarah Jack: Abraham Finch, quote, "saw a ball of fire as big as his two hands pass along the summer [beam] to the hearth, and then vanish away."
[00:30:58] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "she said that she saw Goody Clawson come in with fiery eyes."
[00:31:03] Sarah Jack: Lying in bed beside Katharine, with Abraham Finch lying on the chest, David felt a prickling in his side.
[00:31:10] Josh Hutchinson: Katharine said, "'Goody Crump, give me that thing that you pricked Mr. Selleck withall.' Then shutting her hand, Abraham Finch reached hold of her hand, and we found a pin in it."
[00:31:21] Sarah Jack: This should have been seen as clear evidence of fraud.
[00:31:25] Josh Hutchinson: On September 7th, Sarah Kecham reported, quote, "I asked her to ride, and then she got to riding. I asked her if her horse had any name, and she called out and said, 'Jack.' I then asked her to sing, and then she sung. I asked her that if she had sung in English, she could then sing French, and then she sung that which they called French."
[00:31:47] Sarah Jack: Thomas Austin told Kecham he knew that Katharine was bewitched. Kecham said that she doubted it. She didn't believe there was a witch in town.
[00:31:56] Josh Hutchinson: Then they did an experiment. Thomas Austin said that a bewitched person would laugh themself to death if a bare sword was held over them. They tried, it and Katharine laughed. But then they tried it without telling her, and she did not react at all.
[00:32:15] Sarah Jack: John Bates Jr. confirmed Kecham's testimony.
[00:32:18] Josh Hutchinson: On September 10th, Edward Jesop testified in Fairfield that last winter at Thomas Disborough's house, there was a pig roasting, with skin like normal pig. When it was placed on the table, the skin was suddenly gone. But when Thomas Disborough began cutting it, the skin reappeared.
[00:32:40] Sarah Jack: Later that evening, there was a debate over scripture. When Mercy Disborough brought out a bible, Jesop couldn't read it.
[00:32:48] Josh Hutchinson: On his way home, he needed a canoe to get across Campo Creek, but he couldn't move the canoe into the water.
[00:32:55] Sarah Jack: He tried to ride his old cart horse, Joe, around but couldn't get the horse to stay on the road.
[00:33:01] Josh Hutchinson: It took all night to get a little over two miles.
[00:33:04] Sarah Jack: On September 12th, Daniel Westcott testified that some years since he had quarrel with Elizabeth Clawson over the weight of some flax.
[00:33:12] Josh Hutchinson: Some short time after, Daniel's daughter, Johanna, was taken with fits.
[00:33:19] Sarah Jack: She continued to have fits at night for about three weeks.
[00:33:22] Josh Hutchinson: Then upon the advice of neighbors, the Westcotts sent their daughter to Fairfield, and the fits stopped.
[00:33:29] Sarah Jack: Abigail Westcott corroborated the testimony.
[00:33:33] Josh Hutchinson: On September 12th, Abigail Westcott claimed that Elizabeth Clawson once threw rocks at her.
[00:33:38] Sarah Jack: Another time Clawson called her a quote, "proud slut," and said, quote, "are you proud of your fine clothes and you love to be mistress, but you never shall be mine."
[00:33:48] Josh Hutchinson: Daniel Westcott's enslaved indigenous boy saw a string tie itself around Katharine's neck.
[00:33:58] Sarah Jack: Abigail Westcott witnessed the marks around Kate's neck after Daniel removed the string.
[00:34:03] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Penoyer said that Goodwife Clawson argued with Mary Newman, whose daughter had allegedly stolen, quote, "apples or nuts or grapes or some such thing. " Clawson said, "if she allowed her children to steal when they was young, how would they be when they were old?"
[00:34:22] Sarah Jack: Thomas's wife's, Lydia, agreed to his testimony.
[00:34:26] Josh Hutchinson: Sarah Bates said that when Kate had the first fit, the Westcotts sent for her to attend to the girl. Upon evaluating the girl, Bates decided she may have a natural illness.
[00:34:38] Sarah Jack: She suggested they burn feathers under Kate's nose and also suggested a few other remedies for fainting fits.
[00:34:44] Josh Hutchinson: While Kate was in a fit, Sarah Bates and Abigail Westcott decided to bleed her. When they approached to draw blood, Kate snapped out of the fit.
[00:34:54] Sarah Jack: Then she did let them take blood from her foot, and when she had laid a while, quote, "she clapped her hand upon the coverlid and cried out. And one of the girls that stood by said, 'mother, she cried out,' and her mistress was so affected with it that she cried and said, 'she is bewitched.' Upon this, the girl turned her head from the folk, as if she would hide it in the pillow, and laughed.
[00:35:14] Josh Hutchinson: Mary Lockwood confirmed this testimony.
[00:35:17] Sarah Jack: Swimming test witnesses Abraham Adams and Jonathan Squire made a statement.
[00:35:22] Josh Hutchinson: Both testified that, quote, "when Elizabeth Clawson was bound hand and foot and put into the water, she swam like a cork, and Joseph Stirg labored to press her into the water, and she buoyed up like a cork"
[00:35:36] Sarah Jack: Court of and Terminer, September 14th at Fairfield.
[00:35:40] Josh Hutchinson: Magistrates Governor Robert Treat, Deputy Governor William Jones, Major Nathan Gould, John Allen, Mr. Andrew Lee, Captain John Burr, Mr. William Pitkin, and Captain Moses Mansfield.
[00:35:54] Sarah Jack: Crown's Attorneys Lieutenant James Bennett and Mr. Eliphalet Hill.
[00:35:59] Josh Hutchinson: Mercy Disborough was arraigned.
[00:36:02] Sarah Jack: The grand jury indicted her.
[00:36:04] Josh Hutchinson: Disborough pled not guilty and agreed to stand trial.
[00:36:08] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Clawson was arraigned.
[00:36:12] Josh Hutchinson: The grand jury indicted her, as well.
[00:36:15] Sarah Jack: Disborough and Clawson were searched yet again by a jury of women.
[00:36:19] Josh Hutchinson: This time, Clawson had, quote, "in her private parts more than is common to women. We can't say teats but something extraordinary and Goody Disborough's was something like it but a great deal less, Goody Clawson's a dark red, and Disborough's of a pale color."
[00:36:38] Sarah Jack: Katharine Branch testified September 19th, quote, "sometime this last summer, she saw and felt Goodwife Clawson and Mercy Disborough afflict her, not together but apart, by scratching, pinching, and wringing her body."
[00:36:51] Josh Hutchinson: The grand jury presented Mary Staples, Mary Harvey, and Hannah Harvey.
[00:36:56] Sarah Jack: The court called three times for witnesses on September 15th, and then again called for witnesses on September 16th.
[00:37:02] Josh Hutchinson: Only two witnesses appeared, quote, "and what was objected seemed to be of no great weight."
[00:37:10] Sarah Jack: The court cleared the three women by proclamation.
[00:37:14] Josh Hutchinson: The jury could not reach a verdict on Clawson or Disborough.
[00:37:18] Sarah Jack: Court sent to the General Court for advice.
[00:37:21] Josh Hutchinson: And sent the prisoners to jail.
[00:37:24] Sarah Jack: The court was dismissed until a response was received from the General Court.
[00:37:28] Josh Hutchinson: On October 13th, the General Court ordered a new court session to be held ASAP.
[00:37:34] Sarah Jack: Court reconvened on October 28th in Fairfield.
[00:37:40] Josh Hutchinson: Disborough was convicted. The court sent the jury to reconsider. They didn't change their verdict. The court accepted it, and the governor issued the death sentence.
[00:37:52] Sarah Jack: Clawson was acquitted. The court accepted this and agreed to release Clawson from jail upon payment of her jail fees.
[00:37:59] Josh Hutchinson: The court sought advice from the clergy.
[00:38:02] Sarah Jack: On October 17th, Joseph Eliot, Timothy Woodbridge, and unnamed others responded.
[00:38:08] Josh Hutchinson: They said the swimming test is unlawful evidence.
[00:38:13] Sarah Jack: Quote, "the unusual excrescences found upon their bodies ought not to be allowed as evidence against them without the approbation of some able physicians."
[00:38:21] Josh Hutchinson: They further said that Katharine Branch may have dissembled, and you can't trust spectral evidence, because it may be counterfeited by the devil, so she's not a reliable witness.
[00:38:32] Sarah Jack: Quote, "as to the other strange accidents as the dying of cattle, etc., we apprehend the applying of them to these women as matters of witchcraft to be upon very slender and uncertain grounds."
[00:38:43] Josh Hutchinson: Richard Holmes testified on October 27th in Norwalk before Thomas Fitch.
[00:38:50] Sarah Jack: Quote, "my mother [a midwife] told me that the report was true and that Elizabeth Clawson was not as other women were."
[00:38:57] Josh Hutchinson: John Finch testified on October 28th in Stamford that about a year ago, he had a difference with Elizabeth Clawson. Soon a child was ill for two weeks and died.
[00:39:09] Sarah Jack: On May 12th, 1693, magistrates Samuel Willis, William Pitkin, and Nathaniel Stanley issued a defense of the reprieve of Mrs. Mercy Disborough.
[00:39:17] Josh Hutchinson: For one thing, they had the authority to do so.
[00:39:21] Sarah Jack: They had their reasons to believe the death penalty was not appropriate for Disborough.
[00:39:26] Josh Hutchinson: The jury was altered between court sessions. Quote, "one man altered, the jury is altered."
[00:39:32] Sarah Jack: "We had a good account of the evidences given against her that none of them amounted to what Mr. Perkins, Mr. Bernard, and Mr. Mather, with others, state as sufficiently convictive of witchcraft."
[00:39:44] Josh Hutchinson: There was no confession.
[00:39:46] Sarah Jack: They did not have two good witnesses to prove works above the course of nature.
[00:39:51] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "as for the common things of spectral evidence, ill events after quarrels or threats, teats, water trials, and the like with suspicious words, they are all discarded and some of them abominated by the most judicious as to be convictive of witchcraft."
[00:40:09] Sarah Jack: Further, the witch-hunt in Salem proves these things are nothing but trouble and, quote, "will make hanging work apace."
[00:40:16] Josh Hutchinson: And at some point, Deputy Governor William Jones wrote out a document called "Grounds for Examination of a Witch," which we've previously read on this podcast in Connecticut witch Trials 101 Part One.
[00:40:32] Sarah Jack: Gershom Buckley later wrote a brief summary of what happened in 1692 saying, quote, "a time was appointed for execution, but upon motion, three of the Assistants of Hartford send down a reprieve, whereby the execution is suspended till next general court."
[00:40:47] Josh Hutchinson: In 1693, Hugh Crosia of Fairfield was accused of witchcraft after he claimed he had made a pact with Satan and sealed it with his blood. The indictment also referred to Crosia afflicting unspecified people.
[00:41:02] Sarah Jack: Crosia admitted in court that he had lied about the pact with the devil.
[00:41:06] Josh Hutchinson: On May 8th, the grand jury returned the indictment ignoramus, meaning there was not enough evidence to go to trial.
[00:41:14] Sarah Jack: Crosia was released upon payment of jail fees.
[00:41:17] Josh Hutchinson: Here's the story of accused witches from a founding family in Wallingford. The victims were Winifred Benham, Sr. and Winifred Benham, Jr. This family, like the Staples-Harvey family, included three generations of women targeted as witches in a direct line of descendants, as the mother of Winifred Sr., Mary Hale was tried as a witch in Boston, Massachusetts about a decade before.
[00:41:43] Sarah Jack: The genealogy story of Winifred Benham, Sr. has been confusing due due to the complexity around her name origins and the thin trail, her mother's marriages, and court case. We won't get into that today, because what we can know of the Benham women's link to mother Mary Hale is through court record statements and family connections through legal records.
[00:42:01] Josh Hutchinson: Winifred Benham, Sr. and Winifred, Jr. can likely be linked as the daughter and granddaughter of accused Boston witch Mary Hale. By looking at court records, Winifred Sr. and Mary Hale both gave their testimonies in a deposition in a 1656 lawsuit for Hugh Williams. This is pieced together in the July 2007 American Genealogists article called "Origin of Accused Witch Mary Williams King Hale of Boston and Her Brothers Hugh, John, and Possibly Nathaniel Williams" by Michael J. LeClerc and D. Brenton Simons.
[00:42:38] Sarah Jack: In their depositions, Mary refers to, quote, "her brother's house," and Winifred refers to, quote, "her uncle's house" in the lawsuit naming Hugh Williams as the brother and uncle. The article goes on to explain how record evidence connects the Williams brothers together and to Mary Hale and Winifred Benham, Sr. The article further establishes this link with trial records from the 1680/81 witchcraft case of Mary Hale, wherein she identifies Winifred's daughter, Joanna Benham, born 1662, as her granddaughter, as well as a deposition from Joanna in the case where she identifies herself as Mary Hale's granddaughter.
[00:43:13] Josh Hutchinson: Witchcraft charges against Mary Hale in February and March 1681 stemmed from the suspicious death of Michael Smith, a mariner who had formerly lodged at Mary Hale's house and who had attempted to court her granddaughter, Joanna Benham. Smith claimed shortly before his death that Mary had bewitched him while he was at the Isles of Shoals and at Bilboa and further that in a separate incident, she transported him to Dorchester, where he encountered a coven of witches.
[00:43:44] Sarah Jack: After his courtship with Joanna failed, Smith began seeing another young woman named Margaret Ellis of Boston, who became one of the chief accusers against Mary Hale when the mariner died under strange circumstances. According to the article, among the unusual witchcraft evidence used against Mary was a test using a bottle containing Smith's urine. When the bottle was stopped, Mary moved to and fro in an agitated manner throughout the house. When it was unstopped, her movement ceased. It is unclear whether Mary Hale was convicted because no further records have been identified yet. We have no record of her life after this. We do not know when or where she died.
[00:44:21] Josh Hutchinson: Mary Hale's daughter and granddaughter, Winifred Benham, Sr. and Jr. were also destined to endure witchcraft charges.
[00:44:30] Sarah Jack: Winifred Sr. had moved with her husband, Joseph, in 1670, Wallingford, Connecticut, before her mother Mary Hale's trial. Joseph Benham, like his father, John Benham, was one of the 37 founders of Wallingford. We know what land the Benham men held in Wallingford and that they had meeting house seat assignments in Wallingford, as well.
[00:44:48] Josh Hutchinson: Legal troubles for the family began in 1691, when Joseph Benham was tried for describing the selectman of Wallingford as quote, "no more fit for townsmen than dogs." In the following year, he threatened a neighbor, Goody Parker, with his gun for casting aspersions witchcraft upon Winifred. Joseph had already had his mother-in-law and daughter Joanna embroiled in a witchcraft trial in Boston
[00:45:16] In 1692, several townsfolk, such as Hannah Parker, Deacon Hall, and Anna Street, approached Reverend Samuel Street for guidance and together reported a formal complaint against Winifred Benham to the county court. Winifred Sr. was charged at the New Haven County Court for witchcraft, but the court found insufficient grounds to convict her.
[00:45:38] Sarah Jack: It appears she pleaded innocent and did not implicate others as witches. She was released with the warning that more suspicion would bring more charges. It is believed that in June of 1693 there was further examination about witchcraft, but we currently have no record.
[00:45:52] Josh Hutchinson: In 1697, Winifred Benham, Sr. was accused of witchcraft again, this time, along with her 12 or 13 year old daughter, Winifred Benham Jr. Winifred Sr. and Winifred Jr. were sent by local officials to high court for witchcraft charges to the Superior Court in Hartford.
[00:46:10] Sarah Jack: With no further witch trial cases on record, this leaves the Winifreds as the last two accused witches sent by local officials to a higher court in the New England colonies.
[00:46:19] Josh Hutchinson: The court records indicate that present were Robert Treat, Esq., Governor; William Jones, Esq., Deputy Governor; and Major Moses Mansfield, Assistant.
[00:46:31] Sarah Jack: The accusers represented at this trial were Ebenezer Clark, Joseph Royse, and John Moss, Jr.
[00:46:37] Josh Hutchinson: They testified that Sarah Clark, daughter of Ebenezer Clark, John Moss III, son of John Moss, Jr., and Elizabeth Lathrop, were physically harmed by the apparitions and witchcraft of Winifred Benham, Sr. and Winifred Benham, Jr. or by the devil in their shapes. Joseph Benham was ordered to pay 21 pounds for their appearance and for them to be jailed until the next convening of the court in October.
[00:47:04] Sarah Jack: On October 7th, 1697, the court of assizes met in Hartford, and prosecutor Daniel Clark argued that Winifred Benham, Sr. and Winifred Benham, Jr. of Wallingford had made dealings with Satan and, through this relationship, had been causing mischief around the town of Wallingford, hurting numerous people and disturbing the peace. They were also accused of causing the death of a baby.
[00:47:24] Josh Hutchinson: More details on the Winifred Benham, Sr. witch trial saga appear in the writing of Robert Calef in his More Wonders of the Invisible World. He reported that she was searched for teats and water tested. This is where it is stated that the Winifreds were acquitted in the 1697 trial and fled to New York.
[00:47:44] Sarah Jack: Like her mother, we lose the trail of Winifred Benham, Sr. We do not know when or where she died or when or where she is buried.
[00:47:51] Josh Hutchinson: John Benham, son of Winifred Sr. and Joseph Sr. was a resident of Kings County, New York, and two of the Benham daughters, Anna and Sarah were then living in Richmond. In the records of the Dutch Church on Staten Island, it states that Anna Benham and her husband, Lambert Johnson, had a daughter with the namesake, Winifred, who was baptized in 1696. As this family was already on Staten Island, Winifred Benham Sr. may have fled here, as Calef reported.
[00:48:25] Sarah Jack: More than one granddaughter was named Winifred after the Benham Winifreds. I'm a descendant of Winifred Sr. through her son Joseph, Jr. I have been contacted by several descendants in the past year looking for more information on how she's being remembered by the community, including one descending line that had passed down the oral history of Winifred Sr. being an accused witch. This was passed down to the current living generation, all the way down to living grandsons. That is touching.
[00:48:52] This past March 1st, at the Judiciary Committee hearing on HJ 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut, I gave in person testimony as a descendant. It was an unexplainable, proud experience to be able to give testimony in support of a state exoneration for my accused witch ancestor. The state representative representing Wallingford, along with others, voted no against the resolution at the judiciary hearing. But support for HJ 34 kept growing, and legislators representing Wallingford later voted yes in the House and Senate.
[00:49:23] After an amendment to the resolution in the House ,State Representative Craig Fishbein did change his original stance against the resolution. And after voting no on March 1st, he voted yes on May 10th, that accused witches Winifred Benham, Sr. and Winifred Benham, Jr., women of a founding family from his district did deserve an apology for what happened to them.
[00:49:43] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for that, Sarah. Your testimony was excellent.
[00:49:48] Sarah Jack: Sarah Clother and Goodwife Brown were accused of witchcraft by Bethia Taylor of Colchester in 1713. Taylor withdrew the charge and apologized in public.
[00:49:57] Josh Hutchinson: Sarah Spencer was accused of bewitching her sister-in-law, Elizabeth Ackley in 1724, Spencer sued Ackley for 500 pounds damages for defamation and won five pounds.
[00:50:11] Sarah Jack: In 1742, Elizabeth Gold of Guilford sued Benjamin Chittenden for 500 pounds for defamation. The court found for the defendant, Chittenden, due to an insufficient declaration by the plaintiff, Gold.
[00:50:23] And now Mary Bingham is back with another great Minute with Mary.
[00:50:28] Mary Bingham: May 25th, 2023, the day when those accused, convicted, and hanged for the capitol crime of witchcraft in colonial Connecticut were finally cleared. This is the day I will never forget. The first order of business for me was to travel the two hours south to Hartford from my hometown in New Hampshire and arrive by 11:00 AM. All I wanted was to be with the people, my people, who worked tirelessly since May 26th of 2022 to secure justice for these victims who lived over three centuries ago. They lived in our hearts in an indescribable way that day.
[00:51:11] Not knowing the city of Hartford, I wound up parking at the Old State House, thinking it was close to the capitol. Wrong. I ran 15 minutes clear across town in sandals that would've no doubt twisted a smaller ankle than mine, and I almost fell into a sinkhole, as I rushed across the further side of Bushnell Park.
[00:51:34] When I entered the capitol, after going through security and then ascending four floors to the gallery, I was never so happy to greet my fellow team members with warm hugs and smiles. Then the wait for final passage of our bill, HJ 34, began. We weren't sure how long that would be before the bill came before the Senate, early in the afternoon or closer to midnight, so we listened to some of the other important bills presented that day, went for lunch in the cafeteria, hung outside the gallery and talked, and then went downstairs for ice cream.
[00:52:14] At 4:30, some of us were still downstairs when the urgent text came through that our bill was now before the Senate. We ran up four flights of stairs in record time for the final time that afternoon. When I took my seat, I felt like everything was surreal. I listened as the senators spoke for well over an hour. Final passage of this bill meant so much to us, the descendants, those who still suffer brutally as a result of active witch hunts today, as well as those who risk their lives advocating for the modern day victims. We knew from firsthand knowledge that other countries watched to see what the state of Connecticut would do. At about 6:00 PM Eastern Time, the bill passed. Connecticut had corrected the historical record for the world to see.
[00:53:09] What joy and exhilaration I felt, as tears of relief fell from my eyes for about 10 minutes straight. I was so grateful to finally meet and thank in person State Representative Jane Garibay and State Senator Dr. Saud Anwar, who were workhorses on behalf of this bill. Then I got my private wishes, to celebrate with my team members over good food and a nice glass of wine.
[00:53:36] The following day, I realized my ultimate dream, when I knelt down and ran my fingers through the earth where both Alice Young and Lydia Gilbert lived and walked. Another most wonderful part of this journey, to meet people who have not only become friends, but who have become my family. We will always have this shared historical experience that is special to us. Sarah, Josh, Beth, and Tony, thank you for making it special.
[00:54:05] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:54:07] Josh Hutchinson: And here's Sarah with End. Witch Hunts News.
[00:54:11] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News.
[00:54:14] Quote, "the world redeemed from superstition's sway is breathing freer for thy sake today," by John Greenleaf Whittier, a Quaker poet. These are the last lines of the memorial poem on the Rebecca Nurse Monument at her homestead museum. Breathing freer for thy sake today. The power of breathing is life. Life is powered by breath, inhaled and exhaled from our lungs. Draw it in with me.
[00:54:41] This breath saturated the moments of the witch trials of the 17th century American colonies. Breath was huffed and panted in affliction. Breath was held and paused in fear. Fleeting breaths, wheezed and gasped. Breath was crushed from lungs with weight, breath choked and spit as it condemned. The last breathed words hung from the gallows. The last gasp. The dying breath delivered the final twitch. Then the hunt ran out of air and these Hunts ceased.
[00:55:09] Now let's exhale with easy resting breath. Rebecca and her fellow persecuted accused witches are at rest. They've been acknowledged by their descendants and society, are memorialized through education, monuments, ceremonies, family societies, media, the arts, books, poems, photographs, podcasts, and conversations between us all, all over the world.
[00:55:34] But reality is the world is not free to breathe redeemed from superstitions. Witch hunts truly continue. The vulnerable who are hunted are holding their breath in fear, and we who are not hunted must continue to use our breath to teach. Now I'm going to breathe down your neck about ending witch hunts. The witch hunts of today are more than a remnant of witch trials and witch hunts past. Like before, women, men, and children are blamed for misfortune and curses. They are unjustly punished. They're still using their breath to plead, to plead their innocence. They do not want to suffer. We must keep working to make people aware that witch hunts are not the result of superstition and hysteria, but rather a natural human reaction to pressure and strife, an impulse we must understand in order to control .
[00:56:19] The same factors which led to Salem are present today. They're always multiple factors that are repeatedly found in combination. Single bullet theories ignore the human fear of the Other that is behind it all. Vocal advocates in countries gripped by witch hunts are asking us for acknowledgement and support. Listen to them and talk about what they are telling us. Join them as they wish to memorialize and remember their victims. Accused witch memorialization and remembrance helps us grieve, and it connects us with ancestors, modern victims, and all fellow human beings who suffer this injustice. It teaches us to make things right when we can, to keep working for a world safe from witch hunts against the vulnerable. Continue to expand the remembrance of witch trial victims in your community's history and of all witch-hunt victims. Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast supports the efforts to end witch hunts. You can learn more by visiting our websites and the websites listed in our show notes for more information about country-specific advocacy groups.
[00:57:15] Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or make a financial contribution to our organization. Our links are in the show description.
[00:57:27] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that excellent report.
[00:57:30] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:57:32] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast
[00:57:36] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:57:39] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
[00:57:42] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com
[00:57:45] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[00:57:47] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:57:53] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:57:56]

June 15, 2023

Dan Gagnon on Salem Witch Trials Victim George Jacobs, Sr.

A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse by Daniel A. Gagnon

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Show Notes

Welcome back local historian Dan Gagnon, who brings us the unexpected journey of Salem Witch Trial victim George Jacobs Sr., one of the men executed for witchcraft on August 19, 1692. We discuss the complicated trauma and experiences of the many members of the Jacobs household involved in the trials. Learn about the fascinating travels of George Jacob Sr’s remains. Where did his bones rest across the centuries and why were they being moved? We address the importance of victim memorials and exonerations of innocent accused witches by contrasting the way Rebecca Nurse has been remembered to the way George Jabob Sr was set aside. The Rebecca Nurse Homestead history is discussed, and this part of the conversation will be meaningful to descendants. This discussion communicates End Witch Hunts’ message: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Skeletons in the Closet: How the Actions of the Salem Witch Trial Victims’ Families in 1692 Affected Later Memorialization, by Daniel A. Gagnon, New England Journal of History

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Transcript

[00:00:00]
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we speak again with author Dan Gagnon, who wrote the article "Skeletons in the Closet: How the Actions of the Salem Witch Trials Victims' Families in 1692 Affected Later Memorialization", which was published in the New England Journal of History in 2019. And we'll be talking to him about George Jacobs, Sr., the oldest Salem Witch Trials victim. We'll talk about how his family got caught up in the witch trials and how disruptive that was.
[00:01:03] Sarah Jack: It was really interesting to hear how when faced with charges, the different family members responded.
[00:01:10] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, that was very interesting. They all have different reactions that we will get into later, but you have the whole fight or flight or freeze response, and you get all three answers when they come for the Jacobs family.
[00:01:30] Sarah Jack: I enjoyed this look at the afflicted girls. It's the older afflicted young women, and how greatly their accusations stuck.
[00:01:45] Josh Hutchinson: We'll get into how weak the evidence was and how heavily it depended upon the testimony of these girls and young women and other afflicted persons.
[00:01:59] Sarah Jack: We talk a little bit about the jail time and the execution on August 19th, 1692.
[00:02:08] Josh Hutchinson: We'll talk about who else was hanged on that date and what other events unfolded.
[00:02:16] Sarah Jack: George is highlighted in this article by Dan, because of the stark contrast between his burial and memorialization compared to someone like Rebecca Nurse's burial and memorialization.
[00:02:31] Josh Hutchinson: We'll ask why some people received physical displays of their family's memory while others were kept in their family's hearts alone. And we'll learn about the history of how all that unfolded and how he finally received some recognition.
[00:02:56] Sarah Jack: It's thought-provoking in regards to how different families have responded to the witch trial history over the years and how that plays into the remembrance of the victims, as well.
[00:03:13] Josh Hutchinson: And I don't think any of that should reflect on George Jacobs, Sr. himself. I always find him to be a heroic figure in the witch trials, one of those several people who stood against the charges against him, and he delivered some of the best lines of the witch trials in the face of the questions from the magistrates while the afflicted girls were putting on a spectacle around him.
[00:03:47] Sarah Jack: Another indication that he's someone who is a hero is even though some of his family members might have had some disappointing responses that greatly impact the outcome of his trial, you find that he made decisions in the end with his will that were favorable for his family.
[00:04:07] Josh Hutchinson: He made sure that they were going to be provided for in the future.
[00:04:12] Sarah Jack: I thought it was really good that Dan points out that these people who are facing death are still dictating their wishes on the handing down of their property and personal artifacts. They have that power left. That power, you know, is a statement.
[00:04:32] And now welcome back Dan Gagnon, local historian and author of A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse. Let's take a journey with Dan to the George Jacobs, Sr. witch trial of 1692 and on the journey of his restless bones that finally found peace centuries later.
[00:04:54] Dan Gagnon: So with the 1692 Salem Witch-Hunt, the era of memorialization takes place much later, really doesn't start till 200 years later, just about. The first memorial dedicated to one of the victims of the witch-hunt is the memorial to Rebecca nurse in 1885. Then in 1892, the 200th anniversary, right next to the 1885 Memorial in Nurse Family Cemetery, there's a monument constructed to those who defended Rebecca Nurse in 1692.
[00:05:33] Then after that, the next era of physical memorialization doesn't happen till 1992. In 1992 in March, the Salem Village Memorial on Hobart Street in Danvers is dedicated with the names of all of those who are killed in 1692. And it's placed right across from where the original Salem Village meeting house would've been. And then that summer of 1992, the City of Salem dedicates a memorial in kind of an empty lot in downtown Salem. Then most recently, not till 2017, on the 325th anniversary, the City of Salem dedicates a memorial near Proctor's Ledge in Salem, which is about the area where we believe the hangings probably took place.
[00:06:22] Josh Hutchinson: Great. I don't know if you've noticed, but my name is on that 1892 Memorial. It has Joseph Hutchinson, but it spells it J O S apostrophe H. So it looks like Josh. That's what got me into this whole thing, was my first visit there. I saw my own name and was like, "wow, Josh Hutchinson defended Rebecca Nurse. That's awesome."
[00:06:48] Dan Gagnon: Oh, that's cool.
[00:06:50] Josh Hutchinson: So that's how I got into it. And then I think the the 1992 Danvers Memorial might be on Hutchinson land, originally, Joseph's land across from the meeting house. He donated the land for the meeting house.
[00:07:08] Dan Gagnon: Yeah. Yeah, so definitely across the street and probably the other side of the street, too, where the memorial is.
[00:07:15] Josh Hutchinson: That's what I think just looking at the Marilynne Roach map, I got that impression. So at least to me it's on Hutchinson land, and that's my ancestor.
[00:07:26] Dan Gagnon: All good.
[00:07:27] Josh Hutchinson: That's how I got into all this stuff. But going on to the next question, you mentioned that there is a memorial for Rebecca Nurse. Why is there not a memorial or was there not originally placed a memorial for George Jacobs, Sr.?
[00:07:46] Dan Gagnon: So with George Jacobs, I always thought this was an interesting case. It's in a way maybe most interesting for what happens after he dies, after he's killed in 1692, but he is not remembered until March of 1992 when the Salem Village Memorial includes everybody's name. That's the first time that he has his name carved on any stone in his memory. Now, in terms of the reason for this, when I examined his case, the, I guess the foil of a case was I saw Rebecca Nurse as she's the first memorialized. He is not memorialized for 300 years and trying to figure out the difference.
[00:08:38] What I had come across is really, it's not through any fault of their own. They're both accused. They both say that they're innocent. They're both found guilty and executed anyway. They even have like similar language. Rebecca Nurse says she's as innocent as the child unborn. He says, "I'm as innocent as the child born tonight." It's so similar. They're both similarly old members of the community, but the only difference that could cause this seems to be their family members. With Rebecca Nurse, the Nurse family does really the greatest job out of the families of anybody accused in standing up for her, in defending her, collecting evidence, not giving up, all the way towards even after she's found guilty, trying to lobby the governor, and then after the trials are over, about two decades later, lobbying the province of Massachusetts to try to clear their names. They do everything that they can.
[00:09:37] In contrast, Jacobs family does not. With Jacobs, we have the twist where his own granddaughter essentially turns sides, testifies against him. We have that. There are other members of the Jacobs family accused, and that makes it a lot messier to remember.
[00:09:59] Sarah Jack: I was doing some digging around online trying to learn what is out there about George? What do people say about him? And I saw. That there appeared to have been a photo of possibly his home at one point. Do you know what happened to his house, if that was his home when it was destructed?
[00:10:19] Dan Gagnon: Yeah, we do have photographs of it. Some of the photographs come from the era of the New Deal as part of Roosevelt's New Deal Projects is the Historic American Building Survey that thoroughly documents the house, photographs the inside, the outside and such. The house at some point, which is fortunate that they documented it, cuz in the 1930s, it is struck by lightning and burns down, and just a hulk remains. And then in, I believe it's 1940, it was as close as I could get to the date of when it actually was taken down, it's removed then.
[00:10:57] Josh Hutchinson: Wow. That's really tragic how that ended, because it stood there for so many hundreds of years, 250 years past the trials, it's finally being torn down. But so fortunate that there are photographs, and you can see what it looked like and get a sense of how that property was. So regarding George Jacobs, where was he first buried?
[00:11:24] Dan Gagnon: So with Jacobs, he is one of the few victims of the witch-hunt that we believe, or in his case, we have much more conclusive proof, was buried by his family after his execution. The others that have strong claims to this are Rebecca Nurse, John Proctor, Jacobs, and there's some theories for probably a couple others.
[00:11:50] It's believed that Jacobs is reburied on his farm. Now, his farm was in the very top of what was considered the Northfields in Salem. He actually lived on the farm next door to the one that Rebecca Nurse grew up on. They didn't live there at the same time, like he bought it after she, her family moved away, or she at least moved away. So that's an interesting coincidence. And so today it's in Danversport, part of Danvers, and it's right along the border with the city of Peabody. His farm basically like was the line?
[00:12:26] Sarah Jack: Wow. And what caused them to exhume those bones, his likely body?
[00:12:34] Dan Gagnon: So with his body, it was buried there towards the corner of his fields, and when it's buried, he doesn't get a headstone or anything with his name like that. It's just known that at this corner of the field is where they'd put him. And the family remembers this. It's not a secret. It's known that that was the case, not just by the family, but by the neighborhood, which we'll see evidence for that in a second, and just ignored. He's not buried next to a family member or in a family cemetery. It's just him alone stuck in the corner.
[00:13:12] He will be exhumed now the first time in 1854. He will be exhumed twice, and each time is weird in a different kind of way. The first time, so in 1854, his family sells that field to another guy. This person had heard that George Jacobs might be buried in this field, and as he's buying the land, he kinda wanted to see if it was true. So he digs him up. They find bones, they mention like hair, like real parts of him there. And what they do is they put him back in like, all right, he's here, and then they put him back.
[00:14:00] This, however, becomes really big news far outside of Danvers and Salem. It's reported in newspapers as far south as Virginia. It's, again, it's no secret. It's front page news, really across the country that they found one of the Salem witches, and somewhere along the line, it seems to be here, but allegedly they took a finger out and they put it in a glass bottle. This is kept by a person in Danversport who's an antiquarian, a local historian, Samuel Fowler and his family, and he keeps it, his, a brick house at the port corner in Danversport. A very nice house. It was owned by Historic New England for a while. It's very nice. And it was just kept. It had been claimed that they had somehow found this bones in the 1780s, but there's no record of it ever being exhumed in the 1780s. So it must have been here in 1854. That just seems to be the case. And, but other than that, he's reburied and he'll be left for about a hundred years.
[00:15:17] Josh Hutchinson: And then he was exhumed a second time.
[00:15:20] Dan Gagnon: Yes. So this time is an accident, whereas the first time was on purpose. The second time with his house having burned down, fallen apart and his farm open, the farm will be subdivided. And what happens is in the 1950s, they're bulldozing, flattening the land, dividing into house lots like it is today. There's the roads Jacobs Way, Jacobs Landing, and others. But those two are named after him, at least. What happens is while they're bulldozing, they find bones. They stop, of course, and try to figure out what's going on. They know that this is just at about a farm, it's not a cemetery. And by that point in time, they've forgotten about old George Jacobs.
[00:16:10] So what happens next is a little bizarre and confusing, but really what it stems from is if you put yourself in this position in the 1950s, like what the heck are they gonna do with him? There's no family that like comes to claim him 300 years, almost later. There's, can you prove at that point that it's him. Can you prove that it's not? It's just a lot of mystery. What happens is he'll be turned over essentially to a cemetery in town. It's not owned by the town, but it's associated. It's its own corporation, and they just keep 'em in a box in this granite building, which is where in the old days you'd have to keep a body when you couldn't dig a grave with the frozen ground. It's the winter. The building where they would store remains.
[00:17:10] It ends up in a couple different places. It was given to a local lawyer, Steven Weston, who was involved in purchasing Endicott Park which is actually a lot of land that was part of Salem Village that's now preserved as a park. It had been farmland. It's now a town of Danvers Park. He kept it as a lawyer, interested in historic preservation. He was trying to figure out what to do with this. And I apparently never really came to a conclusion. He had a fancy house. And as it goes, his housekeeper eventually is fed up and threatens to quit because she's dusting around the box with a human body in it, in his dining room.
[00:17:50] And so that's when he is actually the one who gives it to that cemetery to keep in the winter storage building. It's there for years, and then it will be taken out late 1960s and by another local historic preservationist who had heard it was there. You just heard a rumor, asked the cemetery people, "can I go see the box?" And they say, "sure." And then they said, "we don't want it, do you?" And he said, "sure." Trying to figure out keep it until there's a way to resolve this, but it's not gonna be resolved in the 1960s, seventies, or eighties. And it really isn't resolved until 1992.
[00:18:30] In the meantime, he's just in a box. It's even displayed a couple times. My favorite one, since I went to school there, is it ends up in the Danvers High School cafeteria at one point. The Danvers Historical Society used to have like a community antique sale, essentially. And when they would do this, they'd always have a table of exhibits, as well, so you know bring people in.
[00:18:57] And so he, him in a glass box, was on the table of exhibits, along with John Hathorne's notebooks that were borrowed from the Essex Institute, alleged George Jacobs' canes that were also the property of the Essex Institute. So interesting display table. But it's odd. He then he ends up in the Danvers archives for a while, just in a box on the shelf. While he is there, is the first time they really try to confirm, like, the identity of the remains. It's still difficult to go through and document, because you can imagine that those who had it at the time were you know concerned about this, were genuinely trying to do the right thing here and rebury him somehow, but it is a little weird. So they get a a pathologist from one of the Boston hospitals to come and look at his bones and examine them. Even here, there's no signed written report. There's a tape. It was said into a tape recorder, the doctor's examinations. So there's not a paper trail.
[00:20:04] And what he said was that, from the historical evidence that he had been given ahead of time and then his examination of the bones, that it does seem to be Jacobs, that it's an elderly man. We think Jacobs was in his early eighties. There's one record of somebody named George Jacobs being born in 1609. Many historians think that's a record for our George Jacobs. This is tough to pinpoint, but we know that he was quite old, so was an old man. He suffered terrible arthritis in his legs. We know George Jacobs had to walk with two canes, so that seems to fit.
[00:20:45] They knew it was a European man. Weird for the settlers from Europe to have just buried one person alone. That's not really typical. It's not a Native American burial from that time period or anything such as that. And so just really by eliminating variables, it seems quite credibly that it's probably him, especially with the documented family tradition that he was always there and then they found him right there.
[00:21:13] What ends up happening in the end is this is, unfortunately before DNA tests really, or anything like that, and they never as part of this examined or compared it to the bones in the bottle at the Essex Institute, now the Peabody Essex Museum. That on one hand is a missed opportunity, but on the other hand, without DNA testing, like how could you have ever actually compared them? There's really no, what could you have done?
[00:21:48] So in the end, he's buried in 1992 at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead Cemetery. He has no family connection despite the Nurse Family Cemetery. The main reason for that is simply it was the only place they believed another victim of the witch-hunt was buried. It's always been thought Rebecca Nurse was buried there. Makes sense, therefore, to put him there. The volunteers at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead had, were those who were working to try to resolve this weird situation. And so of course, we're willing to do this with the help of others in the community, and so that seemed to make the most sense.
[00:22:26] With his burial, as you can probably imagine it. What would be proper? How, what service would you have? These were all really significant and complicated questions. This event was done not a hundred percent publicly. There was one part that there was a service of burial, and then he's buried in August of 1992. Then there was a like kind of remembrance ceremony that August that was published as one of the events for the tercentennial of the witch trials.
[00:23:04] With his burial, it was done by a minister at the Baptist church in Danversport. Now you might think, all right if he's a Puritan, why would you get the guy from the Baptist church? They didn't really like each other back then. That's not what you'd expect. All of his descendants had attended that church. So it seems to fit. Some of his descendants had been deacons in the church. One of 'em, my great-grandfather worked for one of the Jacobs on the farm in the early 1900s, the one who was one of the deacons there. He just worked as a farmhand for Jacobs, can't tell you which generation that was. So yeah, they had the minister from that church, who was willing, cuz he had known or think he knew the family's association. So that was the kind of service that they held.
[00:23:55] Josh Hutchinson: On the other hand, Rebecca Nurse, when she's buried on her homestead, she's left alone. They don't dig her up. They don't put her in a box.
[00:24:07] Dan Gagnon: Yeah. It's just assumed that she's there, the oldest being under just plain field stone rocks. Nobody has ever, in the sense of like DNA testing or anything? No. That grave has never been disturbed and won't be. It's just somewhere there. That's the question that people often ask who visit the Nurse house is like, "why haven't you started digging people up and DNA testing?" I was like that's very not respectful of a cemetery. And so the only reason that Jacobs has this examination opportunity is really because he wound up dug up by accident.
[00:24:43] Josh Hutchinson: I just wondered because with the memorials, Rebecca gets very different treatment than George, and then it seems like, the body itself is, it's respected and left alone.
[00:24:57] Dan Gagnon: Yeah, with their memorials, you're right to point to that. Whereas Nurse in the middle of the cemetery, again, not necessarily on top of her grave, but just the middle of the cemetery has that wonderful obilisk made outta Rockport granite. It's carved, it has a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. It is really the height of remembrance. With Jacobs, that was another question they had in 1992 is, if you bury him, how are you gonna mark it? And what they do is they have a simple, it's a reproduction of what a 1690s slate gravestone would've been. To see examples of those, the burial ground in downtown Salem is a good example of other stones such as that. They're pretty simple. It really just has his name and dates and a little skull symbol at the top, which was typical of that time. But it is very simple and in comparison. Yeah. So still now there's this kind of continuing disparity, but in a way, Jacobs is the one who actually got the most typical final resting place with a service and a typical headstone.
[00:26:08] Sarah Jack: Yeah, it's interesting. Neither of their stories died. His just has been carried on by these strange circumstances around his body and land. It's very interesting, and thank you for going through that very interesting, I better come up with a better word, timeline of how it was, his resting place was considered, what do we do? What else would be special about the Rebecca Nurse Homestead burial grounds?
[00:26:44] Dan Gagnon: So being one of our earliest cemeteries around, it's significant cuz we believe it as the grave Nurse, it's the site of that first memorialization of the victims of the witch-hunt. And again, it is really significant. They later put up that monument to those who signed the petition for her. That's another aspect that really hasn't gotten its fair shake at remembrance. That's the only example of that.
[00:27:10] But the cemetery continues to be important with later generations. We assume that her husband is also buried in there, some of her sons, her son-in-law, John Tarbell, who plays a role in the witch-hunt, is buried there, as well as his son, also John Tarbell, is buried there. When we get to the American Revolution, we have Rebecca and Francis' great-grandson, also named Francis Nurse, answers the call that they've elected to Concord with the Danvers militia to go fight against the British soldiers. We have other graves in there of those who fought in the revolution, either the Nurse family connection or when they're extended family cousins, a branch of the Putnam family, buy it. Some of those were the revolutionary generation. And the last burial there, other than George Jacobs, the last regular burial is in the 1920s, so it continued to be in use for quite a while.
[00:28:10] Sarah Jack: When I recently visited the Homestead for the first time, the day of Dr. Leo's talk, getting to walk through the field out to the burial ground was very moving to me. Cuz I felt like here, here I am middle age, I've known about her since I was a teenager. I'm finally getting out here, and then getting to just walk the path where many other people who have memorialized her have walked, where family members, community members, the Nurses walked, it was really moving, and it was spring, and there were lily of the valley. I just was, that was a really wonderful experience to add onto, actually, I'm getting to go over to these beautiful monuments, and they are really beautiful, and it's been taken care of so well, and the trees are so grand. I, I love right now that they have these magnificent trees looking over everything, too.
[00:29:08] Dan Gagnon: And with that cemetery, those trees, the giant, really tall pine trees are there in 1885 when they dedicate that memorial to nurse and they're already like medium sized trees at that point. So they are much older than that. I can't really guess how old, but they're quite old. And with the cemetery, it was recently restored by the Rebecca nurse Homestead. There were some stones that had broken and fallen. Some were barely legible, and there were some stones that were missing. When the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, the current museum, it's owned by the Danvers Alarm List Company, the nonprofit group of Revolutionary War reenactors, they had purchased or started leasing and then purchased starting in the late 1970s around the bicentennial and purchased it in 81.
[00:30:02] They purchased it from Historic New England, who was putting it up like open market for sale, which was worrying and dangerous. It had been bought in 1909, originally, to be preserved. And when the Alarm List took over in the seventies, in one of the outbuildings, they just found a bunch of headstones, didn't know where they went.
[00:30:27] And so that was done really like during the pandemic, those two summers, working with Epoch Preservation that works in like historic cemeteries in Ipswich, historic cemeteries in Salem, real experts. And I had gone to Richard Trask at the Danvers Archives to see what the oldest photos he had of the cemetery, and we could match up the shape of the stones with the picture and then check, okay, that one seems to go there. Oh, and that person is a husband and wife. So that probably goes there and matched through both family evidence, the picture evidence. We have some surprisingly old photos of that cemetery from the late 1800s. And so we were able to piece together every stone we had where it belonged. So it is the most complete that it has been in like almost a hundred years, since, at least the early 1900s.
[00:31:20] Josh Hutchinson: That is remarkable. Now I want to turn to get a little background on George Jacobs, Sr. Do we know much about his early life? Do we know where he was born or when he came to New England?
[00:31:35] Dan Gagnon: So we have very sparse details. It's interesting with those involved in the Salem Witch-hunt, how the, their background information, the depth of it that's known today radically varies. With Jacobs, we believe he was born in 1609. That's the date that historians have typically gotten back to, which would make him 83 in 1692. He is the first generation to come over, like Rebecca Nurse, though he is a dozen years older that he was born in England. The 1609 date, there's a record of somebody of that name being baptized in West London. So one assumes from that area. We don't know exactly why his family comes over, but with all those early settlers, it's really puritanism. It's their religion. They're being persecuted in England. They wanna come to Massachusetts to establish their own society and be Puritans, and George Jacobs from his statements in the witch-hunt, clearly that is very important to him. So I would point to that as the main reason.
[00:32:47] Sarah Jack: And what kind of work did he do?
[00:32:50] Dan Gagnon: So Jacobs, he has a farm in the Northfields area, which at that point in time that was all entirely farmland. You had to take a ferry across the North River from downtown Salem, and then there's one main road, and it's just farms, fields, stretching out from there. I can't tell you exactly what crops he grew. Really, all of those farms had a variety. With the farm, the previous owner, Waters, Richard Waters, who it's now Water Street and it's the Waters River after him, so Waters was the one that was Rebecca Nurse's neighbor, and at that point in time, Waters raised cows. So there is the potential for that, as well, but most of it was just purely like growing crops on those farms.
[00:33:40] Josh Hutchinson: And what do we know about his family?
[00:33:45] Dan Gagnon: His family is interesting, which plays into kind of how they end up intentionally, unintentionally, a whole variety, really fragmented when the witch-hunt breaks out. We know that he lives there. His son, George Jacobs Jr., will live there. His son's wife, Rebecca Jacobs, lives there, and his granddaughter Margaret, we think among others. Those are the ones that will play a role in the witch-hunt elsewhere. He has a daughter, Ann Andrews, who lives elsewhere in Salem Village at that point in time. So he has family around. Near him there's several, which again, I would see as a similarity to Nurse. It's not quite as big, but the idea that you have a couple generations right nearby.
[00:34:35] Sarah Jack: And he mentioned in his examination that he was unable to read, when they were asking him about praying with his family. Is it unusual that at that time he was not a reader, owning land and not reading?
[00:34:51] Dan Gagnon: It's interesting. With so many of the Puritan men, that is important to them as it's, they believe, necessary for each person to read the Bible. Massachusetts is really, at that point in time, the most literate place on earth when it's the Puritans, because they wanted everybody to at least have a basic understanding of reading the Bible. With my own research, looking into different cases in the witch-hunt, he is the only one who seems to admit that, that I've ever come across, at least in, in my travels here. By contrast, there are women who might not know if they could read or not, but we know that they couldn't write, and they had other people sign for them and things such as that. So that is interesting.
[00:35:48] If he had been his son's generation, it would be very striking. Him being one of the oldest in town and knowing in England the literacy rate was way lower kinda explains it, but no, one would've thought that in his 83 years in that type of a society, that one would've picked that up, knowing that like religious importance angle. So it is a little surprising just given that one specific time and place.
[00:36:23] Josh Hutchinson: Why is it important to talk about George Jacob, Sr.?
[00:36:27] Dan Gagnon: Jacobs' case is one that we see with all of them. We have innocent people that are convicted and killed, and his somehow is all the more powerful, because his granddaughter turns against him. And as part of that saga, you see firsthand how flimsy the accusations are. This reveals it, I think, in a way that other cases don't.
[00:36:58] With Jacobs, he's accused by Sarah Churchill, who was hired servant of his in his household along with then Mercy Lewis, Ann Putnam Jr., Abigail Williams. And in terms of where he falls in the timeline, there's the first accusations. The first the afflicted begin to be afflicted late winter and then into February. They'll be the first accusations into March. His hearing is May 11th. So he's past kind of that first phase.
[00:37:35] With his case, it's interesting, because he's accused, and his granddaughter is accused simultaneously here, and they have hearings on the same day. They're hearings that appears that they're literally back to back, because we know that George Jacobs is in the next room during his granddaughter's hearing or just outside the door. So we think that they were back to back.
[00:38:01] Now, the accusation against him is, he's a, quote, "dreadful wizard," which appears in several of the testimony against him. That is probably one of those phrases that Thomas Putnam adds when he writes for these young women, their depositions. We see this in several instances, as I'm sure other others on the podcast have mentioned that. All right. These three people didn't probably use exactly the same phrase when they were talking to Thomas Putnam. He probably just wrote it that way. Just seems likely.
[00:38:35] And in particular, beyond that, the accusation is that since he walked with two canes that he used them to beat Sarah Churchill or that his specter did this. Obviously, he was not able to go around hitting anybody, cuz he needed two canes to walk around. He's not, agile enough to do this. So it's his specter, that's the accusation. With this, that's what takes him arrested, hearing on May 11th. And what happens, when I mention that they were almost at the same time as the one with his granddaughter, is he maintains his innocence. He knows nothing of it with witchcraft. She will confess, and then she goes on to testify against her own grandfather.
[00:39:24] And Jacobs, being right outside the room, is told by a witness. Someone comes out to him and tells him his granddaughter has confessed. And to paraphrase, he says, "confess to what?" and is told that she is confessing to having a contract with the devil and their definition of witchcraft.
[00:39:40] Josh Hutchinson: Through the records that we still have, is it possible to glean anything about his personality?
[00:39:48] Dan Gagnon: This is tough. So what we have is Sarah Churchill's accusation when that was one of the pieces of evidence that we might have. I would tend to totally discount that. The accusations say such wild and crazy things that I don't take any of that seriously in terms of one's personality, when the accusations are as wild as as a gentleman from what was, what's now today that the town of Middleton, who was accused of walking on a flying saucer down the North River. So I take those accusations, and think that means you can't trust any of them. I don't know.
[00:40:26] There's another example. The one time he ends up in court, and it's remarkable. It only happened once, cuz everybody in Salem Village is like suing one another. So it seems, if you read those court records, it's amazing the number of times people are in court. See him only once. He got into some kind of physical fight with one of his neighbors, we don't know the circumstances. We don't know who was right, who was wrong. We don't know what was going on. So I wouldn't quite draw a conclusion from that, either. I will say that some in the 19th century do describe him as a cantankerous old man because of that, but I'm not sure that reputation is earned. We really just don't know.
[00:41:10] Josh Hutchinson: I think that's a great way to answer that, because you can't infer so much from one isolated event, and you don't have any details about it, so why read into it? I'd seen somewhere that he's described as having a temper and being feisty, et cetera, but how do you know?
[00:41:33] Sarah Jack: One of the things that I read into, but I agree with you and Josh on not reading into things, but one of the things that I read into was when he said to the magistrates that he was as innocent as them. I wondered if that is an insight into his confidence. I know that, I, it seems like the men who would try to rise up to these levels of, that they don't belong in typically found themselves in trouble.
[00:42:04] Dan Gagnon: I think using his statements in front of the judges is a much better way to figure out his personality. From those, we do see that he's just very forthright, that not me, I didn't do it. And he's very clear and he's almost a little forceful in that. So perhaps one could read that. He's at least very determined that he is innocent with his great quote that they put on the Salem Village Memorial in Danvers, "burn me or hang me. I will stand in the truth of Christ. I know nothing of it." With "it" meaning witchcraft. So he is, he's pretty unambiguous there and very direct.
[00:42:42] Josh Hutchinson: And he is pretty witty. He says, "you tax me for a wizard. You may as well tax me for a buzzard." So that probably didn't sit well with Hathorne and Corwin, but it's pretty funny.
[00:42:57] Dan Gagnon: Yes.
[00:42:59] Sarah Jack: And then another point that you know, you can compare Rebecca and George, they were both determined when they were facing those magistrates in the words that they said and in fighting for themselves.
[00:43:11] Dan Gagnon: It would've been so easy to back down that, Sarah. That's an important point.
[00:43:15] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, he stands out as one of the heroes of the trials because of his fortitude. He's up there with Rebecca and Mary and the others who maintained their innocence throughout. All 19 who were hanged maintained their innocence, and he goes to his death bravely, seemingly. And do we know anything more about his servant, Sarah Churchill? Do we know her background?
[00:43:47] Dan Gagnon: She is one of the, not the very first round of those who became afflicted with these. She is also slightly older. She's 20, whereas some of the very early who are afflicted, like Abigail Williams is 11, Ann Putnam, Jr.'s 12, Mercy Lewis, who also accused him, is 17, though. She's not among those who are afflicted in the first couple weeks, but as it expands out. And with her, there's a couple instances that spring during the witch-hunt where people testify that they hear, either they say directly or overheard some of the accusers essentially saying their accusations aren't true.
[00:44:32] With Sarah Churchill, we have George Jacobs' daughter, Ann Andrews, that her and Sarah Ingersoll, the wife of the Tavern Keeper. She's also a tavern keeper, but the Ingersolls run the tavern. That they overheard her saying that the afflicted accusers essentially threatened Churchill into accusing Jacobs, according to their testimony given to the court, where they claimed that she told them that she had to go tell, and she mentions Mr. Noyes, the minister in Salem. I'm not clear why him specifically, but apparently him specifically, that she thought her master, she puts it ,George Jacobs, her employer was a witch or else basically they would accuse her. This is early for us to have this sort of doubting comment, but it's interesting that the two women overhear her say this. This does not get in the way of Jacobs being convicted.
[00:45:34] And then we have something similar with his granddaughter, Margaret. Why does she confess? Why does she then testify against her own grandfather? This is strange. And so what happens is George goes to trial in August. He is put on trial on August 4th, summer. And Margaret, I mentioned that Margaret is about 17, his granddaughter's about 17 at this point in time. She goes through that spring after having confessed. Three days after her and George have their hearing, basically, the rest of their family's accused. Margaret's parents, George Jr. and Rebecca Jacobs are both accused. George Jacobs, Jr. flees. Rebecca Jacobs is arrested at home.
[00:46:29] Rebecca Jacobs seems to be, Margaret's mother, mentally unwell. So Rebecca Jacobs is described by her own mother, Mrs. Fox, as, quote, "crazed, distracted, and broken in her mind." So with this household yeah, the mother of the family appears to be unwell. You can't quite guess from that description but somehow mentally not stable.
[00:46:58] With her in jail, spring, summer testifies against George at his August 4th trial, and then he's convicted and she has a change of heart. And what she says really draws back to Sarah Churchill's statement, I would say. So at some point in the first two weeks of August, but a after the fourth, and she has a written recantation of her confession, which is interesting cause what, was she then able to write? Or did someone write this for her? We don't really know. And the reason for that is that document is something that we find copies but not to hold in our own hands an original. With her recantation, she says her quote is, "they," meaning the people that accused her back in May, quote, "told me that if I would not confess, I would be put down into the dungeon and would be hanged, but if I would confess, I should have my life, the which did so afright me with my own vile and wicked heart to save my life, made me make the confession." So it's again just being like threatened and pressured into it.
[00:48:19] Sarah Jack: And she did end up serving time in the jail. I was thinking how scaring the young girls like that. It would be very scary. They saw little Dorothy Good was over there in the jail, so they knew it didn't matter what your age was, they're gonna lock up a witch.
[00:48:39] Dan Gagnon: The accusation against her is as real as the one against Jacobs. And we see where that led in his case, in that even though she recants after the conviction but before the hanging date, it doesn't matter. He is still hanged, even though essentially one of his lead witnesses has changed their tune, but it, that doesn't change his conviction.
[00:49:00] Josh Hutchinson: And is there any real evidence? Is it all spectral evidence? What's the evidence the jury uses to convict him?
[00:49:09] Dan Gagnon: It's really just based on words. It's words like his granddaughter's. We don't exactly have her testimony against Jacobs. We know that she has testimony, we think at the grand jury and the trials. But we don't actually know specifically what she said against him. We just know from her recantation that, yes, she apparently testified against him, but we don't know the exact words.
[00:49:37] Sarah Jack: What about Sarah's words? I'm wondering, because he does discuss the devil can take any form with the magistrates.
[00:49:49] Dan Gagnon: Yeah, he's one of the earliest with the devil can take any form that seeks to undermine the belief that some thought that the devil only takes the form of someone who's essentially a guilty person, somebody who gave him permission to do so. That is a not really a legal, but more of a theological debate going on.
[00:50:17] And it is interesting that George Jacobs is one of the first to raise that. That he sees through it. When Rebecca Nurse is examined in late March, it doesn't, she doesn't quite take a position but mentions that, like, her position is she has a comments about perhaps the devil can use my shape. She's not really taking a position. It's just, I guess that was her assumption that she, what she believed, whereas Jacobs is clear that, yeah, he thinks that could happen to an innocent person, and basically the devil could frame you.
[00:50:56] There'll be a lot more debate about this later in 1692, because it comes down to the obvious. The obvious rebuttal is, "you trust the devil? You shouldn't, you know what he's up to. You probably shouldn't be trusting his actions as evidence against somebody," which seems as though that would go to the strongest counterarguments here in 1692. But those who bring it up, it doesn't have that power that one would logically think that it would.
[00:51:26] So he's right to mention that. He's early on to mention it, but when they, his specter again is the example of the two canes allegedly attacking Sarah Churchill. Cause obviously he cannot do this physically. We know from his condition. But that he doesn't think that's him and he says it is not, and that he's innocent. It must just be someone basically impersonating him, I guess would be the way to put it.
[00:51:50] Sarah Jack: Yeah, that is interesting because Rebecca would've also been too frail to do the choking.
[00:51:57] Dan Gagnon: Yeah. With her saying she had been essentially sick in bed for eight or nine days before she was arrested in March, she's not going around whipping someone with a chain or strangling people or anything like, no. That, again, you're right to point that out as a another example of that not being logical.
[00:52:15] Josh Hutchinson: When was George Jacobs, Sr. executed?
[00:52:19] Dan Gagnon: August 19th. So he's executed along with John Proctor, along with the Reverend George Burroughs, who Margaret Jacobs also apparently testified against, because we know that she also recants her testimony against him and apparently goes in person to apologize to him in jail. So one assumes he also said that to her grandfather. But we don't specifically have a document that she also personally apologizes to him. But I guess one would assume.
[00:52:55] It's the August 19th, which interesting in that's when we see men executed for the first time in 1692. And then, of course, the last execution in September is also both women and men, which is probably one other way that Jacobs is, with your question about the significance of his case, is the majority of people accused of witchcraft in New England are women, especially pre-Salem. When we get to Salem in 1692, we have a surprising proportion of men. Still mostly women, though, but it often is that the men who are accused are, I don't know, a little bit overlooked, in that they don't fit that stereotype of it being women. And again, with this witch-hunt and with previous witch-hunts, I probably shouldn't say a stereotype, cuz that, I mean that, unfortunately, is the true pattern that it is mostly women, overwhelmingly.
[00:53:54] But the cases of the men accused are by definition kind of a different category. It's a different social background to these accusations. And so with him, I think that's significant. The only case, one of the men that really gets discussed the most is John Proctor, and, unfortunately, most people do that through The Crucible, which isn't really true and doesn't really do that any justice as to who he actually was. So that's a different category.
[00:54:31] Josh Hutchinson: The August 19th hanging, as you mentioned, is significant, because it's the first time there's four men and one woman hanged. And yeah, it's the first time they execute the men. But also Robert Calef wrote about the August execution and the supposed actions of Cotton Mather.
[00:54:55] Dan Gagnon: Yeah, the showdown with, not showdown, but the sort of last, that's a showdown, I guess the, that last moment with Reverend Burroughs who, and this is not a like legal belief at the time, it's more of a folk belief that one could not recite the Lord's Prayer if one was a witch, that somehow by signing a contract with the devil, you could not repeat those words, which has a certain logic to it that one would, if one believed you signed a contract with the devil, one could see why that would conflict with that. We first see this, I believe, in Bridget Bishop's case, where she tries to recite the Lord's prayer back in June, and she does garble a line or two, and that's seized upon. With Burroughs, though, at the gallows, he does recite it correctly. He's a minister. Of course, he knows how to say that, and it causes doubt at the last minute in the crowd, and you're right, Reverend Mather says, steps in and then says to execute him anyway, that doesn't change the situation. And again, legally, no, it did not change the situation. There's no law saying if you could do that, you weren't a witch. But in people's minds that would lead to doubt.
[00:56:14] Josh Hutchinson: And George Jacobs, I believe Sheriff Corwin confiscated some of his property.
[00:56:22] Dan Gagnon: Yes. This is a topic that is almost a rabbit hole to get down, the seizing of property during the witch trials and that so many people think that's like a cause of the witch trials, and no, people's property was not seized, other than a couple exceptions. The exceptions are for people who fled. So it's not George Jacobs, Sr. who fled. It's his son. The sheriff goes, but they're all living in the same household. So Sheriff Corwin goes there and seizes belongings that he says belonged to George Jacobs, Jr., who fled, which is a little dubious, but especially because it's really George Jacob's, Sr.'s house, and so you wouldn't assume that the belongings were the son's. This is a messy one, and it's recorded as that he even allegedly seizes the wedding ring off George Jacobs' wife's, Mary's, finger, which doesn't make sense, because he's not the one who fled. It's a son who fled. Why would you take the wedding ring from the mother of the person who fled and not their wife? This is bizarre, and he's clearly not following the law.
[00:57:48] The one clear-cut example we have of alleged or so-called forfeiture of property is Philip English and his wife Mary. They live in downtown Salem, very rich. They flee after if they had been in custody, and their belongings are seized, and they never get 'em back, even when they sue. And it is unfortunate. But in that case, that was the law that they were legally charged with the felony. If they did obviously flee, can you lose your belongings? It's definitely not fair or just, but in that case, that is following the law.
[00:58:25] With Jacobs, this is him being overzealous and not making sense and not the way that it should have been done.
[00:58:33] Josh Hutchinson: And the seizures, the property basically was seized for the king, is that right?
[00:58:39] Dan Gagnon: Yeah. It's in the name of the king. It would've gone to the government of Massachusetts, not to the sheriff. And with that process is fine with the Englishes. The Sheriff Corwin is not in the background trying to make himself rich in such a case. With this one, it's also less clear.
[00:59:02] I'm not sure I've ever come across an inventory of what was taken. So here you see something a little sketchy that, although it's one isolated incident, this is what leads people to think that was a motivation, that this was all a scheme by the sheriff and such. Whereas Corwin doesn't become the sheriff until around the time Oyer and Terminer is established at the end of May. He's brand new to the job, cuz they didn't have a sheriff until the new governor arrived. And then we had sheriffs, so he couldn't have had the job prior to that. He was not the marshal of Essex County, which was the prior name for the job. So he's new in it and no, he wasn't there when this all started. He did not have a job when it all started. So he's not a reason for the accusations starting.
[00:59:47] Sarah Jack: That's a really good point. And what was the deal with the will? Who was ultimately cut out and who was left in?
[00:59:57] Dan Gagnon: As part of that, what we know is that when Margaret Jacobs goes and apologizes in jail to the Reverend Burroughs, she does that on August 18, the day before, he and her grandfather are going to be executed. So we assume that she also talked to him, who was also in the jail, probably in the same room. But we do know that he had at least heard that she recanted, because he writes Margaret back into the will at the last minute. This again is another argument against the seizing of property is that these people in jail, that with land holding, it would only be the men who were in jail. Only men could own real estate, real property at that point. They do write their wills and that they are carried out. So he does change his will, because he knows or thinks at least it will be carried out. We see John Proctor in jail will write a will, because he knows it will be carried out and go to his heirs, that they're not losing their farms from this.
[01:01:10] And that's one of the arguments against that. But that is one of those, one of those, I don't know, misconceptions, I guess that just goes and goes, cuz in a way everybody wants a very complicated event to be easy to explain. And yet that theory would make it easy to explain. The problem is it's not true.
[01:01:34] But they always want what's the one answer that kind of unlocks the whole thing? Whether the one answer is land or the one answer is that ergot, dare I say the word, that they always want the one thing, and there, there just is no one thing.
[01:01:52] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I look at that, you're looking at this single bullet theory that it just took one thing, and to me it's a way of absolving humanity of having these behavioral tendencies that we have that are really what explains what happened, comes down to human behavior. And we don't want to admit. It's almost a cop out to say that, "oh, they must have been on drugs. We're not capable of doing that."
[01:02:26] Dan Gagnon: Yeah, you're right with that example, it's a way to actually, it's an excuse. It excuses what has happened.
[01:02:32] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Something very strange and peculiar must have happened. It can't be this confluence of all these events and situations that happen regularly. Things like the economic hardship and the warfare and the fear of being attacked in your village. Those things that still happen today and disease and childhood death, stuff that's hard to explain. People want to say, "that happens all the time. So surely that can't be the reason why that happened," but it is. It's normal situations that just converge and create these conditions.
[01:03:17] Sarah Jack: And who did end up with George Senior's property?
[01:03:21] Dan Gagnon: It does remain in the Jacobs family. They do own it through the 19 hundreds and through 1854 when it's divided. So it does continue through, which is also a, comparison to the Nurse family that the family like doesn't go anywhere, or at least one part of the family always stays on that farm.
[01:03:43] And with the family, afterwards, Margaret is in jail for months and such. Her mother Rebecca had been in jail for months. And that's when we get that document of Rebecca's mother, Mrs. Fox, asking for Rebecca to be released because of her mental health. And so the family is very much disrupted, the whole family by this. And on top of Rebecca being put in jail, Margaret does have siblings who are just left there, and the parents, one was arrested and one flees, so presumably with their grandmother, but that really wrecks the household.
[01:04:21] Sarah Jack: Is there anything else about George or Rebecca or your article that you'd like to touch on?
[01:04:30] Dan Gagnon: I think one other thing to mention is with Jacobs having a strong physical legacy like Nurse and the Nurse family, but in a way even more that his farm is there till 1940, allegedly his finger exists in the storage of the Peabody Essex. Peabody Essex also has his canes that are donated at early 1900s. With the Essex Institute, the precursor to the Peabody Essex, their cataloging is not excellent, and so when it has an early 20th century date, that's when they went through and gave it a date. Who knows how long it had been in that room, but that's when they first gave it a number. So that's vague. That was allegedly given by one of the descendants still around who had kept them in the family. So that part has at least some traditional backing to it. They were recently on display last year at the PEM. And really beyond that, George Jacobs' case is famous for the giant Tompkins Matteson painting done right around 1854, and it was done because of the brief exhumation of his remains. That also now is in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum. The giant painting is not with historically accurate outfits or room decor, but it's one on book covers all the time. George Jacobs down on one knee, like pleading before the judges as his accusers, the young women, are like falling down all around him.
[01:06:12] That for somebody who is so mistreated after death, as well as during his life, and weirdly almost intentionally forgotten about, that painting of him in the 1850s is one of the prime images of the Salem Witch Trials we see today. That's just not necessarily what one would expect.
[01:06:31] Sarah Jack: Here's Mary with Minute with Mary.
[01:06:34]
[01:06:41] Mary Bingham: After the executions stopped at Salem in 1692, people immediately moved forward with their lives for their survival. Soon after these horrific circumstances, the affected families found comfort within their nuclear families and from outside sources. This was evident in the Wildes family. Ephraim Wildes clearly stated in primary sources that his father, John, discussed the tremendous monetary loss the farm suffered when Sarah was incarcerated that year. Don't forget, John and Ephraim had to pay not only for her jail fees, but for her personal needs, as well as for her shackles. Ephraim also spoke to his own relationship with his mother in his petition to the court in 1710 describing his loss of, and I quote, "so dear a friend." John and Ephraim's personal conversations probably were a guiding force to help them navigate their immense grief. John Wildes was about 74 years old when Sarah was executed. Before Sarah's arrest in the April of 1692, there were only four adults, one toddler and one infant living at their house on Perkins Row. There is no evidence that the Wildes family had either slaves or indentured servants. They may have received help to run the farm from their Averill relatives, living very close by.
[01:08:17] Sarah's physical absence put the entire family at risk, and most of the household chores fell now to Mary Wildes, Ephraim's young wife. Sarah was incarcerated at Salem from April 22nd until May 13th, when she was transferred to the Boston Jail. These jails were small, overcrowded, rotten, filthy, stinking spaces not suitable for human beings to live. Sarah was housed both at Salem and the Boston jails for about two months total with her stepdaughter and son-in-law, Sarah and Edward Bishop, as well as George Jacobs, among others.
[01:09:00] John and Ephraim made the trips to the jails once or sometimes twice a week, much to Sarah's relief, one can be sure. Though the trip to the Salem jail was about eight miles, the trip to Boston jail was 26 miles, putting the entire farm at risk if both men were not at home on those days that one of them made that long journey.
[01:09:24] There are no other primary sources placing the Wildes family and the Jacobs family close in proximity during their lifetimes. Therefore, John Wildes probably first set his eyes on Mary Jacobs of Salem when they were visiting their spouses in either Salem or Boston at the jails.
[01:09:47] Here are the reasons why I believe this to be so. After his move from Ipswich to Topsfield as a very young man, John stayed close to home. It seems that only twice he physically appeared at the Salem Court, which was again eight miles south of Topsfield. His other court appearances were at Ipswich, which was about five and a half miles north of Topsfield, and John did not go often. These were mostly cases where he needed to offer witness testimony. Also, Topsfield had its own local economy after 1664, when Francis Peabody erected his gristmill and then a sawmill seven years later. Another much needed addition was that of a blacksmith, who was Samuel Howlett, making it much easier for residents to purchase horseshoes, plows, pots, hinges, and latches locally. So John and his family did not need to travel to Salem for necessary goods. Therefore, he would not have occasion to meet up with the Jacobs family. After briefly looking at all those who were incarcerated with Sarah Wildes, it might make some sense that Mary Jacobs and John Wildes would find comfort in each other, but I will let the listener decide.
[01:11:07] George Jacobs revised his will just prior to his execution, but a good time after Mary would have met John. George's earlier will stipulated that Mary would have the homestead until her death. His later will stated she would have the homestead until she remarried. This meant that when she married John Wildes June 26th, 1693, she moved to Topsfield and lived on Perkins Row.
[01:11:37] John had a companion, and there was now another woman to help take care of Ephraim's ever-growing family. Mary also now had a companion in her new husband and a place to live, but most importantly, they had a shared tragedy that no one else could possibly understand except each other. Thank you.
[01:12:01]
[01:12:09] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:12:11] Josh Hutchinson: And now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[01:12:14]
[01:12:31] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News.
[01:12:34] The second week of June is a significant time of remembrance for the Salem Witch Trials. This week there will be at least two events honoring two of the women hanged for witchcraft crimes during the trials of 1692, Bridget Bishop and Rebecca Nurse. The first event is for remembering Bridget Bishop. Historians, performers, and others interested in Salem's witchcraft history will meet at the witch trials memorial off of Liberty and Charter Street Saturday, June 10th to remember her, the first of 19 accused witches executed during the Salem witch trials of 1692. She was executed by hanging at Proctor's Ledge on June 10th.
[01:13:08] Dustin Luca of the Salem News writes, quote, "remembering Bridget as a fellow human being is crucial to understanding the madness that ensued." I'm so glad Dustin wrote that important message. Let's take it a step further. Remembering Bridget and the people hanged for witchcraft convictions as fellow human beings is crucial to recognizing the children, women, and men that are attacked in madness today, also fellow human beings. These modern victims are punished as witches, blamed for misfortunes, death, sicknesses, and family disasters. Those hanged for witchcraft in the early years of the American colonies and those vulnerable people who are targets today are our fellow human beings.
[01:13:47] The second event is also on June 10th, the annual gala day at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead. It is a Homestead fundraiser, and the theme is 1920s lawn party. The very first gala day and garden party bazaar was held at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in 1912, right after becoming a museum, and they continued to be held annually through the 1920s. It was a way to welcome the community to explore the newly restored historic house and learn about the local history and just enjoy the beautiful grounds and summer day.
[01:14:14] This year, they hope to raise funds to restore and improve the kitchen garden. The deadline to pre-order picnic boxes was June 7th, but you are welcome to bring a picnic lunch. Plan on enjoying vintage entertainment like era music, silent moving pictures in the meeting house, and period style table and lawn games. Explore the historic Nurse Homestead and spend the day.
[01:14:34] You can hear two important researchers speak about the stories of these two women in our previous episodes. Please listen to Marilynne Roach clarify the record on who Bridget Bishop was, and dig into the life of aged accused witch Rebecca Nurse with Dan Gagnon on the episodes called "Marilynne K. Roach on the People of the Salem Witch Trials" and "Rebecca Nurse of Salem with Dan Gagnon."
[01:14:55] On May 25th, 2023, the Connecticut General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. This happened because the majority of the house, 80%, voted yes on May 10th to pass it to the Senate. The Senate voted almost unanimously yes, only one senator voted no, completing the passage of HJ 34. HJ 34 was sponsored and passed by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Because accused witch innocency matters, Connecticut did not let the votes fall to party differences.
[01:15:29] In another state, a similar exoneration attempt failed just a few weeks before the success of HJ 34. Eunice Cole, also popularly referred to as Goody Cole, was an accused witch that spent time in trial and in jail in Massachusetts. Essentially, the colonial boundary line changing made her a New Hampshire resident, as well. She was up for a posthumous exoneration. Her bill was House Bill 89. New Hampshire House Bill 89 is listed as a democratic partisan bill, but it passed the house with bipartisan support. However, it was killed in the Senate, when the lawmakers voted down party lines. It failed 10 to 14. Eunice Cole was declined exoneration for her witchcraft convictions by four no votes. No, no, no, no. This is disheartening but not shocking.
[01:16:20] Passing HJ 34 seemed like a long shot, but many of us worked hard to keep building up education around the crisis of modern, dangerous witch persecution. We reached the Connecticut lawmakers with the message that witch hunts were wrong and witch hunts must end.
[01:16:34] We commend the New Hampshire lawmakers that voted yes to clear the name of innocent Eunice Cole. They were her voice, just as the state of Massachusetts has recognized some of their witch trial victims as innocent, and 34 indicted accused witches of Connecticut, of which 11 were hanged, have now all had their names cleared. Eunice Cole will be added to the list of children, women and men waiting for a state acknowledgement for their suffering from witchcraft trials past. The American colonies still have many victims who suffered through witch trials waiting for their names to be cleared, and Eunice is just one of them. They need lawmakers to be their voice. They said they were innocent, and the plea went unheard.
[01:17:10] Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast and End Witch Hunts will work for all names to be cleared and for all lawmakers and global leaders to become better educated about witch trials past and present. We will continue to be voices for the innocent harmed by witchcraft accusations. Lawmakers of any party can support legislation that has a real and resounding global impact. They need to be told a yes vote for innocence here saves lives now. Other countries need our leadership. They need to see us taking a deliberate stand for alleged witches in our history with expressed concern for stopping alleged witchcraft violence today.
[01:17:43] Official state acknowledgement of the innocency of the 17th century accused and hanged witches of the Connecticut Colony resounds globally today. It is that important. Please learn more about the ongoing mob witch-hunts that are killing and violently abusing extensive numbers of women, men, and children in dozens of countries now.
[01:18:00] Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast supports the efforts to end modern witch-hunts. You can learn more by visiting our websites and the websites listed in our show notes for more information about country-specific advocacy groups. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or make a financial contribution to our organization. Our links are in the show description.
[01:18:23]
[01:18:39] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah for that enlightening report.
[01:18:43] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:18:45] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:18:49] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[01:18:51] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe in whatever podcast app you choose.
[01:18:56] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:19:00] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, acquaintances and neighbors about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:19:07] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:19:12] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:19:15]

June 8, 2023

Modern Witch-Hunts 101 Part 1: A Dialogue on the Nature of Today’s Witch Persecutions

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Show Notes

Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast presents Modern Witch Hunts 101 Part 1: A Dialogue on the Nature of Today’s Witch Persecutions. Podcast Cohosts, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack reflect on how researching the modern witch attack crisis has revealed the connectedness of witch hunts across time and the globe. Learn how big the problem is and the circumstances under which pervasive witchcraft fear translates into widespread violence. How do we know what we know? We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear and witch hunts with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World: An Exploratory Analysis

BorisGershman.com

Advocacy Against Witch Hunts, South Africa

Buy Witches and Witch-Hunts: A Global History, By Wolfgang Behringer

Write a Stratford, CT Town Council Member

Write Mayor Laura R Hoydick, Stratford, CT

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Transcript

[00:00:00]
[00:00:21] Josh Hutchinson: We begin this episode with a special announcement from Mary Louise Bingham, host of Minute with Mary and co-founder of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project.
[00:00:36]
[00:00:43] Mary Bingham: Statement of Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, May 26th, 2023.
[00:00:52] A year ago today on May 26th, 2022, the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project was born out of frustration and sorrow that the stories of unjust witch trials in Connecticut resulting from fear, panic, and misogyny were not acknowledged. A year later, on the eve of the 376th anniversary of the first witch hanging in New England, that of Alice Young of Windsor, the Connecticut State Senate almost unanimously voted to adopt our resolution. This followed a bipartisan vote for the resolution in the Connecticut State House on May 10th.
[00:01:35] Our group is ecstatic, pleased, and appreciative for the 34 indicted witch trial victims, 11 of whom were hanged, their descendants, and many others who care about justice. The special timing is incredible and helps us to honor the victims today. We would like to thank Representative Jane Garibay, who helped us since July of 2022, and Senator Saud Anwar, who joined with our efforts in January of 2023. We are grateful to descendants, advocates, historians, legislators of both parties, and many others who made this official resolution possible. In addition, we hope that attention to this resolution, which acknowledges the wrongs of witch trials in the past, will bring awareness regarding deadly witch hunts still happening in many parts of the world due to fear, misogyny, and superstition. Even though the resolution has passed, our exoneration project will continue to advocate for historical education and memorialization of the witch trial victims.
[00:02:48] While others have passed legislation to clear the names of people who suffered from witch trials, House Joint Resolution 34 is unique in many ways. The resolution acknowledges the innocence and suffering of the victims, and includes a formal expression of empathy, in addition to officially correcting the historical record and naming all who suffered, including all indicted victims, and those convicted to death by hanging.
[00:03:17]
[00:03:24] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Mary.
[00:03:26] And now here's Sarah with a special edition of End Witch Hunts News.
[00:03:31]
[00:03:48] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News
[00:03:50] On May 25th, 2023, the Connecticut General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. This happened because the majority of the house, 80%, voted yes on May 10th to pass it to the Senate. The Senate voted almost unanimously yes, only one senator voted no, completing the passage of HJ 34. The Governor does not need to sign it. It is complete.
[00:04:18] This resolution was successful due to years of attempts and efforts from many local politicians and residents, witch trial descendants, organizations, and small and large collaborations. It took every layer of the efforts to get this done. Many individuals started it, many carried it, and many finished it. If you were that person that made a move of advocacy for the Connecticut Witch Trial Resolution, HJ 34, we acknowledge your volunteerism and work. Thank you.
[00:04:44] 34 indicted individuals, of which 11 were hanged, have been officially acknowledged as innocent. It's done. To read the official statement from project co-founders, as you heard read a moment ago by Mary Bingham, please find the link in the show notes.
[00:04:58] But there's more. We still need your additional efforts at the local level. Next month, the town council of Stratford, Connecticut will be voting on a resolution acknowledging the innocence of their local historic accused witches, Goody Bassett and Hugh Crosia. Will you take time today to write a Stratford Connecticut town politician asking them to follow suit with the state acknowledgement of resolution HJ 34?
[00:05:21] Two other communities who have previously voted on such resolutions are Windsor for Alice Young and Lydia Gilbert and Bridgeport for Goody Knapp. Goody Knapp has an official community memorial plaque. You may write and show support whether you are a Connecticut resident or anywhere else in the world. You can do this as any political party member, this is a bipartisan effort. Please see the show notes for links to contacting Stratford Town Leadership.
[00:05:46] The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project's work for an official state acknowledgement of the innocency of the 17th century accused and hanged witches of the Connecticut Colony resounds globally today. It is that important. Please learn more about the ongoing mob witch hunts that are killing and violently abusing extensive numbers of women, men, and children in dozens of countries now. Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast supports the efforts to end modern witch hunts. You can learn more by visiting our websites and the websites listed in our show notes for more information about country specific advocacy groups.
[00:06:20] Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or make a financial contribution to our organization. Our links are in the show description.
[00:06:32]
[00:06:50] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that important news update. And welcome everyone to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:07:02] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:07:04] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we look at the disturbing phenomenon of the modern day witch-hunt.
[00:07:09] Sarah Jack: We'll examine how and why these atrocities are happening.
[00:07:14] Josh Hutchinson: Sarah, you've been talking about modern witch-hunts since the first episode of this podcast. How has your understanding changed over time?
[00:07:23] Sarah Jack: When I first mentioned the modern witch hunts, I was aware of Dr. Leo Igwe and the Advocacy, but I did not have a concept of the extent of what was happening or the destruction to all the lives and the families and the communities.
[00:07:39] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I agree. When we first started this podcast and decided to include a weekly news segment, I knew that modern witch-hunting existed, but the scope and scale of the problem and the extent of the atrocities eluded me, but since then, we've done a lot of reading, we've talked to a lot of individuals who are involved in the struggle to eliminate witch-hunting, and we've seen some very sobering statistics and case reports.
[00:08:30] Sarah Jack: I've learned so much from Dr. Leo Igwe and Damon Leff about advocacy and about what has happened and what is happening, and I greatly appreciate that they've continued the conversation, patiently informing and educating and advocating for their communities.
[00:08:56] Josh Hutchinson: The discussions that we had with Damon and Leo on this podcast were profoundly life changing for both of us, I know, and changed the course of our effort. And we started this out as an outreach program of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, and now it's become this organization End Witch Hunts, with this goal of eliminating harmful witchcraft accusations and the violence, ostracization, banishment, and other consequences of labeling people as witches and targeting them.
[00:09:58] And then when we spoke to Dr. Boris Gershman, that added a whole new layer to things and really showed me how pervasive witchcraft belief is in the world, but also opened my eyes to both good and bad ways of approaching the problem. He really made it clear that writing another law isn't gonna solve the problem, that you have to change things on a very deep level. There's a lot of nuance involved in how you approach it. But you need to not just target the people who are causing the injustice, but prevent them from doing that in the first place. And you prevent them from doing that by taking away the need to blame your misfortune on someone else. You give them alternate explanations, you give them recourse when misfortune arises with social safety nets, you put in the state infrastructure, the healthcare system, the police system, other elements to give people alternatives, so they don't seek out, who caused this misfortune? Who do I blame for this? But find other explanations and other ways to deal with their problems.
[00:11:43] Sarah Jack: When you become more informed about the modern witch-hunt issues and layers, you then actually understand what happened here in our history in the United States and across Europe much more. You see the parallels and the effects of the fear playing out the same way. And the consequences playing out the same way.
[00:12:10] Josh Hutchinson: We recently had the great privilege of spending a week with Dr. Igwe, as he did a speaking tour in Connecticut and Massachusetts. And every speech he did, I gathered more. They all built on each other for me. And I was photographing the events for our project, but I kept getting sucked into what he was saying, because what he's saying is so moving, powerful, effective, and the stories that he told us about the victims and what he told us about the connections between early modern witch hunts in the west and modern witch hunts throughout the world. Those parallels are so striking to me.
[00:13:16] We were talking, Sarah and I were talking, about the youngest victim of the Salem Witch trials earlier, Dorothy Good, a four year old girl who was imprisoned and shackled for nine months and was never able to live a normal life after that, because of the psychological trauma. And reading the United Nations report recently on witchcraft accusations, they have a statement in there that hundreds of thousands of children every year are victims like little Dorothy, that they're abused and mistreated, ostracized, rejected, treated so awfully in so many ways every year. Hundreds of thousands of little Dorothys out there, small children, adolescents, juveniles, teens, what have you, all these minors being abused by adults, because the adults believe that the children were born with these occult powers and are using them for sinister purposes. It's mind-blowing how much of this is happening right around us.
[00:14:46] Sarah's a descendant of Rebecca Nurse, one of the most well known victims of the Salem Witch Trials, and Sarah likes to share a quote from Rebecca. Can you remind me how that goes?
[00:15:04] Sarah Jack: She said that the world would know of her innocence, that she was so innocent that she was not a witch, and the world would know, and that is a very motivating. We have those words from a record. She said them. She was recorded as believing that, and that greatly impacts me as her ninth great granddaughter, as an advocate for stopping witch-hunt behavior, because through the work of the international advocates, the world is hearing that innocence needs to be recognized when it comes to witchcraft accusations.
[00:15:52] Josh Hutchinson: And Sarah and I and Mary Bingham, we're all three of us descendants of Mary Esty, who was Rebecca Nurse's sister, who also was executed during the Salem Witch-hunt, and she said that witch-hunting needed to stop. Sarah knows this quote better than I do. Can you remind me how that goes?
[00:16:21] Sarah Jack: Yes. In the petition that she wrote the court, she says that she knows that she will die, but she beckoned that no more innocent die. She said, "end witch hunts." Again, that deeply motivates me as a descendant of Mary and their voices. Speak from the grave from these records. That we have, and that part of her petition is extremely relevant. Someone today still needs to say that no more innocent may die. We're saying it.
[00:17:03] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. Words from 1692 that still have such meaning today in 2023. Words that are still as important today as they were when she wrote those words and the words of both of your ancestors, they mean so much. They impact what we do. They drive and guide us to do this work. And hopefully we can make some impact on this.
[00:17:42] Hopefully, we can share the words and work of others who are doing this on a daily basis in these nations most affected by this problem.
[00:17:57] Sarah Jack: And if you would like to see the words of Mary Esty, they're actually part of the memorial monument in Danvers.
[00:18:08] Josh Hutchinson: Which we were fortunate to recently visit with Dr. Leo Igwe. And we all were moved by the memorials that we visited in Salem and Danvers and deeply touched, and those words at the Danvers Witch Memorial and the Salem Witchcraft Victims Memorial. Both have quotes from victims. And Dr. Igwe spoke to how those quotes are the very same words that he's hearing from victims today. "I am innocent." "God knows I'm innocent." "The world will know my innocency." " I can say before my God that I am free and clear of this." Those are the words of people begging for their lives today.
[00:19:12] As we've mentioned, we did some travel recently.
[00:19:16] Sarah Jack: That's right. Josh and I joined Dr. Leo Igwe, director of Advocacy for Alleged Witches, for a portion of his US tour.
[00:19:24] Josh Hutchinson: Dr. Igwe spoke in a variety of New England locations.
[00:19:30] Sarah Jack: He discussed the topics of today's show, modern witch hunts.
[00:19:34] Josh Hutchinson: At the beginning of the week of May 15th, Dr. Igwe spoke at the Salem Witch Museum and at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead. Later in the week, he spoke at various locations in Connecticut, including at the state capitol, to legislators, about the urgency of the problem and how what we do in the West, especially in the US, being a global trendsetter, how what our nation does and the state of Connecticut, what they've done by passing the resolution to exonerate those accused of witchcraft. By passing that resolution, they've sent a message to the world that the US stands against witch hunting.
[00:20:32] Sarah Jack: We heard him day after day address an audience with a passionate plea to recognize the mistakes of the past, in order to be a guide for today.
[00:20:44] Josh Hutchinson: We hope to add to his work in this series of episodes on modern witch hunts.
[00:20:50] Sarah Jack: We aren't talking about the type of "witch-hunt" every politician complains about when they're investigated for real crimes and ethics violations.
[00:20:59] Josh Hutchinson: We're talking about the type of witch-hunt that punishes innocent people for the imagined crime of sorcery.
[00:21:09] Sarah Jack: The kind of witch-hunt that results in injury or death.
[00:21:12] Josh Hutchinson: All around the world, witch hunts have plagued society since time immemorial.
[00:21:18] We reached out to Damon for a comment for this week's episode, and here's what he had to say.
[00:21:27] Sarah Jack: "The, quote, 'witchcraft,' most often referred to through accusation, allegation, and harmful superstition exists only in the minds of those who believe that witchcraft is the embodiment of evil and that witches are responsible for misfortune, disease, accident, natural disaster, and death. But belief is not evidence, and accusation is not proof. Victims of witchcraft accusation have a right to be presumed innocent. Those who speak in their defense must be heard."
[00:22:00] One of the things that this brings to mind was one of the apparent fears that some of the Connecticut politicians may have been holding. When Damon said, victims of witchcraft accusation have a right to be presumed innocent, they weren't being presumed innocent by modern legislators. We had to explain to them this definition that Damon has shared with us right now. Their perception of witchcraft was in their minds that it is the embodiment of evil and that perhaps, how do we know, we weren't there, that this was happening? And that is also what propels the mob witch hunting that's happening in these other countries.
[00:22:53] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Damon, for your special message. It is very important to get that message across.
[00:23:04] Sarah Jack: I suggest if you're listening, you go back and listen to that one more time before you move forward.
[00:23:11] in this series, we will discuss both the problems and the solutions.
[00:23:17] Josh Hutchinson: We will discuss what witchcraft is in this context.
[00:23:22] Sarah Jack: There will be a review of the latest statistics on witch hunts. The stat is too many.
[00:23:30] Josh Hutchinson: We'll cover all aspects of modern witchcraft accusation related violence.
[00:23:35] Sarah Jack: We'll answer. Who is involved?
[00:23:39] Josh Hutchinson: What does a modern witch attack look like?
[00:23:42] Sarah Jack: When do witch hunts happen?
[00:23:43] Josh Hutchinson: Where do witch hunts happen
[00:23:45] Sarah Jack: Why do witch hunts continue today?
[00:23:48] Josh Hutchinson: And how do we end witch hunts?
[00:23:50] Sarah Jack: There are many definitions of witchcraft. For our purpose, we will limit ourselves to the two broadest definitions possible.
[00:23:59] Josh Hutchinson: One is a religious or spiritual belief in the ability to tap into natural, though occult, forces.
[00:24:06] Sarah Jack: This form is increasingly seen as normal, positive, and peaceful.
[00:24:11] Josh Hutchinson: Practitioners can be independent or part of communities.
[00:24:15] Sarah Jack: Many traditions exist throughout the world.
[00:24:18] Josh Hutchinson: The other way witchcraft is defined is as a negative and harmful practice of hurting others through manipulation of supernatural forces and spirits.
[00:24:31] Sarah Jack: In the eyes of witch hunters, witchcraft is the ability to intentionally cause harm via supernatural means.
[00:24:39] Josh Hutchinson: This harm can be to animals, crops, property, life and limb, mental health, or anything else meaningful to the victim.
[00:24:48] Sarah Jack: in this series, we'll primarily focus on this definition of witchcraft as a sinister practice.
[00:24:56] Josh Hutchinson: However, we will also touch on the issue of discrimination against those who self-identify as witches or practitioners of magic.
[00:25:05] Sarah Jack: Modern witch hunts have much in common with witch hunts of the past.
[00:25:09] Josh Hutchinson: But also pose new challenges.
[00:25:11] Sarah Jack: We will discuss the similarities and differences.
[00:25:15] Josh Hutchinson: First, we need to discuss witchcraft beliefs.
[00:25:19] Sarah Jack: Belief in magic is native to people in all parts of the world, and dates back to the era of cave paintings, if not further.
[00:25:27] Josh Hutchinson: Since the dawn of humanity, people have made one attempt after another to explain the forces of the universe.
[00:25:34] Sarah Jack: People around the world developed magical systems early on.
[00:25:38] Josh Hutchinson: As magic has served similar purposes among all peoples, these magical systems developed along similar lines.
[00:25:46] Sarah Jack: In the book Witches and Witch Hunts by Wolfgang Behringer, he writes, quote, "witches and witch hunts are close to being recognized as relevant for all mankind. They are, like magic and religion, a universal phenomenon."
[00:26:01] Josh Hutchinson: Behringer points to similarities in belief across Europe, Asia, the Pacific Islands, Africa, Australia, and the Americas.
[00:26:12] Sarah Jack: Belief in evil forces exists across all cultures.
[00:26:16] Josh Hutchinson: It is also commonly believed that people can interact with these forces in order to cause injury, illness, death, and destruction.
[00:26:25] Sarah Jack: Witches abduct babies to eat or use body parts.
[00:26:28] Josh Hutchinson: Witches fly.
[00:26:31] Sarah Jack: Witches shift shapes.
[00:26:33] Josh Hutchinson: Witches transform into animals.
[00:26:35] Sarah Jack: Of course, witch beliefs vary widely from place to place.
[00:26:39] Josh Hutchinson: But many common beliefs are incorporated into the various magical traditions.
[00:26:45] Sarah Jack: Regardless of the exact beliefs of an individual person, fearing witchcraft often has deadly consequences.
[00:26:52] Josh Hutchinson: Globally, 40% of people believe in the ability to cast the evil eye or harm someone with a spell or curse.
[00:27:00] Sarah Jack: In many nations, a majority of people hold these beliefs, in some cases up to 90%.
[00:27:07] Josh Hutchinson: For more on witchcraft belief, listen to episode 22, featuring economist Boris Gershman.
[00:27:13] Sarah Jack: This widespread belief in evil witchcraft translates into widespread fear. This very real and intense fright, fuels witchcraft accusations, and violence towards people suspected of witchcraft.
[00:27:26] Josh Hutchinson: Accusations result in ostracization, banishment, torture, beating, maiming, burning, burying alive, sexual assault, mutilation, and murder.
[00:27:39] Sarah Jack: That is a horrible list of results, but it's a very accurate and real result, and I'm just saying that because I can't get out of my recollection when Dr. Leo said to me, "it's much worse than I can even express. It's much worse than I'm sharing. What's happening is worse than what's reasonable to show in the presentations."
[00:28:07] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, the real-life atrocities happening across the world are so brutal, so violent, so grizzly, we can't fully describe them on air. Dr. Igwe cannot show all the pictures and the videos that he has had to watch and look at and cannot describe everything he's seen, what has happened to their bodies, the damage that has been done in these assaults.
[00:28:44] Sarah Jack: Survivors have to flee their homes and are often forced to wander from place to place, eternally seeking refuge.
[00:28:55] Josh Hutchinson: Others are imprisoned or sent to so-called "witch camps" for their own safety while their abusers roam free.
[00:29:03] Sarah Jack: And I think it's important to note that we learned from Dr. Leo Igwe this month that calling them witch camps is a Western title.
[00:29:14] Josh Hutchinson: They're refuge centers where these people have to go, and they're squalid. They live in appalling conditions.
[00:29:26] Sarah Jack: They're not saying, "oh, I'm an accused witch. I'm gonna go to a witch camp." That's not what's happening.
[00:29:33] Josh Hutchinson: I mentioned that, while the victims are imprisoned, oftentimes those who victimize them go free. However, even when the abusers face the consequences, it's too late for the victims. So we have to intervene before the assaults happen, and that's something that Boris Gershman stressed.
[00:30:02] Sarah Jack: That parallels back to little Dorothy Good. The intervention needed to happen before she was chained. Before she was interrogated. Just, you know what Josh just said, what Dr. Boris has pointed out, and what we see didn't happen for Dorothy Good is also what is not happening for these children today, these hundreds of thousands of children.
[00:30:31] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. So in addition to punishing perpetrators of violence, we need to, as I mentioned before, take away their reasons for blaming their misfortunes on witchcraft. We need to help people out when they need help. We need to give them alternate explanations for what's happening with them.
[00:31:05] Sarah Jack: According to a recent United Nations Human Rights Council report, at least 20,000 victims were reported between 2009 and 2019, and the report makes it clear that this figure is understated as data is scarce. The data is scarce and the results. It is not scarce to find a victim. It's not hard to find this happening in the communities. It's rampant, but the data on it is scarce.
[00:31:40] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. As Dr. Igwe recently told us, many of the attacks are occurring in very isolated villages, and word is not getting back to authorities. There is not effective policing in all of these communities. There's not anyone to report these attacks to, and the people who would report them are afraid to intervene.
[00:32:14] Because one thing that we learned from Dr. Igwe and from the United Nations report is that people who intervene, people who try to defend human rights, are themselves at risk for retaliation by these angry mobs and by these angry individuals. People who speak up against witch hunting are thought of as defending witches, of defending the practice of witchcraft, and the United Nations report states that the attacks occurred in more than 60 nations.
[00:33:06] Sarah Jack: This UN report states, quote, "estimates suggest that each year in Africa, hundreds of thousands of children are victims of accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks."
[00:33:19] Josh Hutchinson: Hundreds of thousands.
[00:33:22] Sarah Jack: This is a huge problem.
[00:33:24] Josh Hutchinson: Much work needs to be done to end this ongoing crisis.
[00:33:28] Sarah Jack: We will cover potential solutions later in the modern Witch-hunt series.
[00:33:33] Josh Hutchinson: I was talking to Sarah earlier about the statistics, and one thing that we've heard again and again, is that incidents are underreported dramatically. So if the UN report is saying that at least 20,000 victims were reported in the period between 2009 and 2019, we know for every one of those cases there are other cases that went unreported. So the real number is somewhere in the tens of thousands at a minimum. So give a little perspective, the age of which hunting in Europe, a total of approximately 90,000 individuals were prosecuted as witches, of which roughly 45,000 were executed. These are the most up to date statistics we have on that period, and that's hundreds of years. We're talking about 90,000 people getting accused. Here we're talking about 20,000 people at a bare minimum in a decade, plus hundreds of thousands of children every, single year. So we know that the problem now is on such a larger scale than it ever has been in the past, due to the ever-growing population of the world, the rapid growth in many of the nations where witch hunting is most prevalent. The numbers we're seeing and hearing are mind-boggling, staggering.
[00:35:33] It's terrifying. It's like this secret war is going on that people don't know about, just looking at the numbers of the victims and the gross atrocities that are committed against them, and it's absolutely horrifying to think that so many people are suffering in the world, and so few people, at least here stateside, so few people know about this. And everyone that we've encountered, that we've told about this, has reacted with astonishment.
[00:36:15] There's reports in the US, the UK, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, the Pacific. There are reported cases of this near to you, wherever you live on the earth, this is happening. Reported or unreported, this is happening everywhere.
[00:36:46] Sarah Jack: And if this sounds like an alarm, if it sounds alarming, you should be alarmed.
[00:36:51] Josh Hutchinson: You should be.
[00:36:53] Sarah Jack: It's the truth.
[00:36:56] Josh Hutchinson: I remember reading a case several months ago that happened in the US where a man shot a woman and burned her trailer because he believed that she had bewitched him. And there are cases very similar to that every year in the US.
[00:37:16] Dr. Igwe also stressed to us the connections, the global connectedness. You can have someone in the US accuse a relative in their country of origin of bewitching them across the sea, and you could have cases where people in the US are funding churches and institutions in their home countries that are leading witch hunts.
[00:37:53] Sarah Jack: And let me explain. We know the type of frustrations and misfortunes that can happen that we experience. One example is families wanting to have more children or have a child. They cannot sustain a pregnancy. They go for fertility treatments. But what if you believe that you're not carrying a child because your grandmother has put a spell on you? That sounds like a nightmare fairytale, but that is an example of the type of misfortune that is getting explained away by witchcraft fear.
[00:38:33] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, any lack of success in your personal life can be attributed to witchcraft. It is a great explainer of contingency and any kind of misfortune. Dr. Behringer wrote that it's a greater, or has a greater potential to explain misfortune than even religion, political ideology, other beliefs, because any event can be explained as being the result of witchcraft, of the improper use of magic, and human emotions, jealousy, envy, fear, et cetera, can be blamed as being the triggers for witchcraft, as in the witch is jealous of you, and so they target you with some kind of spell to bring you down or to bring themselves up at your expense. And witchcraft is just such a great explainer of those kinds of things. It's an easy answer, an easy solution to reach for when you don't have another explanation in mind. And that's part of why we need to offer alternative narratives and explanations for why bad things happen.
[00:40:21] Sarah Jack: When we pass legislation like Connecticut did, then we're messaging witchcraft accusations are wrong.
[00:40:29] Josh Hutchinson: We need to send a message that witch-hunting is not the solution to your problems. We need to provide other solutions. We need to offer other ideas. And by taking a stand like Connecticut did, we're sending that message.
[00:40:51] Sarah Jack: Martin Luther King Jr. said, "there comes a time when silence is a betrayal." So if we are not speaking against the witchcraft fear, we're betraying all these children and other vulnerable people, and we're betraying the dignity of humanity, and the offenders, we're robbing them of the opportunity to have better choices before them as far as blaming or coping with loss or misfortune or disappointment, we need to offer them better options.
[00:41:34] Josh Hutchinson: It's not witchcraft belief that we're hoping to change. We're hoping to remove the fear of witchcraft and the fear of your neighbor or relative attacking you through occult forces. We're saying that's not the cause of your misfortune. It's not gonna be your neighbor or your friend cursing you. It's nature. It's whatever the misfortune is. There's so many explanations. It's circumstances, it's contingencies, it's part of everybody's life, has to deal with adversity.
[00:42:23] We do not want anybody to suffer from witchcraft accusations. So Thou Shalt Not Suffer is saying that nobody in the world should be suffering on this account.
[00:42:37] It indicates the objective of our organization.
[00:42:45] When we started this podcast, we didn't have End Witch Hunts in mind yet. We had no concept that we were going that way. We just knew we wanted to educate people about witch trials so that they don't happen again and things, other injustices like them, don't happen where groups are targeted as scapegoats. Today, I was reading in Behringer's introduction, he said something, witchcraft belief, there's a lot of similarity across cultures, but it's also comes from different religious backgrounds and not all of it is associated with the devil. And the devil is a Christian concept, and so non-Christian witchcraft believers don't have the devil as part of it. They might have demons or evil spirits or something else that's vaguely similar in the Western mind. But in their own mind, it's a totally different conception of how witchcraft works.
[00:44:04] And for the most part, witchcraft is just blamed on the human that's responsible for it. Even when we look at early modern Europe and the American colonies, there was like a hierarchy of beliefs, where the educated elite and the, especially the ministers, believed in this vast diabolical conspiracy, but the common person was more concerned with the day-to-day and with the actual practical effects of witchcraft. So they were like, "oh, my neighbor hurt my goat," or "my neighbor made my child sick," or "the neighbor killed my husband." Those kinds of things were their concerns, but there's not just one concept of witchcraft, there's not one master definition that's going to fully define everybody's view of witchcraft, what we're calling witchcraft, using an English word to apply to this universal phenomenon that Behringer described. We're inherently overlaying our concept on these other cultures and religious traditions, and we can't do that. We need to include everyone and every definition of witchcraft. The thing that is in common here is that witchcraft is often a synonym for evil. It's a wicked, sinister, bad practice. Whatever culture is viewing it, at least the witchcraft that we're talking about, the anthropological and historical definition of witchcraft, is just that it's a bad manipulation of occult forces to, through magic, negatively impact somebody else.
[00:46:32] Witchcraft fear has been a part of American society for hundreds of years. Americans still retain that fear. One in six Americans believes in the ability to cast a spell or put a curse on someone to do them. All the cultures that are America have witchcraft belief in them. You can't isolate any culture and say, "oh, they have more witchcraft fear than the other ones."
[00:47:07] And that it's not any particular part of the world that we're saying is bringing the fear to here. It's already everywhere in the world, it's already here in this country, it's everywhere.
[00:47:24] And you look at the statistics Boris Gershman gave us, and one of the things he says in the episode, he makes clear, is that even within Europe you have a dramatic range. You have some countries where the belief is about one in 10 people to other countries where it's an overwhelming majority of people have this fear of witchcraft or this belief in sinister witchcraft that can lead to fear, and incidents of attacks on alleged witches occur in Western Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, everywhere in the world.
[00:48:16] Sarah Jack: Since there are ties to the other nations in this world, from within America, our perspective on accusing witches matters, we can influence our neighbors in a positive way against witch attacks, and then that will impact the other parts of the world.
[00:48:37] Josh Hutchinson: And I was listening to Dr. Igwe on colonization, and he and Wolfgang Behringer both point out that witchcraft belief existed on every continent before colonization. Part of what Leo said was that the contact with Christian and Islamic culture and other cultures and religions coming in just reiterated the witchcraft belief that was native to traditional beliefs. You're practicing the religion of your ancestors and believing in witchcraft, and then these other religions come in with their missionaries and try to teach you about their faith, and they're saying, "oh yes, there are witches." So it reinforces your own belief. And so there were witch hunts well before contact, this was already going on in ,but Africa, the Americas, Australia, Asia, the Pacific, everywhere had witchcraft belief, but when colonizing powers came in with their religion saying that witchcraft is this evil thing from the devil or wherever they're attributing it to, it's just reinforcing. So as cultures move around, people move around and cultures get shared, everybody's just reinforcing everybody else's witchcraft belief.
[00:50:32] Sarah Jack: Each has a lens of witchcraft that they're looking at each other through.
[00:50:38] Josh Hutchinson: And I'm really struck just by the similarities in witchcraft belief across cultures independent of each other, pre-contact. As you look at some of the indigenous people in South America when they're first contacted there's already witch hunts happening in their villages. Or there's witchcraft belief already being expressed. And when colonists first went to Africa, some of the first things that they recorded were witchcraft beliefs that the Africans already had and witch hunts that were already going on.
[00:51:24] Sarah Jack: The European mindset included the devil, so then they imposed the devil into it.
[00:51:30] Josh Hutchinson: They imposed the devil, they put the devil there. Yeah, because these other concepts of witchcraft were either just an abuse of power, a belief that certain people were born with occult powers. Sometimes they use them for good, but sometimes they use them for bad. And the bad is the witchcraft. And witchcraft also became this stand-in for corruption, for the opposite of decency. Stand in for antisocial behavior and non-conformity. Inverting social norms, flipping them on their head like we've talked about in New England, people were supposed to behave a certain way. Witches were believed to behave basically the opposite of what a good person was supposed to do. They didn't want children to be born into the world. They didn't want children thriving. They didn't want the next generation, which was the driving reason for being, for the good people. Their whole reason was to be fruitful and multiply and spread God's word throughout the earth, and things like that.
[00:52:58] The witch totally flips that around. That's how you get all this belief in witches being cannibals, witches eating babies, witches killing babies. We talked to Ann Little about the fertility connection in witchcraft, and that's common across cultures. The unique things are things like the devil in Christian views of witchcraft, and there are other local additions and different local theories on where witches get their power from. But they do the same things. They fly at night, they have orgies in the forest, they do all this very, not just naughty, but wicked and evil stuff that you're not supposed to do.
[00:53:56] Sarah Jack: I was listening to our episode today with Katherine Harrison, how she was a known liar and she had strife with her neighbors, and she didn't remarry.
[00:54:07] Josh Hutchinson: All the accusations that pile up.
[00:54:10] Sarah Jack: They embodied those factors. And then that pure evil embodiment makes alleging someone to be one you immediately, the alleger is off the hook, as far as they're like, "if they're a witch, then they are completely bad. So they deserve this vengeance. They deserve this attack."
[00:54:34] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, and witchcraft, because it's the embodiment of evil, it's considered an extraordinary crime, and extraordinary crimes justify extraordinary prosecution and extraordinary means of interrogation, torture, punishment. It all can be extraordinary because, like you said, you're off the hook because this is this really bad evil. They're barely even a person anymore because
[00:55:11] Sarah Jack: Exactly.
[00:55:12] Josh Hutchinson: They're society flipped on its head, and they have to be plucked out
[00:55:19] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:55:20] Josh Hutchinson: at any cost.
[00:55:21] Sarah Jack: And that's what Mather did to Reverend Burroughs.
[00:55:24] Josh Hutchinson: That's what Cotton Mather did to Burroughs. And it's the opposite of what Increase Mather said in Cases of Conscience when he said, "better 10 witches go free than one innocent person die." In the eyes of the witch hunter, it's better that 10 innocent people suffer than one witch go free. That's goes back to that presumption of guilt instead of a presumption of innocence.
[00:55:56] Sarah Jack: And Mary Esty said, "stop that."
[00:55:58] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. Mary Esty said, "stop that." Rebecca nurse said, "stop that." And people today are saying, "stop that. Stop that. Stop that. Let me live". And we don't want those messages to go unheeded. We want people to listen to those messages, that there needs to be a presumption of innocence. The nature of a crime does not mean that human rights are surrendered.
[00:56:36] Sarah Jack: And that is a parallel across all vulnerable.
[00:56:40] Josh Hutchinson: We, as the good people, don't wanna lose our sense of ourselves as being moral and just, just because somebody else may have done something immoral and unjust. We don't know that they did that until it's proven that they did that. And you can't prove witchcraft in a court of law. You can't prove supernatural agency. There's no legal evidence for that.
[00:57:15] Sarah Jack: Yet modern humans are still asking for that evidence.
[00:57:21] Josh Hutchinson: They are. Modern elected officials in the United States of America and elsewhere are asking for that. There was that gentleman in Northern Ireland who was against the memorial being placed there, because he didn't know that those people were innocent. "How do we know they weren't witches?" he said.
[00:57:50] Sarah Jack: And that fear influenced the amendments that happened to resolution HJ 34.
[00:57:59] Josh Hutchinson: We're gonna stop talking here. Now you talk about this, and then we'll come back in a month or two and have some more details on what a modern witch-hunt looks like.
[00:58:11]

June 1, 2023

Connecticut Witch Trials 101 Part 5: 1666 to 1691

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Show Notes

This is Part 5 of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast’s Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series. In this episode, we look at eight witchcraft accusations from 1666 through 1691, the period between the Hartford Witch-Hunt of 1662 to 1665 and the Fairfield/Stamford Witch-Hunt of 1692. This was after Governor John Winthrop Jr. came back from England with the colonial charter. You will learn from original records about the intense hunt against Katherine Harrison, the community conflicts she had, the wild allegations against her and how her trial played out .Podcast Cohosts, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack continue the Connecticut Witch Trial History story with only fact backed, trustworthy research and sources. The lives of these historic individuals have been examined and we share what is known about them, from the historical record. How do we know what we know? We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

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Connecticut Witch Trials 101 Bibliography
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Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.

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Transcript

[00:00:00]
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:27] Josh Hutchinson: This is part five of our Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series.
[00:00:33] Sarah Jack: In this episode, we cover the years 1666 through 1691.
[00:00:38] Josh Hutchinson: The period between the Hartford Witch-Hunt of 1662 to 1665, and the Fairfield-Stamford Witch-Hunt of 1692.
[00:00:47] Sarah Jack: John Winthrop, Jr. was governor through 1679.
[00:00:51] Josh Hutchinson: After he passed, his friend and colleague, the minister Gershom Bulkeley carried on his legacy of moderation in witch trial proceedings by providing advice to magistrates on various cases.
[00:01:05] Sarah Jack: This was a relatively calm period with fewer accusations.
[00:01:09] Josh Hutchinson: Only eight accusations of witchcraft are known to have been made in Connecticut between 1666 and 1691.
[00:01:17] Sarah Jack: These accusations resulted in only two indictments and one conviction.
[00:01:22] Josh Hutchinson: The first accusation in this timeframe was made against William Graves of Stamford in 1667.
[00:01:29] Sarah Jack: The trouble started when William Graves' daughter, Abigail, married Samuel Dibble.
[00:01:34] Josh Hutchinson: William Graves refused to give his daughter her marriage portion of her inheritance.
[00:01:41] Sarah Jack: Samuel Dibble took the matter to court.
[00:01:44] Josh Hutchinson: William Graves told Dibble he would always regret taking the matter to court.
[00:01:49] Sarah Jack: Ann Smith testified that William Graves believed his daughter would die during childbirth.
[00:01:55] Josh Hutchinson: And indicated that he suspected witchcraft.
[00:01:58] Sarah Jack: Though he wouldn't supply a name.
[00:02:00] Josh Hutchinson: He said, quote, "if his daughter died, he would bring out one in this town that he never thought to do and he said that she should not be buried presently, for he would have all the town lay their hands on her."
[00:02:17] Sarah Jack: This was a reference to the belief that the body of a murder or witchcraft victim would react to the touch of the culprit.
[00:02:23] Josh Hutchinson: Mary Scofield testified that William Graves said, "he had counseled his daughter to prepare herself to meet the Lord and said if she was not delivered suddenly she would die."
[00:02:36] Sarah Jack: According to Scofield, Graves went on to say, "though there was one in the town that both I and mind was the worst for him. Yet the whole town shall touch her and then none will take offense."
[00:02:48] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Steedwell corroborated Ann Smith's and Mary Scofield's testimony.
[00:02:53] Sarah Jack: Midwife Mary Holmes testified that Abigail Graves Dibble had a normal labor, except for two fits of trembling and striving.
[00:03:02] Josh Hutchinson: Mary Scolfield testified that Abigail Graves Dibble's face changed as she delivered her baby.
[00:03:09] Sarah Jack: "One part of her mouth was drawn up and the other down, with her lips turning black, and her eyes staring out in a ghastly manner, and likewise her tongue hanging out and a dumb voice."
[00:03:22] Josh Hutchinson: "And upon this, the child was drawn away up into her body in likeness to the belly of a whale."
[00:03:30] Sarah Jack: "And this continuing for the space of half an hour until the child lay quivering within her body."
[00:03:36] Josh Hutchinson: "And about an hour after, as she apprehended with the pains of death and not by the former course of labor as other women have, the child came trembling into the world."
[00:03:49] Sarah Jack: Thomas Steedwell said he was helping Abigail Graves Dibble in her fits after she gave birth, when "presently falling of them fits into sounding fits with her tongue flaring out of her mouth near a handful long, and about as thick as his wrist and as black as possible might be, and her eyes out of her head in a ghastly manner. And when those fits went off, her tongue went in again, and there was such a smell with her breath that none in the room were able to abide the steam thereof."
[00:04:17] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Steedwell, Ann Smith, Elizabeth Steedwell, and Zachariah Dibble, brother of Samuel, testified that William Graves said, "my child will die, and I will be hanged for her."
[00:04:30] Sarah Jack: Zachariah Dibble, Ann Hardy, and Sarah Bates repeated the testimony of others about the things William Graves said.
[00:04:37] Josh Hutchinson: Samuel Dibble testified about how he had argued with William Graves about Abigail's portion.
[00:04:45] Sarah Jack: Graves was upset that Dibble never helped him reap.
[00:04:48] Josh Hutchinson: Dibble said he, quote, "got an attachment to try by a course of law for his wife's portion."
[00:04:55] Sarah Jack: William Graves allegedly told him he would, quote, "repent the bringing that attachment as long as I lived."
[00:05:03] Josh Hutchinson: He also threatened that Dibble "shall live never the longer for it."
[00:05:08] Sarah Jack: Two weeks before his daughter's delivery, William Graves went to her house and told her to fit herself to meet the Lord.
[00:05:15] Josh Hutchinson: Samuel Dibble had a warrant issued to order William Graves to appear at Mr. Lane's house to discuss Abigail's marriage portion.
[00:05:25] Sarah Jack: William Graves returned to the Dibble House and said, "my child will die and I shall be hanged for her."
[00:05:30] Josh Hutchinson: This testimony evidently did not lead to further court proceedings.
[00:05:36] Sarah Jack: No indictment or other court documents exist.
[00:05:40] Josh Hutchinson: But this is not the last we'll hear of the Dibbles.
[00:05:43] In 1667, Matthew Griswold of Saybrook filed a defamation suit on behalf of his wife, Anna.
[00:05:54] Sarah Jack: Matthew was a stone cutter by trade, and there is a receipt for payment of a tombstone for Lady Fenwick, wife of Saybrook governor George Fenwick. She died in childbirth.
[00:06:04] Josh Hutchinson: Governor Fenwick bequeathed land east of the Connecticut River to Matthew In 1644. Governor Fenwick sold the colony of Saybrook to Connecticut when he returned to England to fight in Cromwell's forces.
[00:06:18] Sarah Jack: Fenwick was appointed commissioner to the trial of King Charles I.
[00:06:23] Josh Hutchinson: Hannah or Anna Wolcott Griswold was the daughter of a powerful Windsor founder.
[00:06:29] Sarah Jack: Her father was Henry Wolcott. A wealthy, well-connected, significant figure in the American colonies.
[00:06:36] Josh Hutchinson: Because he was a primary funder of the voyage of the Mary and John, he bought himself significant alliances with other powerful men, including Roger Ludlow, Edward Rossiter, and Israel Stoughton.
[00:06:50] Sarah Jack: Henry Wolcott was Windsor's first constable. He was appointed a deputy of the General Court in Hartford and served as a magistrate from 1643 until his death in 1655.
[00:07:01] Josh Hutchinson: According to records, Henry was involved in four witch trials, Mary Johnson, Joan and John Carrington, and Lydia Gilbert. He possibly was also connected to the trials of Goody Bassett, Goody Knapp, and Alice Young.
[00:07:18] Sarah Jack: Hannah was one of few women who held property in her own name. This indicates her familial connections, wealth, and status allowed for this exception.
[00:07:27] Josh Hutchinson: Hannah's accuser was John Tilleston.
[00:07:31] Sarah Jack: He had allegedly called Hannah a witch.
[00:07:34] Josh Hutchinson: Ten years prior, in 1657, Tilleston faced magistrates for "scandalous and reproachful speeches cast upon the elders and others in a public church meeting."
[00:07:48] Sarah Jack: He also later faced prosecution for "abusing his wife on Sabbath day and chaining her leg to the bedpost with a plow chain to keep her within doors."
[00:07:57] Josh Hutchinson: On another occasion, Tilleston was fined for giving a false oath.
[00:08:01] Sarah Jack: Matthew Griswold won the suit, but the court worried how Tilleston would be able to afford to compensate the wealthy Griswolds.
[00:08:09] Josh Hutchinson: Tilleston's first wife was charged with not believing in infant baptism and speaking contemptuously of it.
[00:08:19] Sarah Jack: Which likely indicates that Goody Tilleston and her husband were dissenting Baptists. New Englanders generally associated such faults, insubordination, irreverence, domestic discord, and religious deviance with witchcraft.
[00:08:33] This was the case between the rich and the poor, between status and bad reputation.
[00:08:38] Josh Hutchinson: Next up we have the case of Katherine Harrison of Wethersfield. Katherine Harrison first came to Connecticut in 1651 and settled in Hartford.
[00:08:50] Sarah Jack: She worked as a servant in the household of Captain John Cullick.
[00:08:54] Josh Hutchinson: While there, she developed a reputation as a fortune teller.
[00:08:58] Sarah Jack: She was also considered a notorious liar and a Sabbath breaker.
[00:09:02] Josh Hutchinson: Captain Cullick reportedly fired her for her quote, "evil conversation in Word and deed."
[00:09:09] Sarah Jack: Shortly after being sacked, Katherine moved to Wethersfield by May, 1653.
[00:09:14] Josh Hutchinson: And married wealthy farmer John Harrison.
[00:09:18] Sarah Jack: They had three daughters.
[00:09:19] Josh Hutchinson: Rebecca, Mary and Sarah,
[00:09:22] Sarah Jack: In Wethersfield. John served at times as town crier, fence viewer, surveyor, and constable.
[00:09:30] Josh Hutchinson: He died in 1666, leaving his large estate to his wife and daughters.
[00:09:35] Sarah Jack: His will left 60 pounds to Rebecca and 40 pounds each to Mary and Sarah.
[00:09:41] Josh Hutchinson: Katherine received the bulk of the estate, valued at 789 pounds.
[00:09:46] Sarah Jack: Two years later, Katherine was accused of witchcraft.
[00:09:49] Josh Hutchinson: On May 27th, 1668, the unnamed wife of Jacob Johnson wrote or dictated an account of a time when Katherine Harrison helped Jacob with an illness.
[00:10:02] Sarah Jack: Katherine treated him with, quote, "diet, drink, and plasters."
[00:10:06] Josh Hutchinson: The treatment evidently didn't help, so the Johnsons sent for Captain Atwood to help.
[00:10:12] Sarah Jack: That same night, Goodwife Johnson walked in the door, saw Katherine Harrison standing in front of her husband.
[00:10:19] Josh Hutchinson: While Goodwife Johnson turned around to lock the door, Harrison disappeared.
[00:10:24] Sarah Jack: Afterwards, Jacob Johnson had a bad nose bleed.
[00:10:28] Josh Hutchinson: Forever after, his nose bled when it was quote, "meddled with."
[00:10:32] Sarah Jack: This testimony was sworn in court October 29th, 1668, along with many other depositions.
[00:10:39] Josh Hutchinson: On June 29th, 1668, John Wells testified that seven or eight years earlier, when he was a boy, his mother sent him to fetch the cows.
[00:10:50] Sarah Jack: As he crossed the street, his legs stopped as if they were invisibly bound.
[00:10:54] Josh Hutchinson: He "looked toward the cattle that were in the street by Goodman Not's shop and saw Goodwife Harrison rise from a cow that was none of her own with a pail in her hand and made haste home. And when she was over her own stile, he was loosed."
[00:11:14] Sarah Jack: On July 29th, 1668, Elizabeth Bateman Smith told the court that when she and Katherine Harrison had lived in the home of Captain Cullick, quote, "Katherine was noted by the said Elizabeth and others, the rest of the family, to be a great or notorious liar, a Sabbath breaker, and one that told fortunes."
[00:11:33] Josh Hutchinson: Katherine reportedly forecast that Elizabeth would marry a man named Simon, even though Elizabeth's love interest at the time was William Chapman. Captain Cullick did not approve of the marriage of Elizabeth Bateman and William Chapman.
[00:11:49] Sarah Jack: So Elizabeth wound up marrying Simon Smith.
[00:11:53] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Waples submitted testimony on August 7th, 1668.
[00:11:59] Sarah Jack: He told the court that Katherine Harrison had said she read Mr. Lilly's book in England.
[00:12:04] Josh Hutchinson: William Lilly was a famed astrologer and author of Christian Astrology and several other books.
[00:12:12] Sarah Jack: He also claimed that before her execution, Rebecca Greensmith had said that Harrison was a witch.
[00:12:18] Josh Hutchinson: On August 8th, 1668, Mary Olcutt testified about Katherine Harrison predicting that Elizabeth Bateman would marry a man named Simon.
[00:12:28] Richard Montague testified on August 13th, 1668.
[00:12:33] Sarah Jack: He said Katherine Harrison retrieved her roaming bees with unnatural speed.
[00:12:38] Josh Hutchinson: On August 13th, 1668, Joseph Dickinson testified that Katherine Harrison made her cattle run home by calling, "hoccanum, hoccanum, come hoccanum."
[00:12:51] Sarah Jack: Dickinson claimed two other men witnessed the cattle run with unnatural speed.
[00:12:57] Josh Hutchinson: On August 13th, John Graves testified that his cattle refused to graze on Harrison Land.
[00:13:06] Sarah Jack: The rope tying his oxen to his cart mysteriously untied, and the oxen ran away with great speed.
[00:13:13] Josh Hutchinson: Also on August 13th, Thomas Bracy testified that he once saw a hay cart approach John Harrison's property.
[00:13:21] Sarah Jack: What was unusual was that Thomas saw a red calf's head atop the hay.
[00:13:26] Josh Hutchinson: When the cart reached the barn, the calf's had vanished and Katherine Harrison appeared.
[00:13:32] Sarah Jack: Young Thomas rushed over and accused Katherine Harrison to her face of being a witch.
[00:13:38] Josh Hutchinson: Katherine allegedly threatened that she would be even with Thomas.
[00:13:43] Sarah Jack: Later, Thomas was reportedly visited by the apparitions of James Wakeley and Katherine Harrison.
[00:13:49] Josh Hutchinson: The two stood at his bedside discussing how to kill him.
[00:13:53] Sarah Jack: Wakeley wanted to, quote, "cut out his throat."
[00:13:56] Josh Hutchinson: Harrison attempted to strangle Thomas.
[00:13:59] Sarah Jack: And, quote, "pulled or pinched him so as if his flesh had been pulled from the bones."
[00:14:04] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas groaned a couple times, and his father came to him and laid his hand on him, at which point Thomas was finally able to speak.
[00:14:13] Sarah Jack: The next day, his parents saw the marks left by the spectral assault.
[00:14:17] Josh Hutchinson: On October 6th, Katherine Harrison filed a list of grievances with the magistrates.
[00:14:23] Sarah Jack: She said neighbors had been vandalizing her crops and assaulting her animals.
[00:14:28] Josh Hutchinson: She had an ox, quote, "spoiled at our stile before our door with blows up on the back and sides so bruised that he was altogether unserviceable."
[00:14:40] Sarah Jack: "A cow spoiled, her back broke and two of her ribs."
[00:14:45] Josh Hutchinson: "A heifer in my barnyard, my earmark of which was cut out and other earmarks set on."
[00:14:50] Sarah Jack: "I had a sow that had young pigs earmarked in the sty after the same manner."
[00:14:57] Josh Hutchinson: "I had a cow at the side of my yard. Her jaw bone broke, and one of her hooves and a hole bored in her side."
[00:15:05] Sarah Jack: "I had a three year old heifer in the meadow, stuck with a knife or some weapon, and wounded to death."
[00:15:11] Josh Hutchinson: "I had a cow in the street, wounded in the bag as she stood before my door in the street."
[00:15:17] Sarah Jack: "I had a cow went out into the woods, came home with ears luged and one of her hind legs cut off."
[00:15:24] Josh Hutchinson: "My corn in my own meadow much damnified with horses. They being staked upon it."
[00:15:30] Sarah Jack: "I had my horse wounded in the night as he was in my pasture no creature save three calves with him."
[00:15:36] Josh Hutchinson: "More I had one two-year-old steer, the back of it broke in the barnyard."
[00:15:42] "More
[00:15:42] Sarah Jack: I had a matter of 30 poles of hops cut and spoiled."
[00:15:46] Josh Hutchinson: " All which things have happened since my husband's death, which was last August was two year."
[00:15:53] Sarah Jack: She named witnesses.
[00:15:55] Josh Hutchinson: On October 12th, Rebecca Smith testified that Jonathan Gilbert's wife loaned Katherine Harrison a hat.
[00:16:03] Sarah Jack: Katherine wanted to buy the hat, but Goodwife Gilbert refused to sell it to her.
[00:16:08] Josh Hutchinson: After Katherine returned the hat, Goodwife Gilbert put it on and was afflicted in the head and shoulders.
[00:16:15] Sarah Jack: When she removed the hat, she was well again.
[00:16:18] Josh Hutchinson: This happened every time she tried to wear the hat.
[00:16:21] Sarah Jack: Eventually, the Gilberts burned the hat.
[00:16:25] Josh Hutchinson: William Warren testified on October 27th that Katherine Harrison was, quote, "a common and professed fortune teller."
[00:16:33] Sarah Jack: On October 29th, Joan Francis testified that in November of 1664, she was lying in bed with her husband and child when the apparition of Katherine Harrison appeared.
[00:16:44] Josh Hutchinson: Joan placed the child between herself and her husband.
[00:16:48] Sarah Jack: That night, the child became ill.
[00:16:50] Josh Hutchinson: And suffered for 20 days before dying.
[00:16:54] Sarah Jack: Joan Francis further said that Harrison's daughter came to ask for her emptying in the summer of 1668.
[00:17:00] Josh Hutchinson: Joan told the girl that she had none and went to brew some beer.
[00:17:05] Sarah Jack: the beer barrel exploded loudly, terrifying the children, and sending hops and head flying down to the end of the hall.
[00:17:11] Josh Hutchinson: On October 29th, Mary Kercum told the court that she and Mrs. Wickham had seen the apparitions of Katherine Harrison and her dog appear in Mrs. Wickham's house in the night.
[00:17:26] Sarah Jack: On October 30th, William Warren said that Katherine told his fortune and those of his master's daughter, Simon Sackett, and Elizabeth Bateman in about 1651.
[00:17:36] Josh Hutchinson: She told fortunes by looking at hands.
[00:17:40] On May 11th, 1669, Katherine Harrison was indicted.
[00:17:46] Indictment reads, "Katherine Harrison, thou standest here indicted by the name of Katherine Harrison of Wethersfield as being guilty of witchcraft. For that thou not having the fear of God before thy eyes has had familiarity with Satan, the grand enemy of God and mankind, and by his help has acted things beyond and besides the ordinary course of nature, and has thereby hurt the bodies of diverse, of the subjects of our sovereign Lord, the king, for which by the law of God and of this corporation, thou oughtest to die. What sayest thou for thyself, guilty or not guilty?
[00:18:27] May 11th, 1669."
[00:18:29] Sarah Jack: The prisoner returned not guilty and referred herself to a trial by the jury present.
[00:18:35] Josh Hutchinson: On May 25th, Samuel Martin Sr. testified that Katherine Harrison had predicted the deaths of Josiah Willard and Samuel Hale Sr.
[00:18:45] Sarah Jack: Also on May 25th, 1669, Mary Hale testified that on the 29th of November, 1668, she was lying in bed when something heavy fell on her legs.
[00:18:56] Josh Hutchinson: The heavy object turned out to be a dog-like creature with a head like Katherine Harrison's.
[00:19:03] Sarah Jack: The creature walked around the room and disappeared.
[00:19:07] Josh Hutchinson: But returned a week later.
[00:19:09] Sarah Jack: It crawled up her legs onto her belly
[00:19:12] Josh Hutchinson: She reached up to feel it
[00:19:14] Sarah Jack: And felt a human face.
[00:19:16] Josh Hutchinson: Presently then she had a great blow on her fingers, which pained her two days after.
[00:19:22] Sarah Jack: While the beast was present, Mary was unable to call out to her parents.
[00:19:27] Josh Hutchinson: They finally heard her when the thing disappeared again.
[00:19:30] Sarah Jack: Unfortunately for Mary, this was not her last encounter with this creature.
[00:19:35] Josh Hutchinson: It returned December 19th and spoke to her.
[00:19:40] Sarah Jack: " You said that I would not come again, but are you not afraid of me?"
[00:19:45] Josh Hutchinson: Mary said, "no."
[00:19:48] Sarah Jack: The voice replied, " I will make you afraid before I have done with you."
[00:19:53] Josh Hutchinson: " And then presently, Mary was crushed and oppressed very much. Then Mary called often to her father and mother, they lying very near."
[00:20:03] Sarah Jack: Then the voice said, "so you do call. They shall not hear till I am gone... You said that I preserved my cart to carry me to the gallows, but I will make it a death cart to you."
[00:20:14] Josh Hutchinson: "Mary replied, she feared her not, because God had kept her and would keep her still."
[00:20:21] Sarah Jack: The voice said she had a commission to kill her.
[00:20:24] Josh Hutchinson: Mary asked, "who gave you the commission?"
[00:20:28] Sarah Jack: The voice replied, "God gave me the commission."
[00:20:31] Josh Hutchinson: Mary replied, "the devil is a liar from the beginning, for God will not give commission to murder. Therefore, it must be from the devil."
[00:20:40] Sarah Jack: "Then Mary was again pressed very much."
[00:20:44] Josh Hutchinson: Then the voice said, "you will make known these things abroad when I am gone. But if you will promise me to keep these aforesaid matters secret, I will come no more to afflict you."
[00:20:57] Sarah Jack: Mary replied, "I will tell it abroad."
[00:21:00] Josh Hutchinson: On May 25th, 1669, the jury could not reach a verdict.
[00:21:07] Sarah Jack: The magistrates ordered Katherine Harrison to remain in jail until the October session of the Court of Assistants.
[00:21:13] Josh Hutchinson: The magistrates posed four questions to a group of ministers.
[00:21:17] Sarah Jack: One. Whether a plurality of witnesses be necessary legally to evidence one and the same individual fact.
[00:21:26] Josh Hutchinson: Two. Whether the preternatural apparition of a person legally proved be a demonstration of familiarity with the devil.
[00:21:34] Sarah Jack: Three. Whether a vicious person's foretelling some future event or revealing of a secret be a demonstration of familiarity with the devil.
[00:21:43] Josh Hutchinson: Four. Whether harm inflicted by a person's specter or apparition, if legally proven, was proof of diabolism.
[00:21:52] Sarah Jack: May 26th, 1669. Samuel Hurlbut and Alexander Rony testified that Josiah Gilbert denied being Katherine Harrison's cousin and said that he only knew her as, quote, "one that followed the army in England."
[00:22:07] Josh Hutchinson: This may have been an implication that Harrison had been a sex worker in England.
[00:22:12] Sarah Jack: In undated testimony, Eleazer Kinnerly testified that his late wife, Mary Robbins Kinnerly, had complained that her mother had been killed by witchcraft.
[00:22:24] Josh Hutchinson: Mary once spoke with Katherine Harrison about the death of her father, John Robbins, and Katherine said, "when your father was killed," implying that she knew Mr. Robbins did not die a natural death.
[00:22:38] Sarah Jack: Alice, the wife of James Wakeley also submitted undated testimony. She reported that when Mrs. Robbins was ill, her body was stiff as a board.
[00:22:47] Josh Hutchinson: But when she died, her body became extraordinarily limber.
[00:22:52] On October 12th, 1669, the jury found Katherine Harrison guilty and the court ordered her to compensate the witnesses who had traveled from Wethersfield to Hartford to testify.
[00:23:05] Sarah Jack: Marshall Gilbert acted as Harrison's attorney in requesting that those who owed money to Harrison should appear before the assistants to settle their debts. The court granted this motion.
[00:23:15] Josh Hutchinson: Daniel Garrett was awarded 12 shillings for attending Katherine Harrison at the special court.
[00:23:22] Sarah Jack: On October 20th, the group of ministers at last returned their answers to the four questions, which had been submitted by the magistrate.
[00:23:29] Josh Hutchinson: "To the first question, whether a plurality of witnesses be necessary legally to evidence one and the same individual fact, we answer that if the proof of the fact do depend wholly upon testimony, there is then a necessity of a plurality of witnesses to testify to one and the same individual fact, and without such a plurality, there can be no legal evidence of it.
[00:23:56] John 8: 17, the testimony of two men is true. That is legally true or the truth of order, and this chapter alleges to vindicate the sufficiency of the testimony given to prove that individual truth that he himself was the Messiah or light of the world. Verse 12. Matthew 26: 59 to 60."
[00:24:21] Sarah Jack: "To the second question, whether the preternatural apparitions of a person legally proved be a demonstration of familiarity with the devil? We answer that it is not the pleasure of the most high to suffer the wicked one to make an undistinguishable representation of any innocent person in a way of doing mischief before a plurality of witnesses. The reason is because this would utterly evacuate all human testimony. No man could testify that he saw this person do this or that thing, or it might be said that it was the devil in his shape."
[00:24:51] Josh Hutchinson: "To the third and fourth questions together, whether a vicious persons foretelling some future event or revealing of a secret be a demonstration of familiarity with the devil. We say this much, that those things, whether past, present, or to come, which are indeed secret, that is cannot be known by human skill and arts or strength of reason arguing from the course of nature, nor are made known by divine revelation either mediate or immediate, not by information from man must needs to be known, if at all, by information from the devil. And hence the communication of such things in way of divination. The person pretending the certain knowledge of them seems to us to argue familiarity with the devil in as much as such a person doth, thereby declare his receiving of the devil's testimony and yield up himself as the devil's instrument to communicate the same to others."
[00:25:55] Sarah Jack: Katherine Harrison remained in jail while the magistrates considered the minister's words.
[00:25:59] Josh Hutchinson: On May 30th, 1670, the court finally rejected the guilty verdict and released Katherine Harrison upon payment of fees and agreement to leave Wethersfield.
[00:26:12] Sarah Jack: In June, Katherine moved to Westchester, New York, now Westchester Square in the Bronx.
[00:26:17] Josh Hutchinson: Her oldest daughter, Rebecca, had married a man named Josiah Hunt from Westchester.
[00:26:24] Sarah Jack: By July 7th, Josiah's father, Thomas Hunt Sr., had gathered signatures a petition to remove Harrison from town.
[00:26:32] Josh Hutchinson: Notice she moved in June, and this guy's got a petition ready on July 7th. He's, "lady, you're outta here."
[00:26:41] Governor Francis Lovelace initially granted their request and ordered Harrison to move.
[00:26:47] Sarah Jack: However, Harrison refused to leave.
[00:26:51] Josh Hutchinson: Instead, she found shelter in the home of Richard Panton.
[00:26:54] Sarah Jack: On August 20th, 1670, Governor Lovelace summoned Panton and Katherine Harrison.
[00:27:01] Josh Hutchinson: Panton and Harrison traveled 14 miles to Fort James to talk with the governor.
[00:27:06] Sarah Jack: After meeting with the pair, Governor Lovelace ordered an inventory of Harrison's estate.
[00:27:12] Josh Hutchinson: He then reversed his decision and permitted Harrison to remain in Westchester, in exchange for an unspecified bond for her good behavior.
[00:27:22] Sarah Jack: In October, the governor released Harrison from her bond.
[00:27:26] Josh Hutchinson: Some records indicate that Katherine Harrison moved on to Long Island.
[00:27:32] Sarah Jack: Others believe she may have died in 1682 in the Dividend community outside Wethersfield, Connecticut. Now Rocky Hill.
[00:27:40] Josh Hutchinson: I just wanna say on these last two theories, we don't have exact records to. Absolutely confirm either of these are just the theories that are out there that some historians have stated.
[00:27:57] Sarah Dibble, sister-in-law of Abigail Graves Dibble, accused her husband of abuse in 1669.
[00:28:06] Sarah Jack: Zachary Dibble claimed the bruises and other marks on her body were the result of her witchcraft.
[00:28:11] Josh Hutchinson: He also claimed, quote, "she had a teat in the secret part of her body that was sometimes bigger and sometimes lesser, but was half a finger long."
[00:28:24] Sarah Jack: No formal complaint of witchcraft was filed.
[00:28:28] Josh Hutchinson: And the court did not proceed against Sarah Dibble.
[00:28:32] Sarah Jack: Instead, they released her from her marriage to Zachary.
[00:28:36] Josh Hutchinson: We want to just tell you for those who are new, witch teats found in the secret parts of their body are often the clitoris. They're talking about her clitoris.
[00:28:53] Sarah Jack: Not a birthmark.
[00:28:54] Josh Hutchinson: As if it's a foreign object attached to her body and not an important component of said body.
[00:29:06] Edward Messenger sued Edward Bartlett in 1673 for saying that Messenger's wife was, quote, "an old witch, or whore."
[00:29:16] Sarah Jack: In 1678, Goodwife Burr of Wethersfield sued for slander.
[00:29:23] Josh Hutchinson: An unidentified suspect was accused of witchcraft in Hartford in 1682.
[00:29:28] Sarah Jack: Next is Goodwife Bowden of New Haven. Sued for slander in 1689 after being called a witch.
[00:29:36] Josh Hutchinson: Unfortunately, not much information is available about these later accusations.
[00:29:41] Sarah Jack: The next accusation was made in 1692.
[00:29:45] Josh Hutchinson: We'll have more on that in the sixth and final episode in this series.
[00:29:49] Sarah Jack: Now here's Mary Bingham with a Minute with Mary.
[00:29:53] Mary Bingham: Alice Young. The following wonderful and thoughtful question was put forth to several people by Sarah Jack, a co-founder of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration project and co-host of this podcast. How are you planning to remember Alice Young on May 26th, this 376th anniversary of her execution? I responded, "I'm going to Windsor that afternoon." Now I ask myself, "why do I wanna go to Windsor?" Now that I am somewhat educated about Alice Young, I want to go and experience the area where she lived to develop a deeper understanding of her life, to stand where she stood to walk, where she walked. To bend and touch the soil where she lived, to connect to the earth where she lived is almost like reaching out and touching her personal history.
[00:30:53] The other reason I wanna go to Windsor is to connect with other co-founders who will be there. This solemn afternoon will be spent with people who, at the center of their hearts and minds desire greatly to exonerate Alice, along with all of the others who were convicted and hanged for the capitol crime of witchcraft in colonial Connecticut, a crime they did not commit.
[00:31:17] This wonderful group of people banded together late spring of 2022 to fulfill the dreams and help with the previous ongoing effort by Tony Griego and Beth Caruso to finally bring justice for the innocent people who lived over 375 years ago. Please visit the Facebook page titled CT Witch Memorial, founded by Beth and Tony established in 2016 to learn of the stories of the victims and to read about how Tony started the exoneration process in the late two thousands before Beth joined him about the year 2015.
[00:32:00] The current co-founders of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project are myself, Sarah Jack, Joshua Hutchinson, author Beth Caruso and Tony Griego. Our powerhouse representatives at the state level are Representative Jane Garibay and Senator Dr. Saud Anwar. We are all of like minds, like hearts, and work 150% so that all of the wrongfully convicted will see justice.
[00:32:29] To find out more about Alice Young, please listen to the episode of this podcast titled Connecticut Witch Trials 101 Part Two, Witchcraft Belief, the Founding of Connecticut, and Alice Young, and also consider reading One of Windsor by Beth Caruso. You won't be disappointed. Thank you.
[00:32:49] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:32:52]
[00:33:03] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News.
[00:33:05] We had the privilege of spending the week of May 15th, 2023 with Dr. Leo iWay, director of advocacy for alleged witches of Nigeria for a New England speaking tour. He had the opportunity to share the striking parallels between the historic accused witches and the alleged witches being attacked around the globe today with several audiences, including Connecticut legislators and constituents.
[00:33:26] He told us about recent circumstances of targeting vulnerable members of society with blame and punishment for natural misfortunes. He showed us their faces. He told us their stories. He has let us know how significant it is when local or state governments in the United States make a formal acknowledgement of the wrongs of witchcraft persecutions.
[00:33:46] Therefore, the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project's work for an official state exoneration of the 17th century accused and hanged witches of the Connecticut colony resonates globally. It is that important. Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast supports the Joint Committee on Judiciary's bill, HJ Number 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. We still need your additional efforts as we are waiting for the Senate to take HJ 34 to vote shortly.
[00:34:15] Will you take time today to write a Connecticut senator asking them to recognize the relevance of acknowledging the Connecticut witch trial victims? You can do this whether you are a Connecticut resident or anywhere else in the world. You can do this as any political party member. This is a bipartisan effort. You should do it from right where you are. You can find the information you need to contact a member of the Connecticut State Senate with a letter in the show links, the house has passed the bill. We need the Senate to follow suit. Your message to them gets this done.
[00:34:44] We have a very exciting update out of Stratford, Connecticut due to the thoughtfulness and effort of town historian David Wright. Mayor Laura Hoydick has signed a proclamation declaring May 15th Goody Bassett Day. Goody Bassett's first name is unknown, and she was executed in Stratford in 1651. The Town Council of Stratford will be voting on a resolution acknowledging her innocence next month. Their decision will be heavily influenced by the decision of the Senate on their vote for HJ 34.
[00:35:11] Please send your message of support to the Senate, for Goody Bassett and the other accused witches of Connecticut Colony, who need their good names cleared and for the victims suffering right now, each week from mob witch attacks across the globe.
[00:35:24] Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us purchase books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or make a financial contribution to our organization. Our links are in the show description.
[00:35:35]
[00:35:46] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:35:51] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:35:53] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe in whatever app you use to get your podcasts.
[00:35:58] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com
[00:36:01] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends and family about Thou Shalt Not Suffer.
[00:36:06] Sarah Jack: We want your support for our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:36:13] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:36:17]

May 28, 2023

Before Salem with Richard S. Ross III

Before Salem: Witch Hunting in the Connecticut River Valley, 1647-1663 by Richard S Ross III

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Show Notes

Welcome back friend of the podcast Richard Ross III, author of the Connecticut Witch Trial History book, Before Salem. Richard discusses witch trial cases from 1647-1663 in the Connecticut River Valley before the Salem Witch Trials and how they were influenced by the English Civil War. You will find out how The Witch Finder General impacted witch finding in the American Colonies. Richard portrays his love for the history and for speaking locally about it around Connecticut. We also hear from friend of the podcast, Beth Caruso on why some sites in Connecticut could be the witch hanging locations.

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Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Social Media for State Representative Jane Garibay

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: In this episode we speak with Richard S. Ross III, historian and author of Before Salem: Witch Hunting in the Connecticut River Valley, 1647 to 1663. And we'll be talking Connecticut Witch Trials throughout this episode. We begin with a discussion of what led to the witch trials in Connecticut.
Sarah Jack: How the events in the colonies and back in England affected witch-hunting in the [00:01:00] colonies.
Josh Hutchinson: Conflict with the Dutch and Native Americans.
Sarah Jack: The influence of the English Civil War.
Josh Hutchinson: The impact of the self-proclaimed Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins.
Sarah Jack: What were his witchfinding techniques, and what were other witchfinding techniques that were used in the colonies?
Josh Hutchinson: We'll discuss the supposed diabolical conspiracy to undo the church.
Sarah Jack: And differences between beliefs of common people and upper classes and clergy.
Josh Hutchinson: Cover all that and more.
We also have a special treat for you this week. We have author Beth Caruso returning to the show to discuss the possible location of the witch trial hanging site. And a magnificent tree that [00:02:00] unfortunately no longer lives called the Witch Elm.
Sarah Jack: We'll tell you where you can find a photo of it.
Josh Hutchinson: And we'll have linked to that in the show notes.
Sarah Jack: Now here's Richard Ross III.
Richard Ross: Like, I did a talk at uh, Center Church in Hartford, as an example, and when I finished, uh, a lot of the people were actually descendants of the people in Hartford, because this church is right in Hartford. I think it's the second congregational church. and They were just so enthusiastic, because they didn't know this their their family and their ancestors. I, I enjoy doing and and helping people understand their past better as way of saying it.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We really appreciate what you've done for the Connecticut witch trial history. It's so great to get it out in the open, and we encounter quite a number of descendants.
Richard Ross: Oh, I bet.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a lot working with us on the exoneration project. One of our goals is just to get the education out there, get [00:03:00] the history out there among everybody.
Richard Ross: I'm gonna tell you, I'll tell you something, this is how I got interested in this. I'm not from Connecticut, and so I moved here to take the job at Trinity. And my wife, who has since passed away, unfortunately. But she saw something in the paper, a little article about, Connecticut Witch. It was just a witch's little, and I said, "I never heard of that. What is going on here?" And so then I was able to I was getting ready to teach a course witch trials. I'm put it that way. It wasn't witchcraft, it's about the witches and the trials and what happened. But it was in Salem that I first thought I would talk about with my class.
And it was a seminar, first year seminar for the students. And what happened was, I started off with Salem, because there's plenty of material on Salem, but I started looking into Connecticut, but there wasn't much material in Connecticut. So I started doing research and [00:04:00] started pulling together the material that I could, so that I could give my students, they could do papers on the Connecticut Witch trials, which is what I wanted them to do.
And that's how I got started into all the business of looking at different trials and what happened and trying to do research on the history. And that's how I got started on it.
Josh Hutchinson: We're so glad that you did.
Richard Ross: There's always been this theory, and it may be correct, I don't know, but that the Connecticut fathers, so to speak, didn't really want to talk about it. There wasn't much they could do in Salem, because it was out there. They did something else in the end, they turned around and made a production out of it, so that now Halloween is like the biggest event in Salem, the month of October. But Connecticut's always been pretty quiet about it.
You talk to people in Connecticut, and you talk about witches in Connecticut, and they won't know what you're talking about. They've never heard of it. Recently, of course, we're getting more out there, and the Exoneration Project is helping. The first one, I [00:05:00] guess a few number of years ago, didn't really get out there. There's been a lot more research, let's put it that way, so that people have something to look at and to see what we're talking about.
But it's always been quiet, and it's only been, I would say, I think it was in 1905, as an example, that Trumbull's daughter published that article in the Hartford Courant and actually named Alice Young or Youngs as the first woman executed in New England for witchcraft. So it hasn't been that long. There were articles in the newspapers in the early 1900s. They had discovered some documents that the Wyllys family had held all those years, and those came out, but they, people were aware of it, but only really the genealogists and historians, and that group of people, that really wasn't out there in the public eye. And it really hasn't been until just recently, I guess best way of saying it.
Josh Hutchinson: We'd [00:06:00] like to ask you some questions about your book. You begin with an excellent explanation, giving the background of what was going on in England and New England before the Witch trials. Can you tell us how the wilderness of New England challenged the colonists?
Richard Ross: If you think of the wilderness, like when Christ went out into the wilderness and confronted the devil. That was the, that was the image the way they were living it. It was primarily, I think the Native Americans that they confronted. As they were able to settle at least initially New England because so many of the Native Americans had died from epidemic disease. When they moved in and it wasn't necessarily from the colonists themselves. There were people that were here before the colonists, fur trappers, people that came in, and that disease had already been going in waves like smallpox, things like that.
So when they settled, here they are in the wilderness with wild [00:07:00] animals. It was certainly not anything like the way it was back in England. And so they had to learn a whole new way of life and confront themselves. They had to confront themselves what they were and what it was like living out there. The sun goes down at night, it's pitch black. You hear things there. There are stories that you've heard about from back in England about the demons and witches and things like that. Psychologically it was very disturbing to the people. They just we're not used to it.
The Native Americans, they considered these people to be the devil's minions. They felt that when they came here that they were coming to the Devil's Land, his kingdom, and they were invading his kingdom, and they had to fight back, so to speak. That's another thing.
Sarah Jack: And you mentioned that the population had been reduced due to sickness. Is there other reasons that they were able to acquire and settle into the territory that made things [00:08:00] tenuous between the Native Americans and the colonists?
Richard Ross: One of the things is the colonists had weapons like guns, right? Native Americans didn't have guns. And we know that every time somebody got close, if they tried to sell 'em a gun, they could. We think that's what happened to John Carrington. He got in trouble for, they thought he was trying to sell a gun, and that wasn't probably the reason initially. It might have made him, they might have been suspicious of him. And then other things came into play that finally got him convicted of being a witch and his wife too, which I have no idea why his wife was, but obviously he associated with her. So maybe that's what did it.
Josh Hutchinson: And you noted that the colonists experienced trauma from all the conflict. How did that affect their mindset? The conflict with the Native Americans, the warfare.
Richard Ross: It seemed a lot of the people that were accused of being witches were, somehow or other, they tried to [00:09:00] implicate them with getting involved with the Native Americans. Remember, these people believed that they were living in the end times and that the Native Americans were servants of Satan and that Satan was trying to convert as many of even the colonists to turn away from God, so that there would be fewer people that would be saved, so to speak.
The Native Americans, their religion wasn't Christian. So that they did things that they felt were Deviltry, and even one of the things that comes up sometimes is the idea that, especially with the women, that they were, may have used like Native Americans healing methods, something like that, which I don't believe that these women did, because whatever healing methods they took with them probably came from England, because to get involved with Native Americans healing at all would've been anathema. They really would've been [00:10:00] considered witches because of getting involved in that. I know, for a number of different cases, that there's always somehow a mention of Native Americans. Even the famous case of Elizabeth Seager, the witness claims that she, that she and her friends were dancing around a pot, a kettle, and they could see what they thought were Native Americans involved in it, and there's another case with Mary Staples some kind of like little Native Americans memento of some sort that they, somebody thought they saw her holding. In other words, they tried to connect them with the Native Americans, but they never really convicted the Native Americans of being witches, and they didn't take 'em to court. And the Native Americans were not Christians, they were outside the community, cuz they weren't betraying their belief in God. But the Christians that were in the community, the colonists, if they turned to Satan, they signed a pact with Satan, et cetera. They were turning their back on God and they deserved, they were [00:11:00] witches, because they were, working against God.
Sarah Jack: That's very good distinction. Thank you. Can you explain more about the chiliastic view of the times, what that means?
Richard Ross: You have to remember that in England at the time, I talk about the Civil War in England, about 1642 to about 1649. There was the belief that once they got rid of the king, which they did in 1649, they beheaded him, when Cromwell came to the throne, that he would usher in the end times, the reign of Jesus, and that's what they believed, and they believed it was coming. There was a lot of this belief at that time period, because that's what the puritans believed, that they were getting pretty close to the time when Jesus would reign on this earth. And that's what chiliastic view was.
Josh Hutchinson: And how did that view influence the Witch hunting?
Richard Ross: [00:12:00] If they believed that the end times are coming, as I said before, then they believed that the Devil was trying to turn as many good Christians to his side and away from God as possible. And he was getting really desperate, basically, because the end times are coming. And so he wanted as many souls as he could get. That's pretty crude, but that's probably the way it went. And so this is what they were fighting against, and boy, were they disappointed when Cromwell died and then when Charles II came to the throne, that didn't help either, cuz see, they expected the world to be different, and it wasn't. It went back to the way it had been, but it didn't stop 'em from going after witches. It might have even, it might have even worked the opposite. Let's get rid of these people while we can.
Sarah Jack: And are there other ways that the English Civil War was opening the door to the witch trials? I know you just said that they were thinking let's get rid of them while we can.
Richard Ross: I'll tell you exactly what happened. During the English Civil War, this is the way I look at it, [00:13:00] there were, immediately whenever there's any kind of conflict like that, and it was a civil war. So those are worse than wars against other people, just like our own civil war, how many, over 600,000 people, American soldiers died in our civil war. And it was pretty brutal war. And that's what the Civil War in England was pretty brutal, too. And plus it was, it, God is on our side type of approach, the chiliastic approach there. Basically what happens is there is no real government during this, during the Civil War, because they're fighting with each other pretty much. So that means that the government, the power centers come down to the towns, the locals, and whoever's in charge. And so what happens is, in this particular case, as I said each side, because it's so brutal, they start calling the other side antichrist. They've got witches. That gets really brutal.
And so each side is calling each other that in these names and saying that they've got the antichrist and the devil [00:14:00] on their side. And so now we get Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder general, and Matthew Hopkins is an East Anglia, he and John Stearne, and there's a couple, there's a midwife. They decide they're going to go from village to village and find witches. And he comes up with a scheme to do this. He has these ideas, which I think actually happened before, but anyway, started using them, floating witches, putting witches in the water, right, poking them, looking for the witch's teat, the devil's mark, making them walk, particularly observing them, looking for familiars. And these things begin to percolate in England for a while, until the government starts to clamp down on it about 1647.
But these ideas find their way over to New England. And the other thing you have to know is that, during the time period in the 1630s and 1640s and even a good part of the, most of the 1650s, [00:15:00] there was no authority from England over here in New England. They weren't interested in the New England colonies very much at all. It isn't until the 1660s when Charles II comes back as king, that he starts to say, "wait a minute. I want to do something about these colonies. They should be obeying English law, et cetera, et cetera. We should tax them." That wasn't being done previously, so they were all pretty much on their own.
So anyway, the trials that they had were local, and as I've said before, one of the problems with Connecticut was that Connecticut was not settled as an appropriate colony. It didn't really get the permission to be a colony until John Winthrop Jr. actually goes over in 1660 to get the charter. And that causes problems, too, when he goes over there. But anyway, my point is that it was pretty neglected area for almost 30 years, as far as England was [00:16:00] concerned.
And so that you had these courts, for example, like the particular court that was set up in Connecticut. And they were using English law. They were trying to use English law, but it wasn't like they were appointed by somebody from England, let's put it that way. They said they established their own courts and that happened, too, in Massachusetts, were a little different. Although during the Salem Witch Trials, the Court of Oyer and Terminer really wasn't a legitimate court. It wasn't until December of 1692 that they actually get a legitimate court. And when they get the legitimate court in 1692, all of a sudden they decide that this hasn't really gone well then. And people that were actually admitted to being witches were actually let go. And the people prior to that, the people that had said they weren't witches were the ones that were hanged.
Sarah Jack: And so you state, and we know that, to this community, witches did exist and they felt that there was biblical [00:17:00] authority and their basic laws were confirming that. Is there anything you can tell us about that to understand their mentality on that?
Richard Ross: Well, they live in a different world than we do. So I try to make that point. We live in a more analytical world, where we can look at things and determine what's real and what isn't. And those days, they just didn't have that ability. It just didn't exist. You don't get that really started until about the time of the, the enlightenment, and plus it was very, it was totally religious. And the religious authorities, if you look at the laws, if you look at the church, even the Westminster Assembly, they admit that there were witches and that there's always been witches, right? We've always heard of witches.
The problem is, and I go into this when I give my talks, is that there's a difference between what people believed, that the lower classes, so to speak, believed about what witches, who the witches were and what [00:18:00] they did. And basically those people believed the witches just did harm, just harm, and so you would pick out one or two, and you would say, "the, this person did this," and if they could figure out a way to prove it, or they would use crowd, go after them and hang them or do whatever they did. That was one thing.
But what we're talking about here is what we call diabolical witchcraft or satanism. Now, this comes about in around the middle of the 15th century, because the church, the Catholic church on the continent, and I'll do this real quick, determines that, the theologians determine that the church is in a lot of trouble in this time period. And so they decide, it can't be us. It's gotta be, it's gotta be Satan. It's gotta be somebody on the outside. It's gotta be the devil. It's causing all the problems that we have, between the Black Death and just all kinds of issues that I go into.
So [00:19:00] what they say is, "okay. So we're talking about a conspiracy now. We're not talking about an individual witch that lives down the end of the town, who sits, is by herself and reads fortunes. We're talking about somebody who's actually signed a compact with the Devil, and there's a conspiracy to undo the church and undo all of God's work." And that's the difference between the what we're talking about here.
And that's why you get a difference, even in New England and England, between what the regular person thought about who a witch was and what the clergy thought a witch was. They thought diabolical witchcraft. The average person thought, "oh, they've harmed me." That's it. They don't get into the devil business as much. It comes later, though. Obviously, it comes down, it spreads, from the upper classes down to the peasants and stuff like that.
So what happens, though, the best part of this is, okay, so on the continent things happen like people are burned as witches, right? [00:20:00] And we know that. But you notice that they don't burn them in England. They hang them. And the reason for this is because on the continent, witchcraft is a heresy. In England it's a felony. In England, you get a trial by jury, and you know you gotta defend yourself, but at least, and you don't get tortured. On the continent, you get tortured. And you have, the trial is a kind of a Roman Inquisitionarial trial where there's three judges, and one of the judges is supposed to help you. And you're probably considered guilty. You have to prove that you're innocent. Whereas in an English court, of course, you were innocent until proven guilty.
So this comes about because of Henry VIII, which is really interesting, cuz people give him such a bad rap. But he probably saved a lot of people from being killed as witches. And basically what he did was parliament, I guess, passed the law that said witchcraft was a felony. Once it became a felony, it meant that, you obviously [00:21:00] got a court trial, and you got the ability to defend yourself and you couldn't be tortured, can't be tortured for a felony.
So these are the kinds of laws that get, then the laws get passed later with Elizabeth and then James I of England. So there are witchcraft laws passed, but at least there is a little bit of defense. There's an ability to limit the number of people they're going to be accused of being witches.
One of the ways they do that is because they don't allow torture. Whereas on the continent, people were naming names constantly, and that's why you had thousands of people supposedly or a whole village wiped out. Whereas in England, the maximum was probably like under Matthew Hopkins, probably maybe a hundred to 200. That's all. And even in New England, even though it's a terrible thing that happened, was still limited to the number of people that were actually tried and convicted of being witches.
Josh Hutchinson: And [00:22:00] in the book you also talk about the ministers in Windsor delivering some sermons where they spoke about the devil and the witches. How did that influence the people's belief in that community in witchcraft?
Richard Ross: They started around, I think 1639, 1640, talking about this, and this is about the time that Alice and her husband John moved and her daughter moved to Windsor. At least that's my approach. Other people have different approaches, but that's the way I look at it.
I talk about something called cunning men and cunning women and cunning men are, it just means they know that they're like white witches. They basically, and I talk about, I go back to England, so I go back and forth because it's important to understand where these people were coming from. So just to say this quickly, in England it was considered quite normal. If you say you lost an object, you might go to your local cunning person [00:23:00] in the village or whatever in community and ask if they knew anything about it. And these people tended to know a lot of things, because a lot of people came to them, and they would do charms and things like that. And one of the things that they did, which was very important, was they would unwitch people. So if somebody felt that they had been cursed and I have evidence of some of this even in New England of unwitching, how people tried to unwitch themselves.
So that's what this person would do. I don't know the that Alice was doing unwitching, but maybe she was a healer. That's the way I look at it. She probably had for some, I don't know where she got it from. I personally think she may, as I said, I'm the one who thinks she came from London, those others don't agree with me. But I, I think that she may have gotten a skillset somewhere, and when she came there, she would help them out, because one of the things they did was they raised cattle. That was the big thing from the people from the the that part of of England.[00:24:00]
Plus I found this out, her husband, this is really weird. Her husband had some kind of like a tuberculosis of the skin and he constantly lost his skin. And, when I saw that, I said, "oh, she's gotta be doing something to help him out." Anyway, so she may have had a skillset that was working fine.
And then when people started dying, obviously sometimes people turn on those kinds of people and go, " wait a, now people are dying. She must be, as I say this a fellow that had a wife and he was in Newbury, I think in Newbury, Massachusetts. And he said, sometimes people questioned about whether my wife was a good witch or a bad witch, and I got it as a quote.
So it's possible that when people started dying, people started looking at it with a jaundice eye and said, and then of course there were issues going on in the church too. That's the other thing. There were a lot of issues that that were causing problems in the church. We don't know exactly what they were, but we know that people were complaining about something. That, that's the kind of thing that [00:25:00] once it gets started, it's hard to it's hard to stop. People just gossip, and it just gets, the ball starts rolling.
There are no records of the trials themselves, that all we have is like depositions and things like that, just like in Salem. She's got that issue with trying to find the witches marks. Or the witches teats as they call 'em. And if they can discover that, and this is what they believe. The demonologists believe that if you can discover that on the person, then you know that a compact was made with the devil and that they are feeding familiars. The witches teat was to feed familiars, and so if you could, and that's what they were looking for.
And we know that they were looking for that in Goody Knapp. Because what happens with Goody Knapp is Goody Knapp gets hanged, right? And her body is thrown in a ditch, is what they did with witches, right? When she was hanged, and her body's thrown in a ditch, Mary Staples gets involved and gets accused of being a witch, [00:26:00] but she goes over there and starts looking for the witch's teats. So we know that must have been an important part of the trial. And one of the other ladies says, "wait a minute. Be careful there. Don't you know or they'll think you're a witch, too, if you say that these," cuz she was going, " there's nothing on her that's any worse than anyone, than me." and that's when the other lady says, "wait a minute, you're gonna get in trouble for this." And so we know that was very important. We don't hear about it that much, but obviously it was important because that Mary was looking for it to say if that was the proof.
And then I guess a woman named O'Dell, she was a midwife. Now the midwifes are different. Midwives actually were very respected. She comes up to her and says, comes up to Mary Staples and said, "she's got 'em, she's got 'em. And just shut up, basically, oh, you're gonna get you something to a lot of trouble." So anyway, that's what happened.
Sarah Jack: Wow, that's a great story. Historical story.
Richard Ross: Lot of interesting things going on, gotta [00:27:00] read these cases as much as really close, some of them, and this is just some of 'em. I try to look at the cases, all the cases, as many cases as I could. These are all cases, many of 'em related to people that actually executed. But I also got involved in a few cases where people weren't necessarily executed, but they were freed, so to speak.
I think you hear about John Winthrop and how he was like an alchemist. And how he helped to get some of these witchcraft cases where it looked like they were gonna be convicted. He got them off, but as long as they behaved themselves. This is a case she didn't hang, she was from New York. And the town, the area she was from wanted to be connected with Connecticut. So cuz they wanted to get a real trial, and they brought her up there, and she was tried and it looked pretty bad for her, and then John Winthrop, Jr. was able to say, " let's let her go and she behaves that'll be fine. If she doesn't behave, we'll bring her back, and then we'll convict her." And you know that, what's interesting about that is this case of [00:28:00] guilty and not guilty, whereas he was looking for a middle way, because she wasn't not guilty, but she wasn't guilty, either, as far as he was concerned.
I'm writing a book on body snatching. And the reason I bring it up is because there's, the Scots, legally they actually have a middle ground where you're not actually guilty and you're not not guilty, but you're in the middle, basically.
And I think that's where he might have got it from, so anyway, but he did that in a number of cases. I think one of the problems he had was he did that in that case I was just telling you about. And I think the people in Hartford during their time period when they had the Hartford Witch Hunt, got really upset that this woman didn't get executed. And so that when he left, that was now their opportunity to go after the real witches that they wanted to get.
Sarah Jack: That's really good information.
Richard Ross: They, they were bitter, bitter. And the other thing I just wanna tell [00:29:00] you quickly about, which I even talked about, but with the Hartford case there was an awful lot of contention and wrangling over the church in Hartford, and that also didn't help, either, with the witch panic.
Josh Hutchinson: Can you tell us a little more about that?
Richard Ross: Basically, when Hooker died, they brought in a couple of ministers that they tried them out. They didn't like 'em. Stone didn't like them at all, particularly the first one. And he wanted to be the chief minister, basically, best I can tell. And then he started to act a what we would call a Presbyterian where you're in charge of the church, whereas Congregationalists didn't believe in that. They believed that the elders were in charge of the church and that the minister was supposed to do their bidding pretty much.
And so there was great conflict between the two of them over almost a ten year period. It was unbelievable. People talked about it all over New England, and actually Wethersfield had its problems, too, [00:30:00] but in 1659, the elders were finally able to withdraw and go up to Hadley, Massachusetts. And they set up their own church up there. But what happened was, of course, it left, all the quality people, if you will, left town and caused all kinds of problems land disputes, and cetera, et cetera, in Hartford itself. Hartford was also suffering all kinds of weather problems, flooding.
And then our friend John Winthrop, Jr. decides he's gonna leave and go over and get a charter, which freaked people out. And then when Charles II came to the throne, that freaked people out. And finally, the Congregationalists felt they were losing out to Presbyterians and Charles was getting ready to allow Catholics, for God's sake, to come into New England.
That was another thing, Quakers. So there was all kinds of problems going on in in Hartford, and in some sense, New England at that time. But Hartford was the place where we had the the actual witch trials themselves that came about as a result of all [00:31:00] these issues. So there's a lot of detail on that, too, that I go into. And there was conflict in the church, too.
The other thing that happened was the thing that most people don't talk about, which I like to talk about, is the fact that one of the young women, Ann Cole, was possessed. She started naming witches and things like that, but she was also supposedly possessed by a demon.
And the ministers of course got together, the four ministers from the different towns Wethersfield, Farmington, and then I think two from Hartford, including Stone. And they decided they were going to interview her, and they weren't casting demons out, but they were certainly looking for information from her, and she gave out the information they wanted. And one of the other things that had to do with this is not everybody left, not everybody could afford to leave to go up to Hadley. And so there was a small group in the church that were working against Stone. And it just so happened that Anne Cole [00:32:00] was the daughter of one of the members of this group.
Josh Hutchinson: You've answered many of our questions. Towards the end of the book, you talk about the case of Katherine Harrison and what was the significance of the final decision in that case?
Richard Ross: Katherine is the one where he goes to the ministers. Basically that's important, because finally they decide that you can't have a an accusation that you saw some kind of devilish activity, unless you have actually two witnesses. And if you can get two witnesses that saw the same exact act, then you'd have a case, at least you could bring it to court. Aside from that, no. They couldn't get a conviction. From that period on, you don't have, the magistrates really don't wanna bring too many witchcraft cases until we finally get up to 1692. And we do get the witchcraft cases, but thankfully, no executions.
Sarah Jack: [00:33:00] Where do you suggest your community, people who are coming to look for history, where can they experience it or learn about it?
Richard Ross: So basically once a year we, I do a a tour called the Connecticut Colony 17th Century Witch Panic. And I put together this pamphlet for them, Ancient Burying Ground. And we usually do that in October. So that's one where I talk about a lot of what happened during the witch panic at that time period. But what we also do is we identify the graves of people who were connected to the witch panic. And of course, no witches are buried there, as I have to tell people all the time, because they didn't do that.
But we do have Hooker and Stone, and some of the more famous names are there. And so I talk about each of the individuals and how they're connected. There's another organization at the Stanley-Whitman House, which is in Farmington, and it's called the Mary Barnes Society.[00:34:00] Their organization is interested in Mary Barnes, who was also hanged with the Greensmiths in 1663, and I guess they have a collection there. I've been there, but I haven't been involved with them. But I do know about them, and I've done talks for them.
And of course there are talks, available people that are doing talks like myself. And there's other, Beth does talks. And recently I went to, although there wasn't really a witch thing, but have you ever heard of The Witch of Blackbird Pond in the book?
Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
Richard Ross: Okay. So they did a ball there for Halloween. It was quite good. And so there's ways to get into it and then of course, to read about it, to get books that, if you're interested in it, get some of these books and read about the work that's been done and find out if there's something that you feel that you can, you see something that maybe you'd like to explore further and maybe do some research on your own. That's always good.
So there are ways of connecting with people and then you [00:35:00] connect with other people and then Beth's got that Connecticut Witchcraft, it's a Facebook and you can, see what's going on and that it's a way of it's a way of connecting with other people that might, that have the same interests as you.
I will say that when I talk to people, so many people just tell me that they're so thankful that somebody actually is, I think I said this earlier, is interested in like their family or it's nice to know that they're related in some way to somebody else that's related to so heck, a lot of people that seem to be related to these witches, accused witches. I'm shocked at how many people, but it's good.
My book is available primarily through like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and stuff like that. And I didn't set the price, unfortunately. But it's got a lot of material in it, and it's I think people live, if they're interested in basically how it's connected with what was going on in England and then basically took off on its own. [00:36:00] You can learn a lot from what I've written, I hope. Anyway, that's what I did it for. I wanted to give people context. One of the things I noticed about a lot of books on witchcraft, on witches and witch trials is they deal with that specifically, whereas what I wanted to do is to look at it and put it into a totality, a context, and then people can understand some of these trials better, I think is what was going on in the world at that time. The real purpose for the book really is to put 'em all into a larger context, and particularly the, obviously the Connecticut Witch Trials.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you.
Richard Ross: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Josh Hutchinson: And now we go to author Beth Caruso, who has an update on a possible location of the Connecticut witch trials hangings in Hartford.
Beth Caruso: Dr. Love was a historian, and he was a reverend as well. So in 1914, [00:37:00] Dr. William DeLoss Love published a history called The Colonial History of Hartford, which focused on how the City of Hartford developed. And on page 2 86 of this book, he talked about a possible witch hanging site. Now Dr. Katherine Hermes, our historian friend, she has said how impressed she was with Dr. Love's references. He literally went to Colonial Land records, and he followed them through time. In one Colonial land record, it said that it was near the hanging site, or it was the property of what the old hanging site was, or gallows.
And [00:38:00] keep in mind, those gallows were used not just for witch trial victims, but the other first hanging victims were mostly Native Americans, they hanged for murder. And also gay people, and they are on the record as being hanged for sodomy. So this is a site that does pertain to which trial victims, but there are also others who were targeted for their skin color, their culture, their sexual preference, as well. So we do need to keep that in mind when we talk about these gallows.
I'm gonna read you the specific site that he is talking about, but before I do that, I do wanna tell you that, we don't absolutely know for certain where the hanging site was a, [00:39:00] and I've heard so much hearsay, but I, there is no direct evidence. One spot that has come up as hearsay is near the Old State House. Apparently at some point in time when they were doing construction in the area, they did find some human remains in the ground near the Old State House. Does that mean that people were hanged there at some point? It's really hard to know. And again, I can't find direct references to that, so I don't even know if that's hearsay or if that's real. I would need to do more research on that.
Another possible hanging site was down by the meadows near the Connecticut River. And I think where that might come from [00:40:00] is there's an old map from the 1630s, and after the Pequot war, near that site, they would this sounds terrible, but they would cut off the heads of the natives that they were conquering and put them on pikes, and they would put those on this land next to the river as a warning. And this was not anything new for the English. At that time in London, near the old London Bridge. Criminals after they were killed, they'd be decapitated and their heads would be on pikes right near the London Bridge as well. So this was part of a criminal thing that they did as a warning to who they considered to be other criminals. So that might be where talk of, a possible other [00:41:00] hanging site comes from because of that.
Another place, at Trinity College, there's a hill and up on that hill, there were gallows there at one point in time, but every historian I have talked to has said that those were gallows from the time of the Revolutionary War, and they did not believe that witch trials were there. I would say the absolute most solid and strongest evidence of where the hanging site was or where the gallows were, would have been a mile from downtown Hartford at the time, Main Street, about a mile out up Albany Avenue, which at that point was a road that went out to cow pasture, and there was supposedly a hill there. And if we know from Salem, it was from the downtown [00:42:00] proper, and it was on a hill where they had a gallows. So going by those things, it seems like it would fit a little better.
But then we have this reference by Dr. Love, who is very specific. And so I'm gonna read you what he wrote, and this all comes from land records. This is page 286 of the Colonial History of Hartford. And he starts out at the beginning of the page talking about Elizabeth Seager and Mary Barnes being indicted. But then he goes down and he says, " it seems probable that the witches were executed outside of the town plot on the road from the cow pasture into the country.[00:43:00] There the gallows of early times were located on March 10th, 1711 to 12, John Read sold to John Olcott, attractive about seven acres bounded south on the highway leading out of Hartford town towards Simsbury, now Albany Avenue. It is described in the deed as near the house lately, built by Joseph Butler near where the gallows used to stand. The place is near enough identified as on the north side of the avenue on the east end of the present Goodwin lot there. A large elm tree on a rise of ground might well memorialize the place where this tragedy of Hartford's early history was [00:44:00] enacted."
Then he goes on to say the usual place of punishment for minor offenses was in the meeting house yard near the church where the stocks, the Hillary and the whipping post. So anyway, this is fairly concrete, I think, because he is looking at very old deeds from the early 1700s. The last of these hangings would've taken place in 1663 for the witch trial victims. But again, keep in mind there were other others who hang there as well. So he wrote this in 1914.
I've known about this a long time. Other people have known about it a long time. And people who know a bit about how Hartford has changed and where this might have been, have [00:45:00] pointed to Albany Avenue about a mile from the old meeting house. But I don't think anybody knew specifically where this was.
And it never dawned on me that this is 1914. There was photography back then. I don't know, I hadn't thought about it. Other people I've talked to hadn't thought about it, until last week when Jen Schloat, your other guest, pointed out to me. We were talking about old articles and perceptions of how the witch had changed to be the old hag to this young, powerful women, coinciding with women gaining independence and freedom during that time.
And so we were going back and forth, and she found this article from 1930, I believe it was May 11th, [00:46:00] 1930, that talked about this old elm tree and the possible sight of the gallows. And in that article was this picture of this huge and beautiful old elm tree, and it was up upon a hill, and I thought, oh my gosh, where is this? Where is this? We should be able to identify this. There was one building in that photograph that looked like it was older than the other buildings there, and it was On Irving and Albany Avenue, and with some research I figured out that was the old Goodwin lot or the old Goodwin Tavern, an inn that this guy, Dr. [00:47:00] Love, or Reverend Love was referring to, it was his lot. Apparently his lot went all the way from a church at Vine Street all the way down to Albany and Garden Streets. So Garden, between Garden and Irving would be the most eastward part of that lot that he talks about and the side of the street is the north side of the street.
And indeed that's where it was. Just having that information that indeed was the Goodwin mansion that was referred to the Goodwin lot or the Goodwin Inn and Tavern, then it was possible to locate other pictures. And in locating other pictures, there were some buildings right behind the tree that were built [00:48:00] in 1927, and a couple of the buildings in those pictures still stand there today.
So because of that, it was possible to identify the specific place where that big old elm tree would've been. And it was so amazing to me to finally figure this out and have it be so specific, because people were talking about this all the time in the 1930s, and why did it just disappear? Why did people not know this anymore?
If you go through newspapers.com, there are several articles about the Goodwin Inn, there's more than one article about this gargantuan elm tree. They decided to take it down in the [00:49:00] 1930s. I thought maybe it was because of Dutch Elm disease, but that's not why they took it down. They took it down because they said the roots, were spreading toward Albany Avenue. There wasn't enough ground for them. And the owners, they wanted to chop it down for "progress," quote, unquote, and then they wanted to grade the lot, which they did to make it level with everything else around it.
So I think part of why people just forgot or stopped talking about this was because the main landmark, what was called the witch elm, was gone. And the other sad part about this, if you look at the original photos, this area was just absolutely beautiful. But of course, that elm was taken down. The other elms nearby probably died from the Dutch Elm Disease, which hit [00:50:00] right around that time.
And then the historic Goodwin Inn. I don't know why anyone would do this. It was such a incredibly beautiful Greek revival building with such history for Hartford. They tore it down in 1956 to make room for a parking lot. How could you do that in the name of progress? It makes no sense to me. But that's what they did. And today it's still a parking lot. So when you go to that area on Albany Avenue today, you're not gonna see these gargantuan trees. You are not going to see this incredibly old, historic building. It's all gone, but we know precisely where that spot is now that Dr. Love referred to now.
Again, I'm gonna quote him there. "A large elm [00:51:00] tree on a rise of ground might well memorialize the place where this tragedy of Hartford's early history was enacted." We don't know for absolute sure that old elm tree was indeed a hanging tree for the gallows, but we do know it was that area. And I looked up other old elm trees to see the size of the trunk. Elm trees, even very old ones, the girth was not huge like a old chestnut tree. The girth was with the oldest trees, maybe six to ten feet. And if you look at that old tree in the photograph, that does match that. It's possible that it was the tree, because everything else was pretty much chopped down. I did find a picture of the Goodwin Inn in 1925, and this is [00:52:00] before the neighborhood behind it was built up. It just looks like fields, and it's pretty much farm fields everywhere with a few of these elm trees.
But the giant elm was one of three trees that was talked about in a special tree book. It's was called Trees of Note in Connecticut by Catherine Matthews. It was published in 1934. There were only three trees that she listed in Hartford that were well known. One, of course, was the Charter Oak. By then, the Charter Oak was gone, but they very carefully saved some saplings from the Charter Oak and strategically planted them in different places, which are still alive today. There was a third one but the second one was this witch [00:53:00] elm. And in the photograph for that book, the elm is, it's, it just looks monstrous. You can also go to ctdigitalarchive.org and see yet another picture of that massive elm tree. And it's facing north, but it's also facing more towards Garden Street, so you can get another perspective.
But in any case, I think this is really important to know. It's not the ideal place for a memorial right now. Right now it's the property of a liquor store in the north end of Hartford, basically. The neighborhood over time has gotten very run down. I know there are projects there to bring the neighborhood up again, but what you see now [00:54:00] is completely different than what in those photographs.
And again, with these landmarks, the Goodwin Inn and the huge elm tree, I think this is why this came out of people's memory, and why they just didn't talk about it for a long time. So thank goodness for newspapers.com.
Sarah Jack: Thank you, Beth.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Beth. And we'll have a link to a photograph of the witch Elm in the show description.
Sarah Jack: And now for a Minute with Mary featuring Mary Bingham.
Mary Bingham: Mary Barnes
I have an update on the condition of Mary Barnes, for which she was treated between 1657 and 1659. I first spoke of this in the episode titled "Andy Verzosa on Museums, Mary Barnes and Farmington, Connecticut." John [00:55:00] Winthrop Jr. As an Alchemist who studied Paracelsus, believed that medicines created conditions. For which the body to heal itself. After looking at this journal entry more carefully, I discovered that Mary was treated with at least three medicines, salt, Peter sage, and most likely sugar today.
Salt Peter is known as potassium nitrate and can be used to destroy, preserve and heal. John Winter Jr. Knew that it was a fertilizer food preservative. And an ingredient used to make gun powder. On the other hand, John Winthrop Jr. Could have used Salt Peter to create the condition for the body to heal skin lesions, itchiness, and inflammation.
I don't know why John Winthrop Jr. Would have used Sage as of yet today. However, SAGE is used for headaches, sore throat, and inflammation. [00:56:00] Sugar would have been prescribed to create the condition. For the body to heal wounds. My transcription of this journal entry is far from complete. However, this small bit of knowledge brings us a little closer to knowing more about Mary Barnes.
Mary seemed to have responded favorably to this treatment before having a relapse. Winthrop Jr. Was able to help her both times to heal from a possible uncomfortable skin condition. Stay tuned. I will keep the audience updated as my findings are clarified. Thank you.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Mary.
Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
Josh Hutchinson: And now time for End Witch Hunts News featuring Sarah Jack.
Sarah Jack: On Monday, we visited the Salem Witch Museum and the Salem Witch Trials Memorial with Dr. Leo Igwe, director of Advocacy for Alleged Witches. He communicated with us the striking parallels between the historic accused witches and the alleged witches being [00:57:00] attacked around the globe today. Parallels such as targeting vulnerable members of society with blame and punishment for natural misfortunes that the accused could not possibly have caused. Lives forever altered, alleged witches maimed for life, having to flee their homes, to find safety from the trauma.
Words of innocence quoted from the 17th century witch trial records are chiseled in stone at the Salem witch Memorial, pleas of innocence quoted directly from the Salem Witch Trial victims you may be familiar with. The parallel is that modern day alleged witches are the exact counterpart. They're pleading and holding out their own arm, asking for their innocence to be recognized, pleading, pleading, pleading until they are dead. Tuesday, Mary Bingham, End Witch Hunts board member, took us to Proctor's Ledge. At the Proctor's Ledge Memorial, Dr. Igwe commented on how the sufferings of the 1692 victims ring a bell in his heart, because people today are suffering under very similar conditions. We also visited the locations where sisters [00:58:00] Mary Towne Esty and Rebecca Towne Nurse were arrested and the place where they were executed. These experiences were deeply moving, as we felt like we were touching tragic history. But this tragedy is not gathering dust in books. No, this tragedy has its counterpart across the globe, where men, women, and children are taken from their home and accused of causing harm with witchcraft. In Connecticut, we are waiting for the Senate to vote on the resolution to absolve those accused of witchcraft in the 17th century.
The United States is looked to for models of justice and dignity. Taking action here to absolve witch trial victims resonates in countries with people affected by witch hunts today and among immigrant communities in the United States and other Western nations. People in every continent are likely to be affected by modern witch hunts, because it's a smaller and smaller world due to instant connectivity and various cultures converging. Immigration is bringing beliefs from one part of the world to the rest of the world, therefore the whole world needs leadership standing up for all vulnerable people targeted as witches. [00:59:00] Communities everywhere can be effected by the dangerous and violent scapegoating of misfortune. And so communities everywhere need to take a stand.
Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or make a financial contribution to our organization. Our links are in the show description.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Please join us next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends and family and neighborhood goat about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:00:00]

May 18, 2023

Connecticut Witch Trials 101 Part 4: The Hartford Witch-Hunt of 1662-1665

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Show Notes

This is Part 4 of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast’s Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series. In this episode, we look at The Hartford Witch-Hunt of 1662-1665, also popularly labeled The Hartford Witch Panic. This hunt took place while Governor John Winthrop Jr. was away in England obtaining the colonial charter. Afflicted girls Elizabeth Kelly and Ann Cole named witches. Podcast Cohosts, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack continue the Connecticut Witch Trial History story with only fact backed, trustworthy research and sources. You will hear about the common theories, and which facts are in the primary source records. The lives of these historic individuals have been examined and we share what is known about them, from the historical record. How do we know what we know? We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

Connecticut Witch Trials 101 Bibliography

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.

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Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Transcript

[00:00:00] 
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:27] Josh Hutchinson: This is part four of our Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series.
[00:00:31] Sarah Jack: In this episode, we discuss the Hartford Witch-Hunt of 1662 to 1665, commonly referred to as the Hartford Witch Panic.
[00:00:40] Josh Hutchinson: During this witch-hunt, 14 people were accused of witchcraft.
[00:00:44] Sarah Jack: 4 married couples, 5 women, and 1 man.
[00:00:50] Josh Hutchinson: It's notable that Governor John Winthrop Jr. was away negotiating a colonial charter with King Charles II at the onset of the witch-hunt.
[00:01:00] Sarah Jack: However, his replacement, Deputy Governor Major John Mason, is not listed in the court records associated with these cases.
[00:01:08] Josh Hutchinson: There is no indication that he served as a magistrate on any of the witch trials.
[00:01:14] Sarah Jack: His greatest contribution was his lack of action to stop the witch-hunt.
[00:01:19] Josh Hutchinson: Under his watch, four convicted of witchcraft were executed.
[00:01:23] Sarah Jack: Colonial officials listed on the records include magistrates Mr. Allen, Samuel Wyllys, Captain John Talcott, Lieutenant John Allen, Daniel Clark, Mr. Treat, and Mr. Walcott.
[00:01:35] Josh Hutchinson: Physician Bray Rossiter, assisted by Mr. William Pitkins.
[00:01:40] Sarah Jack: Grand jurors were William Wadsworth, Thomas Wells, Benjamin Newberry, Joseph Fitch, William Pitkins, James Steel, William Heyden, John Bissell, Samuel Wells, John Kilburn, Anthony Howkins, and Benedict Alvard.
[00:01:55] Josh Hutchinson: And trial jurors were Edward Griswold, Lieutenant Walter Filer, Ensign Olmsted, Samuel Boreman, Gregory Winterton, John Cowles, Samuel Marshall, Samuel Hale, Nathaniel Willett, John Hart, John Wadsworth, Robert Webster, and John Gilbert.
[00:02:18] Sarah Jack: And ministers Samuel Stone, Samuel Hooker, Joseph Haynes, and John Whiting were witnesses to this possession of Ann Cole.
[00:02:27] 
[00:02:36] Josh Hutchinson: We interrupt your regularly scheduled podcast with a special report.
[00:02:41] Sarah Jack: We have wonderful news.
[00:02:43] Josh Hutchinson: House Joint Resolution 34 Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft convictions in colonial Connecticut has been passed by the Connecticut House of Representatives.
[00:02:53] Sarah Jack: The measure to absolve those accused of witchcraft passed by a margin of 121 to 30. Hooray.
[00:03:04] Josh Hutchinson: HJ 34 now moves on to the Senate for a vote.
[00:03:08] Sarah Jack: Please continue to write to Connecticut senators.
[00:03:12] Josh Hutchinson: We can't assume the measure will pass the Senate.
[00:03:15] Sarah Jack: And we want to make sure it does.
[00:03:17] Josh Hutchinson: We will keep you posted on further developments.
[00:03:20] Sarah Jack: Thank you everyone who's contributed to this effort.
[00:03:23] Josh Hutchinson: Keep up the good work.
[00:03:25] 
[00:03:37] Josh Hutchinson: The two chief accusers were the allegedly bewitched Elizabeth Kelly and the allegedly possessed Ann Cole.
[00:03:45] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Kelly was the eight-year-old daughter of John and Bethia Kelly of Hartford.
[00:03:51] Josh Hutchinson: Her father turned 59 the year the trouble started.
[00:03:55] Sarah Jack: Her mother was about 23.
[00:03:57] Josh Hutchinson: Some speculate that John Kelly was an alcoholic.
[00:04:00] Sarah Jack: However, this is based upon a single conviction for drunkenness in June of 1661.
[00:04:06] Josh Hutchinson: Bethia Kelly was a daughter of Samuel Wakeman, who died when she was a toddler.
[00:04:13] Sarah Jack: Wakeman left behind 40 pounds for his oldest child, a son, and 20 pounds each for his three daughters.
[00:04:20] Josh Hutchinson: Two years after Wakeman's death, his widow married Nathaniel Willett.
[00:04:25] Sarah Jack: Though Bethia Wakeman Kelly was due her 20 pounds upon her 18th birthday, she had not yet received it as of the events in the story.
[00:04:33] Josh Hutchinson: John Kelly was not a landowner and was valued at 14 pounds, 11 shillings, and nine pence upon his death.
[00:04:42] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Kelly's aunt, Hannah Wakeman Hackleton, was abandoned by her husband Francis, a debtor whose estate was claimed by Samuel Marshfield, son of Goody Marshfield, who'd been accused of witchcraft up the Connecticut River in Springfield, Massachusetts.
[00:04:57] Josh Hutchinson: Hannah later faced legal challenges and was herself accused of being a witch in New York in 1673.
[00:05:05] Sarah Jack: We'll have more on that later. But first, the story of Elizabeth Kelly's afflictions.
[00:05:09] Josh Hutchinson: On Sunday, March 23rd, 1662, Elizabeth Kelly awoke in good health, as usual.
[00:05:18] Sarah Jack: She spent the morning with her grandmother.
[00:05:20] Josh Hutchinson: But came home before noon, accompanied by the wife of William Ayres.
[00:05:26] Sarah Jack: The visitor ate broth straight from a hot pot and encouraged the girl to do the same.
[00:05:30] Josh Hutchinson: Her parents protested.
[00:05:32] Sarah Jack: But she ate the hot broth anyway.
[00:05:35] Josh Hutchinson: After eating the hot broth, Elizabeth complained of pain in her belly.
[00:05:40] Sarah Jack: Her father medicated her with what he described as a small dose of the powder of angelica root.
[00:05:46] Josh Hutchinson: Does that mean he was a healer?
[00:05:49] Sarah Jack: No, it doesn't mean he was a healer. Families kept medicinal herbs the way we keep certain curatives in our medicine cabinets.
[00:05:56] Josh Hutchinson: The daughter reportedly felt well after she received the herb.
[00:06:01] Sarah Jack: And the family went to afternoon meeting together.
[00:06:05] Josh Hutchinson: All was well when the lights went out.
[00:06:07] Sarah Jack: But three hours later the girl awoke.
[00:06:11] Josh Hutchinson: According to her father, she cried out, "father, father, help me. Goodwife Ayers is upon me. She chokes me. She kneels on my belly. She will break my bowels. She pinches me. She'll make me black and blue. Oh, father, will you not help me?"
[00:06:28] She does seem to experience having a vision of a witch being upon her during her sleep, and people who've reported being hagridden describe seeing just such a sight of a witch on them, and they're unable to move, but they feel pain, and the witch hurts them.
[00:06:57] Sarah Jack: What did her dad do after this complaint?
[00:07:00] Josh Hutchinson: He told her to lie back down and be quiet so she wouldn't wake her mother.
[00:07:04] Sarah Jack: The girl did as she was told.
[00:07:06] Josh Hutchinson: But then she woke up and screamed even louder about Goodwife Ayers afflicting her.
[00:07:11] Sarah Jack: This time, Dad carried Elizabeth away and put her in her mother's bed.
[00:07:16] Josh Hutchinson: The young girl continued complaining about Goody Ayers torturing her.
[00:07:20] Sarah Jack: She said, "Goody Ayers torments me. She pricks me with pins. She will kill me."
[00:07:26] Josh Hutchinson: "Oh, father, set on the great furnace and scald her, get the broad ax and cut off her head."
[00:07:33] Sarah Jack: "If you cannot get a broad ax, get the narrow ax and chop off her head."
[00:07:37] Josh Hutchinson: The parents, quote, "used what physical helps we could obtain and that without delay."
[00:07:45] Sarah Jack: Meaning they likely gave her additional medicinals.
[00:07:48] Josh Hutchinson: Unfortunately, none of these physical helps worked for the girl, and she continued to suffer the next day.
[00:07:55] Sarah Jack: Bethia Kelly reported that she was at home with the wives of Thomas Whaples and Nathaniel Greensmith on Tuesday when Goodwife Ayers came to visit Elizabeth.
[00:08:04] Josh Hutchinson: While Ayers was there, the girl slept peacefully and seemed to be okay.
[00:08:09] Sarah Jack: But that night Elizabeth told her parents Goodwife Ayers had promised to give her fine lace, if she stopped accusing her of witchcraft.
[00:08:16] Josh Hutchinson: She encouraged her father to complain to the magistrates about Goodwife Ayers.
[00:08:21] Sarah Jack: Her condition continued to be poor Wednesday,
[00:08:25] Josh Hutchinson: At some point, she told her parents, "Goodwife Ayers chokes me."
[00:08:30] Sarah Jack: Then she was speechless.
[00:08:33] Josh Hutchinson: Later that night, she passed away.
[00:08:35] Sarah Jack: Was she bewitched to death?
[00:08:37] Josh Hutchinson: Or is there a simpler explanation for her passing?
[00:08:41] Sarah Jack: Her symptoms matched those of poisoning.
[00:08:44] Josh Hutchinson: It is possible that she was, indeed, poisoned, but likely not deliberately.
[00:08:50] Sarah Jack: Remember the angelica root?
[00:08:52] Josh Hutchinson: Her father gave her some to calm her stomach.
[00:08:55] Sarah Jack: But angelica can easily be mistaken for other plants.
[00:08:59] Josh Hutchinson: Poisonous plants.
[00:09:01] Sarah Jack: Including Hemlock.
[00:09:03] Josh Hutchinson: Do you think John Kelly had obtained the powdered root of the wrong plant?
[00:09:08] Sarah Jack: It's plausible.
[00:09:10] Josh Hutchinson: I agree. The symptoms of hemlock poisoning follow the same pattern described by her parents.
[00:09:17] Sarah Jack: According to the National Capital Poison Center, hemlock poisoning in humans, quote, " affects the nervous system and causes tremors, paralysis, and breathing difficulties. Muscle damage and kidney failure may occur in severe cases."
[00:09:31] Josh Hutchinson: The Cleveland Clinic says symptoms include restlessness or confusion, muscle weakness, muscle paralysis, and muscle death.
[00:09:40] Sarah Jack: The muscular paralysis can lead to the loss of speech.
[00:09:44] Josh Hutchinson: This is followed by respiratory failure.
[00:09:47] Sarah Jack: And then death due to a shortage of oxygen.
[00:09:51] Josh Hutchinson: While it would be impossible to diagnose Elizabeth Kelly 361 years after the fact, it does at least seem plausible she may have been poisoned accidentally.
[00:10:02] Sarah Jack: What we do know is that the story didn't end there.
[00:10:05] Josh Hutchinson: Not by a long shot.
[00:10:07] Sarah Jack: Following the death of Elizabeth Kelly, her parents invited the neighbors to come and view the body.
[00:10:13] Josh Hutchinson: They were asked to take notes of what they saw.
[00:10:16] Sarah Jack: After he laid his daughter's body on the form, John Kelly asked Goodwife Ayers to wipe a little something from the girl's mouth.
[00:10:24] Josh Hutchinson: Next, Goodman Kelly asked Goodwife Ayers to roll up Elizabeth's sleeve.
[00:10:29] Sarah Jack: However, the sleeve was too tight.
[00:10:32] Josh Hutchinson: John Kelly tore both of the girls' sleeves and showed the assembled crowd the backs of her arms.
[00:10:39] Sarah Jack: Witnesses later stated the arms were black and blue from elbow to shoulder.
[00:10:43] Josh Hutchinson: They described seeing the appearance of bruising or the marks of a beating.
[00:10:48] Sarah Jack: Now the body was rolled onto its right side, then onto the belly.
[00:10:53] Josh Hutchinson: A noxious odor came from the body, driving some witnesses out of the room.
[00:10:58] Sarah Jack: The body was placed in a coffin, and John called everyone back to the room.
[00:11:02] Josh Hutchinson: He asked the witnesses to look upon the child's face.
[00:11:06] Sarah Jack: A large red spot had appeared on the right cheek.
[00:11:09] Josh Hutchinson: Which happened to be near where Goodwife Ayers stood.
[00:11:13] Sarah Jack: At this time, it was believed that the body of a murder victim would react to the touch of the murderer.
[00:11:18] Josh Hutchinson: And here a large spot indicated that Ayers was the culprit.
[00:11:22] Sarah Jack: Just as the Kellys stated Elizabeth had told them.
[00:11:25] Josh Hutchinson: Now, magistrate Samuel Wyllys ordered an autopsy to be performed by physician Bray Rossiter, with help from Mr. William Pitkins.
[00:11:35] Sarah Jack: Rossiter wrote out his findings.
[00:11:37] Josh Hutchinson: Rossiter and Pitkins swore to the truth of the document before the magistrates on March 31st.
[00:11:45] Sarah Jack: According to Rossiter, he found six particulars preternatural.
[00:11:49] Josh Hutchinson: The body was limber.
[00:11:51] Sarah Jack: The skin inside the abdomen was dark blue, yet no sign of illness was found in the bowels.
[00:11:57] Josh Hutchinson: Blood had pooled in the throat but was not coagulated.
[00:12:01] Sarah Jack: Blood had pooled in the back of the arm.
[00:12:04] Josh Hutchinson: The gallbladder was broken.
[00:12:06] Sarah Jack: The throat was constricted, and a large pea could not be pushed through the opening.
[00:12:11] Josh Hutchinson: Modern historians believe Rossiter mistook signs of decomposition for signs of the preternatural.
[00:12:18] Sarah Jack: Because the autopsy report does not specify the date the body was examined, it is impossible to know how badly the body would've decomposed.
[00:12:26] Josh Hutchinson: The body had been decaying since the 26th.
[00:12:29] Sarah Jack: This autopsy report has been used in more recent times to diagnose Elizabeth Kelly with diseases including bronchopneumonia and diptheria epiglottitis.
[00:12:38] Josh Hutchinson: At this point, it's unclear to us what actually caused the death of Elizabeth Kelly. The one thing that we do know is that it wasn't caused by witchcraft.
[00:12:53] The hemlock theory came about because Sarah and I were researching the uses of angelica root and discovered that it is commonly confused for hemlock and other related plants that are toxic to humans and animals. It's a working theory. We think it's plausible, but there's no real solid evidence. Even though people have tried to diagnose Elizabeth Kelly years after the fact, it's really difficult to say based on Bray Rossiter's autopsy report, what actually happened.
[00:13:38] When Rebecca Greensmith testified against her husband, she alleged several other individuals as a witch, including Goodwife Ayers, whom she claimed was at a party with her in the woods drinking sack.
[00:13:50] Sarah Jack: In this testimony, she named her husband, Nathaniel Greensmith, Goodwife Seager, Goodwife Sanford, Goodwife Ayers, James Wakeley, Peter Grant's wife, Henry Palmer's wife, and Judith Varlet.
[00:14:01] Josh Hutchinson: William and Goodwife Ayers were arrested for witchcraft in 1662.
[00:14:06] Sarah Jack: They fled Hartford when they were accused. 
[00:14:09] Josh Hutchinson: Around the same time that Elizabeth Kelly fell ill, a young woman in Hartford began behaving rather strangely.
[00:14:18] Sarah Jack: The supposedly possessed Ann Cole, the other accuser of the Hartford Witch-Hunt, was probably unmarried, living with her godly father's family, John Cole. It is suggested that she may be in her early twenties.
[00:14:29] Josh Hutchinson: David D. Hall states that the origins of the Hartford witch-hunt can be traced back to her when she began to suffer diabolical possession.
[00:14:37] Sarah Jack: The story of Cole's afflictions came from minister correspondence, one such letter after the fact, at least 20 years.
[00:14:45] Josh Hutchinson: It was a letter from minister John Whiting to minister Increase Mather in Boston.
[00:14:51] Sarah Jack: In that letter, Whiting admits he has lost the notes he took during his observations of Ann, but gave details anyways, two decades later.
[00:15:00] Josh Hutchinson: Because he had lost his Ann Cole notes, he was expecting Increase to get reports from others that he had beckoned to share reports. We have no additional reports today.
[00:15:11] Sarah Jack: The other minister interrogators leading the investigation of this hunt included the elder minister Samuel Stone of Hartford, the young Sam Hooker of Farmington, the young Joseph Haynes, a Presbyterian of Hartford, and the young John Whiting of Hartford.
[00:15:26] Josh Hutchinson: These ministers were not all Congregationalists. Haynes was a Presbyterian minister.
[00:15:33] Sarah Jack: Ann Cole said to have spoken about a company of familiars of the evil one. Although we don't know their names, it is told that she named them. The names must have been lost with the notes.
[00:15:44] Josh Hutchinson: Ann is reported to have said that it was the intention of the familiars and the evil one to stop her from getting married.
[00:15:52] Sarah Jack: To ruin her name.
[00:15:53] Josh Hutchinson: And to afflict her body.
[00:15:56] Sarah Jack: Ann's verbal behavior was troubling to the ministers. She muttered unintelligibly, which we know from several other trials is viewed suspiciously.
[00:16:04] Josh Hutchinson: In this case, it was the accuser muttering and not the accused. Muttering at this time was dangerous, could easily get you accused of speaking curses.
[00:16:20] Sarah Jack: Also to the ministers' dismay, Ann spoke about the witches with a Dutch tone.
[00:16:25] Josh Hutchinson: Reverend Stone described the accent as troubling. He said Ann had not been exposed to the Dutch dialect in a way that she should be able to imitate it.
[00:16:35] Sarah Jack: Stone claimed this was unusual, even though he was aware that Ann gave details with a Dutch tone regarding an unnamed, afflicted girl who is the neighbor of some Dutch.
[00:16:46] Josh Hutchinson: Samuel Stone would likely have known the unnamed girl and would've known that Ann was also familiar with her, and therefore the Dutch accent of her neighbor. He was contriving with artifice to make a case.
[00:17:02] Sarah Jack: The ministers prevaricated that the Dutch tone indicated that the possessing demonic voice within Ann was confirming the accused people were witches.
[00:17:11] Josh Hutchinson: Also, it is reported that several times Ann had violent bodily motions and caused interruptions in church.
[00:17:20] Sarah Jack: Affliction in church were done by Ann and two other afflicted women.
[00:17:24] Josh Hutchinson: The behavior was so upsetting a godly woman is reported to a fainted.
[00:17:31] Sarah Jack: In her fits, Ann named her tormentors as Elizabeth Seager and Rebecca Greensmith. 
[00:17:36] Josh Hutchinson: Ann Cole lived next to Rebecca Greensmith, who was specifically characterized negatively by Reverend Whiting as considerably aged. She was widowed twice, married to Abraham Elson and then Jarvis Mudge.
[00:17:54] The accused witch Elizabeth Seager insisted that Minister Haynes' account of Ann's accusations against her was a great deal of hodgepodge.
[00:18:04] Sarah Jack: Ministers Haynes and waiting took notes from interviewing Ann and confronted Rebecca Greensmith while she was in jail on the charges Ann Cole had reported to them. Rebecca confirmed with a detailed narrative.
[00:18:16] Josh Hutchinson: Later, after the minister interrogation that led to her confession, Rebecca told an unnamed jail visitor essentially that after so much pressure from Whiting, she could have torn him to pieces, that she had to yield from the pressure.
[00:18:32] Sarah Jack: She basically says the quote, but then she says something about she had to confess. She was compelled to confess.
[00:18:42] Josh Hutchinson: " When Mr. Haines began to read, she could have torn him in pieces and was as much resolved as might be to deny her guilt, as she had done before, yet after he had read a while, she was as if her flesh had been pulled from her bones. Such was her expression, and so could not deny any longer."
[00:19:03] Sarah Jack: Whiting confirms to Increase Mather in his 1682 letter that Ann went on to live so successfully, because the witches had been executed or had fled. 
[00:19:13] Josh Hutchinson: According to Whiting, Ann went on to marry, was a godly church woman, and had children of her own. Whatever was really responsible for the afflictions of Elizabeth Kelly and Ann Cole, testimony soon poured in.
[00:19:28] Sarah Jack: Joseph Marsh testified that he was present when Goody Ayers promised Elizabeth Kelly a hoary lace in exchange for the girl's silence.
[00:19:36] Josh Hutchinson: Samuel Burr and his mother testified that Goody Ayers had once told them about a time when she met the devil while she lived in London.
[00:19:45] Sarah Jack: Robert Stern claimed he had seen Elizabeth Singer and three other women in the woods dancing around a kettle with, quote, "two black creatures like two Indians but taller."
[00:19:57] Josh Hutchinson: He claimed to see Rebecca Greensmith among the women, who he knew by their habit or clothes.
[00:20:04] Goodwife Greensmith allegedly cried out, "look who is yonder," and the four women ran away up a hill.
[00:20:12] Sarah Jack: The mysterious black, quote, "things" approached Stern, but he left to go home.
[00:20:17] Josh Hutchinson: Maria Screech testified that Goodwife Steadman had told her that Mr. John Blackleach had bewitched Screech's sow, as he had done several of her own.
[00:20:29] Sarah Jack: Hanna Robbins testified that her father believed Goody Palmer was responsible for his wife's death.
[00:20:35] Josh Hutchinson: She also stated that her sister Mary had complained of witches during her fatal illness.
[00:20:41] Sarah Jack: According to Hanna, Katherine Harrison and Goody Palmer were both present during her mother's final illness.
[00:20:48] Josh Hutchinson: John Robbins warned Palmer away several times, but she continued to, quote, "thrust herself into the company."
[00:20:56] Sarah Jack: Alice Wakeley, wife of James Wakeley, testified that Mrs. Robbin's body was very stiff during her sickness but became very limber once she passed.
[00:21:05] Josh Hutchinson: Andrew Sanford was indicted on June 6th, 1662.
[00:21:10] Sarah Jack: The jury would not agree on a verdict. Some thought he was guilty, others only suspected he was.
[00:21:17] Josh Hutchinson: Andrew was released.
[00:21:20] Sarah Jack: His wife, Mary, was indicted on June 13th, 1662.
[00:21:24] Josh Hutchinson: She was to suffer a different fate than her husband.
[00:21:28] Sarah Jack: The jury found her guilty as charged.
[00:21:30] Josh Hutchinson: She was likely hanged within days of the verdict.
[00:21:34] Sarah Jack: Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith were both indicted on December 30th, 1662.
[00:21:39] Josh Hutchinson: Both were found guilty.
[00:21:42] Sarah Jack: Rebecca had confessed.
[00:21:44] Josh Hutchinson: And she had delated Nathaniel.
[00:21:47] Sarah Jack: Rebecca and Nathaniel were probably hanged together in January 1663.
[00:21:53] Josh Hutchinson: The same court ordered the treasurer to take the estate of William Ayers.
[00:21:57] Sarah Jack: William Ayers had fled the colony.
[00:22:01] Josh Hutchinson: The court gave Ayers' son, John Ayers, to James Ensign to serve as apprentice until he reached the age of 21.
[00:22:10] Sarah Jack: John had to grow up without his parents from the age of about eight or nine.
[00:22:15] Josh Hutchinson: He was released from servitude on March 3rd, 1675.
[00:22:20] Sarah Jack: Next, the court convened on January 6th, 1663 to hear the cases against Mary Barnes and Elizabeth Seager.
[00:22:27] Josh Hutchinson: Mary Barnes pleaded not guilty.
[00:22:30] Sarah Jack: The jury convicted her.
[00:22:33] Josh Hutchinson: Elizabeth Seager also pleaded not guilty.
[00:22:36] Sarah Jack: She was acquitted.
[00:22:38] Josh Hutchinson: The jurors who believed her to be guilty submitted a written statement on January 12th, 1663, explaining why they would've convicted her.
[00:22:48] Sarah Jack: She had been acquainted with people who had recently been accused of witchcraft.
[00:22:52] Josh Hutchinson: Including Mary Sanford and Goodwife Ayers.
[00:22:56] Sarah Jack: One of whom had been executed, the other had escaped.
[00:22:59] Josh Hutchinson: Seager had learned to knit from one of these other women.
[00:23:04] Sarah Jack: Magistrate John Allen pressed Seager on this knitting issue.
[00:23:08] Josh Hutchinson: And Seager eventually admitted she knew the woman better than she'd been leading them to believe.
[00:23:14] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Seager claimed she hated Goodwife Ayers.
[00:23:17] Josh Hutchinson: But the jury wasn't buying it.
[00:23:19] Sarah Jack: At one point, Goodwife Seager said, "they seek my innocent blood."
[00:23:24] Josh Hutchinson: John Allen asked, "who?"
[00:23:26] Sarah Jack: Seager said, quote, "everybody."
[00:23:30] Josh Hutchinson: When she was told she might be tried by swimming, she replied, "the devil that caused me to come here can keep me up."
[00:23:37] Sarah Jack: The majority of jurors did not believe accusations of flying had been proved legally.
[00:23:42] The same court of January 6th, 1663 decided to sequester escapee James Wakely's estate but allow his wife Alice to maintain the use of the property for the time being.
[00:23:52] Josh Hutchinson: Mary Barnes was hanged on January 25th, 1663.
[00:23:58] Sarah Jack: She was the last person hanged for witchcraft in Connecticut.
[00:24:01] Josh Hutchinson: On March 5th, 1663, the quarterly court held in Hartford awarded jailer Daniel Garrett 21 shillings for keeping Mary Barnes for three weeks.
[00:24:12] Sarah Jack: Thomas Barnes was charged for this expense.
[00:24:15] Josh Hutchinson: Garrett earned six shillings a week plus unspecified fees for keeping the Greensmiths.
[00:24:21] Sarah Jack: The length of their imprisonment is not disclosed in the document.
[00:24:25] Josh Hutchinson: However, it is possible they and Mary Barnes remained jailed until the 25th of January. 
[00:24:32] Sarah Jack: The March 5 court ordered the continuation of the sequestration of James Wakely's estate.
[00:24:37] Josh Hutchinson: Of the six people tried for witchcraft during the Hartford witch-hunt, four were convicted and two were narrowly acquitted.
[00:24:46] Sarah Jack: The hunt entered a new phase following the January 1663 executions,
[00:24:51] Josh Hutchinson: Accusers were no longer actively naming witches.
[00:24:55] Sarah Jack: However the witch-hunt did not entirely die off.
[00:24:59] Josh Hutchinson: And Elizabeth Seager's tribulations were far from over.
[00:25:03] Sarah Jack: She was indicted for three crimes.
[00:25:06] Josh Hutchinson: Witchcraft, blasphemy, and adultery.
[00:25:10] Sarah Jack: She pleaded not guilty.
[00:25:12] Josh Hutchinson: The court acquitted her on the witchcraft and blasphemy charges, but convicted her of adultery on July 2nd, 1663.
[00:25:21] Sarah Jack: And John M. Taylor says that she got everything that was coming to her in the courts.
[00:25:28] Josh Hutchinson: And Moyer says Mary Barnes may have been charged with adultery. That might be what the arrest warrant was issued for in 1649. And it does seem like many of these women had a scandalous, according to their neighbors, past and that there was at least gossip and rumor about their moral turpitude.
[00:25:55] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth was tried again for witchcraft on June 26th, 1665.
[00:26:01] Josh Hutchinson: This time she was convicted.
[00:26:03] Sarah Jack: Mrs. Miggat testified that Elizabeth Seager attempted to recruit her to be a witch.
[00:26:09] Josh Hutchinson: Seager allegedly said, quote, "God was naught. God was naught. It was very good to be a witch."
[00:26:16] Sarah Jack: And ,"she should not need fear going to hell, for she should not burn in the fire."
[00:26:21] Josh Hutchinson: Miggat also claimed Seager once muttered something unintelligible, which caused Miggat to flee in terror.
[00:26:29] Sarah Jack: Mrs. Miggat further stated that, quote, "a little before the flood this spring, Goodwife Seager came into their house, on a moon shining night, and took her by the hand and struck her on the face that she was in bed with her husband, whom she could not wake. And then Goodwife Seager went away, and Mrs. Miggat went to the door, but darst not look out after her.
[00:26:49] Josh Hutchinson: Daniel and Margaret Garrett testified that Goodwife Seager had told them she had sent Satan to tell people she was not a witch.
[00:26:58] Sarah Jack: Goodwife Garrett said she asked Seager why she had "made use of Satan to tell them, why did she not beseech God to tell them she was no witch?"
[00:27:06] Josh Hutchinson: Seager replied that Satan knew she was no witch.
[00:27:10] Sarah Jack: Edward Stebbins, Stephen Hart, Sr., and Josiah Willard testified that Goodwife had used scripture to justify her sending Satan.
[00:27:17] Josh Hutchinson: She had cited Acts chapter 19, verses 13 through 16.
[00:27:22] Sarah Jack: Acts 19:13, King James Bible, "then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus saying, 'we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.'"
[00:27:36] Josh Hutchinson: Verse 14, "and there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew and chief of the priests, which did so."
[00:27:45] Sarah Jack: Verse 15, quote, "and the evil spirit answered and said, 'Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?'"
[00:27:51] Josh Hutchinson: Verse 16, " and the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them and overcame them and prevailed against them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded."
[00:28:03] Sarah Jack: Seager was saying she had commanded Satan with the authority of Jesus' name to tell her neighbors that he did not know her.
[00:28:10] Josh Hutchinson: He knew she was not one of his own.
[00:28:13] Sarah Jack: According to Goodwife Garrett, William Edwards told Elizabeth Seager that she flew.
[00:28:18] Josh Hutchinson: She "replied that Edwards made her fly."
[00:28:22] Sarah Jack: Goodwife Garrett then told Seager, "you own you did fly."
[00:28:25] Josh Hutchinson: Goodwife Seager replied, "if I did fly, William Edward made me fly."
[00:28:30] Sarah Jack: Goodman Garrett confirmed his wife's testimony.
[00:28:35] Josh Hutchinson: Goodwife Garrett then told a story about a good cheese gone bad.
[00:28:40] Sarah Jack: She said she had once made a most excellent cheese, at a time when Goodwife Seager was husking corn in the Garrett barn.
[00:28:48] Josh Hutchinson: Garrett asked her husband to bring her the special cheese.
[00:28:51] Sarah Jack: When she got the cheese, one side was filled with maggots.
[00:28:55] Josh Hutchinson: Garrett cut off the bad part and threw it in the fire.
[00:28:59] Sarah Jack: At that moment, Elizabeth Seager cried out in pain so loudly that Garrett heard her from the house.
[00:29:05] Josh Hutchinson: Seager then came into the home crying of pain.
[00:29:09] Sarah Jack: She sat wringing her body and crying out, "what do I ail? What do I ail?"
[00:29:14] Josh Hutchinson: Goodman Garrett again confirmed his wife's testimony.
[00:29:18] Sarah Jack: This is another instance of the folk belief that witches reacted when objects they'd bewitched were burned.
[00:29:24] Josh Hutchinson: Goodwife Watson said that when she told Elizabeth Seager that Ann Cole's mother wanted to see her, Seager replied that she knew Ann was crying out against her.
[00:29:35] Sarah Jack: Seager said, "they missed their mark. They aimed at me. Why do they not lay hold of others as well as me? Why do they lay hold of the chief actor herself?"
[00:29:44] Josh Hutchinson: Watson replied, "if you know others to be chief, why do you not discover them?"
[00:29:49] Sarah Jack: Seager said she would in due time.
[00:29:52] Josh Hutchinson: On July 8th, 1665, governor John Winthrop Jr. met with magistrates to discuss the cases of Hannah Wakeman Hackleton and Elizabeth Seager, who had both been convicted of felonies and faced the death penalty.
[00:30:07] Sarah Jack: "The Governor declared that it was his desire that the matter might be respited to a further consideration for advice in those matters that were to him so obscure and ambiguous and the issue is deferred."
[00:30:18] Josh Hutchinson: On May 18th, 1666, Elizabeth Seager was finally released from imprisonment.
[00:30:24] Sarah Jack: At a special session, the Court of Assistants declared that the jury's guilty verdict did, quote, "not legally answer the indictment."
[00:30:31] Josh Hutchinson: In addition to the trials of six witchcraft suspects, eight other individuals were caught up in the web of accusations.
[00:30:40] Sarah Jack: Some moved before being arrested, others managed to escape, and one couple may have sued their accusers to escape prosecution.
[00:30:48] Josh Hutchinson: According to Increase Mather, who wrote of the incident in his 1684 book, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, a man and woman named by Ann Cole were forced to undergo the swimming test.
[00:31:02] Sarah Jack: The two had their hands and feet bound and were thrown in the water.
[00:31:07] Josh Hutchinson: Rather than sink, as an innocent person would do, each of these victims floated "after the manner of a buoy, part under, part above the water."
[00:31:17] Sarah Jack: A witness volunteered to be the Guinea pig in an experiment to see if an innocent person would also float like a buoy.
[00:31:24] Josh Hutchinson: After being "gently laid on the water, he immediately sunk right down."
[00:31:30] Sarah Jack: Mather went on to write that the swimming test was not admitted as legal evidence.
[00:31:35] Josh Hutchinson: And they were not, quote, "proceeded against on any other account."
[00:31:40] Sarah Jack: Mather ends by saying the couple, quote, "very fairly, took their flight, not having been seen in that part of the world since."
[00:31:47] Josh Hutchinson: This last comment leads to theories that the mystery couple was the Ayers, who escaped.
[00:31:53] Sarah Jack: The other couples involved were the Sanfords, Greensmiths, and Blackleaches, and none of them took flight.
[00:32:00] Josh Hutchinson: No recorded indictments exist to show that the Blackleaches were ever proceeded against. However, they did not need to flee in order to escape trial.
[00:32:10] Sarah Jack: Mr. John Blackleach was a prominent figure in the community
[00:32:14] Josh Hutchinson: When John died in 1683, his estate was valued at 374 pounds.
[00:32:20] Sarah Jack: And he had likely already given portions to his adult children.
[00:32:24] Josh Hutchinson: Judith Varlet, a Dutch woman, was another person arrested for witchcraft in 1662.
[00:32:30] Sarah Jack: She was released when Connecticut officials received a letter from her brother-in-law, who happened to be New Netherlands Governor Peter Stuyvesant.
[00:32:38] Josh Hutchinson: Judith moved to New Netherlands after she was freed.
[00:32:42] Sarah Jack: Later she married Nicholas Bayard and lived on High Street in Manhattan.
[00:32:46] Josh Hutchinson: Another accused person, James Wakeley, escaped to Rhode Island.
[00:32:52] Sarah Jack: He left behind his wife Alice and his children.
[00:32:55] Josh Hutchinson: His estate was sequestered, but his wife was allowed to continue to use it.
[00:33:00] Sarah Jack: He came back to Connecticut in 1665.
[00:33:03] Josh Hutchinson: But was met by renewed allegations of witchcraft.
[00:33:07] Sarah Jack: He turned around and returned to Rhode Island.
[00:33:10] Josh Hutchinson: As we mentioned last week, Henry Palmer and his wife also fled the Hartford Witch-Hunt.
[00:33:16] Sarah Jack: They likely settled in Rhode Island, where Henry Palmer successfully sued Stephen Sebeere for calling his wife a witch in 1673.
[00:33:24] Josh Hutchinson: No indictment is known to have been issued in the case of Peter Grant's wife.
[00:33:28] There's more to the Ann Cole story. In April 1664, her family was visited by great tragedy, and old friends paid her a visit, according to Increase Mather, in his book, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, Wherein an Account is Given of Many Remarkable and Very Memorable Events, Which Have Happened this Last Age, Especially in New England.
[00:34:05] Mather writes:
[00:34:08] " On the 28th of April A.D. 1664, a company of the neighbors being met together at the house of Henry Conliff in Northampton in New England to spend a few hours in Christian conferences and in prayer, there happened a storm of thunder and rain. And as the good man of the house was at prayer, there came a ball of lightning in at the roof of the house, which set the thatch on fire, grated on the timber, pierced through the chamber floor. No breach being made on the boards. Only one of the joices somewhat raised. 
[00:34:45] Matthew Cole, who was son-in-law to the sad Conliff, was struck stone dead as he was leaning over table and joining with the rest in prayer. He did not stir nor groan after he was smitten, but continued standing as before, bearing upon the table. There was no visible impression on his body or clothes. Only the sole of one of his shoes was rent from the upper leather. 
[00:35:12] There were about 12 persons in the room. None else received any harm. Only one woman who is still living was struck upon the head, which occasioned some deafness ever since. The fire on the house was quenched by the seasonable help of neighbors."
[00:35:30] And Mather also writes, " for I am informed that when Matthew Cole was killed with the lightning at Northampton, the demon which disturbed his sister Ann Cole, forty miles distant in Hartford, spoke of it, intimating their concurrence in that terrible accident."
[00:35:51] Sarah Jack: And so ends the story of the Hartford witch-hunt. 
[00:35:53] Here's Mary With a Minute With Mary. 
[00:35:57] Mary Bingham: Goody Bassett.
[00:36:00] Goody is short for goodwife. This term referred to a married woman of middle to lower class in colonial times, and it was often how women were referred to in the court records. Goody Bassett was one of those women. The only reason historians know of her existence is because Goody was most likely hanged for a crime she did not commit, witchcraft. 
[00:36:25] Historians only know that fact based on one surviving colonial court record, which stated, and I quote, "the governor, Mr. Cullick, and Mr. Clarke are desired to go down to Stratford to keep court upon the trial of Goody Bassett for her life." End quote. That's it. One court record. Nothing else exists, of which we know.
[00:36:50] I understand the patriarchal society of the time. However, my heart today remains baffled that the court clerk did not identify Goody by her given name. She was a unique person who lived and breathed and led a meaningful life. Goody was loved by her family. She was a wife and a daughter to people who cared about her.
[00:37:14] Guess what? There are people who still care about Goody. We are the army of activists, historians, and descendants, and politicians who are working tirelessly to overturn the convictions of Goody and all of those falsely convicted of witchcraft in colonial Connecticut. We care. My goal and the goal of my colleagues, Sarah Jack, Joshua Hutchinson, Beth Caruso, Tony Griego, State Representative Jane Garibay and State Senator Dr. Saud Anwar, is to find out Goody Bassett's given name to her at birth so that she can one day be identified as a person in her own right. Not only that, but we plan to identify all of the Goodys who have yet to be properly identified with their given names.
[00:38:07] Thank you.
[00:38:09] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary
[00:38:12] Josh Hutchinson: And now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[00:38:17] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News.
[00:38:19] Actual witch Hunts are occurring weekly. Witch hunts are still targeted blame and punishment toward vulnerable people for misunderstood circumstances. Here's a headline from Ghana, Mother of Seven and Elderly Man Lynched on Witchcraft Suspicion in Zakpalsi. It does not get easier to tell you about these individuals and what happens to them. It's horrific. Here's the report. 
[00:38:43] "On Sunday, May 7th, 2023, in the farming community of Zakpalsi located in the Mion District of the Northern Region, Ghana, two individuals were allegedly lynched on suspicion of practicing witchcraft. The victims were identified as Imoro Safura, a middle-aged mother of seven believed to be in her forties, and Mbaa Chirfo, a man in his early sixties.
[00:39:04] According to reports from sources within the Zakpalsi community, Imoro Safura sought refuge at at the forecourt of the Zakpalsi Chief palace, but she was chased down and lynched there. Mbaa Chirfo, on the other hand, was killed at his residence. The community members accused both individuals of allegedly causing sickness for a woman by employing the services of a soothsayer. In response to the accusations, the youth of the community organized themselves and launched an attack on the two victims, leading to their tragic deaths. It is worth noting that both of the victims denied the allegations."
[00:39:40] What were you doing on Sunday, May 7th? I was meeting with Dr. Leo Igwe for the first time in person. He is visiting the United States and doing talks on humanism, religious freedom, and witch hunts. He happened to kick it off in Denver, where I am. That was a great surprise. It was an exciting moment for me to get to meet Leo face-to-face and connect with him about all that is going on in our world around witch phobia. Next week, co-host Josh Hutchinson, myself, and Dr. Igwe will be visiting witch trial historical sites in the Salem and Hartford area.
[00:40:08] Leo will be giving talks about his work with alleged witch victims like Imoro and Mbaa. When he is on the ground in Nigeria, he intercedes on their behalf with support from NGOs and Advocacy for Alleged Witches. He negotiates for local government services and safety through the authorities, if the victim is lucky enough to reach protection. Imoro was not. Did you catch that she fled to the community leader and was still lynched there by the angry youth?
[00:40:33] Dr. Leo personally checks on attack victims, goes to them, connects with them, and makes sure they know that they are not alone. He does this for the survivors. Just a glance at the weekly news reveals that many are murdered and do not get a chance to start over or to meet Leo. You can have the opportunity to meet this great advocate. Please come see us May 16th through the 18th at one of his talks.
[00:40:53] Power structures around religion, familial status, age, gender, and falsely-attributed causes of misfortune universally contribute to circumstances like these and fuel witch hunts past and present. You can learn more about the past and modern stories of the people harmed by this merciless conduct in any of our expert-filled episodes. Join us every week to hear the latest important conversation. The accusation details from witch trial primary sources are jaw dropping. The news of current attack victims across the globe is jaw dropping. We ask, why do we hunt witches? How do we hunt witches? How do we stop hunting witches? Messaging that clarifies how power structures around religion, familial status, age, gender, and falsely-attributed causes of misfortune universally contribute to the circumstances of witch hunts past and present.
[00:41:40] Share the attack news. Share a podcast episode. Read a book. Write a post or blog. Write to a politician or diplomat. Donate money to the organizations that are creating projects that intervene in the modern communities where witch Hunts thrive. You can financially support the production of the podcast.
[00:41:56] This is the month that the Salem, Massachusetts area and Hartford and Farmington, Connecticut are getting a rare and important visit from Dr. Leo Igwe, director of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches nonprofit organization. It is an incredible honor for Josh and myself to organize a week of speaking engagements during his speaking tour in the United States and to accompany him as he speaks in places of historical significance to early American colony witch trial history. You can follow Dr. Leo Igwe on Twitter @leoigwe to see how he is advocating on the ground in the victim communities in real time as these individuals are experiencing being accused and hunted. 
[00:42:30] The first event at the Salem Witch Museum is virtual, but Dr. Igwe will be with us in Salem touring the historic sites guided by a local seasoned in the history, Mary Bingham. Tuesday, May 16th, 2023 is your chance to experience a very special evening of in-person conversation with Leo at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers. Please see the Facebook event for details. Isn't this a great week? Make sure you mark your calendars. 
[00:42:53] Next, you can enjoy an in-person speaking event with Dr. Igwe at Central Connecticut State University on Wednesday, May 17th at 6:00 PM. While in the Hartford area, Leo will be touring known witch trial historic sites with author Beth Caruso. On Thursday afternoon, May 18th at 4:00 PM, Leo will be presenting at the Stanley-Whitman House living history center in Farmington, Connecticut. Look for Facebook events for all of these occasions posted by our social media. Come hear Leo. Invite your friends and family. See you there. 
[00:43:21] Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop, merch from our zazzle shop, or make a financial contribution to our organization. Our links are in the show description. 
[00:43:32] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:43:35] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:43:36] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:43:41] Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.
[00:43:43] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:43:46] Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:43:49] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, acquaintances, neighbors, and anyone you meet about the show.
[00:43:56] Sarah Jack: Please support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn how.
[00:44:02] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:44:05]

May 11, 2023

Andy Verzosa on Museums, Mary Barnes, and Farmington, Connecticut

Stanley-Whitman House Museum

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Show Notes

Welcome back friend of the podcast Andy Verzosa, Executive Director of the Stanley-Whitman House in Farmington, CT. The Stanley-Whitman House is an award-winning living history museum and home of the Mary Barnes Society, which honors Farmington’s only witch trial victim. Andy discusses all the wonderful people that have come together over the years to make the history come alive, including witch trial history. He explains how prosopography enriches the understanding of time periods. Enjoy this welcoming and reflective episode that paints the picture of how Connecticut is working to understand and honor the history of its land.

Links

Documentary:”Why Witch Hunts Are Not Just A Dark Chapter From the Past”

The International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Other Harmful Practices

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Transcript

[00:00:00]
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we talk to you Andy Verzosa, executive director of the Stanley-Whitman House in Farmington, Connecticut.
[00:00:35] Sarah Jack: The Stanley-Whitman House is an award-winning living history museum and home of the Mary Barnes Society, which honors Farmington's only witch trial victim. The society holds an annual Mary Barnes Day on January 25th, the anniversary of her hanging.
[00:00:51] Josh Hutchinson: The House recently received two Awards of Merit from the Connecticut League of Historical Organizations.
[00:00:57] Sarah Jack: One award was for their book, Memento Mori: Remembered Death.
[00:01:02] Josh Hutchinson: The other was for their play, The Last Night, which tells the story of witch trial victims Rebecca Greensmith, Nathaniel Greensmith, and Mary Barnes.
[00:01:11] Sarah Jack: Today you're gonna hear us talk about all the pieces that come together.
[00:01:15] Josh Hutchinson: Andy Verzosa tells us about all the wonderful people that have come together over the years to make the history come alive, including witch trial history.
[00:01:24] Sarah Jack: You'll learn how prosopography enriches the understanding of time periods.
[00:01:29] Josh Hutchinson: Andy talks to us about operating a museum and running their many programs.
[00:01:36] Sarah Jack: You'll hear a little bit from behind the scenes on what it takes to make these programs come alive.
[00:01:45] Josh Hutchinson: Talk about the importance of visiting local museums.
[00:01:50] Sarah Jack: They have wonderful art installations that you'll hear about.
[00:01:53] Josh Hutchinson: And you'll learn about witch trial victim Mary Barnes, and we'll learn about her connection to the Memento Mori Cemetery, which the Stanley-Whitman House operates.
[00:02:08] Sarah Jack: They support the exoneration. Hear a local's perspective.
[00:02:13] Josh Hutchinson: The board presented the Judiciary Committee with written testimony in support of House Joint Resolution 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut, and we'll learn why Andy is excited about exoneration.
[00:02:35] Sarah Jack: You'll walk away from this episode feeling the importance of history and motivated to find out what's available in your community.
[00:02:45] Andy Verzosa is the executive director of the Stanley-Whitman House, a museum and living history center that collects, preserves, and interprets the history and culture of Farmington, Connecticut. His background in the arts blends into his passion for creating touchable history. Stanley-Whitman House teaches through the collection, preservation, research, and dynamic interpretation of history and culture. Programs, events, classes, and exhibits encourage visitors of all ages to immerse themselves in history by doing, acting, questioning, and engaging in colonial life and the ideas that form the foundation of that culture.
[00:03:19] Andy Verzosa: It's hard to get people's attention. There's so much competition for news and good news. And as the quality of news is complex, what you get and when you get it, and particularly around something about witches. When people think about witches, they think of Salem, they think of Bewitched, they think of different things through popular culture and Hollywood.
[00:03:46] But what I found when I started my job in 2018, I had no idea about the Connecticut witch panics and trials in Connecticut. None at all. I was familiar with the Salem Witch Trials and what happened there, mostly because there was actually Reverend Burroughs, who lived in Maine, actually in, in my town, Portland, Maine, which was called Falmouth at that time. And it had been, this is like the late 1600s. The Wabanaki Confederacy had wiped out the settlement there in Casco, which would be what is today Portland, Maine, and he went to a southern part of what we call Maine today, and to a place called Wells. And while he was there, he was apprehended, taken without much notice, any preparation. And by the end of that summer that year, he was executed. So I knew a little bit about that, because he was a reverend and he was a male, and I of course knew about Salem through popular culture.
[00:04:53] I had no idea when I moved to Connecticut that there were witch trials ,that there were people that were accused, indicted, and hanged , 11 people that we know of. Over 40 people were accused and some didn't lose their lives, but their, maybe their livelihoods were damaged. And we know the damage that has done. And it's certainly what I've read since.
[00:05:18] And part of what is great about the exoneration perspective, exoneration of those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut is this intergenerational trauma, the legacy of this, the way that we think about things, the way that we use words. All these things are gonna maybe be reconsidered and changed in a good way, so there's a reckoning, which I really excited to be a small part of through the work that I do at Stanley-Whitman House.
[00:05:46] Sarah Jack: Can you tell us about the history of the Stanley-Whitman House and your role?
[00:05:53] Andy Verzosa: I'm the executive director at Stanley-Whitman House. It's a small museum, and we have a program there where we do living history. We give house tours. We have school children come in and have field trips come in and homeschool students come in. We have scouts that come in for different programs. They may even do a project at the house to earn, like an Eagle Scout award, things like that. So we're really very engaged in part of the community. When people think about Stanley-Whitman house, they think about maybe when they were in school, they went there on a field trip, and now their children are going there on a field trip kind of place.
[00:06:34] And we sometimes have legacy folks come. In fact, we have someone on our board, our board chair, her husband's grandmother was one of the early caretaker-directors. So in exchange for being able to live at the Stanley-Whitman house, which was then called the Farmington Museum, she was able to live there, but she was obligated to keep it open certain times of the week and for certain hours of the day.
[00:06:58] It's a 1720s building. It's a living history center, and we have public spaces where we have folks do research. We will offer hearth-cooking, for example. We have gardens. The gardens have been, probably, during covid, one of the saving features of our being able to stay open, because we had what I call a museum without walls. We were able to do programs and have people visit us and still go to work every day, because we could do concerts outside, we could do our foodways programs partially outside. I did an artist intervention program in our gardens and we use our cemetery, our Memento Mori Cemetery, which has a connection to Mary Barnes, which I can get into as well. But we would give tours there. We would do gravestone cleaning workshops.
[00:07:53] So we really do quite a bit of showing people what colonial life was like, through things like plants and food, through the trades. We also will have people come in to give talks and do programs. And again, through Covid, during the last 3 years, we've been using online programs. So I never knew how to do a Zoom until Covid. I never did panels until I worked with Virginia Wolf, Beth Caruso, and Tony Griego in 2021, when I was doing a series of online panels with them, each featuring what they did and then having a group panel in observance of Mary Barnes Day.
[00:08:40] As you know, recently, we just did The Last Night, a play that I commissioned and produced through the museum. I hired Virginia Wolf and Debra Walsh to come in and write a play about the last night that Mary Barnes and Rebecca Greensmith had. And we did both a live performance, and we recorded and then put together on January 25th the actual commemoration date 360 years of their hanging. We had that online, which was very well attended.
[00:09:18] I'm chief cook and bottle washer at the museum, so there's no production team. I'm doing the production, as you probably well know, doing what you guys are doing.
[00:09:25] I am the happy beneficiary, the recipient of wonderful research by my predecessor, Lisa Johnson. And Lisa has been with the museum for over 20 years. She started out as a volunteer, was on their board, but then had become the director of Stanley-Whitman House for 20 years. One of the things that she was interested in, and I will point out, is that since like 1999 she had a group that she led that did research about a woman named Mary Barnes.
[00:10:05] I've seen video where she mentions how she found it curious by reading a passage in Christopher Bickford's Farmington book, which is like Farmington 101, a mention about Mary Barnes. And it was a curious mention, and it really precipitated her looking into who this woman was that was accused, indicted and hanged. And one of the last people to be hanged in Connecticut. I have actually two documents which we're gonna scan, and I just gotta make sure that everything's done, and we have to make sure the citations are in the documents here.
[00:10:40] So before I release things, I like to make sure those things are done cuz like we like to know where things come from, right? We wanna credit people properly. And so I may just not have found that, but I have found these papers, and one is called "In a Preternatural Way: the Witchcraft Trial of Mary Barnes." This was presumably finished October 28th, 1999. And then the other is "The Witchcraft Trial of Mary Barnes Part Two." And that was finished dated October 2000. And she gives credit to her volunteers and staff, those that helped her do the research.
[00:11:15] For example, I like mentioning people's names, because it takes a village, right? So there's one woman named Joanne Silverio. She was an admin at the museum. Another woman was Betty Kelly, who was a longtime volunteer at the museum. She actually recently passed. But she was researching records at the church, First Church of Christ Congregational in town, and she worked with an investigative reporter who volunteered, Lisa Backus, who would dig into different archives. And then she mentions some other resources.
[00:11:47] But why I mentioned those people is that our museum, what I think is a great legacy and a great feature of our museum is that I have volunteer researchers today who come in every Wednesday, once a week. They come in the morning. They stay until mid afternoon. And they research things that I ask them to look into or things of their own interest. And it has resulted in much like these early papers that Lisa led. We did last year a book on the Momento Mori Cemetery, where we did 23 vignettes of people buried, out of the 800-odd graves that we know of people buried there.
[00:12:25] We were able to publish this book featuring 23 of those folks, and then we did what was called the Journal of Farmington History. So they're topics that my researchers are interested in. And so I provide the vessel for them to present it, to publish their works, which is I think a great thing to do in the area of public history.
[00:12:46] For me, Stanley-Whitman House was an early proponent of the witchcraft research. In, I believe 2009, got a grant and Lisa Johnson, my predecessor, was part of a co-director, a person who led an effort to go to different repositories where they thought different primary resources might be or secondary resources. And they put that all together. They got a grant from the Connecticut Humanities, and they put that together, and they activated a whole group of people in the museum world and in these historic house museums and the Connecticut State Library.
[00:13:26] And so that got attention. And then in this early time of activity around this work around Connecticut witch trials and panics, Lisa put together plays, right? So some of them were literally having volunteers, and they called them the Roundabout Players, who would act different roles. And so one of those actors, one of those volunteer actors happened to be Virginia Wolf. So early on in the two thousands, mid to late two thousands, she's portraying Mary Barnes. And other people in the community are playing other roles in the trial. Cause we know that the trial records were there, and they were able to create a play from that by reenacting that trial.
[00:14:21] You know that's a lot of activity, believe it or not, when you're trying to run a museum and doing that research, activating volunteers to do the research and to do the acting as part of the Roundabout Players. And Lisa went to other places and presented her papers, that, that were put together from the researcher's efforts. So she was able to talk about Mary Barnes, and she was able to do that by, focusing the research on, predominantly, Thomas Barnes, cuz there was more information known about him, for example.
[00:14:54] So that word prosopography, putting together information about someone that there's no information about directly, but building that, the facts, the information around someone to get a an idea of what that person was like, how they lived, who they lived with, what they believed in, what other people did around them. There's a lot of information that you can surmise, right? So I love that. And I love that we do that at our museum.
[00:15:21] One of our volunteers, her name is Sherra Palmer. She's been a long time volunteer. She actually was at the museum before Lisa was there, volunteering. And she calls what she does collecting crumbs. And eventually they aggregate, and they make a piece of cake. And I love that metaphor. And when Sherra, who still comes to the museum with her research team, Betty Coykendall and Kate Lindsay Rogers.
[00:15:49] Sherra will come in, and she'll have books. She'll like a little cardboard box full of papers and notebooks and post-its and books. And sometimes the books look like a porcupine of post-its, interleaved with all these post-its and slips of paper, and I'll ask her about something and she'll come in the next week, and she'll have pulled out a hard file or a book or bringing in a magazine.
[00:16:11] And she just is a wonderful resource. And because her hands have been in it for so many years, we're talking decades, and she's such a great human, right. She synthesizes this information and she has great recall. She's just a great resource for me and the museum, helping with these projects.
[00:16:32] Our other researcher, Betty Coykendall, she's was the town historian. And by the way, Lisa Johnson is now the town historian since she's retired from the museum. But as town historian, she knows where to get things, and she's meticulous in her gathering of facts and ordering things and putting them all together and really ferreting out information. It's fascinating to watch these women work together. And then Kate, who works with them, she has more facility of going online and researching things online. And also she was an a teacher, she was an English teacher, so she was able to, use those skills to synthesize the information, to put it together so that we could start creating drafts, say for example, before the Momento Mori book or for the Farmington Journal of History.
[00:17:19] I love my volunteer researchers, and I love our docents and our actors, who come in, and when we have school children come in, and we're trying to teach about, say the Revolutionary War, we have our actors portray living people that actually lived in Farmington and maybe people who lived in the house. We have programs where annually we have what's called Candlelight Tours. So we have the Ghost Walk Tours in the cemetery, and we have people that portray actual people. And we research those roles, and we try to make it right size for the audience that we have, and people wear the right costumes, and we try to use things from the time period. If it's a soldier that is talking about the Revolutionary Wars, a militiaman, they'll be dressed that way and have all the accoutrements. It's authentic.
[00:18:14] I'll just tell you one, one quick thing about our docents and volunteer actors. We just did a presentation at our library for Farmington Public Schools for our Revolutionary War program. And so I had an intern, Nicole Moulton. I had her start out in the very beginning of her internship research colonial toys, put together a list, and get everything that you can, all the information that you can find, and let's put it together. And so eventually several pages became one hot sheet of several games. And then I said, "what we're gonna do is we're gonna use this information, and it's gonna be part of a demonstration at a family night for the social studies program. And so you are gonna give that presentation, and we're going to have our folks there demonstrate and interact with the students, cuz every kid loves games." And from Jacob's Ladder to tops to a variety of other toys, we were able to engage students.
[00:19:14] And at the same time we had another person, I actually had our interns and staff put together a play around a skit called Telling the Bees, which is a tradition that these Englishmen have brought over with them to the colonies. And you probably recall that when Queen Elizabeth had passed, the royal beekeeper went and told the bees that she had passed. So it's this tradition that was brought here. And actually Solomon Whitman, who lived in the museum, in our historic house, he, in his old age, part of his contribution to the family, to keeping the farm going was that he took care of the bees. So our skit was to have his daughter-in-law, Lois Dickerman Whitman, tell the students and their families about the passing of Solomon Whitman. We had the bee skep, she was in the clothing, and she did the whole skit.
[00:20:11] And then of course, we went into the demonstration of games with Nicole. And that was really well done by our volunteer, Anne Meo. So, it takes a lot of effort to do all these things. If you're a painter, right, you've gotta have all the different paints and all the different medium and all the different surfaces to paint on. And in order to get something done, you just have to have all your options, and then you have to have skilled people to do all the work. And so that's my job is to, behind the scenes, pinch and prod people to do the work.
[00:20:40] Sarah Jack: I love hearing about this. It's one thing to have historic volumes on a shelf that people could come check out and read, but then they're just there, and they may get read, they may not.
[00:20:54] Andy Verzosa: Usually books just stay on a shelf, unless you create an activity. Every intern kind of does the same thing in the first week that all the other interns do. I send them down to the library and organize the books. And then I'll say, "what did you see in the different sections?" Because we'll have things about colonial life. The Tunxis, which just to give a an acknowledgement here, is that Farmington is actually the homeland of the Tunxis people since time immemorial. By going down to the library, I'm able to introduce topics like indigenous peoples, the puritans, the way they lived, about witchcraft. I can talk about enslaved peoples. I can talk about the Revolutionary War. I can talk about our cemetery. I can talk about so many different things just through the library, but I do it by throwing them into it, and I have them write lists and have them focus on an area. And I do try to size them up to see what they might be interested in.
[00:21:50] And then, of course, we do have, apart from our library, we have an archive. So sometimes I'll have people work in a certain area of interest or where I think they might be good or where I need someone to do work, and I'll have them work on, say, gathering information about plants, things like that. Or through letters and journals and daybooks, we can get a lot of information. And I'll have them go through the process of transcribing something and having that experience and having them discover on their own, "hey, there's someone here called Sarah Indian. Why would they call someone Sarah Indian?" And then go through that whole background of how people were recorded that were indigenous, and the things that they did, and the things that they traded with the person who kept that daybook, things like that.
[00:22:37] It's great. I love being able to turn people on to history in that way. And it's really, right now I just have the best bunch of volunteers and interns. I just, they're just, they make my going to work every day a pleasure. I love going to work. I love my job.
[00:22:57] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it shows. And it's really interesting that you're talking about the research because we just released an episode with Margo Burns, a Salem historian, and she helped put together the Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, which is 980 legal documents about the trials, but she's working on a biography of Chief Justice William Stoughton of the court that sat at Salem, and none of his papers have been found. His letters, his records of keeping his land, all that's missing. So she's doing that prosopography you talked about, the approach of looking at his friends, acquaintances, neighbors and going, she traveled to Oxford, England, where he stayed for a decade, and she's looking at other people's journals and documents, trying to find out what did they write about this man.
[00:24:07] Andy Verzosa: It's fascinating. In a way, the work that is done in a place like Stanley-Whitman house when research is being done about a topic and learning about people, particularly about Mary Barnes. There wasn't a lot of information other than the really the trial transcript. There was no information about why she was accused and who, what her accuser said. That information is not available.
[00:24:34] Looking at her relationships with other people, right? Those relationships with the Baileys, for example, who she knew earlier in her life and so places that she lived and things that she might have been involved with in a good or bad way. Relationships to people, places, and things. It's so powerful.
[00:24:54] Again, research is critical. And of course we're talking about people like my predecessor Lisa Johnson. They were very passionate. They were dedicated, right? We have our Wednesday volunteer group, we have our interns, those are people that are, they're committed. They're already doing the work, but getting people to think beyond the surface and really look at the issues about like, why someone would be accused and how that dynamic would happen. And then, the brutal consequences. And putting yourself back in that timeframe, because you can't think the way that we do today. We have to think about, put ourself back in that place, in those circumstances. But still, today, history does repeat itself, as with what you guys do. And I wanted to ask you like, how does that work? How do you internationally speak to people in Africa about witches there? How does that work? You've got some reach.
[00:25:48] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We had zoom calls with a couple individuals running organizations who are trying to stop the witch-hunting that's still going on today in those countries. And right now we're just trying to amplify their voice, give them our podcast as a platform and through our social media, echo what they're saying, because they're the ones who live with it. They know what's going on, and they're able to think like the people that are involved, because they're so intimately connected to it. We just want to take what they say and repeat it.
[00:26:32] Andy Verzosa: So what you do and what I do is kindred. So we create the space for people's truth, for their, the story to be told. And I think it's so wonderful what you guys do. It's powerful. Just what happened in the last 48 hours with the news cycles that are going on, and especially what's at play here this year with Jane Garibay and the legislation that's gonna be proposed for the exoneration of Connecticut witches, those accused.
[00:27:02] And I think that's that momentum is building, and it's so fascinating. I'm in awe of how quickly it's coming together, but not surprised, cuz when I think of someone like Beth Caruso who's just, she's just synthesized with the information and such an advocate, right? And she's, of course , a writer in her own right with the books she's written. But being such a great advocate and a great spokesperson, a great person to, incredible person to talk about this. And she's a great listener. I had occasion over the last couple weeks to catch up with her, and of course she went to the play The Last Night, performance or the live stage reading.
[00:27:41] My job is to kinda keep the doors of the museum open, provide that opportunity for engagement to do the good work, to allow people to do the research, to be able to share information to preserve, of course, the collection and the archive and the library and all that.
[00:27:56] Like I said, I didn't know anything about the Connecticut, witch panic and trials. I started my job five years ago. It'll be five years, February 15th, that I'd been there. And I remember like early on, within a few months I got an email asking me, even though I was new, to go to Bridgeport, to attend a commemoration and a dedication of a memorial for Goody Knapp, and I said, "gee I, I'll do it." And I instantly emailed Lisa Johnson, said, "gee, I asked to do this." She wasn't available to do it, and she filled me in and shared some words that I could share there. And that was being thrown in cold, and that was my introduction to Connecticut Witch trials in 2018.
[00:28:44] And then of course, I think the most significant engagement for me getting my hands into it, so to speak, was in Covid, putting together the panels and working with Beth Caruso, Tony Griego, and Virginia Wolf. And then I've done other things too, where I've brought in Richard Ross to talk about the New England witchcraft panics and have him present his perspective.
[00:29:10] And last year actually had Ellen Evert Hopman ,who's a writer. She is a druid, but she came, and she talked about witches and plants, right? So we, I pretty much worked with her to present four different online panels, moderated panels. I asked Virginia to be the moderator, and I did the back end of keeping the webinar going, and of course doing all the things from the museum to promote it and had Ellen talk about plants on the different Celtic Irish festival days, Imbolc, which is, I guess now, right? And Beltane and Lughnasadh and Samhain. And it was books that she had written that corresponded to those festival days.
[00:29:58] It was wonderful, because when you think about, it was an indirect way of acknowledging cunning folk, people that, you know, before there were really doctors, right? That people were close to the land, close to plants, close to natural things to help them cure their ills and their sicknesses.
[00:30:18] And the colonies, when folks came here we know that they brought some things with them, but they were also introduced to a lot of things that were native or indigenous to this place. And who did that introduction? So I'm learning now that there was an exchange between native and non-native people. And what was that like? And it's also mentioned, and it's alluded to in the play of Rebecca Greensmith talks about, "how do you think I made the stout?" It was from plants that she was introduced to by a native people. So I love that awareness, because when you think about what that time was like in the mid-1600s here in Connecticut Colony, in a place like Farmington what was going on? What was shared? What was that exchange? There's not much written about that, but something must have happened, because we know that people were using certain plants over time that were from here, not plants that they brought from home. So I thought that was an interesting thing to be aware of.
[00:31:28] Josh Hutchinson: You're bringing the history to life at the center and in the conversation, how people lived back then, because we live totally different today, most of us, away from the plants and away from the land, and it's really insightful to see how things were in the 17th century, helps you get a foothold in understanding the witch trials. And the plays that you're doing that bring it to life for people are, it's such a wonderful way to do that, because people in Connecticut don't understand that they had witch trials, and you bring it to 'em in an entertaining way.
[00:32:15] Andy Verzosa: And it's digestible, right? And I think selfishly I want to know, and I don't know. So I get to work with people who do know, and I get to bring them in. Or I have people that are interested too, and I get to, say for instance a direct or assign them to do things for the general good of whatever project we're working on.
[00:32:37] I must have been a general or a marshal back in the day, my other life, something. But it's just, I think that's what I'm good at is putting that all together. But I have to say, we have this one gentleman, Dennis Picard, he's a historic interpreter. I first met him early on, and he was doing our Maple Day program. So in New England it's a time honored tradition of tapping trees to get sap to evaporate, to make maple syrup or maple sugar. And I took it for granted, that it was just a New England thing.
[00:33:06] It's big in Maine. Everyone loves maple syrup and all that. But I learned so much more about. One thought was that indigenous people showed people how to make it right, and then it was adopted very quickly, cause making maple syrup or maple sugar was not something that was done in Europe necessarily. And so it was one of the sweeteners here. Of course there was cane sugars, but that was made somewhere else brought up. But this was something that even Benjamin Franklin could get behind, right? And let's say you could do this here, it's cheaper. You're supporting the local economy. There's a lot written about his interest in maple syrup, sugars.
[00:33:50] But Dennis, I engaged him to start doing our hearth cooking programs, and it became a monthly thing. And so it was more than just demonstrating how to make food or do things. You had a fire and or even how to a light a fire was really all the stories that come with it that he knew. And he's been doing this a long time. So I love that, being able to bring someone in like that.
[00:34:16] Another person I brought in and this really relates to again, the time of Covid, and we're coming up on the anniversary of John Jennison's passing last year. I think he died on February 4th. He was actually an intern of mine years ago at a business that I had, and he had some success in New York as a comic book illustrator. And he was an impresario who did all these things around Comic-Con and things that young people do that I don't do, but I was aware that I knew he was really talented and a great artist, draftsman, and so I knew him.
[00:34:52] We've been keeping in touch, and I was at Stanley-Whitman, and I was really trying to figure out how can I engage or get people of a certain age interested in making maple syrup or about Mary Barnes or telling the bees, any of these things that I thought were worth sharing with other people that would give people an idea about colonial life and different aspects of it? And he and I worked on, I would come up with the ideas and the stories and work on the copy, and he would illustrate an eight and a half by eleven history graphic.
[00:35:32] But one of the things that we did is we did one about the hanging of Mary Barnes, and we used a tree as a central figure to help divide up the different areas where we could have the different other images, where we could show the people that were at the trial. We could show Mary Barnes with a head down. We do use a noose in that. And we're able to give a very simple, abbreviated, what comics do in those little strips, and it's presented in such a way that it's eye-catching, and it's very quick. And John did that for us. And I'm always trying to think of different ways to get people to get interested.
[00:36:11] Sarah Jack: Thanks for sharing about John.
[00:36:14] Andy Verzosa: Yeah. He's a wonderful, dear friend, and I miss him.
[00:36:19] Sarah Jack: I'm glad that you had that special project together and that becomes part of the living history that you're able to share.
[00:36:28] Andy Verzosa: I love artists, because they approach the world in a different way than, say, someone who's really involved with words and research, right? Sometimes, reading a lot of information, very dense information could be hard and off-putting. People learn in different ways. And so providing people to access things that are important, concepts, ideas, et cetera, I found that having an artist come in and doing what they do through their medium is a great way to do that. As simple as, I've done a couple of exhibits at Stanley-Whitman House. We did an exhibit called Capitol America. And two photographers, Robert Lisak and David Ottenstein, went around the country, and they had been doing this for several years, taking photographs of the different state capitol buildings inside and outside. Every one of those buildings tell a story about how those states came into being. And oftentimes it was a rough and turbulent and violent coming into being, and contentious, a lot of, a lot going on. And through photography, they're able to capture the space, the things that are there that tell the story through either sculpture or murals, et cetera. The way the buildings are sited. So they're really great photographers and an artistic way, but also capturing some of that didactic information that you want, you might help you understand the significance of a place or a building or of a people. And so we did that, and I had seen their work, and it was after January 6th, if that date resonates with you. And I thought, gee, this is an important body of work to see now in this context. And so we did that at Stanley-Whitman house. It was written up in the National Review, which is an international publication. It's available to search online, and you can find it.
[00:38:20] But that was important, because it gave people pause to think about the significance of these places. And it was through art, and I thought that was very effective for a place like Stanley-Whitman house, because it brought in contemporary works and living artists into a historic place that you wouldn't think you'd see work like that. And the contrast and the juxtaposition was really powerful. And then of course getting the review was very powerful too, that discourse that happens, and we had a lot of visitors for that.
[00:38:50] We have an exhibit being installed by Lucinda Bliss, and I met her years ago, and we had kept in touch, and through Covid. I invited her to come to our museum, cuz I would have people come for visits, social distancing and doing all that, of course. And introducing them to our archive and collection and to the house and to the cemetery. And one of the reasons why I invited Lucinda is because she, in her practice and the work that she does that I knew of is that she would become familiar with the place, and she would, she was, she's a runner, so she runs races and marathons and things, and part of what she does is she runs and becomes familiar with that place and creates these maps. They're visual maps and of the experience of learning the land as she's running it.
[00:39:44] And I introduced her to Stanley-Whitman house and found out that she was actually a descendant of some of the early proprietors of Farmington, more than a few. And so that created this opportunity for her to do a reckoning of her own, cuz as during Covid there were other things that were going on that gave people pause, and there was that space to do that for her. And she looked at her genealogy, her lineage, and what her ancestors, the impact that they had in their lives on a developing nation, ultimately.
[00:40:23] She's also a descendant of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and we happen to have a collection of letters sent by Julian Hawthorne, his son, to a woman who was associated with the house, with the Whitman family of a few years love affair. So that was clandestine. It was quiet and secret. And so that was powerful for her to know of them and look at them, be able to read them, hold them in her hands.
[00:40:47] But her focus was really on other things about who is on the land, who controls the land. I'll leave you with that. I don't wanna give away her exhibit.
[00:40:58] Sarah Jack: You know, I'm listening to so much of what you're sharing and describing, and one of the things that you mentioned was with the hearth cooking and how it brings some of the stories forward. And then also when you've talked about the research and these art projects and how stories are coming forward, and they're paralleling with modern lessons. It's so important that everything that's coming out in those stories is acknowledged and embraced, so that it can be recognized as these are all facets of what have made the nation who we are, the state of Connecticut who we are, who the people in the 17th century were, who we've come now to be. And I then I think of that concern of, "oh, if If the witches are talked about, if we start talking about this ugly thing, what, is it just gonna be a stain?" but it, it actually isn't. It's part of these other pieces. And do you think that Connecticut and other societies and museums and libraries can learn from your example, or maybe even what they're already doing, but see that, "hey, there is room for this history that makes us uncomfortable, because more things come out of it that are good?"
[00:42:26] Andy Verzosa: When I was a kid, we were a military family, and oftentimes my father wasn't around, and it was just at the time, really, my mom and my brother. I had younger brothers, but they were much younger, but my mom and my brother, and we would go to the library. And it was this incredible space with this incredible benefit of being able to check out books. So I would check out the max number of books, my brother would check out his max number, and my mother would do hers. And by the end of it, before the next visit, we had gone through all those books, right? And we were able to have our own interior engagement with the material that we're reading, right?
[00:43:09] And then we were able to talk about it. What'd you think? Or play act something from a book that we really liked, right? And we did this. And I think what libraries and museums and places where you can learn are important is that it's that civic space, and we get to learn about storytelling, and we get to learn about other people, and we can do this in a safe way.
[00:43:38] And it's very powerful, and you get to look at the universality of what it is to be a human, the humanity, right? And so I look at, I'm a, as you probably can tell right now, I'm a generalist. I like taking a little here and a little there and this, but I do a little structure.
[00:43:56] So I do, I live near a museum. I live by the New Britain Museum of American Art. It's like a city block away from me. I can't picture not living in a town without a museum, right? And sometimes I just go there just so I can breathe air, feel the space, experience the light, and then look at something that someone made, someone's interpretation of something and go there, leave this dimension and go to that dimension.
[00:44:22] And so I think places like Stanley-Whitman House are important, because you're giving yourself permission, time, and space to put yourself into a place where, what was it like to live in colonial America or revolutionary wartime America. What was it like to be a woman during those times? What was your role? What were the things that you did? What did you do when you were a child? There were enslaved people. What did they do? I didn't know there were enslaved peoples in Connecticut. Oh, there was a woman that was hanged because people thought she was a witch. All these things you get to experience, hopefully with a great interpretation, either through a great program, exhibit, or tour.
[00:45:03] So I think these places are really important, and I think that the work that, that folks do in the heritage, history, arts, performing arts centers are really important. It's important, because history does repeat itself, unfortunately.
[00:45:20] And sometimes people have to sort it out. They have to figure it out, and they sometimes you see things that are so horrific, and sometimes you just have to see that there's a way out or there's an alternative or there's a solution or that people still carried on, right? And that things, bad things do happen and that you could be prepared for them or you may not be prepared for them, but you get to learn through people's lives, through that are recorded, that are celebrated, that are, maybe people talk about a really bad person. You still gotta hear that ,story too.
[00:45:59] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's such an important point that you need to learn those stories, because something like that is happening now or will happen in the future, and it's good to be ready and know that they got out of that. So how do we move forward? You need to look at the past in order to get there.
[00:46:21] Andy Verzosa: Gotta do it critically, right? You have to be able to, to have the example and then have the experience of putting it together and then to be able to step back. One of the things about The Last Night, I didn't get too deep into being making sure that everything was factually correct or they got all the facts in, right, because I knew it was gonna be an artistic interpretation. This, it was gonna be Ginny's and Debra's, the magic that they would create together, what was gonna be important was. Of performance and the elements that were ring true, in a wonderfully crafted performance. And you didn't have to pack everything in there.
[00:46:59] Just like a painting, if you try to pack every single thing in a painting, you might just end up with a big mess. But sometimes simple, spare, thought out, well-crafted is what's needed. And less is more, and I think that's what I'm excited about the next play that I commission or the next volunteer that I work with on a project that they want to do, or work with the next intern and teaching them something, or teaching, having them get involved with how to write a label copy for an exhibit.
[00:47:31] Like I said, I think the most important thing I think for people to do is to at least try, expose themselves, take themselves out of their comfort zone. They don't have to hurl themselves into anything, but, just step outside of their comfort zone and check things out, and then be able to learn to see, learn to listen, learn, learn to tell, storytelling's so important, and I don't know about you. I might be really giving you a lot of information about how old I am, but I remember one of the things that we had to do is write an autobiography in English class. I don't know about you guys, but, and it was like, oh, what am I gonna write about myself? And but, and how do you do that? And I think that's a great exercise. Unfortunately, as you get older, things happen and you might be part of writing someone's obituary and that's pulling out those highlights, those things that are important in that person's life, a loved one's life. And that's something that I think is an important thing to be able to do, unfortunately. But also to be able to put together your thoughts around an issue, a cause, something that you believe in, other than just saying, "I believe in that. This is the way it should be." Just being so black and white, there's a lot of gray, right? There's a lot to think about. And things change when other facts are presented right? Or other situations happen, so everything's not always what it seems sometimes. And I think that's the wonderful thing about interpreting history, too, is that it's always changing. It's very dynamic.
[00:49:04] Sarah Jack: How does your internship program work? When is the opportunity for people to apply for something like that?
[00:49:10] Andy Verzosa: So we're a small museum. I lovingly say it's a boutique museum, which means that it's really small. And I tailor the experience to everyone that comes through the door. So I try never to turn anyone away, and I try to work with people, where they're at. So we have, for example, the last couple years, especially, we've had people come in through our programs.
[00:49:33] So they might do a gravestone cleaning workshop or a foodways program. Or they might come in on a field trip or, say, one of their classes at the local university might come in, and they meet me, and they have a house tour by one of the staff or the volunteers, or they have some engagement, and they're obviously, they are predisposed, because they're there for a reason.
[00:49:58] But then we try to figure out why they're there and what might keep them there. And cuz we want people to come back. We want you to become a member, we want you to come to other programs, and that's our mission. We're there to serve the public in that way.
[00:50:12] So I do a lot of listening and seeing where people are at, and with young people who are doing a formal internship program, I will figure out what the area of study is, how many hours they have to complete, what the goal is. Some people have capstone programs. Sometimes we have grad students. We have mostly undergrads. We have high school students that come in and for as much as you think that, oh, this is great, we're gonna have an intern, they're gonna do all this stuff for me, it's a lot of work for me, cuz I put a lot into it, right? It's reciprocal in that way, and I really enjoy it.
[00:50:47] For example, I have one person, and she'll be in tomorrow. I won't say her name, I don't wanna embarrass her, but she's new. And I said, "hey, I need to know who all the different people were that were accused of being a witch in Connecticut. I know where I could find that myself, but I had her do it and put it together for herself in her own spreadsheet. And then I kind of add columns, like, oh, check this out, or add this and I build on that. And then only if she's interested in going. And so then, then I start getting into things where I don't have the information readily available ,and I have her start putting together information that I can start synthesizing in other projects, like for a skit, or I'd like to do a website about the Connecticut Witch trials. Which would be, I already registered the domain name. It's called Connecticut Witch Trails. So think of where I was from in Portland, Maine, we had what was called the First Friday Art Walk. And we used social media and websites and a printed brochure, where you could go visit different galleries and see the different exhibits or the different museums for exhibitions, et cetera, or different arts happenings. And it was quite a thing, the First Friday Art Walk in Portland.
[00:52:01] And so what I thought was we could do something around the different communities where people were accused and where activity was happening and have those communities tell their story, but link into the website, but we would provide the armature and the structure, and that's what we did before. The other thing is I'm part of the Connecticut Historic Gardens. So we're a 16 member group. And so we do that by having all of our individual pages. But what we do is we have what's called Connecticut Historic Gardens Day. So Connecticut Witch Trails could have a day, maybe it's Mary Barnes Day, maybe it's another day, maybe it's another thing to work around.
[00:52:46] But it would be a great place for the public to go into and say, "oh, I think I'm gonna go for this for here, or I'm gonna go to three different sites in this community and learn more about what I'm interested in." So that's loosely what I'm hoping to do. And then the other part of it is to work with other sites, perhaps your podcast, to have links, reciprocal links. Websites aren't as nimble and dynamic as say social media sites in some ways, but the thing I like about websites is you can have sections where it's like a bibliography, it's just cited sources in certain categories, and it's a little more static and it's, you can go there and get more information, say about any aspect of the Connecticut witch panics and trials. That would be that. And then eventually, I would do this. And it would be maybe spun off or part of a member group thing. But I start it at the Stanley-Whitman House, cuz it would be easier to do, and I could supervise it and get it off the ground, but I ideally it would be a autonomous, standalone kind of project.
[00:53:53] In my spare time.
[00:53:55] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we definitely want to see that. And we were very happy a couple weeks ago, we spoke with a representative and a senator in Connecticut, and they both spoke about how they'd like to see a trail system put in place, where you can visit all the witch trial locations, the different towns people were from, the museums, the libraries, the societies, and learn as you go along. And it might involve riding a bike or hiking part of it, or just driving place to place, but however it ends up in its ultimate shape, I think it's such a beautiful way for people to learn, to get on the ground in the locations and experience them with all your senses.
[00:54:52] Andy Verzosa: Absolutely. And don't overlook the online component, being able to go to a website and, do that. A lot of people can't travel and probably couldn't do that, but they can travel online, right, 24/7, the beauty of the internet, and I think especially for those people that are looking at their ancestry, their genealogy, and where they're looking at aspects of the witch panic and trials that they really want to zero in on. There's so much still probably out there. And it's just in terms of it could be another play written, it could be another book written, it, and it could be inspired by what has happened in Colonial Connecticut, and and then going into these archives. Not everything's digitized. Not everything has been discovered. Who knows what's in someone's attic that maybe there's sadly a 12th person? We don't know. So I think having a place to go to start that journey of discovery would be important to do. And certainly, if someone has more energy than I do and better ideas of how to do it I'll give them the domain name, but just, wink, wink.
[00:56:05] It's, I think it's just important to have a place to go to find these things, initially. It's hard to get into museums, even our museum, we're not open every day. We're only open so many hours a day. You can't just go into our archives unaccompanied. You have to have someone, a staff person with you going through things because these documents that we have, these early documents are fragile. So accessibility is probably best digitally online. So having a a portal to at least find out where those repositories are for information or other people who are doing things would be a good thing.
[00:56:41] I don't know of a place right now, do you, where people can go?
[00:56:46] Josh Hutchinson: There's no central place for Connecticut Witch Trial history. You go, you look at the state library, you look at you know where they have the Wyllys papers and the Matthew Grant diary, and there's volumes of old Connecticut colonial records that you can find transcriptions of, but you have to do it yourself, you have to go and dig into all those things.
[00:57:14] Andy Verzosa: In a perfect world, something like the Connecticut Digital Archive would have all that information there, but then, you could link it to a website where it's all organized.
[00:57:24] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. They have some things like that for Salem, where there's a documentary archive that the University of Virginia put together, and then the Salem Witch Museum has these digital tours where you can pick a town that you wanna see the sites, and they have photographs and blurbs about what happened there, why it's significant in the Witch trials.
[00:57:52] And yeah, I can definitely see having one webpage where you can get all of that.
[00:57:58] Andy Verzosa: Yeah, I think it's a great way to encourage continued scholarship, more artistic interpretation or historic interpretation. I think that would be really important. I know that the Tony Griego's Connecticut Witch Project on Facebook was a somewhat of a clearing house of things. But I don't know about you, but Facebook has lost its allure for me. I still have an account, but I, I don't go to it, probably. I don't keep up with that on a significant basis, but I think a website might be more to my liking to to visit to find things. But yeah, all these efforts to make the hidden visible is so important.
[00:58:38] Sarah Jack: I'm hoping if the exoneration moves forward and occurs, can it remove some of the hesitancy that is there, the stigma that's there to feel more comfortable, Hey, let's learn more. Let's do research. Let's collaborate, let's make it living. That's what I really hope that one of the positive effects of the exoneration would be.
[00:59:02] They're not just a spectacle, we're not just trying to get a look at a sideshow. They're these lives and when the history is uncovered, you see that, and I hope to get over that stigma about that little piece of history.
[00:59:17] Andy Verzosa: You certainly, when I think about Salem, I kind of cringe a little bit, because it's more spectacle and it's other than what I would hope for what would be done around the Connecticut itch trials and panics, to look at it more, I hate saying more seriously, but to do it in such a way that has this integrity, so that people can approach it and get beyond the gimmicky things.
[00:59:45] And really look, it's, I don't know if you guys, you both must have done genealogy because of how you got to where you are. But, one of the things about genealogy for me was just to figure out who I was, wh who was I in the, the universe and in relation to things, right? And it was something that you do for me, I believe, you do in your early adulthood. I did it mostly to figure out about my father, who I had lost when I was a young boy. And to figure out like you. As I became a man what, who was he as a man, right? And trying to figure that out. And then then thinking about naturally my grandparents and then other people, and geez, how did people come to this country?
[01:00:29] And just knowing those things, knowing their stories was so important to me. And going back further and further, putting myself in their place as immigrants that moved here, and what their lives were like. And the things that they may have celebrated and the things that they were, the good things as well as the not so good things about their lives. And so I think that that's important.
[01:00:55] Sarah Jack: Yeah. And I think because the climate right now is you have this history, but then you have this modern crisis in some of the world where women and children are being attacked as witches. There's this understanding that needs to happen and it's not just, okay now we're on Connecticut over here and we're gonna pull this history out and let's try to keep it from, being a fascination.
[01:01:22] It's bigger than that, and there's so many of us who are looking at the history in a scholarly way, teaching how to understand records, how to, when you're doing your ancestry work, how do you collect the story out of the primary sources so you know what happened. I feel like there's so much potential for the highlighting of this history to be done, tastefully and educationally.
[01:01:55] Andy Verzosa: Sure, the art and the science of it. History is really a science. When you think about it and you know how that all comes together is important for people to know that if anyone can get the benefit of a really sustained, sincere effort, right? And they can do it in many different ways.
[01:02:18] There are a lot of different ways to get information and to understand things. And I think again, through Stanley-Whitman House, through the programs we do. Our events or a commission play, a history graphic a straight symposium, lecture published materials that's important and allowing people to have that experience.
[01:02:37] Not everybody is gonna be able to have the time or the resources, necessarily. And some people don't have, they're afraid that they may not have the the abilities for whatever reasons to engage in looking into something or they don't, geez, I don't want look into the witch trials cuz it it's too heavy. Or geez, I gotta know all this stuff or. So I think being able to make it digestible, not in a, a trivial way, but you still gotta, you gotta meet people where they're at and you gotta have people that are skilled in being able to do that. You and you certainly, when you're talking about history, aspects of history with children, it's different than if you are with adults, right?
[01:03:23] Doing it, and history is hard. Some things are really hard, and, but being able to do it in a way You gotta be brave, you gotta be courageous, you gotta persevere, you gotta have all those kind of things, soft things, that skills that you gotta have to be able to be a good mentor, a good teacher, a good collaborator. Like you guys are great collaborators. Like you guys I'm sure your journeys to get to where you are here tonight is pretty amazing. And I gotta ask you, it must be pretty fulfilling. And if I were to ask you guys, like, how fulfilling is it for you to be doing this?
[01:04:00] Sarah Jack: It's incredible. It's been incredible.
[01:04:03] Josh Hutchinson: It's life changing. It's so, so amazing. Every day you wake up, you've gotta do X, Y, and Z and get to look forward to tomorrow and what's gonna happen.
[01:04:18] Andy Verzosa: And you don't have to do it alone.
[01:04:21] Josh Hutchinson: We have a whole group that we do it with.
[01:04:24] Andy Verzosa: And they'll find you. You just do the good work and they'll find you. It attracts people. Doing good work attracts people. That's the kind of spiritual axiom here. When you do good things, you attract good people and people that will help you along the way. You don't have to have all the answers or have it all figured out or get down so far. You can just do what's right in front of you.
[01:04:46] And I think that's really a life lesson for people, and when you talk about the Connecticut Witch trials, when you talk about witch, people persecuted for witchcraft,, there's a lot of aspects, certainly colonial, there's misogyny, right?
[01:05:01] There's a whole bunch of things that are going on there. And there are gonna be people that are gonna break that down in those areas of expertise, and it's gonna be that's what keeps it exciting for me, is I just keep on learning. And I don't have to do it. I'm not being tested the next day. Like I said, you don't have to do it alone. You can do it in company with other people, or you could do it totally off on your own and, and I think for the Exoneration project what I hope is that yes, I hope that the legislation goes through and that happens. But I think and I think you already know this, and I think you may have already alluded to it, or just that the way that you're approaching it it's an ongoing thing. It's gonna take you other places.
[01:05:42] I'll share with you, there was I was very fortunate to be able to participate with the Upstander project. It's about indigenous people. It's they've done, what they do every year, it's called the Upstander Academy. And you just go and you just learn about, what happened to people's here and on, on the land that we're on, and and just the whole different perspective, the view from the land as opposed to the view from the boat, right? So it's this thing about the settler mentality and the indigenous perspective. And it's fascinating. And so for me it's another, it's not separate, it's actually still part of the same of what I'm doing with, what we're talking about here tonight, and it's really looking at setting the record straight, reconciling, and doing it in a way that, we don't have to take on the sins of our ancestors necessarily, right? We can get right size with things and then do the next best thing, do the right thing.
[01:06:42] It's those actions, that commitment that I'm excited about and that you guys are excited about.
[01:06:49] Sarah Jack: That passion we have, and you have, that's one of the things that brought us together. I remember, when I, we were prepping for The Last Night episode. And I'm looking at our email communication and I'm like, I don't know enough of where this came from and why is this reading happening and what is this Stanley-Whitman House? And part of that's because I'm not there in your community directly. And I'm just so glad I picked up the phone and talked to you and started learning all of these amazing things that you're doing and, the mentoring you do. So I'm just so grateful. Thanks for having that first conversation with me and the several others we've had. Those have been really important.
[01:07:34] Andy Verzosa: And then think about the land that you're on and whose homeland is, and you're a guest on the land, and think about what does that mean being a guest on the land. And think about the history that preceded the history that you're talking about, and in colonial times more that obscure, invisible history wasn't just about the Connecticut witches, it was also some of what was happening with indigenous people. And that interaction, I'm learning about those things, and I'm hungry for it, so I look it up, I try to create space for that.
[01:08:04] And so I would encourage you to do the same. This and you'll see the universality of some of the issues are parallel, right? The other, the scapegoating, the erasure, the, silencing, all those types of things, and who wrote history? People in power, but sometimes they're so good at their recording of history that they record things that kind of, probably they don't realize, but give you a lot more information about what's not being written about, right? In the absence of something, sometimes you get a good picture of something. So it's pretty, pretty exciting. So I would encourage you even, wherever you are, that's the great thing about figuring out where you are and what your story is.
[01:08:50] Sarah Jack: That's awesome. Thank you Andy. How can your community and others support the Stanley-Whitman House?
[01:08:57] Andy Verzosa: Of course becoming a member is important, contributing to the annual fund. Thinking about places like Stanley-Whitman House and your community and what you can do as a volunteer, because that in kind giving of your time and your expertise, it has an equal, if not greater value sometimes than money. Of course we wanna raise money to keep the lights on, keep the heat on, but we also, we, we're a small museum. I'm the only full-time person there, and I dare say I wear a lot of hats, right? Chief cook and bottle washer. I have people, if they just come in on a Monday afternoon when I'm by myself trying to do a bunch of stuff helping me to put together a list of vendors so that I can get estimates sometimes is better use of my time to do other things and have a volunteer help organize that information for me.
[01:09:53] So giving of yourself in more than a monetary way, but, in a thoughtful, generous way of your time, and the things that you might be good at. You might be a good person with keeping the books. You might be able to weed in the garden or serve on the board. It's still, the thing about the non-profit history, art industry is that we do depend on a lot of volunteers, volunteerism, and it's a time-honored thing. That's how I got into the field actually, was I didn't grow up to be, I wasn't born museum director. I actually came through the back door. I went to art school. I basically served, I owned an art gallery, served on many different boards and committees, volunteering, and got to know a lot about nonprofit museums, nonprofit activities and in terms of governance and engagement and all of that. When it came time for me to join my husband down here in Connecticut I was I had the opportunity to go back to Maine for a year to run a museum as an interim director. And then when I came down, because of that experience and my prior volunteer experience, I saw positions open down here, applied for them. One of the positions that I took was the Stanley-Whitman House. So I didn't have years of experience in that way, but I had, I think I had what they wanted, or at least, I fit the bill at that time.
[01:11:19] And some people study and have a master's and higher degrees. And I don't, I have my undergraduate degree from art school and years of experience running a business and serving on boards and, I'm running a small museum in Connecticut, which is, for me. I just love my job. I love going there every day.
[01:11:39] Josh Hutchinson: Here's the latest Minute with Mary featuring our friend, Mary Bingham.
[01:11:45] Mary Bingham: One of the best resources to recently be digitized and become available online are the medical records of John Winthrop Jr. These papers were only available on microfilm at the Massachusetts Historical Society when I began to take trips to Boston to view them beginning in January of this past year. They were a difficult challenge to read because the ink and the smudges could not be extracted from the original page when creating the microfilm.
[01:12:17] And the fact that Winthrop Junior's handwriting was atrocious did not help matters. The digitizing process cleaned each page that was scanned to better satisfaction, making the papers much easier to read, so to speak. These papers are so important to anyone studying history, because these records state the names of his patients and the town in Connecticut where they were treated.
[01:12:43] One of his patients was Mary Barnes, who was treated by Winthrop Jr on April 7th, 1659. Why? I don't know the answer to that question just yet. Aside from transcribing his writing, I intend to decipher the alchemical symbols, denoting how she was treated. Then make my best educated guess as to why she was treated.
[01:13:08] And this will take time, but what can be gleaned from this primary source is that John Winthrop, Jr. knew Mary Barnes, as he did several others wrongfully convicted and hanged for witchcraft while he was away. Imagine the frustration and anger he felt towards those responsible for the deaths of the innocent victims he knew personally.
[01:13:33] Thank you.
[01:13:35] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:13:37] Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[01:13:40] Sarah Jack: End witch hunts.
[01:13:42] Witch hunts are targeted blame and punishment toward vulnerable people, alleged witches. Power structures around religion, familial status, age, gender, and falsely-attributed causes of misfortune universally contribute to the circumstances of witch hunts past and present. In the last 12 months, Josh Hutchinson and I, along with Mary Bingham, Beth Caruso and Tony Griego have developed our individual witch-hunt causes into collaborative efforts that have stretched and evolved our work elucidating the matter of witch blame and fear. In 2022, the End Witch Hunts movement was founded, End Witch Hunts project Thou Shall Not Suffer podcast was launched, and another End Witch Hunts project, the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project brought a witchcraft crime exoneration bill to the Connecticut General Assembly with the partnership of Representative Jane Garibay, Senator Saud Anwar, and the support of many Connecticut legislators who recognize the relevance of standing against witchcraft Hunts.
[01:14:38] Many historians, descendants, and supporters have worked and sacrificed their time, shared their knowledge, and amplified their voices to grow End Witch Hunts movement and projects. We have produced weekly thought-provoking podcast episodes, educating about the many layers of witch hunts in history and the nuances fueling witch hunts harming innocent people right now, today. You can learn more about the past and modern stories of the people harmed by this merciless conduct in any of our expert-filled episodes. Join us every week to hear the latest important conversation.
[01:15:08] The accusation details from witch trial primary sources are jaw dropping. The news of current attack victims across the globe is jaw dropping. We ask, why do we hunt witches? How do we hunt witches? How do we stop hunting witches?
[01:15:21] Messaging that clarifies how power structures around religion, familial status, age, gender, and falsely-attributed causes of misfortune universally contribute to the circumstances of witch hunts past and present. Share the attack news. Share a podcast episode. Read a book. Write a post or blog. Write to a politician or diplomat. Donate money to the organizations that are creating projects that intervene in the modern communities where witch hunts thrive. You can financially support the production of the podcast. The United Nations Human Rights Council has acknowledged this global crisis and beckons us all to take additional action.
[01:15:56] Awareness of the violent, modern witch hunts against alleged witches is increasing across the world. International media organizations, governments, and individuals want it to stop, are taking action, and are educating about it. We are all stakeholders in efforts to stop these witch attack and abuse crimes against women and children. Educate yourself more. Now you are aware of this modern horror. What will you do?
[01:16:20] We have links in our show notes to a new YouTube documentary, Why Witch Hunts are Not Just a Dark Chapter from the Past with journalist Karin Helmstaedt, featuring important interviews with several experts, including Advocacy for Alleged Witches advocate Dr. Leo Igwe, Witches of Scotland advocate Dr. Zoe Venditozzi, modern attack victims, and witch trial historians. Please see the show description for the link to watch it.
[01:16:42] This week, why don't you check out the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices organization? It was formed in 2022, just like us, to connect the different groups and initiatives working on this issue across the globe. It seeks to raise awareness about the human rights abuses taking place as a result of beliefs in witchcraft or sorcery and encourages action by states and individuals to end them. The International Network aims to raise support for the United Nations Human Rights Council's Resolution on the Elimination of Harmful Practices Related to Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks. Their website is in the episode description. Go visit them.
[01:17:19] This month, the Salem, Massachusetts area and Hartford and Farmington, Connecticut are getting a rare and important visit from Dr. Leo Igwe, director of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches nonprofit organization. It is an incredible honor for Josh and I to organize a week of speaking engagements during his speaking tour in the United States and to accompany him as he speaks in places of historical significance to early American colony witch trial history. You can follow Dr. Leo Igwe on Twitter @leoigwe to see how he's advocating on the ground in the victim communities in real time as these individuals are experiencing being accused and hunted.
[01:17:56] The first event at the Salem Witch Museum is virtual, but Dr. Igwe will be with us in Salem touring the historic sites, guided by a local seasoned in the history, Mary Bingham. Tuesday, May 16 is your chance to experience a very special evening of in-person conversation with Leo at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers. Please see the Facebook event for details. Isn't this a great week? Make sure you mark your calendars.
[01:18:19] Next, you can join an in-person speaking event with Dr. Igwe at Central Connecticut State University on Wednesday, May 17. While in the Hartford area, Leo will be touring known witch trial historic sites with author Beth Caruso. On Thursday afternoon, Leo will be presenting at the Stanley-Whitman House living history center in Farmington, Connecticut. Look for Facebook events for all of these occasions posted by our social media. Come hear Leo. Invite your friends and family. See you there.
[01:18:46] Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop, merch from our Zazzle shop, or make a financial contribution to our organization. Our links are in the show description.
[01:18:58] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:19:00] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[01:19:01] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:19:05] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[01:19:07] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:19:10] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:19:13] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[01:19:16] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[01:19:22] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:19:25]

May 3, 2023

Connecticut Witch Trials 101 Part 3: 1648-1661

Documentary:”Why Witch Hunts Are Not Just A Dark Chapter From the Past”

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Show Notes

This is Part 3 of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast’s Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series. In this episode, we discuss the years 1648-1661 and continue to explore the individual lives of Connecticut’s known witch trial victims with only fact backed, trustworthy research and sources. You will hear about the common theories, and which facts are in the primary source records. The lives of these historic individuals have been examined with proper genealogical protocols for identifying and confirming family lines, parentage and marital connections by consulting historian research and available primary source material. Take in this informative New England colonial history conversation with your cohosts and accused witch descendants, writer and podcast producer, Joshua Hutchinson and End Witch Hunts President and people connector extraordinaire, Sarah Jack. Enjoy the new segment, “Minute with Mary” by Mary Bingham, accused witch descendant, writer and researcher. How do we know what we know? We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

Two Buried Alive over Alleged Witchcraft

Connecticut Witch Trials 101 Bibliography

March 29,, 2023 Discussion Panel with State Representative Jane Garibay on Bill HJ #34, A Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.

Press Conference on Legislative Bill H.J. No. 34, March 8, 2023

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Transcript

[00:00:21] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:27] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: This is part three of our Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series.
[00:00:32] Sarah Jack: In this episode, we're going to cover witchcraft accusations in Connecticut during the period from 1648 through 1661.
[00:00:40] Josh Hutchinson: Between those years, at least 16 people were accused of witchcraft in the Connecticut and New Haven colonies.
[00:00:48] Sarah Jack: We say, "at least," because the records are incomplete.
[00:00:51] Josh Hutchinson: Six people were executed in Connecticut Colony between 1648 and 1654.
[00:00:57] Sarah Jack: As we discuss these cases, we'll cover the role of John Winthrop, Jr. and like-minded colonial leaders in subduing the urge to dispatch those believed by some to have used magic for sinister purposes.
[00:01:09] Josh Hutchinson: Winthrop himself was an alchemical physician and a student of natural magic.
[00:01:15] Sarah Jack: Like many, he believed that the devil could help people cause harm.
[00:01:19] Josh Hutchinson: However, he believed all magic originated from nature.
[00:01:23] The beliefs weren't as black and white as a lot of people, including historians tend to portray them. It wasn't just like a black and white issue. Magic and puritanism weren't entirely incompatible.
[00:01:42] Sarah Jack: Before we begin, we want to warn you that the stories you'll hear from us may be different than the way you've heard them before.
[00:01:50] Josh Hutchinson: For generations, historians and genealogists have attempted to flesh out the details of the trial participants' lives. Over time, our understanding of the Connecticut Witch Trials has developed, as more has been uncovered, and many inaccuracies have been found in these early volumes.
[00:02:16] Sarah Jack: In our narrative, we will tell you the prevailing theories.
[00:02:19] Josh Hutchinson: We will also share our reasons for doubting some of these claims.
[00:02:24] The sources we rely upon for the facts we can know are the court records of the witchcraft cases themselves.
[00:02:31] Sarah Jack: And the other original 17th century documents that can reliably be linked to those involved.
[00:02:37] Josh Hutchinson: We begin with the 1648 case of Mary Johnson.
[00:02:41] Sarah Jack: Mary lived in Wethersfield and was most likely a servant.
[00:02:45] Josh Hutchinson: You may know of Wethersfield from reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare.
[00:02:50] Sarah Jack: While that book is entirely fiction, eight real-life Wethersfield residents are known to have been accused of witchcraft in the 17th century.
[00:02:58] Josh Hutchinson: In 1646, Mary Johnson was convicted of theft.
[00:03:04] Sarah Jack: To punish her, the court ordered she be whipped immediately in Hartford and a month later in Wethersfield.
[00:03:10] Josh Hutchinson: Sadly, this was not the end of her troubles.
[00:03:13] Sarah Jack: On December 7th, 1648, she was convicted of witchcraft.
[00:03:17] Josh Hutchinson: The jury found her guilty because she confessed.
[00:03:21] Sarah Jack: Cotton Mather later wrote that she was pressured to confess by Samuel Stone, a minister.
[00:03:27] Josh Hutchinson: Mather published his story about Mary more than 40 years after her execution.
[00:03:33] Sarah Jack: He claimed she confessed not only to witchcraft but also to murdering a child.
[00:03:37] Josh Hutchinson: And to, quote, "uncleanness with men and devils."
[00:03:42] Sarah Jack: According to Mather, Mary said that she was unhappy with the work her employer assigned her.
[00:03:48] Josh Hutchinson: So she asked a devil to help.
[00:03:51] Sarah Jack: And it did sweep the hearth and drive hogs out of her boss's field.
[00:03:55] Josh Hutchinson: Mather also wrote that she had a conversion experience in jail.
[00:04:00] Sarah Jack: And she, quote, "went out of the world with many hopes of mercy through the merit of Jesus Christ."
[00:04:05] Josh Hutchinson: She, and I quote again from Mather, "died in a frame extremely to the satisfaction of them that were spectators of it." She went out humble and repentant.
[00:04:18] Sarah Jack: Executions were public events.
[00:04:21] Josh Hutchinson: Large crowds came out to witness what happened to those who had committed felonies.
[00:04:26] Sarah Jack: Parents brought their children for an educational experience.
[00:04:30] Josh Hutchinson: Now we'd like to clear up some longtime confusion about Mary Johnson.
[00:04:35] Sarah Jack: In 1885, Charles Herbert Levermore wrote that Mary Johnson's execution was delayed due to pregnancy.
[00:04:42] Josh Hutchinson: He added that her child was later given to the son of the jail keeper.
[00:04:47] Sarah Jack: This information was repeated in an essay by Charles Dudley Warner in 1886.
[00:04:52] Josh Hutchinson: And has continued to be handed down from one historian to another ever since.
[00:04:58] Sarah Jack: This was included in one of the most significant works on witchcraft accusations in Connecticut, John M. Taylor's 1908 book, The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut, 1647 to 1697.
[00:05:10] Josh Hutchinson: The pregnancy and the transfer of the child have even been reported as fact in works published this decade, and the tale is often retold on the internet.
[00:05:19] Sarah Jack: Unfortunately, the story is associated with the wrong woman.
[00:05:24] Josh Hutchinson: In a 1974 essay, William K. Holdsworth writes that the confusion came about because two Johnsons were convicted of crimes in Connecticut within a relatively short time.
[00:05:36] Sarah Jack: As Holdsworth points out, the original records do not state anything about a delay in Mary Johnson's execution.
[00:05:43] Josh Hutchinson: Or that she was pregnant.
[00:05:45] Sarah Jack: Cotton Mather also did not include an account of pregnancy or a delay in his telling of Mary Johnson's trial.
[00:05:52] Josh Hutchinson: One Goodwife Elizabeth Johnson of Fairfield was convicted of a crime in May 1650.
[00:05:59] Sarah Jack: Several clues are contained within that last sentence.
[00:06:03] Josh Hutchinson: The Johnson in this second trial was called Goodwife, making it clear that she was married.
[00:06:08] Sarah Jack: In fact, the records state that she was the wife of Peter Johnson.
[00:06:12] Josh Hutchinson: The name of the woman in this case is given as Elizabeth rather than Mary.
[00:06:17] Sarah Jack: This Elizabeth Johnson was from Fairfield, not Wethersfield, where Mary lived.
[00:06:22] Josh Hutchinson: Even by modern roads, these two towns are separated by 56 miles.
[00:06:26] Sarah Jack: In addition, this Johnson was convicted in May 1650, whereas Mary Johnson was convicted in December 1648.
[00:06:34] Josh Hutchinson: And most likely was hanged within days of her conviction, though the record of her conviction does not explicitly state this.
[00:06:41] Sarah Jack: Our conclusion is that this is a tale of two different women.
[00:06:46] Josh Hutchinson: In summary, Mary Johnson was not pregnant when she was tried and did not leave a baby for the jailer. Elizabeth Johnson did. In addition, we do not know what crime Elizabeth Johnson was tried for. It is theorized that she may have been tried for adultery, because there is a reference to a Thomas Newton paying out of his account for the upkeep of the child, which was born to Elizabeth while she was in jail for 24 weeks.
[00:07:29] Please see the links in our show notes and bibliography to view the records firsthand.
[00:07:34] Sarah Jack: Goodwife Palmer of Wethersfield was accused of witchcraft in 1648 by John Robbins.
[00:07:41] Josh Hutchinson: A December 7th, 1648 court record states that "the court frees Henry Palmer from his recognizance for his wive's appearing at the last particular court to answer the complaint of Mr. Robbins as also remit the miscarriage of his wife therein, hoping it will be a warning to her and others for the future."
[00:08:03] Sarah Jack: Unfortunately, the court order for recognizance is not included in the Records of the Particular Court which exist today.
[00:08:11] Josh Hutchinson: Though this record does not specify why the recognizance was ordered, it is believed to have been due to a complaint of witchcraft.
[00:08:20] Sarah Jack: This belief is predicated on events which followed many years later.
[00:08:25] Josh Hutchinson: In Detestable and Wicked Arts, historian Paul B. Moyer states that suspicions of witchcraft may have been voiced about Goodwife Palmer in the 1650s, but no legal action was taken.
[00:08:37] Sarah Jack: In Entertaining Satan, John Demos proposes the name Katherine for Henry Palmer's wife, but we have not located a source to verify this.
[00:08:45] Josh Hutchinson: Moyer also suggests that the 1648 case against Henry Palmer's wife may have been related to the case that same year of Mary Johnson, who was also from Wethersfield.
[00:08:56] Sarah Jack: Johnson was convicted the day that Palmer was freed from his recognizance for his wife.
[00:09:02] Josh Hutchinson: Further evidence is needed to prove the connection.
[00:09:06] At the same court session that Johnson is convicted, Palmer is freed from this recognizance, which is the bond that he posted for his wife's good behavior. And so the supposition is that Palmer and Johnson were both accused of witchcraft, possibly by John Robbins, at the same time, but only Mary Johnson was convicted, and Palmer wasn't actually tried.
[00:09:41] When you look at the record of it, there's a line that is Mary Johnson is indicted, and then there's a line about something else, and then there's a line about this complaint of Mr. Robbins. And it's referring back to a previous court session that we don't have a record of, unfortunately.
[00:09:59] So it's another one of those why, what was the complaint of Mr. Robbins? Then you look later, and Mr. Robbins is complaining later about Palmer being a Witch. So you're thinking that, oh, because later on he's, "oh she's a witch," that he complained about Palmer in 1648 of witchcraft. It's just the timing of it. They're from the same town, they're both in court the same day, one's convicted of witchcraft, one's saying that this guy complained of her about something that required her husband to post a bond for good behavior. So what could that be? And there's only a few things it could be.
[00:10:48] Sarah Jack: And we know from other trials that the behavior is a huge deal when it comes to alleging that someone's a witch.
[00:10:56] Josh Hutchinson: They tell them in other cases to be on your best behavior and don't go around offending your neighbors, because of course they're gonna think you're a witch, and we're gonna bring you back to court.
[00:11:09] They might have been accused together, and then, for whatever reason, Palmer gets off, and Johnson doesn't, maybe because of their status in the community.
[00:11:21] Henry Palmer's wife was accused of witchcraft by Rebecca Greensmith and the Robbins family during the Hartford Witch Trials of 1662 to 1663.
[00:11:32] Sarah Jack: Goodwife Palmer did not stick around for the Hartford Witch-Hunt. Instead, she and Henry likely left Connecticut for Rhode Island in 1662.
[00:11:41] Josh Hutchinson: Goodwife Palmer was once again accused of witchcraft in Connecticut in 1667, but was not in that colony any longer.
[00:11:50] Sarah Jack: A Goodwife Palmer was later accused in Rhode Island in 1672 by Steven Sebeere, who was ordered to apologize to a Henry Palmer for calling his wife a witch.
[00:11:59] Josh Hutchinson: We'll have more about Goodwife Palmer in part four of this series, when we discuss the Hartford Witch Trials of 1662 to 1663.
[00:12:08] Sarah Jack: Now we're gonna speak to you about the first New England couple to be accused of witchcraft together.
[00:12:13] Josh Hutchinson: Records show that Joan and John Carrington, also of Wethersfield, were indicted on witchcraft charges in 1651.
[00:12:21] Sarah Jack: A John Carrington came to New England in 1635 with a Mary Carrington.
[00:12:26] Josh Hutchinson: Both were recorded as being 33 years old when they arrived. Names like John and Mary were very common in 17th century New England, and it is quite possible that multiple Carrington families came to New England around the same time, as I've seen with my own ancestors. That has happened with so many of my lines. There have been people with the same name or very similar names that get confused with each other.
[00:13:00] Sarah Jack: A John Carrington bought land in Wethersfield in 1643.
[00:13:04] Josh Hutchinson: Many presume John had a son, also named John, who was an original proprietor of Farmington, Connecticut, who later settled Mattattuck, now Waterbury.
[00:13:16] Sarah Jack: Others believe the second John had a sister, Rebecca, who married Abraham Andrews of Farmington, who also moved to Mattattuck.
[00:13:23] Josh Hutchinson: However, no evidence has been shown to connect John Carrington of Wethersfield to either the John who came over with Mary or the John who lived in Farmington and Mattattuk.
[00:13:34] Sarah Jack: Therefore, because we do not have records, we cannot say that the John Carrington charged with witchcraft had children with either Mary or Joan.
[00:13:43] Josh Hutchinson: What we can say is that John Carrington of Wethersfield was a carpenter, as recorded in the indictment for witchcraft.
[00:13:51] Sarah Jack: In March 1650, he was convicted of selling a gun to a Native American and was fined 10 pounds.
[00:13:57] Josh Hutchinson: A John Carrington's estate was valued at only 23 pounds and 11 shillings in 1653, with an associated debt of a little over 10 pounds, leaving 13 pounds, one shilling, and six pence. No heir is named in the record summarized in Charles William Manwaring's A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records.
[00:14:22] Sarah Jack: The 1651 witchcraft indictments accused Joan and John of entertaining familiarity with the devil and using his help to perform works above the course of nature.
[00:14:32] Josh Hutchinson: The Carringtons were convicted on March 6th, 1651.
[00:14:36] Sarah Jack: The indictment specified the death sentence as the appropriate penalty.
[00:14:40] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "according to the law of God and of the established law of this commonwealth, thou deserveth to die."
[00:14:47] Sarah Jack: As we read in part two of the series, the sentence of death was ordered for all convicted of witchcraft.
[00:14:52] Josh Hutchinson: As it says in the King James version of the Bible, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
[00:14:59] Sarah Jack: The couple was most likely hanged together in Hartford very soon after their convictions.
[00:15:03] Josh Hutchinson: We believe they were hanged and were one of only two couples hanged together for witchcraft in British North America.
[00:15:11] Sarah Jack: As we'll cover in the next episode in the series, Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith were the other couple hanged together.
[00:15:18] Josh Hutchinson: Now, the Salem magistrates did condemn both Elizabeth and John Proctor.
[00:15:24] Sarah Jack: However, Elizabeth's hanging was delayed due to pregnancy, and she was reprieved by the governor in 1693.
[00:15:30] Josh Hutchinson: Martha and Giles Cory were also victims of the Salem Witch Trials together, who were a married couple. However, Giles refused to stand trial and was pressed to death rather than hanged.
[00:15:42] Sarah Jack: Next we have the case of Goodwife Bassett of Fairfield.
[00:15:46] Josh Hutchinson: We only know about her witchcraft accusation through one brief court record and a 1654 defamation suit filed by Mary Staples against colonial leader Roger Ludlow.
[00:15:58] Sarah Jack: The court record states that the governor and two other men were to go to Stratford for "the trial of Goody Bassett for her life."
[00:16:05] Josh Hutchinson: This entry was dated May 15th, 1651.
[00:16:09] Sarah Jack: We next hear of Bassett in the Staples case, in which a witness testified that "Goodwife Bassett, when she was condemned, said there was another witch in Fairfield that held her head full high."
[00:16:19] Josh Hutchinson: While Goodwife Bassett's given and maiden names are not known, she may have been the wife of Thomas Bassett. We've also seen a book theorizing that she was the wife of a Robert Bassett.
[00:16:34] Sarah Jack: Thomas Bassett arrived in the colonies in 1635 and first made his home in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
[00:16:41] Josh Hutchinson: It was there that he likely first encountered Thomas Thornton, a man we spoke of in the last episode in the series.
[00:16:50] Sarah Jack: If you recall, Thornton was a tanner who resided next to Alice Young in Windsor, Connecticut in the 1640s.
[00:16:57] Josh Hutchinson: He lost four children to the epidemic which may have been the cause of the accusations against Alice.
[00:17:03] Sarah Jack: But the Thorntons and the Youngs were just some of the many Dorchester, Massachusetts settlers who made the move to Windsor.
[00:17:09] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Bassett also relocated to Windsor and lived there at the same time as the Thorntons and the Youngs.
[00:17:16] Sarah Jack: It was in 1650 that Thomas Bassett relocated to Stratford.
[00:17:20] Josh Hutchinson: That same year, John Young and the Thorntons also moved from Windsor to Stratford.
[00:17:25] Sarah Jack: Thomas Thornton was elected Stratford's deputy to the Connecticut General Court in 1651, the very year Goodwife Bassett hanged.
[00:17:34] Josh Hutchinson: As noted in "Between God and Satan" by Beth Caruso and Dr. Katherine Hermes, Thornton was in proximity to several witch trials.
[00:17:42] Sarah Jack: His exact role in any of these trials is not yet known.
[00:17:47] Josh Hutchinson: As mentioned previously on the show, the Stratford Historical Society is hosting several events in April and May to honor Goodwife Bassett's memory.
[00:17:56] Sarah Jack: The society is leading commemorative walks retracing Goodwife Bassett's last steps on May 3rd and 10th at 7:00 PM. These feature historical commentary by the town historian, David Wright.
[00:18:07] Josh Hutchinson: The inaugural Goody Bassett Ball will take place on Saturday, May 20th at 6:00 PM.
[00:18:12] Sarah Jack: More information can be found on the society's webpage. in easthampton
[00:18:17] Josh Hutchinson: Following the Bassett hanging, Goodwife Knapp of Fairfield was also charged with witchcraft.
[00:18:23] Sarah Jack: She hanged in 1653.
[00:18:26] Josh Hutchinson: Again, we know about her case through the Staples defamation suit.
[00:18:30] Sarah Jack: Unfortunately, the testimony in that case refers to her only as Goody Knapp.
[00:18:35] Josh Hutchinson: We do not know her given or maiden names.
[00:18:38] Sarah Jack: We do not know the identity of her husband.
[00:18:41] Josh Hutchinson: We hope records with this information will be located one day.
[00:18:45] Sarah Jack: In 2019, a memorial plaque was placed in the Black Rock community in Bridgeport, Connecticut in Goodwife Knapp's honor.
[00:18:52] Josh Hutchinson: The court record for Mary Staples' defamation suit against Roger Ludlow indicates that Ludlow had accused Staples, because she, quote, "had laid herself under a new suspicion of being a witch, that she had caused Knapp's wife to be new searched after she was hanged. And when she saw the teats said, if they were the marks of a Witch, then she was one, or she had such marks."
[00:19:16] Sarah Jack: Document also reports that according to Mary Staples, Roger Ludlow had said that Knapp had told him Staples was a witch.
[00:19:24] Josh Hutchinson: However, Thomas Lyon told the court he was watching goody Knapp when five women came in and asked her to confess. Knapp responded that she was not a witch and she would not name Mary Staples as a witch.
[00:19:39] Sarah Jack: One Hester Ward claimed that Goody Knapp had told her that Mary Staples had admitted to receiving two little things brighter than the light of day from a Native American.
[00:19:48] Josh Hutchinson: She purportedly called the mystery items, quote, "Indian gods."
[00:19:53] Sarah Jack: Goodwife Sherwood questioned Knapp about the objects.
[00:19:57] Josh Hutchinson: According to Sherwood, Knapp denied ever saying that anyone in town had taken the shiny objects from the Native American.
[00:20:06] In other words, Knapp was saying that she never accused Goody Staples of taking the shiny objects that were known as "Indian gods."
[00:20:20] Knapp time and again we're seeing denied that Staples had anything to do with witchcraft, and this is another denial of that. So that's the significance of that statement. Staples is saying that Knapp isn't a witch and Knapp, according to all these witnesses, repeatedly said that I'm not calling Staples a witch because she isn't one. I'm not one. She's not one.
[00:20:48] Sarah Jack: Ultimately, Roger Ludlow was found to have defamed Staples and was ordered to pay Thomas Staples 15 pounds for falsely accusing his wife of witchcraft and for court costs.
[00:20:58] Josh Hutchinson: Roger Ludlow was a colonial official. He had written the laws of Connecticut.
[00:21:05] Sarah Jack: So isn't that interesting that he was found to have defamed?
[00:21:09] Josh Hutchinson: They're basically saying that you lied, that you called her something, and you couldn't prove that she was a witch.
[00:21:16] In 1653, the same year that Knapp was executed, Mrs. Elizabeth Godman of New Haven went to court to complain about several people, who she said had called her a Witch.
[00:21:27] Sarah Jack: That's interesting.
[00:21:30] Josh Hutchinson: This is a defamation that backfires.
[00:21:32] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Godman struck terror in the hearts of her supposed victims, causing one to sweat profusely and another to faint.
[00:21:41] Josh Hutchinson: And this is just saying that because they believed so strongly that she was a witch, they had these visceral physical reactions when they crossed her and she reacted to them with either a stare or some words. One person said that she sweated so much in her bed after having a dream about Knapp, that she woke up and it was like she was floating on water. And another person, Stephen Goodyear, actually said that Knapp gave him a dirty look and he swooned.
[00:22:23] Sarah Jack: When you consider their belief and fear of witches, and then here is the embodiment of one interacting directly with them, you can feel their terror and understand these reactions.
[00:22:41] Josh Hutchinson: And psychological terror does produce known chemical reactions within the body that can elevate the heart rate, cause you to sweat, cause you to breathe differently, cause you to faint. This is all part of your fight or flight response or freeze.
[00:23:02] Sarah Jack: Yeah, it is.
[00:23:04] Josh Hutchinson: And so if you really believe in your heart and in your mind that somebody is a witch and they're capable of harming you, you can actually, in essence, harm yourself just through your body's reactions to your psychological state.
[00:23:24] Sarah Jack: And so that is what would be happening today in these communities, where they believe this alleged witch is causing death and sickness and misfortune. They are having these type of responses in their bodies and minds.
[00:23:46] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we see this happening around the world today. We see it throughout the history of witch trials in a lot of the testimony. It's possible that it happened with the afflicted persons in Salem and with other afflicted persons that they became, they were so distressed that they became physically ill and psychologically traumatized.
[00:24:13] Sarah Jack: And then imagine if you are actually ill and then psychologically traumatized from your fear of who is causing your illness.
[00:24:22] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, that just compounds it and that can lead your health to really deteriorate rapidly.
[00:24:30] Sarah Jack: And you know who comes to mind with me on that is Timothy Swan in North Andover.
[00:24:35] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, that's a good one. I was thinking of, one we'll talk about later is Betty Howell, who is supposedly afflicted. She starts having some kind of fits, and then she just becomes really ill and rapidly deteriorates and passes, because she's in such a panic that whatever physically might have been going on with her, just that mental fear gets added to that.
[00:25:08] Sarah Jack: That's such a good use of the word panic in these situations. The panic is in the accusers. It's interesting.
[00:25:16] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, it's in the supposedly bewitched people. They're panicking in their own selves about being terrorized by this witch, thinking that, "oh, she's gonna kill me." And then it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, "that witch is gonna kill me," and then you get really sick and you die. There's clinical cases of people having heart attacks and different reactions to intense fright.
[00:25:48] Not fearing witches is good for all of us, so we want to remove the witch fear and show people that there's other reasons why misfortune happens. You've got to remove the layer of mystery and give explanations why things happen when they do.
[00:26:12] New Haven's leading minister, John Davenport, quote, had occasion to speak of witches and showed that a froward discontent frame of spirit was a subject fit for the devil to work upon in that way." As a result, Goodwife Larrimore considered Godman to have the appearance of such a person.
[00:26:34] Sarah Jack: Mrs. Atwater allegedly claimed Godman was married to a manitou named Hobbamock, a giant stone spirit known to the Quinnipiac.
[00:26:42] Josh Hutchinson: A common motif is expressed in many of the testimonies against Elizabeth Godman. When someone refused to sell, barter, or give anything to her, misfortune followed, and we see that again in witch trial after witch trial, in Salem with Sarah Good, Samuel Parris refuses to give her anything.
[00:27:05] She goes away muttering something. They believe then that she cursed them in spite where really it's their guilt for not giving her what she wanted.
[00:27:18] Sarah Jack: Godman was a widow who lived with Stephen Goodyear.
[00:27:21] Josh Hutchinson: He was the deputy governor of the New Haven Colony.
[00:27:24] Sarah Jack: The magistrates questioned Godman and the people she complained about.
[00:27:28] Josh Hutchinson: Godman was accused of afflicting people and animals following quarrels.
[00:27:34] Sarah Jack: She was also supposed to have laid upon a bed, quote, "as if somebody was sucking her."
[00:27:39] Josh Hutchinson: This was another reference to the belief that witches had teets from which they fed devils and familiars or imps.
[00:27:46] Sarah Jack: Godman supposedly also talked to herself.
[00:27:49] Josh Hutchinson: And I just wanna point out, that's another common thing. As we just mentioned, the case of Sarah Good, she went away muttering something to herself, and people believed that she was muttering curses. It was considered aberrant behavior to talk to herself in public. And people are like, "that's odd. She must be up to something."
[00:28:14] And Godman knew what others did and said when she was not there.
[00:28:19] Sarah Jack: Godman's defamation claim was rejected.
[00:28:23] Josh Hutchinson: However, she did not face trial for witchcraft.
[00:28:27] Sarah Jack: Nicholas Augur, a New Haven physician, consulted John Winthrop, Jr. about the mysterious afflictions of three women.
[00:28:34] Josh Hutchinson: Historian Walter Woodward writes that Winthrop's diagnosis likely saved Godman's life.
[00:28:40] Sarah Jack: However, most of the correspondence between Augur and Winthrop is missing, so we don't know precisely what effect Winthrop's response may have had on the case.
[00:28:50] Josh Hutchinson: In any event, the court ordered Godman to "look after her carriage hereafter."
[00:28:57] Sarah Jack: And to "not go in an offensive way to folks houses in a railing manner, as it seems she hath done, but that she keep her place and meddle with her own business."
[00:29:07] Josh Hutchinson: The magistrates warned her that she now was considered suspicious and would be brought back to court if additional evidence was brought in against her to show that she was a witch.
[00:29:19] Sarah Jack: Even though she's the one that walked in first.
[00:29:21] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. She's, " hey, these people are pointing fingers at me. I'm gonna point back at them." And they're like, the court's like, "well, we think they have a point."
[00:29:30] Sarah Jack: Godman was indeed called back to court on August 7th, 1655.
[00:29:37] Josh Hutchinson: She was again accused of causing a series of strange events and bewitching animals.
[00:29:43] Sarah Jack: On this occasion, she was jailed.
[00:29:45] Josh Hutchinson: Considering her to be in poor health, the court released her into the custody of Thomas Johnson on September 4th and warned her to return to court in October.
[00:29:55] Sarah Jack: At an October 17 court session, Godman was ordered to pay 50 pounds bond to ensure her good behavior and warned she would be jailed again if she gave cause.
[00:30:05] Josh Hutchinson: She was warned that she "must forebear from going from house to house to give offense and carry it orderly in the family where she is."
[00:30:15] Sarah Jack: Her bond was paid out of her estate on January 1st, 1656.
[00:30:20] Josh Hutchinson: Elizabeth Godman died in 1660.
[00:30:23] Sarah Jack: When she died. Her estate was valued at 200 pounds.
[00:30:26] Josh Hutchinson: In 1654, the same year as the Staples lawsuit, Lydia Gilbert of Windsor was accused of practicing witchcraft.
[00:30:35] Sarah Jack: She was indicted on November 28th for allegedly bewitching Thomas Allyn's gun.
[00:30:41] Josh Hutchinson: Which had misfired during a militia exercise three years earlier.
[00:30:46] Sarah Jack: And killed Henry Stiles.
[00:30:48] Josh Hutchinson: Allyn had already been convicted of homicide by misadventure and paid a fine.
[00:30:54] Sarah Jack: It is unknown why Gilbert was accused three years after the fact.
[00:30:58] Josh Hutchinson: Not much is known for certain about Lydia Gilbert. The indictment against her does not specify a husband or even refer to Gilbert as Goodwife.
[00:31:09] Sarah Jack: All evidence we have seen to link Lydia and Thomas has been circumstantial and based upon Thomas's business relationship with Henry Stiles.
[00:31:16] Josh Hutchinson: We do know that Stiles and Allyn had some previous business relationship and that Gilbert had business relationships with the other two, but this is with Thomas Gilbert, and I haven't seen the name Lydia in any court records other than the one brief record about her trial.
[00:31:42] There was a Lydia Bliss in jail with a Thomas Gilbert.
[00:31:47] In 1643, the court ordered a Thomas Gilbert and a Lydia Bliss jailed, along with George Gibbs and James Hullet. I don't know if we know what offense they were in there for. So we're just saying like these two people knew each other before. They had some kind of prior relationship, and her name's Lydia. And like we said before, these are inferences, and there's not a marriage record that says Thomas Gilbert, Jr. of Windsor married Lydia Bliss, daughter of such and such, so you go through a chain of inferences to get there.
[00:32:34] Henry Stiles may have roomed at one Thomas Gilbert's house, and Lydia may have been his wife, his daughter, his sister, or another relative.
[00:32:46] Sarah Jack: One thing we can say for sure is that Gilbert was convicted.
[00:32:50] Josh Hutchinson: The court record of her case makes this quite clear.
[00:32:54] Sarah Jack: She was likely executed.
[00:32:57] Josh Hutchinson: Like many of the victims, no record of an execution exists today.
[00:33:01] Sarah Jack: However, like the others, she disappears from the record after the conviction and is therefore presumed to have been hanged as the law specified.
[00:33:10] It really goes to show that the same processes you use when you're doing work in your family tree, connecting one generation to the next by a reliable record is the same process that needs to be done when you're connecting individuals in a history research to their spouses and to their children. If you can't, that's the equivalent of a brick wall in your tree .
[00:33:39] Josh Hutchinson: A lot of times, we rely upon the work that someone else has done before us, when we should be verifying their information from primary sources and making those connections ourselves.
[00:33:59] Sarah Jack: You wouldn't just take somebody's branch from their tree and graft it into yours without looking at how the record matches your family line. And with these individuals, we need to see how is the record putting the story together, and if the record's not there, you can't put the story together. That part of the story can't go together.
[00:34:22] Josh Hutchinson: Be careful not to leap to conclusions.
[00:34:26] Sarah Jack: But just like when you're working on your family tree, you can have a working branch where it's an open research, you can continue to do that. You can consider things a possibility, but that's all that it is until you know.
[00:34:44] Goodwife and Nicholas Bailey were the next couple to be accused of witchcraft.
[00:34:49] Josh Hutchinson: They were brought to court for other things on July 3rd, 1655.
[00:34:54] Sarah Jack: Impudent and notorious lying.
[00:34:56] Josh Hutchinson: Endeavoring to make discord among neighbors.
[00:35:00] Sarah Jack: And filthy and unclean speeches.
[00:35:03] Josh Hutchinson: In court, quote, "sundry passages taken in writing were read, which being duly considered, doth render them both, but especially the woman, very suspicious in point of witchcraft. But for matters of that nature, the court intends not to proceed at this time."
[00:35:21] Sarah Jack: They were ordered out of town.
[00:35:24] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "betwixt this court and the next court they must consider of a way how to remove themselves to some other place or give sufficient security to the court's satisfaction for their good behavior and pay the fine for lying, which is 10 shillings."
[00:35:41] Sarah Jack: However, the couple delayed moving.
[00:35:43] Josh Hutchinson: They came back to court August 7th, 1655.
[00:35:47] Sarah Jack: The court granted a delay until the middle of April of 1656, but only if they paid 40 pound security that they would leave plus 50 pounds bond for good behavior and attended every monthly court session during the delay.
[00:36:00] Josh Hutchinson: On September 4th, 1655, the court told them to come back to the next session on the first Tuesday of October and an additional session the third Wednesday of October.
[00:36:13] Sarah Jack: They returned to court October 2nd, 1655.
[00:36:17] Josh Hutchinson: And were told they would be excused from future court appearances, if they removed before the third Wednesday of that month.
[00:36:24] Sarah Jack: The records end there, so it is believed that the Baileys did indeed leave the colony.
[00:36:30] Josh Hutchinson: Walter Woodward writes that John Winthrop, Jr. likely had a role in the decision to exile rather than execute the Baileys.
[00:36:38] William Meaker filed a slander suit in 1657 against Thomas Mullener, who he said accused him of bewitching some pigs.
[00:36:47] Sarah Jack: The two had shared some time in court the previous year.
[00:36:51] Josh Hutchinson: On that occasion, Mullener was on trial for allegedly stealing swine from another neighbor.
[00:36:56] Sarah Jack: And Meaker testified against him.
[00:36:59] Josh Hutchinson: Later the two had an argument.
[00:37:01] Sarah Jack: Meaker claimed that Mullener had broken his fence.
[00:37:04] Josh Hutchinson: And Mullener believed Meaker got his revenge by casting a spell on his pigs.
[00:37:10] Sarah Jack: Mullener lost the slander suit and was ordered to apologize to Meaker and to post a 50 pound bond for his good behavior.
[00:37:16] Josh Hutchinson: The next to be accused was Elizabeth Garlick of Easthampton on Long Island.
[00:37:23] Sarah Jack: At this time, Easthampton was part of Connecticut.
[00:37:26] Josh Hutchinson: Garlick was tried in 1658.
[00:37:29] Sarah Jack: This was the first witchcraft case John Winthrop, Jr. worked on in an official capacity.
[00:37:35] Josh Hutchinson: Now serving as governor of Connecticut Colony, he presided over the court.
[00:37:40] Sarah Jack: Before Garlick's trial, Connecticut had tried seven people for witchcraft. All had been convicted and executed.
[00:37:47] Josh Hutchinson: As Chief Magistrate, Winthrop had considerable influence over the proceedings.
[00:37:52] Sarah Jack: His presence at the least brought balance to the court.
[00:37:56] Josh Hutchinson: Of the seven magistrates on the court, four had previously been involved in multiple witchcraft cases resulting in conviction.
[00:38:05] Sarah Jack: Garlick was the wife of Joseph or Joshua Garlick.
[00:38:09] Josh Hutchinson: Joseph or Joshua was a business intermediary between John Winthrop, Jr. and Lion Gardiner on at least two occasions when Winthrop was living in Saybrook.
[00:38:21] Sarah Jack: The Garlicks perhaps lived on Gardiner's Island from 1650 or earlier until he relocated to Easthampton on Long Island in 1653.
[00:38:30] Josh Hutchinson: In Easthampton, Garlick acquired nearly a hundred acres over time and owned livestock.
[00:38:37] Sarah Jack: Godbeer says Garlick was a healer in The Devil's Dominion.
[00:38:41] Josh Hutchinson: Godbeer bases this on a deposition of a woman named Goodwife Bishop, who went to Elizabeth Garlick and obtained an herb called dockweed that had some medicinal purposes. However, every woman at the time, especially every wife and mother, was the nurse of their household and had common herbs on hand for treating illnesses.
[00:39:15] So we don't know if that meant that she was a professional healer or not. We're looking into the records in more detail to see. And there are a lot of implications in this label as healer, as it's popularly believed that healers and even midwives were common targets of witchcraft accusations.
[00:39:46] Scott R. Ferrara and John Demos have written that Garlick's maiden name was probably Blanchard.
[00:39:53] Sarah Jack: And Demos notes that her possible father may have been a French Huguenot.
[00:39:58] Josh Hutchinson: Nine accusers testified at Elizabeth Garlick's trial.
[00:40:02] Sarah Jack: Garlick was accused of bewitching Elizabeth Howell to death. Howell was the daughter of prominent citizen Lion Gardiner and the wife of Arthur Howell, whose father was the leading citizen of Southhampton.
[00:40:13] Josh Hutchinson: Garlick was also accused of killing a man, an African American child, two infants, and some piglets.
[00:40:22] Sarah Jack: Further, one Goody Edwards claimed Garlick had caused her daughter's breast milk to dry up.
[00:40:28] Josh Hutchinson: Garlick was also accused of bewitching an ox and a sow.
[00:40:31] Sarah Jack: It's so many wild accusations. That's so many accusations. It reminds me of Rebecca Nurse.
[00:40:39] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. All of the Salem people, it was just neighbors coming in saying, "oh, we, you know, disagreed about this or that, and then she railed at me, and then the next day my horse fell over."
[00:40:51] Sarah Jack: A Goodwife Hand claimed that when she learned of her sow's affliction neighbors burned its tail, upon which Elizabeth Garlick came in.
[00:40:59] Josh Hutchinson: This is significant, because it was believed, and we see this in several witch trials, and we'd covered it in a previous episode, that burning a bewitched object returned the curse to the witch.
[00:41:17] Elizabeth Garlick was acquitted, but her husband had to post 30 pounds bond for his wife's good behavior and to appear at the next court session in Easthampton.
[00:41:29] Sarah Jack: Governor Winthrop Jr. wrote to Easthampton to tell the people there to "carry neighborly and peaceably without just offense to Joshua Garlick and his wife." He also told the Garlicks to do the same toward the others in town.
[00:41:41] Josh Hutchinson: The Garlicks lived to old age. The town record of Goodman Garlick's death in 1700, estimated his age at about a hundred years.
[00:41:49] Sarah Jack: Elizabeth's death is not recorded, but a later estimate says one of the Garlicks lived to be 105 and the other 110. Demos estimates these figures were exaggerated by a decade.
[00:42:00] Next, an unknown resident of Saybrook was accused of witchcraft.
[00:42:05] Josh Hutchinson: Court record states, "Mr. Wyllys is requested to go down to Saybrook to assist the major in examining the suspicions about witchery and to act therein as may be requisite. June 15th, 1659."
[00:42:21] Sarah Jack: The major mentioned here was John Mason, a leading figure in Connecticut Colony's early history.
[00:42:28] Josh Hutchinson: Mr. Wyllys was Samuel Wyllys, who left behind a collection of documents known as the Wyllys Papers.
[00:42:35] Sarah Jack: These papers do include records of witch trials but do not include this incident.
[00:42:40] Josh Hutchinson: The person or persons suspected of witchery are unnamed in the record that we do have, and no indictment exists from this time period to show that the case ever reached a grand jury or a trial jury.
[00:42:53] Margaret and Nicholas Jennings of Saybrook were the next couple to be accused of witchcraft.
[00:42:59] Sarah Jack: So it is interesting that the unknown Saybrook was before a known Saybrook.
[00:43:04] Josh Hutchinson: But there's a two year gap. So I've seen some writers tie the two incidents together and say that Margaret and Nicholas Jennings were suspected in 1659 and indicted in 1661, but again, you're missing a link to say that the 1661 case had to do with the 1659 suspicions of witchery.
[00:43:33] Sarah Jack: But in any case, there were suspicions going on in the community there.
[00:43:38] Josh Hutchinson: There were. Something was going on and people were suspicious at the time of witchcraft.
[00:43:44] Sarah Jack: In 1643, they were convicted for running away from indentured servitude, theft, and fornication, whipped and ordered by the court to marry each other.
[00:43:53] Margaret and Nicholas were indicted for suspected witchcraft on September 5th, 1661.
[00:43:59] Josh Hutchinson: They were accused of bewitching to death the wife of Reinold Marvin and the child of Baalshassar de Wolfe.
[00:44:07] Sarah Jack: They were acquitted on October 9th, 1661.
[00:44:11] Josh Hutchinson: Quote, "respecting Nicholas Jennings the jury return that the major part find him guilty of the indictment. The rest strongly suspect it that he is guilty."
[00:44:22] Sarah Jack: Quote, "respecting Margaret Jennings the jury return that some of them find her guilty the rest strongly suspect her to be guilty of the indictment."
[00:44:31] Josh Hutchinson: But because the jury did not agree in full on either indictment, the couple were released from jail and left the colony.
[00:44:43] Sarah Jack: It's interesting to me that there could be like some, she's guilty and others strongly suspect. It relates to the seven indicators of someone being a witch, and then after that there were things that strongly caused suspicion but don't necessarily prove. It's interesting me that there's this gray area like that.
[00:45:08] Josh Hutchinson: There's a difference between suspicion and evidence. There are things that lead you to question a suspect. And then there are things that lead you to indict the suspect. And then there are stronger things needed to convict the suspect. And this is a sign, I think also of the changing times, possibly because of Winthrop's influence in the area. Between 1655 and 1661, no one's convicted.
[00:45:44] You start having these suspicions, and they're saying that there isn't quite enough evidence here, where before it was a slam dunk for the prosecution. Seven of the first seven people in Connecticut Colony, at least, were convicted. So they had a perfect record going for a while.
[00:46:08] And now Mary Bingham is here with Minute With Mary.
[00:46:13] Mary Bingham: I cannot comprehend the intense anxiety I would experience if someone falsely accused me of a crime I did not commit. Then to realize if I were found guilty, I could be executed. This was a painful reality of three of my ancestors in 1692, Susannah Martin, Sarah Wilds, and Mary Esty. From the time they were arrested at their homes, their journey became a living hell. After intense interrogation from the magistrates at the meeting house, coupled with noisy bystanders, they faced screaming accusers. Their accusers stated out loud that the specters of my ancestors and their familiars were allegedly flying about the room.
[00:47:03] Once the interrogation was over for each woman, they traveled by cart to the jail, which was small and overcrowded. Besides humans, other roommates would be lice, mice, rats, and other vermin. The stench of sickness fills the dark interior where all of the accused for witchcraft were shackled. Puritans believe the shackles prevented the specters of the accused for witchcraft to go forth from their personal bodies to afflict harm on other people.
[00:47:36] Then came the days of the execution. About one week after the guilty verdict was handed down for each woman, my ancestors would've been placed on a cart and traveled with the high sheriff, George Corwin, to Proctor's Ledge. The streets were lined with people, as the cart traveled the long mile from the jail to the execution site, which included an incline to the final destination. How my grandmothers remain steadfast to the truth of their innocence to the end as they faced the cruelest form of death continues to be an inspiration to me. Thank you.
[00:48:17] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:48:19] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[00:48:22] Sarah Jack: Awareness of the violent modern witch hunts against alleged witches is increasing across the world. International media, organizations, governments, and individuals want it to stop and are taking action and are educating about it. The United Nations Human Rights Council is acknowledging the crisis and urging additional efforts by affected states and by all stakeholders.
[00:48:44] We are all stakeholders in efforts to stop these witch attacks and abuse crimes against women and children. When you see it in the news, read about it and share it. Educate yourself and others. We have links in our show notes to a new YouTube documentary called "Why Witch Hunts are Not Just a Dark Chapter from the Past" with journalist Karin Helmstaedt featuring important interviews with several experts, including Advocacy for Alleged Witches advocate, Dr. Leo Igwe. Witches of Scotland advocate, Dr. Zoe Venditozzi, modern attack victims, and witch trial historians. Please see the show description for the link to watch it.
[00:49:18] Historically, people have been blamed for using witchcraft to manipulate weather to cause harm. King James VI of Scotland is infamously known to have done this. This mentality persists to this day. This week, at least two reports of witch attacks related to blaming a person for weather-related misfortune have been reported. One example is the misfortune of lightning strikes. The Nigeria Lightning Safety and Research Center reported that two innocent lives were taken due to false accusations of causing lightning strikes. I'm sorry to report that enraged youths buried the accused alive, and they perished. The Nigeria Lightning Safety and Research Center states, quote, " as a lightning safety organization, we condemn the tragic event and urge everyone to take lightning safety seriously." Thank you, Nigeria Lightning Safety and Research Center for standing with the victims and for urgently educating about the science of lightning and effectuating crucial safety education. Links to news articles reporting these weather-blaming circumstances are in the show description.
[00:50:16] Next month, the Salem, Massachusetts area and Hartford and Farmington, Connecticut are getting a rare visit from Dr. Leo Igwe, director of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches nonprofit organization. It is an incredible honor for us to organize a week of speaking engagements during his May speaking tour in the United States and to accompany him as he speaks in places of historical significance to early American colony witch trial history.
[00:50:38] Witch persecutions and trials are ongoing incidents in Africa and on other continents, reportedly occurring in at least 60 nations around the world. Witchcraft accusation is still a form of death sentence. Across continents, thousands, mainly women and elderly persons are accused, tried, attacked, killed, imprisoned, or banished every year. You can follow Dr. Leo Igwe on Twitter @leoigwe to see how he's advocating on the ground in the victim communities in real time as these individuals are experiencing being accused and hunted.
[00:51:07] This first event at the Salem Witch Museum is virtual, but Dr. Igwe will be with us in Salem touring the historic sites, guided by a local seasoned in the history, Mary Bingham. Tuesday, May 16 is your chance to experience a very special evening of in-person conversation with Leo at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers. Please see the Facebook event for details. Isn't this a great week? Make sure you mark your calendars.
[00:51:29] Next, you can en enjoy an in-person speaking event with Dr. Igwe at Central Connecticut State University on Wednesday, May 17th at 6:00 PM. While in the Hartford area, Leo will be touring known witch trial historic sites with author Beth Caruso. On Thursday afternoon, May 18th, Leo will be presenting at the Stanley-Whitman House living history center in Farmington, Connecticut. Look for Facebook events for all these occasions posted by our social media.
[00:51:53] Would you like to know more about Leo? You are in luck, because we have a great podcast episode for you to listen to. For more info on Leo, listen to the episode "Witchcraft Accusations in Nigeria with Dr. Leo Igwe." Come hear Leo. Invite your friends and family. See you there.
[00:52:08] Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop or merch from our Zazzle shop. Our links are in the show description.
[00:52:16] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:52:20] What did you learn today, Sarah?
[00:52:23] Sarah Jack: Looking at the case of Palmer, it's just another reminder that this was ongoing. It was always ongoing, specifically for some individuals, but just that the court was always hearing these accusations of witchcraft. It takes away from the excuse of hysteria.
[00:52:44] Josh Hutchinson: That's a wonderful point that people had these long running suspicions of particular neighbors. It wasn't all in a moment of panic. There was a whole chain of events. And when we talked to Malcolm Gaskill in episode 5, he talked about how there was often a decades long history of suspicion before anybody actually went to the court. There was just one last thing that pushed things to that point, that took it into a legal process rather than an informal just suspicion, gossip among neighbors.
[00:53:30] There's also the fact that the suspicion would follow a person, even when they moved to a different colony, that neighbors there had presumably heard about her past word of mouth or through letters. " Hey, this Palmer family just moved here." And somebody's " oh, really? Them? She's a witch."
[00:53:54] So there's that.
[00:53:56] Sarah Jack: Yeah. And I wonder how the people that were fearing the witches, like what was that like for them seeing these women walking around free that they knew were witches?
[00:54:10] Josh Hutchinson: Exactly. Gaskill was talking about as a practical matter, you would try to avoid those people and not cross them.
[00:54:19] Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:54:23] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:54:25] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:54:28] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:54:31] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[00:54:34] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:54:39] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

April 26, 2023

Connecticut Witch Trial Victim Exoneration Testimony with William and Jennifer Schloat

The Colonial History of Hartford, by Rev. William DeLoss Love

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Show Notes

Meet fourth grade student William and his mother Jennifer Schloat, Connecticut residents and Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project Members. William testified at the Joint Committee on Judiciary’s hearing on Bill 34 “Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut” on March 1, 2023. Hear William’s apropos call to action through his hearing testimony. Reflect on why this young generation is ready to confront historical wrongs. Jennifer, a middle school Literature and ELA teacher, reads her inspiring hearing testimony and discusses recognizing how people from the past suffered due to unfair societal punishments, like witch trials, will move our society toward furthering social justice for all. You will also hear some of the other hearing testimonies read by other project members who testified at the March 1, 2023 hearing. We think you will be stirred to take additional action in supporting this movement to bring justice to the unjustly convicted accused witches of Colonial Connecticut. Please use the link below to write to legislators asking them to vote yes.

Links

Ancient Elm Holds Memory of Witch Hangings, Hartford Courant May 11, 1930

March 29,, 2023 Discussion Panel with State Representative Jane Garibay on Bill HJ #34, A Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.

Press Conference on Legislative Bill H.J. No. 34, March 8, 2023

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Transcript

[00:00:00]
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:25] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:26] Josh Hutchinson: Today's guests are a fourth grade student who testified before the Connecticut General Assembly Judiciary Committee about the Connecticut witch trial exoneration resolution and his mother. William and Jennifer Schloat.
[00:00:44] Sarah Jack: March 1 sure seems like it was so long ago.
[00:00:49] Josh Hutchinson: It really does, and it was seven weeks ago. And so much has happened since then.
[00:00:59] Sarah Jack: So much has happened, but talking about it, hearing Jennifer speak about the experience made it then seem like it was yesterday.
[00:01:07] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. Brought all those memories right back fresh to mind.
[00:01:13] Sarah Jack: I'm so happy that we captured this conversation because it is powerful.
[00:01:18] Josh Hutchinson: It truly is. Jennifer is an inspirational speaker, and so is her young son, William. In March, we visited Connecticut to advocate for House Joint Resolution 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.
[00:01:36] Sarah Jack: I was able to speak to the judiciary committee about the importance of exonerating Connecticut's witch trial victims.
[00:01:43] Josh Hutchinson: Many other people also spoke on behalf of the witch trial victims.
[00:01:48] Sarah Jack: And there are wonderful, submitted written testimonies that are available online. Please take the time to read those. We will have the link to that in our show notes.
[00:02:00] Josh Hutchinson: The testimony came in from all over Connecticut and beyond.
[00:02:06] The resolution has since been passed by the Judiciary Committee.
[00:02:11] Sarah Jack: It has also cleared the Legislative Commissioner's Office, the Office of Financial Analysis, and the Office of Legislative Research.
[00:02:20] Josh Hutchinson: The Office of Financial Analysis declared that there is no fiscal impact, as this is a resolution and does not cost the state money.
[00:02:33] Most recently the resolution was added to the House calendar.
[00:02:38] Sarah Jack: And we hope to see it reach the Senate calendar next.
[00:02:43] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we're anticipating a vote any week now, any day now. While in Connecticut, Sarah and I finally met the other members of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project in person, including Mary Bingham, Beth Caruso, Tony Griego, Dr. Kathy Hermes, Representative Jane Garibay, Senator Saud Anwar, Andy Verzosa, the Schloats, Sue Bailey, Catherine, and Christina Carmon.
[00:03:16] Sarah Jack: We had already been working together for a long time, and so it was like a reunion more than an introduction.
[00:03:26] Josh Hutchinson: We've been on this since May 26, 2022, Sarah and I have. Others have been involved much longer. Tony's been involved since back in 2005, and it was a great privilege and honor to meet him and Beth Caruso, who joined his cause in 2016. And so many other people have been involved in the project, and new people came in to testify at the judiciary hearing.
[00:04:00] Sarah Jack: Yeah. The committee was given so much great testimony, full of history and reasons to be looking at exoneration for accused witches.
[00:04:16] Josh Hutchinson: And we want to thank everybody who submitted written testimony or came in to speak in person.
[00:04:25] Sarah Jack: I believe if you're listening and you're just not sure, you will hear a reason from William or Jennifer that convinces you today.
[00:04:36] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, so please vote yes on HJ 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.
[00:04:49] Sarah Jack: We would like to introduce our guest, William and Jennifer Schloat. Jennifer studied United States history as an undergraduate at SUNY Purchase College. She studied history on the graduate level at Central Connecticut State University. She worked in the education departments at several history museums, including the John Jay Homestead State historic site in Katonah, New York, and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Jennifer has also worked as a middle school social studies teacher. For the past seven years, Jennifer has been the literature and English Language Arts teacher for the middle school students at the St. Gabriel School in Windsor, Connecticut.
[00:05:27] Josh Hutchinson: William Schloat has attended St. Gabriel School in Windsor, Connecticut and is currently in the fourth grade. His interests include US history, geography, science, and math.
[00:05:41] William Schloat: I am William Schloat from Avon, Connecticut. I am nine years old, and I am a student at St. Gabriel School in Windsor. I am here to ask you to vote yes on HJ number 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.
[00:06:02] I believe that we should help one another, especially people who are being persecuted. We should protect people who do not have the power to defend themselves. If I had a time machine, I would travel back to Hartford in the 1600s to help the people who were being accused of witchcraft. I would especially try to rescue the young children whose mothers were being called witches.
[00:06:27] Now, I will tell you just about five of the many children who became orphans when powerful people in Connecticut executed their mothers. Let us take a few minutes to imagine how terrifying it must have been for those children to hear people say that their mothers were witches.
[00:06:46] In 1648 in Hartford, a baby boy named Benjamin Newton was born in jail. His mother, Mary Johnson, was imprisoned, waiting to be executed for witchcraft. Soon after he was born, baby Benjamin became an orphan when his mother was taken away to be hanged. The colony of Connecticut gave newborn Benjamin to Nathaniel Rescew, the son of the prison keeper. Nathaniel was paid 15 pounds to take care of baby Benjamin. 15 pounds in 1648 is about equal to $3,000 in today's money. When young Benjamin was old enough to start doing work, he became an indentured servant to the prison keeper's son. When Benjamin was 21 years old, he was finally free from being kept as a servant.
[00:07:38] In 1663 in Farmington, Connecticut, the four young children of Mary Barnes experienced the destruction of their family life. The youngest daughter, Hannah Barnes, was six years old when her mother was taken away to Hartford to be hanged. Just a few weeks later, their father, Thomas Barnes, decided to get married again, this time to the daughter of a neighbor. When Thomas made this decision, he also agreed to send two of his four grieving children away. He sent his 12 year old daughter, Sarah, and his 11-year-old son, Joseph, to work as servants in the home of someone else. Sadly, his youngest child, Hannah, died at age seven, less than a year after her mother was executed.
[00:08:27] These poor children did not have any control over the frightening and unjust things that were happening to them. As a proud citizen of the state of Connecticut and the United States of America, I hope that in 2023 I have more power than those abused children had in colonial Connecticut. Thank you for listening.
[00:08:47] Sarah Jack: William, what was surprising about the experience when you were at the hearing?
[00:08:55] William Schloat: I would say the most surprising thing out of all the surprising things was that News Channel Eight and NBC Connecticut quietly whispered to me and my mother, like they whispered to us to come outside, and they interviewed both of us. That was really surprising. I would say that was like the most surprising thing and one of the only surprising things.
[00:09:24] Sarah Jack: Do you remember what you said to them?
[00:09:27] William Schloat: I remember when Kathryn Hauser from News Channel Eight asked me, like, why are you doing this? I said my teacher had recently told me, she is my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Schuler, had told me a Martin Luther King quote. We were like learning about Martin Luther King. And I said, "as Martin Luther King said, 'injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'"
[00:09:53] Jennifer Schloat: So I think we both thought that we might be interviewed by the press afterwards. But William and I were both surprised, as William mentioned, that it was during the hearings they motioned for him to come out and they, all, the members of the press were very nice, and they expressed that they were surprised that someone William's age, a nine-year-old, had taken an interest in this and was there.
[00:10:19] And so we kind of anticipated that he might talk to the press afterwards, but they seemed to be very interested in his testimony. And then he was on both of the local news channels that night. William, we saw you on News Channel Eight.
[00:10:34] William Schloat: We had to keep flipping back and forth and we did it at the, just the right time because, and they were both gonna talk about it at the same time, so we just flipped back and forth.
[00:10:46] Jennifer Schloat: We don't always watch the evening news. We're more readers, but we did as William said. We went on to News Channel Eight. We went on to NBC Connecticut, and the footage of all of the testimony was just a few minutes apart. And William made it onto both spots. And I think it really, it resonated with people that someone his age thought this was important. So I'm glad he, I'm glad he was willing to do it, that he wanted to do it.
[00:11:12] Josh Hutchinson: Why is it important to acknowledge the suffering of the families of the victims?
[00:11:19] William Schloat: So I think it's important, because it's, they suffered, too. They carried on the pain with them. Like all the kids might have like had their reputation ruined, because their mothers were accused of witchcraft. So it was like the kids were upset. And they were also like, oh no, everyone probably doesn't like me. It was probably like a hard time for them dealing to know that people didn't like their mothers, and they probably then changed their opinion on them. So it was like we should acknowledge them, and we should also be like, we shouldn't feel bad for just those. We should feel bad for those, cuz they had to live a similar suffering.
[00:11:59] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, William, for talking to us today. And now Jennifer Schloat will read the testimony she presented to the joint committee on judiciary.
[00:12:11] Jennifer Schloat: I am Jennifer Lawton Schloat. I live in Avon with my husband, my daughter, and my son. For seven years, I've been a middle school teacher and ELA teacher. And before that, I taught US history. And before that, I spent two decades working at various history museums in Massachusetts and New York. It's clear to me that the study of history is essential in a participatory democracy.
[00:12:38] There's much wisdom to be gained in the careful examination of our nation's past, including the colonial era prior to 1776. It's also clear to me that words are very powerful. We are fortunate that many of the written legal records of colonial Connecticut have been preserved.
[00:12:58] My training as a student of history illuminates every aspect of my life, including my current work as a teacher of literature. Many of us think about our colonial past each year, especially at Thanksgiving. After that November weekend of feasting, I always return to my middle school classroom aware that my students will be distracted and possibly anxious during the holiday season. With that in mind, I reserve those weeks of school in December as a special time with my students to explore "A Christmas Carol," Charles Dickens' perpetually relevant masterpiece.
[00:13:37] I mentioned this now because of the way that story ends. After Ebenezer Scrooge's journey through time, he has transformed and vows to honor the spirits of the past, the present, and the future. That story of the mutually redeeming friendship of Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley suggests that a happy and fulfilled life is possible, if we give equal and constant attention to the people of the past, the people of the present, and the people of the future. So I think we can try to achieve that in our own lives.
[00:14:11] It is tempting to dismiss what happened here in Connecticut in the 17th century as the distant past and not relevant to our present and future. We may be afraid to associate ourselves with the injustices of the Connecticut Witch Panic, the shameful persecutions, and the terrorizing executions. Nevertheless, I know that we can bravely face what happened here. Let's allow our knowledge of the long dead magistrates of colonial Connecticut to haunt us long enough so that we are able to give voice to deep remorse on their behalf. We can do this for their victims and for the children of their victims.
[00:14:51] In a way, all of us here are descendants of both the wrongfully executed, quote, "witches," unquote, and the people who persecuted them. We are heirs to their terrible mistakes, their traumas, their triumphs, and their physical space. Let us acknowledge the injustice and then grieve the lives lost to, and the lives destroyed by, the Connecticut Witch Panic.
[00:15:15] We, the living, can continue the unfinished work of the good people of the past and be inspired by the great moments in our history when the American ideals of equality and inalienable human rights prevailed over ignorance and hatred.
[00:15:30] Your work here in the Connecticut legislature is seen by the students of today. It will also be preserved for future generations. When they look back, let them see that you stood against injustice in exonerating the colonial people who were unjustly labeled as witches. Therefore, I ask you to vote yes on HJ Number 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.
[00:15:58] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Jennifer, for your testimony. Now, can you tell us about your experience with the hearing?
[00:16:04] Jennifer Schloat: It's really an interesting process to have to try to put everything you wanna say in three minutes. And it took me a while just to think about that, because so many powerful speakers I already knew had testimony prepared. And so that's when I came to the decision that I should speak as a literature teacher.
[00:16:25] That's what I'm currently doing. I've also taught history. My teacher certification is for history, but I work at a Catholic school, and they let, they're a little more permissive in what they let a person teach. And so I am qualified to teach literature, as well, even though my certification is history, and the two are intermingled in so many ways.
[00:16:49] And I've strongly feel that there's so much wisdom to be gained by studying both things, by studying all kinds of literature and by studying all areas of history. And so that's why I brought up something that was fictional. Charles Dickens was basing his work on terrible things that he saw happening in the middle of the 19th century in London with poverty-stricken people not being recognized in the way they should be or cared for. And by the end of the story, he's showing that if you care about people in the past, the present and the future, and your own, past, present and future, you're a happier person for it.
[00:17:30] We should look at it this way, as well, we should worry about and be concerned about and interested in our own past, our parents past, our great grandparents past, our past as a state and the time before we were state. We were still the entity that we now call the state of Connecticut. It was the colony of Connecticut. And I feel if we turn our backs on that, we're missing out on a lot of potential wisdom that could be gained.
[00:18:01] And I'm surprised that there were a few legislators who seem so resistant to getting involved with this. It's really perplexing. I wish I could have asked them questions. For example, do they celebrate people of the past that they admire, right? I've lived in New York or New England my whole life, so I've lived in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and I always hear local political leaders celebrating our colonial ancestors' Thanksgiving.
[00:18:33] And that's lovely. That's fine. There's plenty there that's positive. If we're allowed to do that, then we have to also give weight to the mistakes and even the really egregious ones, even the really shameful things that not everyone, but some of these people did. So there needs to be some balance.
[00:18:54] It's very dangerous when history becomes something that's only used selectively, don't you think? There's that old saying that the victors, usually the victors in war, are the ones who control history. They write history. They determine what's gonna make it into a textbook. And of course that's true. And that's something we have to be wary of. And I guess it's the same thing with the victors in a legal trial, right? So the colonial magistrates clearly got their way when they executed these people, when these people were found guilty of some strange thing that clearly they couldn't have done.
[00:19:31] And so somehow it's their statues that are so often on display, and it's because it's shameful, I think a lot of the history has just been ignored and not made it into the history books. And so we're not looking at it, because the history is very often controlled by the people who are victorious.
[00:19:52] We know better than that now. We know that we have to look at everyone's history. So I think that these people should be proud to associate themselves with something where we're showing an acknowledgement that we've progressed as a people.
[00:20:08] And so I, if I were a member of the legislature, and I don't think political party has anything to do with any of this, I think that if I were a member of the legislature, I'd be eager to learn from the local historians, eager to hear from the descendants, excited that people are taking an interest in colonial Connecticut history, excited that people are coming to them offering them this wonderful opportunity, and just do it. So it's good, positive, and uplifting publicity for them that they're making themselves part of this movement for justice.
[00:20:43] It's very surprising that anyone would be hesitant. So I wanna do whatever I can to help encourage them to see that there's only good that can come from this. I can't see how anyone could see any harm in this. It's very surprising to me that anyone resisted it. Did you feel that way, Sarah, that day? I was taken aback. Were you taken aback when some of the legislators were pushing back against us like?
[00:21:09] Sarah Jack: Yes. I was surprised. It was a really new experience for me. So I'd never gone to testify for a bill. I hadn't spent a lot of time listening to other people do so. So I was so surprised at not just the pushback, but the lack of interest in what the testimonies were saying, that some of the politicians weren't interested in the content of the speech or what is it they're telling me? And as you saw, the questions didn't relate to what was being spoken to . It took my breath away. It really did. And even I was one of the very last who testified for HJ 34, and I still was surprised when they confronted me with such silly comments and didn't want to let me say what I was saying. And I was wondering, did William pick up on it? Did he pick up on the negativity?
[00:22:13] Jennifer Schloat: Yes, he did. And that was the one area that I thought I didn't prepare him properly for, cuz I wasn't anticipating that this was gonna be as negative as some of them made it. So he did say to me afterwards, he because I think of, I'm trying to remember the nice lady's name. The first person who testified in support of the exoneration, I forget her name, but she was attacked right away. And it was like they were belittling it.
[00:22:42] And so William was worried at that point. He was writing to me on a little notepad, saying, "are they gonna do that to me?" And I said, "they might." And they didn't. They were very polite to William, but he was taken aback that there would be pushback on this.
[00:23:00] One of the things, the vibes that I picked up on, and it's continuing to happen after the hearings, is that some people are equating this with fictitious witches. Now every area of life has a fictional version of it, right? They're fictitious stories about senators, they're fictitious stories about anyone, any kind, any category of person.
[00:23:26] But I guess to some people who don't study colonial history or European history from way before then, some people aren't aware, as I would hope they would be, that this was a real thing. I know that most people have at least heard of Salem, and that was so dramatic by the large number of people being executed and found guilty over a short period of time, but I would hope that people would've been taught in history class that wasn't the first incident of that.
[00:23:56] Anyway, there were people at the hearings. One of the senators brought up a book, The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I dunno if you've read it. I've read it. And Elizabeth George Speare wrote it in the middle of the 20th century, and it won all sorts of awards. And it's a lovely book, and I've even read it with some of my middle schoolers over the years. But when we've done that, I've brought in experts, including Beth Caruso, our local expert on Alice Young of Windsor to, from the beginning, give them the real history of witchcraft persecutions in Connecticut and compare it to what the book says.
[00:24:36] The book takes place in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Nobody gets executed in it. There is intolerance. There is ignorance shown in the book, and there's persecution of an old woman who's a Quaker, and does talk about her having been branded earlier, before the start of the story. We know that she and her husband were mistreated by the Puritans and were branded, because they were Quakers and not Puritans.
[00:25:05] It's written for children, maybe between fourth grade and eighth grade. And it's a lovely book, but it doesn't really show the horrifying truths of what really happened here in Connecticut. I was surprised that I kept hearing that book brought up. Then after the hearings.
[00:25:25] So the hearings were March 1st, right?
[00:25:27] So it was about, I'm trying to remember the exact date, but it was sometime later in March, a very well written article came out in the Hartford Courant, in the opinion section. I don't know if you've read it. It was written by a man named Adam Daniels. I have not had an opportunity to speak to him directly yet, but he lives in our area, and he wrote a very eloquent letter reacting to our hearing, and specifically he talks about my son's testimony. Without saying William's name, he talks about thing that William said about having a time machine.
[00:26:03] And Adam Daniels' point was that there are people alive today who are in prison who shouldn't be there, and if we're gonna talk about exonerating people, we should be talking about those people instead. And anyway, when we read the article, on the one hand, we agreed with Adam Daniels about the injustices that he was talking about. And we felt very strongly in solidarity with him, but we were upset because, of course, he hadn't had an opportunity to speak to me or to William or to the rest of us, and there was a misunderstanding. He didn't know that we care about all of these issues. And I think very importantly, and this is not Adam Daniel's fault, I think it's a whole systemic problem. I don't think that he saw a connection between what happened to these people in colonial Connecticut and what's happening today to all sorts of people all over the world, including here in America.
[00:27:10] I think that exonerating anyone who has been unjustly punished, whether there's someone from the past or someone in the present, I think it's all interrelated. And I think William, by quoting Dr. King, showed that. Dr. King has passed down to us his wisdom, and, thankfully, William's teacher explained it beautifully to my son, and William immediately saw the connection. He knows that even though this happened in the 1600s, it happened here. It happened in Connecticut. It was wrong, and if we are willing to live up to that, to acknowledge that, and to say this was wrong, we wanna clear the good names of these people. Then that will set a good precedent.
[00:27:57] I will go back and testify at any hearing and anything that William wants to testify to and write articles about people currently today who need to be defended. But it's all interconnected, and I don't think we have to choose to only focus on one thing. And that's what, unfortunately, Adam Daniels didn't realize is that William cares about all these things.
[00:28:22] They didn't question William too much at the hearing. So no one in the press, none of the legislators asked William, is this the most important thing or the only important thing in your life? Or if you hypothetically did have a time machine, is this the only thing you would do with your time machine?
[00:28:39] And obviously it's not. It's one of the important things that he would want to do. I think that was a surprise to me is that some people are belittling this issue because it happened hundreds of years ago, and they don't feel the connection to the past. And I think that's our fault as a society, and as a teacher I'm fighting that all the time. I think that we need to be in touch with our past and to see that it's connected to our present.
[00:29:09] But yeah, I couldn't believe the pushback, and I love talking about works of literature and how they're connected to reality, but I think they were using literature against us, people bringing up Harry Potter and the Witch Blackbird Pond and not realizing our point, and I think that point is that this had nothing to do with that more positive, fictional world of witchcraft and people having magical powers and stuff. I think it's pretty clear from the historical record these were not people, these 11 people who were killed in Connecticut, they weren't going around saying that they were witches and that they were casting magical spells on people. It's not connected to that. So yeah, I was surprised. Have you heard from any of the legislators, cuz I got a few nice emails from the ones who supported us. Did you get any feedback from them? Sarah, have you heard from anyone?
[00:30:10] Sarah Jack: I haven't heard from anybody specifically. There are legislators that are sharing our podcast posts and our collaboration project posts on social media.
[00:30:24] Jennifer Schloat: Good. Yeah, cuz I do wanna acknowledge there are those who immediately saw the importance of what we were doing and have been very supportive. And I guess because William was a pleasant surprise to them, I did get a number of positive emails from the legislators, who were happy that he testified. And I was very pleased to see that many of our Connecticut representatives supported a nine-year-old being there to testify.
[00:30:55] There were even a few people who, not in the legislator, but just people at work and people I know in my personal life, who said, "oh wow. They let him testify." And that was interesting to me, cuz I hadn't really thought about it ahead of time. Is there an age restriction? I do watch a lot of government news. And ever since I was like a teenager, I've been really into watching C-Span and seeing the US House of Representatives and the US Senate and their hearings. And I have seen children testify in all sorts of hearings. So I guess I just assumed that children did this all the time. So I wasn't surprised that he was allowed to, but then I realized, okay, maybe this isn't as typical as I had hoped it was. And I'm so happy that the people responded positively to that. I hope that maybe it encourages more young people to avail themselves of this opportunity, so that they can have a voice.
[00:32:01] Josh Hutchinson: They might have been, as I was, just surprised by how mature his testimony was and how well he spoke it. And for a nine year old, you must be very proud of him. And what he said was brilliant.
[00:32:17] Jennifer Schloat: Yeah. I work with sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, so my youngest students are about two years older than William, and it's just the same as with adults. Some of my students are like a lot of adults. They are very reluctant to speak in public. It's an acquired skill, and not everyone's comfortable with it. And then I have a lot of students who jump at the opportunity to get up and to a podium or stand at a microphone and speak.
[00:32:48] And because I'm an ELA teacher, part of my job is to encourage everyone to do this. And the number one thing I've learned from teaching middle school students to write speeches and deliver speeches and then my work earlier in my adult life. When I was working at museums, one of my jobs was to train tour guides. So I had to train people of all ages how to give a tour of a museum. There are two things. One is the more knowledge you have about the topic that you're speaking about, the more comfortable you will be as a speaker. And secondly, and this is I think very important with William, is if you believe in the cause, if you have a strong, positive conviction that what you're doing is important or necessary and good, then the eloquence will flow from that. So even more important than practicing ahead of time is just like knowing your subject well before you start speaking.
[00:33:52] That's one, and two is to believe in what you're saying. So I think that's where I came up with the idea of William should testify is he naturally was just taking an interest in this whole project. When I was doing a little bit more research on it, he was saying, "what are you researching, Mom?" And I was explaining it to him, and he, in particular, was concerned about the fact that these women, a lot of the women and the men who were executed had young children. And that's when I realized, okay, someone really needs to hone in on that area of this, and then it became clear to me that maybe he'd be the best person to talk about it.
[00:34:35] And then another young person who spoke at the hearings, Catherine Carmon, she's a ninth grader now, but she was my student for three years in middle school. And she was one of the good, excellent speakers amongst my students. And she always gravitated to topics in middle school that had to do with women's rights and with combating misogyny in all areas of our lives.
[00:35:02] And when I was listening to Representative Garibay talk about this issue, when I was talking about all of this to my friend Beth Caruso, and they were telling me about the piece of this, the misogyny piece, I thought, oh my goodness, I know a young lady who will, who'd want to know about this. I got Catherine Carmon and Beth Caruso together, and immediately Beth Caruso said, "oh, this is a young woman who would be a very powerful speaker." And so I was delighted that she had a chance to speak, as well. It should happen more than it does, though.
[00:35:37] Sarah Jack: Yeah, and I was thinking the surprise that some observers had at the students having something to say about the matter. It's not just you wanted to give William an experience at a hearing, and you gave him some information to say. He had something to speak to, and this particular bill is something that affects all the generations.
[00:36:04] Jennifer Schloat: So if for example, he knows, William knows that today there are people who are incarcerated, lots of people, our country incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world. He hears me talk about this cause I'm very into social justice, and he knows that some of these people have children, and we've talked about this, so he does connect it to today. And I think he's onto a very important truth when he says these people were executed and that, in and of itself, is terrorizing, and, quite frankly, barbaric, but their children had the rest of their lives ahead of them. And what ongoing impact did this have? I have all these questions, and William and I have been discussing the questions. Were these children forbidden to ever mention their mother's names again? Do we know?
[00:37:02] The examples that William shared, the children of Mary Barnes and the one child of Mary Johnson, it seems like their whole social status changed dramatically as soon as their mothers were imprisoned and then executed, in that they had to go be indentured servants. So that right there is changing maybe the rest of their lives, what's gonna happen to them going forward.
[00:37:28] But psychologically what did this do to these kids? I've known mothers who've become sick. I've had friends who've battled cancer, for example, and these friends of mine who have had health scares, when they have young children, that's like the first and biggest worry for them is, "oh my goodness, I have to stay healthy. I have to stay alive. I have to be here, because I have young children that I have a responsibility towards." So that's where my mind goes.
[00:38:01] I have two children. I can't even imagine the fear and the distress, not for myself, but for the children that I'm leaving behind. It doesn't sound like, at least the stories that we were able to find some evidence on, it doesn't sound like there was much concern about the children. It sounds like it just immediately wrecked the children's lives.
[00:38:24] Yeah, I think this is a hugely important issue, and it's not the only time and the only place in history where it happened. When someone's parents are the victims of any kind of hatred or persecution, then the children are impacted, as well.
[00:38:40] And wasn't Alice Young's daughter? Yeah, Beth Caruso taught me about this, that the daughter of Alice Young went on to be accused of witchcraft herself. She wasn't executed, but she, by being the daughter of an executed witch, she then had the same thing brought against her. So I think it's very relevant, and I'm thrilled that we have some young people who are learning about it.
[00:39:06] Josh Hutchinson: And we've got some cases where there were three generations of people accused of witchcraft. And it's just mind-boggling how long that carried on down the generations, even into the 18th century, people being accused of witchcraft, and you're getting up to around the Revolution time, and there was a woman accused of witchcraft around the time they signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.
[00:39:37] Jennifer Schloat: Wow. I have to read about I have to read about her.
[00:39:40] Wow.
[00:39:41] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, hers was a case of mob justice, if you can call that justice. It was mob violence against her, and it was either the day of the signing or the day after, might have been.
[00:39:55] Jennifer Schloat: Wow. I will research that some more. I wanna read up on that. So yeah, vigilante so-called justice is something that isn't, in my strong opinion, because I believe in government, and that's why governments are instituted among people, so that we can have justice and human rights protected, and the whole history of vigilante justice in America is counter to everything that's in the Declaration of Independence. And we keep being reminded of this when we read later on the Gettysburg Address and, later on, Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. They all are referring back to each other and how we need governments, and we need to fulfill the promise of all people being created equal.
[00:40:41] But also that's why we have governments to protect human rights, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. And so when you have vigilante justice, which we see in the case you just mentioned and then we see with all the Jim Crow period after the Civil War, leading up to the Civil Rights Movement, which is an ongoing civil rights movement.
[00:41:04] The battle is against vigilante justice a lot of the time, mob violence, and of course then the systemic injustices written into laws. And that's part of my point with getting the exoneration done is when you have governments, you always have to be watchful that we don't permit things that are counter to our values as Americans, the sanctity and the protection of human liberty and human rights. We have to make sure that things that are against that, that are opposing that, don't creep into our laws.
[00:41:39] And there's a lot of good in the people from the colonial period and a lot of things about their laws that we should respect and admire. This thing with the witch, the part in the colonial laws where, they say, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." And the idea that could be a capital offense, that's a huge issue. That's a huge problem. And we need to acknowledge that, study it, and move on.
[00:42:09] And I don't wanna get hyper-religious here, cuz you don't have to be from any particular religion or even be part of an organized religion or believe in an afterlife to care about these things. But I am pretty sure that many of the members of the current Connecticut state government attend some kind of house of worship and identify with some major religion. And if they do, if the they are part of a church or some other religion, they probably believe in an afterlife. And if they do, if they believe that the soul continues after death, then let's think about that. Let's think about these people who are executed are watching us, right, from heaven, and the colonial magistrates are watching us. And so if that's true and if these people believe that's true, then let's help them out. Let's clear their good name, right?
[00:43:10] And if I were the magistrate, if I were the bad guy, the villain in this story, the person who had done this wrong thing and then there were people, also in Connecticut government today, I would be grateful to them for doing this for me, for exonerating the people. That's something I probably wouldn't have said during testimony, cuz they want church and state to be separated and, the theocratic system of government was part of the problem in colonial times, but, let's be realistic, a lot of people are very religious. I work in a Catholic school, so religion is part of my life, and I think it matters that we own up to our own bad things that we've done and also, when we can, express remorse for something bad that our group of people has done. So that's another thing with history.
[00:44:04] I am more comfortable apologizing for and accepting responsibility for and speaking out for things that were wrong that my group has done. So if America has done something wrong or my ancestors or my church, I think that's my first job before I go and attack some other country or some other religion or some other group of people about what they did that was wrong.
[00:44:34] We have to look at all of history. What I compare it to is if they're children on a playground and they're fighting, and they're being unkind to each other, and some are my children and some are someone else's children, as a mother, I'm gonna go to my child and tell them that they have to apologize and that they have to stop whatever the unkind thing they're doing. I'm not gonna first chastise the other person's kids. So I feel like we here in Connecticut need to take responsibility for this, and by the way, the 1600s was not that long ago. If you're a student of history, this is actually not that long ago. So the fact that it hasn't been done yet is not a reason not to do it immediately. So yeah I really hope that this is done this year, and that we can move forward.
[00:45:25] Can we talk a little bit about the possibility of us finding the location of where the executions took place, because that just happened?
[00:45:34] We found there's an elm tree that used to stand in what several earlier historical sources say was the place where some of these people were executed in Hartford. I would love it. I would love to be part of seeing that maybe some plaque or something goes up in that space. It seems like it's a commercial space now, but that shouldn't prevent us from getting something placed there.
[00:46:01] Josh Hutchinson: We're absolutely encouraging the state to have some kind of memorial. And after the exoneration is passed, that's the next step we see is there needs to be something done by the state where people, you know, descendants right now don't have any place to go to remember these people. We don't know where they're buried. There's three locations where they might have been hanged, but the Albany Avenue seems the most likely. And we definitely wanna see some tribute.
[00:46:34] Jennifer Schloat: Because I used to live in Salem, Massachusetts. I only lived there for a year when I was working at the Peabody Essex Museum, and so I did give tours that taught school children about the actual trials and everything. And so I've been to all the sites in Salem and the Salem area, and a lot of attention has been given to that history. And I would love to see something comparable develop here in Connecticut. So yeah I hope that we can get that going. That will be great. But William and I wanna go get in the car and find that spot.
[00:47:08] Yesterday, we visited the graveyard in Farmington that's on, the graveyard is land that Mary Barnes' husband, Thomas Barnes, donated to Farmington. And there's so many beautiful, fancy tombstones of so many people, and obviously none of them are people who were executed for witchcraft. And it is just heartbreaking that the husband of this woman who was executed donated land for other people to be buried. But as far as we know, she's not buried there.
[00:47:42] We were looking next door. There's a beautiful house, it's newly built, that's standing where their house apparently was. The Barnes property was adjacent to this beautiful graveyard. So we were walking around, and no one was there yesterday. So we were just trying to turn our minds back to that time period.
[00:48:03] Farmington's such a beautiful town, and it would be nice to see maybe some roads named after Mary Barnes, something, and of course they are doing a lot, the Stanley-Whitman House and the Mary Barnes Society and everything. But I'd like to see more. All of that whole area is in a beautiful part of Farmington that's mostly Miss Porter's School, which is a really a wonderful all girls high school in Farmington. And so I've been thinking also maybe some of the Ms. Porter students would take an interest in this part of a women's history in Farmington.
[00:48:40] There's a lot that we can continue doing with this. And I think there are many young people who, if they knew about it, would be just as excited to learn about it and talk about it as William and Catherine were. So I think those two are an example of, I work a lot with young children, as you know, and I think that William and Catherine, they are very good at speaking in public, but there are a lot of young people who feel as strongly as they do. Those two have a lot of poise, but I don't want anyone to think that there aren't dozens and dozens of children just like them that I've met who also care about these issues, and that's something that I think was true in colonial times.
[00:49:24] And there's a little bit of truth to this now, although things are getting better. People often assume that young people don't care about important things, and that's not true. Or, conversely, and I've had to deal with this, they think that when a young person is standing up for something that's important, they assume that some adult is manipulating them or in influencing them. And that is actually very insulting to the children and to the adults who care about them. So I think we need to be mindful of that. That's not usually the case, actually. It's not that it's impossible, but adults can be manipulated, too. Children are not the only people who can be manipulated, and children really do have minds of their own.
[00:50:12] For example, when William quoted Dr. King, I was so impressed, because even though I've studied Dr. King for decades, that quote from Dr. King had not popped immediately into my head, nor had I made that connection in any conversation with William, so when William was being interviewed by News Channel Eight and NBC Connecticut, and he quoted Dr. King, I said, "where did he get that from? I didn't give him that quote." And I asked him later and he said, "oh yeah, my school teacher, we were talking about it in February, and she was saying we have to connect all injustices, and this is what one of the things that Dr. King taught us."
[00:50:52] His teacher was just doing a good job teaching history, and he made that connection himself. Yeah, I think that the adults need to wake up and realize that the children have something to say. And I have never met a young person who finds any of this boring. If history is taught in a straightforward way with the truth being told, they do find it interesting, and everyone has their own area of history that they find particularly fascinating.
[00:51:25] I wish we could've brought more children into the hearing that day, actually. Maybe those representatives would've seen, and another thing, and I don't wanna be jaded, but they're not old enough to vote yet. So maybe, that's something that has prevented people from listening to the voices of children.
[00:51:43] Sarah Jack: But they need to be thinking about how fast time passes and terms pass and people like to be reelected.
[00:51:51] Jennifer Schloat: Yeah. In fact, William did fire off a bunch of emails after his testimony to local legislators saying, I hope you heard my testimony, not just to the people who were in the hearing room, but other members of the Connecticut legislature saying, I'm William Schloat. I testified, and he mentioned his age, and he said, but I have a 22-year-old-sister and two parents, and they all vote. He knows how it works, and so he mentioned he lives in a household with three adults that he can influence.
[00:52:25] Josh Hutchinson: He'll be voting soon enough himself, and Catherine will be voting right around the corner. So yeah, while those guys are probably still in office, she'll be able to vote.
[00:52:37] Jennifer Schloat: Exactly. When I've taught history, and even now when I'm teaching literature, some of the literature we read are speeches given by political leaders and civil rights leaders. And I've been studying with my students. Early in Dr. King's career as a civil rights leader, there was something called the Children's March. A lot of historians considered a tipping point in the civil rights history of this nation when a lot of Americans who were accustomed to seeing adults fighting for civil rights, seeing them on the news, had kind of grown maybe complacent or just weary of hearing about this, when they saw on the news, I believe it was in Selma, Alabama. When they saw children marching, and it was hundreds of children, they realized, "oh wow, they're young children," mostly African American children in this case. And they were led by Dr. King marching for their civil rights. They wanted the schools to be integrated, and they wanted to end segregation in the southern states. And a lot of northern people suddenly became interested in what was happening in the South in the early 1960s because of seeing little children involved. And so sometimes it's a wakeup call for people. Some of the most heroic people, some of the bravest people are little, young children.
[00:54:04] If a child is interested in something, and they wanna speak out about it, we have to give them that opportunity to use their voice. So yeah it's very important. A participatory democracy is something that I strongly believe in.
[00:54:20] There's something in our culture right now, and it reminds me of the 1600s in Connecticut, where people are encouraged to be quiet. Have that whole idea, and again, I think of Thanksgiving where, oh, don't talk about politics, it's rude. You're having a family gathering for Thanksgiving. Don't talk about politics. You don't wanna have an argument with someone. And that's unamerican, if you think about it, right? We shouldn't be afraid to discuss political issues. Politics shouldn't be a dirty word. It's participating in our civil life.
[00:54:56] So if more kids realized that it was a proud thing and it's a patriotic thing, and you can go and speak to your senator, you can write to her, him, you can speak at a hearing, you can attend a rally or a march, you can speak on a podcast, you can write a letter for a newspaper. If more children were encouraged to do this and it was given a positive connotation, cuz right now there's this, I think it's very false, but it's nevertheless something that some people are promoting that it's somehow impolite to talk about politics or that it's embarrassing or too divisive, then it's discouraging people. I don't feel it needs to be that way, and I hope we can move away from that.
[00:55:45] I certainly don't think things like this should be along party lines. Even if there are party lines, it shouldn't stop us from going to whatever the other party is and helping them see that we have more in common than maybe they thought we had.
[00:56:00] As a teacher and as a parent, I think this study of history is intertwined with this whole idea of people, young people, learning to speak up, learning to put their ideas in writing and speaking in public or writing letters. They need to have the history, in order to know how to make their point in a strong way.
[00:56:26] We are in a time in history and it, these times have come before, where people are being told to not look at the past. And there's all sorts of people fighting about what should and shouldn't be taught in history. And so I think, yeah, it's a little scary to me. I think that this might be falling under that category, and it shouldn't be. We have evidence, right? As long as we have evidence that these things really happened, then we have to look at it. We're forced to look at it.
[00:56:57] Sarah Jack: Is there anything else that you wanted to make sure you said today?
[00:57:03] Jennifer Schloat: The whole point about some of these people, we don't know where they were buried. That really connects to the whole idea of some people have statues and some people don't. It's a really important thing that we remember everyone from the past. And, when, as I said, when William and I were walking around that graveyard yesterday realizing that it's unlikely that poor Mary Barnes is buried there. Or for that matter, Mary Barnes' little daughter that William mentioned in his testimony, Hannah Barnes. I can't find any record of where this child was buried.
[00:57:39] Maybe I will be able to find something, but we haven't yet. But she died shortly after her mother was killed, and there may be a connection there. The psychological trauma of your mother dying could affect your health.
[00:57:52] It is really upsetting to me, and I would like to find out if there's any way that we could discover where any of these people might have been buried. And or just acknowledge the fact that we don't know, and this is true all throughout history. Enslaved people were not given proper burials and, again, anyone who's been executed. There's also just a lack of respect for the human remains of anyone who's not considered important, and so I think that's another reason to exonerate these people and get their names on the historical record, because their names are not written in stone in graveyards right now. And so we need to clear their good name on the record.
[00:58:35] And that was another thing that impressed William, and I think you alluded to it earlier, when he realized that his testimony, even though it was a mere three minutes, is now part of the permanent historical record, that it's entered into the congressional record for Connecticut. There's a YouTube of everyone's testimony. That's exciting to know that in the future, long after we're all gone, if someone is still caring to research what happened to these people, they're these names, you know the name of Mary Barnes and her children, the name of Mary Johnson and her son Benjamin.
[00:59:12] They're now associated with William's testimony and oh, someone was standing up for them. Good. So that's something that get all these people's names. And didn't Catherine read all the names of the convicted witches in her testimony? Catherine Carmon, I believe she read their names out. This is so essential.
[00:59:33] And just one other little thing, and that is, I think it's psychologically healing for us to face the bad stuff from the past. And we know that, anyone who knows anything about psychotherapy or psychology, knows that one way to heal yourself is if you forgive people who have wronged you, and you forgive yourself for anything that you feel ashamed of and, but that you also own up to anything wrong that you have done.
[01:00:03] And so even though we didn't do this directly, right? We're not the colonial magistrates who did this. It still could heal us as a society to own up to the bad things that our state, our state when it was a colony, our country, our culture, our people have done.
[01:00:22] And that was one of the things that hit William. He's really into genealogy at this phase. And we've recently done hours and hours of work. We got our DNA tested through ancestry.com, and he's researching all of his ancestors. And we found out that my seven times great-grandfather, and that would be William's eight times great-grandfather, was a man named Joseph Ballard, and he is one of the Witch accusers associated with the Salem Witchcraft Trials. So that's an ancestor of ours, distant ancestor, but a direct ancestor who was part of the problem, who accused people.
[01:01:04] And then we did find, William just was reading about this last week, Martha Carrier, who's one of the women who was executed in Salem is our first cousin 10 times removed, but the first cousin is very significant. And then I'm pretty sure. And I'm gonna do more genealogical research so I can be definitively certain. Rebecca Greensmith is probably my my nine times great grand aunt, so if that's true, I'm connected to one of the Connecticut people, and then the Barnes name, the Barnes last name is in our family tree, but we're pretty sure we're not directly related to the Farmington Barnes family, but we might be, there's kind of conflicting clues out there.
[01:01:51] So it's in our tree, it's in our family tree. The good guys and the bad guys, the villains and the victims, they're all there, and so it's immediately relevant in that research, as well.
[01:02:05] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I'm also a first cousin of Martha Carrier through the Dane family and the Ingalls.
[01:02:15] Jennifer Schloat: Yeah, the Ingalls. I was about to say, I'm actually looking at Ancestry right now. We have Ingalls, so we're related then in some way. Yeah, so it was actually the Ingalls name that was my first clue that I might be related to her. Once you start with the whole Mayflower ancestry, there's all sorts of interesting things that come from that. And so William recently found out that through my husband, through his dad, he's related to Francis Cooke, who is a Mayflower person. And then through me it's the Brewsters, the Whites, and the Hopkins' on the Mayflower. So there's all that.
[01:02:51] We feel like we have to speak out as some of the original English settlers of New England. We have a responsibility to say something about the way these people what these people did.
[01:03:04] And then I've only learned from your podcast. Your podcast has taught me so much. I did. I have to confess that I was completely ignorant that there were still people in countries, in other parts of the world, that were still being executed for or found guilty of witchcraft. I had no idea until this year, and Beth Caruso told me to listen to your podcast. I had no idea about that. I don't think many people are aware that this is still an issue, like specifically this thing is still happening.
[01:03:38] Josh Hutchinson: And if you want to hear more about that, we'll be out in Salem and in Connecticut in May with Dr. Leo Igwe, and he's the Nigerian activist who speaks about the witchcraft accusations there. And he'll be speaking at the Stanley-Whitman House.
[01:03:58] Jennifer Schloat: You really educated a lot of people by sharing that, cuz then of course I shared it with my students, and most people that I've spoken to didn't know but when they found out were very upset to hear that's still happening.
[01:04:11] Josh Hutchinson: And we were blown away by the statistics. There was a recent UN report, I don't know if you heard about this part, where in between 2009 and 2019, there were something like 20,000 cases of witchcraft persecution against adults.
[01:04:32] It's even worse with children being accused of witchcraft. There's hundreds of thousands of accusations against children every year just in Africa alone.
[01:04:44] Jennifer Schloat: I need to read even more. Do you know why specifically children, why it would be more?
[01:04:50] Josh Hutchinson: In some places, these militias that are battling in some of these nations, they send children ahead of them in the line of combat, because they believe that they have magical powers to stop bullets.
[01:05:08] Jennifer Schloat: Oh my goodness.
[01:05:10] Josh Hutchinson: terrifying, and it's very real, and you can observe it today. Leo often shares images of the victims after they've been attacked, and it's brutal. It's horrifying, and it needs to stop.
[01:05:26] Jennifer Schloat: So I think that there's so many different areas of our present life that this is relevant to. And so obviously in other countries and then in our own country, so we don't have witch executions anymore, but that isn't to say that we don't have groups of people who are marginalized or ignored.
[01:05:51] And again, looking at the children of the Connecticut witch trial victims, we can maybe then think about the children in our own society today who are suffering because their parents are suffering. And that's so important for us to remember, as well. But everything is connected and just, as a teacher, by the way, there is no area of knowledge that is not important. I feel specifically passionate about the history of our own country, but every area of knowledge is important. And there is sometimes a focus today, that I think is malignant, on we should only teach children what they need to know to earn money. And that's a terrifying idea. It's really very scary.
[01:06:42] And the other thing we have to think about, cuz it's true in science, but it's also true in history. Sometimes when we go and start to study the past, we may have something specific we're looking for, and then we find something different. In other words, I might go and do more research on the Barnes family or on my own ancestry or on colonial Connecticut witchcraft persecutions and learn more but also find stuff that I didn't know about and uncover a whole new area. And so we have to keep our minds open to new discoveries.
[01:07:20] And that was kind of the worry I had when I heard some of the people during the hearing speaking in reaction. It was like they weren't familiar with this information, therefore they weren't willing to hear it, because it was new information. It is like there was no room left in their brain for it or something. That, you know, as someone who's loved history, the study of history my whole life. That's really dreadful.
[01:07:49] And that was one last point I wanted to make before we go. One of the ways that I became familiar with Connecticut's witchcraft mania, basically, was I took a graduate course in history at Central Connecticut State University with Dr. Katherine Hermes was the professor, and it was on colonial New England. And even though I had studied this period before as an undergraduate in New York State, I barely knew just the tip of the iceberg about there's so much to learn about colonial New England.
[01:08:26] And she had us all do a research project that was the most unique thing that I had ever been asked to do in college. It was probably the most valuable thing I learned in graduate school. She had us do something called a prosopography. I had never even heard of this before, but it's basically the study of groups of people and what they all have in common. And usually prosopography, when it's done with history, these are people that we don't know a lot about. So it's not like you do a prosopography of the American presidents. You would do prosopography of servants or something like that, a group of people who are in some way marginalized and we don't have a lot of records on them.
[01:09:13] So anyway, each student had their own area of research, and it was all focusing on local Connecticut history, and a lot of them were focusing on servants and on African-Americans and on women. Dr. Hermes was very kind. She let me do something a little odd or a little bit different.
[01:09:31] I wanted to do the outcasts, the people who were somehow socially unacceptable in some way in the Farmington area. And so she gave me a little bit of latitude letting me do like a hundred years, sometime in the 1600s to sometime in the 1700s. And I did a paper, research paper, that Mary Barnes ended up being one of the people in the group, but also a hermit who lived on a mountain who I've written a, my master's thesis was actually about him. And I included a whole bunch of people who were just vagrants or wanderers who got run out of town or warned out of town, because they didn't belong there. These were all white people, and they were all people who, in one way or another got in trouble with the law in Farmington, and they were not all witches. Mary Barnes was labeled as a witch. But what they had in common is they just weren't behaving and conforming to what was expected of them. Anyway, this was a wonderful research project that I was asked to do, and I learned a lot from it, and I learned a lot of things that I hadn't expected to learn.
[01:10:50] And one of the things I learned is that sometimes when we go back and look into the past and we find someone behaving in a way that we don't expect them to behave, we miscategorize them. And so I found that some of the people in my prosopography had been mislabeled in later years. Like people looking at them from the 1800s or from the 20th century said, "oh, that hermit or that vagrant person, they must have been a Native American or they must have been an African American." And in every case I made sure, I tried to stick to only white people because my prosopography would not really be a true prosopography if I chose people from multiple races. But what, I guess what I'm saying is these were people who were behaving in such a way that their race got changed by the people looking back at them. In other words, white people couldn't possibly behave this way, therefore they're not white. And of course they were white.
[01:11:55] So to me, this taught me a lot about racism and it taught me a lot about labeling people. And it's just fascinating. So I think we need to keep doing this. We need to keep studying the past and figuring out why people are mistreated and why people are marginalized and give voice to those people as much as we can. Thank you so much for letting me visit with you on this podcast.
[01:12:21] Josh Hutchinson: And here's Connecticut Witch trial Exoneration Project co-founder Mary Bingham with Minute with Mary.
[01:12:31] Mary Bingham: Why do I care about my ancestors who have been dead for centuries because their legacy lives on in me? If not for the decisions my ancestors made years ago, I would not be alive today. My research is not a hobby. It is a special calling to tell as many of their stories as possible with my voice, my heart, and with conviction.
[01:13:00] The stories of all our ancestors are important because their individual stories personalize history. As a teen, I sat through very boring history classes, Paul Revere and the Midnight Ride, Yon City. Fast forward 30 years, I discovered that one of my ancestors answered the Lexington alarm 248 years ago.
[01:13:28] It was game on. I wanted to know more about what happened and how he was involved. 35 year old Jacob Peaty was a Topsfield farmer and member of the local militia company headed by Captain Steven Perkins, another one of my ancestors. At 10:00 AM April 19th, 1775, the post rider arrived and news spread like wildfire.
[01:13:56] Jacob left so fast that his work in the field was left Unat. He took necessities previously packed, mounted his horse and rode probably fast and hard, the 30 miles to Lexington, not knowing if he would ever return home. Who knows? He probably did not have the chance to kiss his wife. Sarah, goodbye. Jacob thankfully returned home about two days later.
[01:14:24] The sense of duty he possessed passed through nine generations to my father, whose own sense of duty, provided well for my mother, my siblings, and myself, as well as for our local community. I wonder what my legacy will. I've never married, nor do I have children who will tell my story when I'm gone. How will I be remembered?
[01:14:51] I hope to be remembered for keeping our family history alive for the next generations of nieces and nephews. My grandmother always encouraged me to ask questions. I now implore the next generation to engage in thoughtful conversations with members of my generation as we not only tell our stories, but the stories of our relatives of long ago.
[01:15:16] Thank you.
[01:15:18] Josh Hutchinson: know.
[01:15:19] Sarah Jack: you, Mary.
[01:15:20] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Mary.
[01:15:23] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[01:15:25] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[01:15:28] Sarah Jack: We have a resolution update. This week, it has been marked as "ready for action by the House" on the House calendar. Keep writing Connecticut legislators. Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz supports the passing of the resolution. She told McClatchy News in the latest article, "some of the people who participated in the trials actually became leaders of our state," adding, "who was in charge really doesn't matter. We should just take responsibility and tell the world what really happened because we all know." She reminds us that there are other reasons to pass the resolution that could have implications for the modern world. She said, "there are still some countries that have these witchcraft laws on the books, so we should take leadership and hopefully those countries change their laws."
[01:16:10] Thank you for standing with the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, Lieutenant Governor. Thank you for helping us end witch hunts. Listeners, let's keep up this incredible momentum. Go to our episode description for a link with information on writing to Connecticut legislators asking for their support.
[01:16:25] Next month, the Salem, Massachusetts area and Hartford and Farmington, Connecticut are getting a rare visit from Dr. Leo Igwe, director of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches nonprofit organization. It is an incredible honor for us to organize a week of speaking engagements during his May speaking tour in the United States and to accompany him as he speaks in places of historical significance to early American colony witch trial history.
[01:16:48] Witch persecutions and trials are ongoing incidents in Africa and other nations, reportedly at least 60. Witchcraft accusation is still a form of death sentence. Across the continent, thousands, mainly women and elderly persons are accused, tried, attacked, killed, imprisoned, or banished every year.
[01:17:04] You can follow Dr. Leo Igwe on Twitter to see how he's advocating on the ground in the victim communities in real time, as these individuals are experiencing being accused and hunted. The first event, Monday, May 15, at the Salem Witch Museum is virtual, but Dr. Igwe will be with us in Salem touring the historic sites, guided by a local seasoned in the history, Mary Bingham. Tuesday, May 16th is your chance to experience a very special evening of in-person conversation with Leo at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers, Massachusetts. Please see the Facebook event for details. Isn't this a great week? Make sure you mark your calendars.
[01:17:41] Next, you can enjoy an in-person speaking event with Dr. Igwe at Central Connecticut State University on Wednesday, May 17 at 6:00 PM. While in the Hartford area, Leo will be touring known Witch trial historic sites with author Beth Caruso. But wait, there is more. On Thursday afternoon, May 18 at 4:00 PM, Leo will be presenting at the Stanley-Whitman House living history center in Farmington, Connecticut. Look for Facebook events for all of these occasions posted by our social media.
[01:18:06] Would you like to know more about Leo? You are in luck, because we have a great podcast episode for you to listen to. For more on Leo, listen to episode Witchcraft Accusations in Nigeria with Dr. Leo Igwe. Come hear Leo. Invite your friends and family. See you there. Get involved. Visit endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop or merch from our Zazzle shop. Our links are in the show description.
[01:18:30] Many well-written, informed testimonies were submitted for the Joint Committee on Judiciary's hearing of Bill HJ 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut on March 1st, 2023. We hope you enjoyed hearing William and Jennifer Schloat read theirs. And here are more from Josh Hutchinson, Sarah Jack, Beth Caruso, and Tony Grego.
[01:18:51] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[01:18:53] Today I'd like to talk to you about witch hunts happening in our world now. United Nations Human Rights Council recently assembled in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss the crisis of harmful practices related to witchcraft accusations and ritual abuse. In many nations, literal witch hunts continue to plague society with banishments, violence, torture, and death directed at innocent people accused of an impossible crimes. These accusations and extrajudicial punishments are often directed at vulnerable people, notably elderly women, children, the disabled, and those with albinism. Each year, thousands of people are targeted. They live in nations around the world, on every populated continent. If they're lucky enough to survive, they face an uncertain future. From roaming village to village, to being placed in prison or so-called witch camps for their own safety, their lives are never their own.
[01:19:53] By exonerating those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut, you send a powerful message that witch-hunting will not be tolerated. By exonerating the accused, you join with other nations, including Scotland and Spain, in Confronting the past and righting wrongs. By exonerating the accused, you make a clear statement condemning witch-hunting, which will resonate with leaders in nations affected by witchcraft-accusation-related violence today.
[01:20:19] Let's stand together against witch-hunting. Make that strong statement. Clear the names of those accused of witchcraft in colonial Connecticut, and let the world know you oppose witch-hunting in the strongest terms.
[01:20:32] Sarah Jack: I'm speaking to ask the Connecticut General Assembly to vote yes on HJ 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. My ancestor, Winifred Benham, was one of over 45 people accused of witchcraft crimes in Connecticut. In 1697, she and her daughter, Winifred Benham, Jr., were the last two arrested and indicted. Despite their innocence, their unduly tarnished reputations forced them to leave their lives in Wallingford by uprooting to New York. Researching the Connecticut witch trial history informed me of her innocence and that she needed a voice today to address the life-changing and devastating historical wrong she experienced. There is complete certainty that she was not guilty of supernatural crime. She was an ordinary woman, a wife and mother who fell victim to the irrational witchcraft fear that was prevalent in the colonies during those times and is still prevalent in many places in the world.
[01:21:27] This yes vote is powerful, because it recognizes her innocence and signifies that vulnerable community members should not be treated unjustly due to perceived differences. It is time to write these wrongs and exonerate those who were executed or subjected to other severe consequences of witchcraft accusations.
[01:21:47] Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration.
[01:21:50] Beth Caruso: My name is Beth Caruso of Windsor. I support House Joint Resolution 34. Having done extensive research and writing about the Connecticut Witch Trials, I must speak on behalf of the victims of those trials. Numerous citizens became targets of unjust witchcraft accusations and were indicted, convicted, and hanged for strange events beyond their control.
[01:22:19] Most of their contemporaries believed that they had a pact with the devil and intended to do harm to their communities. Alice Young, mother of a single child, was the first condemned as a witch, when an epidemic took the lives of children. Four of them were her next door neighbors. Lydia Gilbert was also accused of bewitching a gun three years after it discharged and killed Henry Stiles. Both women were hanged as witches. There were many others who died or suffered.
[01:22:55] Although convicted, Elizabeth Seager, a Hartford resident, and Katherine Harrison, a rare female landowner, were saved from death by Governor John Winthrop, Jr. Unlike most people of his time, the esteemed alchemical physician saw that the accused were not witches. He not only refused to carry out convictions, he helped to change the rules of those convictions so that justice might prevail. Before Winthrop, seven people died for witchcraft crimes. After he became Governor, witch-hunting slowed and deaths stopped, until he left to secure Connecticut's charter in England. While away, four more died during the Hartford Witch Panic under the watch of Major John Mason.
[01:23:49] In the end, Winthrop saved many lives years before the infamous Salem Witch Trials. If Governor Winthrop, your predecessor in Connecticut governance, could recognize the accused victim's innocence in the 1600s, why shouldn't you also acknowledge it by exonerating them and continuing Winthrop's legacy? And if we proudly claim Winthrop as one of our own in Connecticut history, why should we not embrace these victims as part of our history, too, and recognize the wrongs done to them for their descendants as well as for ourselves? Thank you for your consideration.
[01:24:39] Tony Griego: My name is Anthony Griego. I am a retired sergeant from the New Haven Police Department with almost 32 years of service and also an honorably discharged veteran of United States Army, 1961 to 1964. I am also one of the co-founders of our Connecticut Witch Memorial Facebook page, whose goal is to educate the general public about our Connecticut colony witch hunts.
[01:25:11] Connecticut was the first colony to start hanging people for witchcraft in 1647, a crime that disappeared from Connecticut law books by 1750. 9 women and 2 men, husbands, were hanged for this crime. 23 more suffered through witch trials whose guilty verdict could end in a hanging. Several children became orphans with the loss of a parent or both.
[01:25:44] Today in our modern world, such trials and executions are still taking place in other countries. Today we can follow other New England states that have made amends for colonial witch hunts. We can also send a clear message that witch hunts are wrong and always were. Knowing that we have made amends for errors of the past is a step towards teaching a younger generation how we have learned to be a better nation.
[01:26:18] We ask that you vote in favor of resolution number 34. Thank you.
[01:26:24] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:26:30] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[01:26:32] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:26:35] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:26:38] Josh Hutchinson: Tell your friends and family about the show.
[01:26:41] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit EndWitchHunts.Org to learn more.
[01:26:46] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:26:50]

April 19, 2023

Connecticut Witch Trials 101, Part 2: Witchcraft Belief, the Founding of Connecticut, and Alice Young

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Show Notes

This is Part 2 of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast’s Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series. Part 2 covers witchcraft beliefs, the founding of Connecticut and Alice Young. Your cohosts and accused witch descendants, writer and podcast producer, Joshua Hutchinson and End Witch Hunts President and people connector extraordinaire, Sarah Jack are back to delve into the history. The story of Connecticut’s settlement, witchcraft belief and known witch trial victims is fact backed with trustworthy research and sources. Take advantage of the expansive bibliography, and do some educational reading. Dig into the research with us. This series has been created with thoughtful inquiry and consideration of historian expertise, historic record and available archived material. How do we know what we know? We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Transcript

[00:00:00]
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:26] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: We hope you enjoy part two of our Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series.
[00:00:33] Sarah Jack: This week we'll discuss witchcraft belief in New England, give an overview of the founding of Connecticut and the founding of the town of Windsor, before we move on to the trial and execution of Alice Young, who is believed to be the first person hanged for witchcraft in New England.
[00:00:49] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we'll dispel some common misconceptions. First of all, every person executed for witchcraft in New England was hanged, not burned.
[00:01:00] Sarah Jack: Nobody was burned for witchcraft here, but they were in other places in Europe. Do people assume it because of the media they've seen? Do people just equate burning and witches?
[00:01:11] Josh Hutchinson: It would seem to have been influenced by transatlantic communication and immigrants with memories of the burning times in their countries.
[00:01:20] Sarah Jack: Do people visualize burning a witch is destroying a witch versus an execution? I feel like if you're thinking about witches being burned, then you're also thinking more of the murderous mob style.
[00:01:31] Josh Hutchinson: That's another part of the lore.
[00:01:32] Sarah Jack: I think the more people recognize New England was hanging, then they're thinking about, oh, it's an execution. There was a trial. What was that trial like?
[00:01:42] We are really excited for you to hear this episode.
[00:01:45] Josh Hutchinson: We sure are.
[00:01:46] Sarah Jack: Before we introduce Alice Young, we'd like to set the stage for you by providing a little background on witchcraft belief in early New England and the settling of Connecticut.
[00:01:58] Josh Hutchinson: In evaluating witchcraft belief in early modern New England, it is important to note that ministers and the educated elite held different views than most of the public. Many beliefs overlapped, but those who claimed to be victimized by witchcraft focused on human agency in magical practice, while the clergy largely focused on Satan as the source of the witch's power.
[00:02:22] Sarah Jack: In popular belief, a witch was a person who used magic for sinister purposes.
[00:02:28] Josh Hutchinson: A witch was a person who was believed to have the skill to manipulate occult forces in order to perform maleficium, which is the act of causing harm supernaturally.
[00:02:40] Sarah Jack: Women were believed to be more sinful and more evil than men and more vulnerable to becoming witches. The reasoning included the belief that women's bodies weren't as strong as men's, and, therefore, the devil could more readily access women's souls.
[00:02:53] Josh Hutchinson: Of the 49 people known to have been accused of witchcraft in Connecticut between 1647 and 1742, 36 were women, 11 were men, and two were unidentified. Further, seven of the men accused were married to women who were accused first. Only four of the 49 were men who were not married to female witchcraft suspects.
[00:03:19] Sarah Jack: Four. That's a small number.
[00:03:22] Witches were said to have teats, where imps or animal familiars suckled. These were often hidden in their secret parts.
[00:03:30] Josh Hutchinson: The witch was the embodiment of the corrupted woman. Rather than celebrate and encourage fertility, she actively worked against it. Rather than be the perfect helpmate to her husband, she chose to be a handmaiden to the devil himself.
[00:03:45] Sarah Jack: The witch attempted to invert the power structure, diverting authority from man to woman. She was not a housewife. She was a force of her own.
[00:03:53] Josh Hutchinson: Maleficium most commonly involved employing magic to injure, sicken, or kill a person or domestic animal. However, targets of maleficium also included ships, homes, and crops.
[00:04:06] Sarah Jack: Image magic involved the use of the likeness of a person to injure them. Poppets were commonly believed to be used for this purpose and could be made of common materials like cloth, rags, wax, or birch bark. These images would then be harmed by hand, needle, water, or fire.
[00:04:23] Josh Hutchinson: To recruit people, Satan and his devils often first appeared to targets in the guise of animals.
[00:04:31] Sarah Jack: Outside of Salem, most Witch trial witnesses did not mention the devil. However, as shown in those Salem cases and a handful of others, people believe that witches covenanted with him directly and signed his book in blood.
[00:04:45] Josh Hutchinson: And signed his book. Sometimes in blood, sometimes in ink, sometimes in just, they would say it was red like blood. Sometimes they would say they actually cut their finger and signed it with their own blood. They actually put that detail in some of the Salem testimony. And his book was always changing color, shape, size, and material. You pay attention to those testimonies, they're always inconsistent. Sometimes his book was a piece of like just a sheet of birch bark that people had etched their names into.
[00:05:26] Sarah Jack: These women in the devil's book, you know they're putting their name in it and, of course the counterpart, the Book of Life, which you don't put your own name in, your name's put into it.
[00:05:37] I just think it's interesting that they are fantasizing that these women are signing their name into a book for the devil. Cause I was like, what is the significance of him having names in a book.
[00:05:51] Josh Hutchinson: It's inversion of the covenant, basically, and inversion of God's grace. You don't put your own name in the book of life, but you do put it in the devil's book. It's all about rebellion. Mid to late middle ages, they just were focused on witchcraft as an act of rebellion against God. And then they got into the Satan's Pact thing.
[00:06:22] Witches often gathered in groups, as seen in the Hartford Witch Panic and the Salem Witch Hunt.
[00:06:29] Sarah Jack: How many people were meeting with Reverend Burroughs at the witch Sabbath described in the Salem Witch trials?
[00:06:34] Josh Hutchinson: Dozens?
[00:06:36] Sarah Jack: It was a huge amount.
[00:06:39] Josh Hutchinson: They might have had hundreds at some of their things. There was definitely dozens, and they were coming from Connecticut. In Salem, they definitely were intimately aware of what had happened in Connecticut, and they were saying that whiches were coming from Connecticut to Salem Village.
[00:07:04] Sarah Jack: At Hartford, the supposed witch meeting may have been a harmless Christmas celebration, which was interpreted as a witches' Sabbath. During the Salem Witch hunt, these sabbaths were recounted in vivid detail by the afflicted persons and the confessors.
[00:07:19] Josh Hutchinson: In the early modern mind, two worlds coexisted on earth, the visible world and the invisible world. The boundaries between these worlds were porous, and creatures from the invisible world often visited the visible world. Likewise, people learned in magic could tap into powers from the invisible world to manipulate the visible.
[00:07:44] Sarah Jack: As Dr. Kathy Hermes explained, New England was viewed as the battleground between God and Satan, where the English attempted to establish Christ's church, and the devil attempted to pull it down.
[00:07:55] Josh Hutchinson: While witchcraft was reviled, not all magic was frowned upon by the people at large. Acceptable occult practices included protective magic, countermagic, and healing magic.
[00:08:09] Sarah Jack: New Englanders commonly hid objects and symbols in their homes to ward off witches and evil spirits.
[00:08:16] Josh Hutchinson: As Dr. Emerson Baker explained in episode 25, garlands and wreaths were hung on doors and windows as barriers to evil.
[00:08:26] Sarah Jack: Not just decor. Horseshoes and other iron objects were also nailed over doorways or secreted in walls to prevent spirits from entering.
[00:08:35] Josh Hutchinson: Symbols were etched near entries and exits to catch demons. Chimneys and wells were protected in such fashion, because evil spirits frequently used those openings to gain access to homes.
[00:08:49] Sarah Jack: Countermagic involved various methods of detecting and harming witches. Bewitched objects and the hair, nails, and urine of bewitched persons were burned to destroy the evil magic or transfer it back to the witch.
[00:09:03] Josh Hutchinson: When animals were believed to be victims of maleficium, body parts like ears and tails were burned. Ouch. Poor animals.
[00:09:13] Sarah Jack: Healing magic was a dangerous line of work. Those with the power to heal were believed to also have the power to harm.
[00:09:21] Josh Hutchinson: Contrary to popular belief, midwives were seldom targets of witchcraft accusations. However, there are recorded instances of women who provided healing services being accused.
[00:09:34] Sarah Jack: Other magical enterprises also put people at risk of accusation. Methods of divination are reported in several cases, and a few of those tried for witchcraft openly engaged in fortune telling.
[00:09:46] Josh Hutchinson: The fortune telling they were doing wasn't communing with spirits. It was palmistry, reading people. Marilynne told us Samuel Wardwell would look at somebody's hand and then tell their fortune, and other people were like, turning the sieve and scissors or doing the Bible and key thing to tell fortunes. There were these different divination methods and the Venus Glass, stuff like that were all divination, but there was an action involved and you're interpreting the results.
[00:10:25] The fortune telling that's getting messages from the other side is through mediums, which are a more recent invention. That came out of the spiritualist movement of the 19th century. They had those kinds of visions, but that wasn't them accusing the witches of doing that. That was the afflicted people saying, "I have spectral vision, and these specters of deceased people appeared to me." It was the bewitched people who were the mediums, if you think about it.
[00:11:04] While ministers and the educated elite believed in witches as much as the average layperson, the clergy emphasized the diabolical pact they believed was the source of the witch's power.
[00:11:17] Sarah Jack: For clergymen, all magic came from the devil. Countermagic was a form of going to the devil for help against the devil.
[00:11:25] Josh Hutchinson: However, the clergy accepted, or at least turned a blind eye to, certain occult practices performed by the educated elite, including alchemy and astrology.
[00:11:37] Sarah Jack: Witchcraft became a capital crime in England in 1542, and an enhanced Witchcraft Act was passed in 1604, which made it a felony to compact with the devil or have familiarity with evil spirits.
[00:11:49] And now Minute with Mary. Mary Bingham has more details on the standards of evidence for witchcraft trials.
[00:11:55] Mary Bingham: The earliest laws and orders of the General Court of Connecticut, the Code of 1650, and the Book of General Laws and Liberties Concerning the Inhabitants of Massachusetts, both state the following. Anyone convicted of witchcraft will be put to death. In criminal cases, the court was to rely on the testimony of two eye witnesses against the person who was accused. However, this was not always done in the cases of witchcraft, particularly in the colony of Connecticut. That is, until the case against Katherine Harrison of Wethersfield in 1669. Katherine was accused, tried. She was held in jail as she awaited a new trial. Governor John Winthrop, Jr. had Katherine released from jail and placed her under house arrest. Angry residents petitioned the court, ordering her immediate return to prison. Instead, Governor Winthrop and the magistrates drafted a letter to Gershom Bulkeley and other area ministers for advisement. Gershom on behalf of the ministers advised that spectral evidence was enough to indict, but not enough to convict a person.
[00:13:24] Furthermore, because the ministers believed that the devil could disguise himself as an innocent person, afflict harm to others and their environment, the two person testimony was now to be strictly enforced going forward. Two people would need to testify to the same event, at the same time, in the same place.
[00:13:48] Had this rule been enforced in the witchcraft cases between 1647 through 1663, the following people may not have been hanged: Alice Young, Mary Johnson, John Carrington, Joan Carrington, Goodwife Bassett, Goodwife Knapp, Lydia Gilbert, Mary Stanford, Rebecca Greensmith, Nathaniel Greensmith, and Mary Barnes.
[00:14:19] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:14:21] Josh Hutchinson: Many factors contributed to witchcraft accusations.
[00:14:25] Sarah Jack: Economics.
[00:14:27] Josh Hutchinson: Psychology.
[00:14:28] Sarah Jack: Fear of warfare.
[00:14:30] Josh Hutchinson: Religious beliefs.
[00:14:31] Sarah Jack: Gender roles.
[00:14:33] Josh Hutchinson: Authorities interested in suppressing deviant behavior.
[00:14:37] Sarah Jack: And most importantly the social history which is revealed in the records.
[00:14:41] Josh Hutchinson: A history of neighborly quarrels was at the heart of many cases.
[00:14:45] The English Civil War produced the witchfinders Matthew Hopkins and John Stearns. They stepped in to fill a power vacuum when the central authority lost power over individual towns and districts. The local authorities were all too happy to step in and govern themselves. And Matthew Hopkins, the self-appointed Witchfinder General, and his assistant John Stearns, went through the countryside in East Anglia, exploiting that power vacuum by going from town to town to hunt witches and get paid by the town per witch that they found.
[00:15:21] And Matthew Hopkins and John Stearns developed witch-finding techniques, which at the least pushed the limits of the law in England against torture by employing techniques such as watching and walking, which kept people awake for sometimes days on end, in order to pressure them and put on psychological torture as well as physical deprivation to get confessions.
[00:15:44] Hopkins and Stearns both wrote books about their witch-finding methods and cases, and those books made it over from England to New England, which we know because they were cited in one of the early cases where the officials said they were employing the Witch finding techniques coming out of England, referencing the Matthew Hopkins techniques. Specifically, the officials in New England were watching, which is keeping an observation on a person you're keeping awake. You've got people rotating in around the clock, keeping this person from falling asleep, in order to watch 24 hours a day to see if imps or familiars come to suckle the witch's teats.
[00:16:29] So that's what they have. They have these peeping toms, these little pervos sitting there keeping a woman on a three-legged stool or something all day and night, just watching for imps and familiars to come and give suck. And in some cases the watchers claim to actually see this. Sometimes they reference things like bugs that came into the room or mice that came into the room.
[00:16:52] But they assume that those are familiars because they're in Witch finding mode and they find witches. And so some of these methods were actually used in New England, and therefore Hopkins' Witch Hunt was influential. And you look at the timing of when Hopkins was active in the mid 1640s and the timing of the first witchcraft case in New England, which was 1647, the trial of Alice Young. Timing wise, you could see the transmission of this information from England. All these books are being written about the various English Witch trials, and they're coming over to America and letters. People coming over are spreading the word, "oh, there's all these Witch trials going on in England," and so New England thinks it's happening there, it's probably happening here because we are God's chosen ones.
[00:17:52] As we know from talking to Mary W. Craig about Scotland, the holier you are, the more the devil's going to attack you. And that's a theory at the time that was also prevalent in England and New England. That's why New Englanders thought they were in the battleground between God and Satan. That's where Satan's gonna be the most active, and he is gonna employ the most witches because they were establishing a new, pure Christian church.
[00:18:23] And now we'd like to talk to you about the settling of Connecticut. Following the establishment of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, multiple nations and colonies vied for control of what is now the state of Connecticut, though indigenous peoples already held that area.
[00:18:39] Sarah Jack: The Dutch were the first Europeans to claim land in Connecticut when they established a trading post known as the House of Good Hope in what is now Hartford in 1633.
[00:18:52] Josh Hutchinson: Over that same year, a group of English from the Plymouth Colony followed and established a trading post of their own in the area which is now Windsor.
[00:19:03] Sarah Jack: It's of value to remember that through this claiming and establishing there was conflict happening, attacks, they were attacking each other.
[00:19:16] Josh Hutchinson: In the early 1630s, some of the Native American leaders went to John Winthrop in Massachusetts to try to get him to come and help them fight the Pequot Nation. And John Winthrop wasn't interested at the time in doing that, but they went to Edward Winslow in Plymouth and he was interested, so he sent, this guy, a military leader, Matthew Holmes over to form the trading post.
[00:19:56] And I think that's of value to know that there's all this conflict going on and this is the background of, which trials are suddenly happening in the 1640s, but there's always this conflict and tension there and threats and actual combat.
[00:20:17] Sarah Jack: In 1635, settlers from Dorchester in the Massachusetts Bay migrated to the vicinity of the Plymouth trading post.
[00:20:26] Josh Hutchinson: Around the same time, a group of English migrants came to the same spot, armed with a document called the Warwick Patent, which does not exist today.
[00:20:36] Sarah Jack: The document was reportedly issued by the Earl Warwick in 1631 and entitled the patentees to a 120-mile band of land, stretching all the way from the western border of Rhode Island to the Pacific Ocean.
[00:20:50] Josh Hutchinson: Which is why Connecticut had land in Ohio territory given as a Western Reserve. It was based off the Warwick patent. After America had become an independent nation and Connecticut was a state and the nation's expanding to the west they're still like, but the Warwick patent, and so they actually gave them this chunk of Ohio.
[00:21:18] Today we only have John Winthrop, Jr.'s 1662 copy of the patent, which he used in negotiating a charter for Connecticut from King Charles II.
[00:21:29] Sarah Jack: The community these groups established was initially called Dorchester but soon renamed Windsor.
[00:21:35] Josh Hutchinson: Nearly simultaneously to the development of Windsor, communities were established in Wethersfield, Saybrook, and Hartford.
[00:21:43] Sarah Jack: In 1636, the settlements of Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield came together to form the colony of Connecticut. Saybrook retained its independence as a separate colony.
[00:21:54] Josh Hutchinson: In 1637, a devastating war was waged by the English colonists against the Pequot Nation.
[00:22:02] Sarah Jack: The following year, more English colonists arrived creating the New Haven Colony.
[00:22:07] Josh Hutchinson: In 1639, Connecticut Colony adopted the fundamental orders, which framed its government.
[00:22:14] Sarah Jack: In 1642, Connecticut banned witchcraft. This law was based upon the laws of England and Massachusetts Bay, as well as biblical injunctions in Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27, and Deuteronomy 18:10-11.
[00:22:30] Josh Hutchinson: Exodus 22:18. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
[00:22:35] Sarah Jack: Leviticus 20:27: "A man also or woman, that hath a familiar spirit or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death. They shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them."
[00:22:46] Josh Hutchinson: Deuteronomy 18:10-11. "There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or daughter to pass through the fire or that useth divination or an observer of times, or an enchanter or a witch, or a charmer or a consulter with familiar spirits or a wizard or a necromancer.
[00:23:10] Sarah Jack: The Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 stated, "if any man or woman be a witch (that is hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit), they shall be put to death."
[00:23:21] Josh Hutchinson: In 1644, Connecticut and Saybrook united.
[00:23:25] Sarah Jack: In 1646, John Winthrop, Jr. founded the Pequot Colony, which was later renamed New London, intending it to be a center of alchemical study.
[00:23:34] Josh Hutchinson: In 1650 Connecticut codified its laws.
[00:23:38] Sarah Jack: The code is written by Roger Ludlow, the colony's only lawyer, and possible author of the Fundamental Orders, who was later sued for defamation by Thomas Staples, a husband of Mary Staples. In the Staples suit, it came out that Ludlow had pressured Goody Knapp to confess. As a result of the defamation action, Ludlow was ordered to pay the Staples' 15 pounds for calling Mary a witch.
[00:24:01] Josh Hutchinson: In 1662, John Winthrop, Jr. received a charter from King Charles II, which unified the New Haven and Connecticut colonies, and set the boundaries of Connecticut to include everything from the Narragansett Bay in the East west to the Pacific Ocean. North-south, the colony ran from the border with Massachusetts down to the Atlantic coast and included most of Long Island.
[00:24:27] Sarah Jack: However, Connecticut lost some of its territory in 1664 when the Duke of York was granted a patent, including what is now the state of New York.
[00:24:36] Josh Hutchinson: A 1664 agreement between John Winthrop Jr. and Governor Roger Williams of Rhode Island gave the latter colony control of all lands west of the Narragansett Bay and east of the Pawcatuck River.
[00:24:52] Sarah Jack: Additionally, the boundary of Massachusetts had been surveyed incorrectly in 1642, and was set seven to eight miles south of its proper place.
[00:25:01] Josh Hutchinson: Now that we've covered the background, let's get to the story of the first victim, Alice Young.
[00:25:10] Nothing is firmly known about Alice Young's life before her hanging.
[00:25:14] Sarah Jack: The first evidence of any Youngs in Connecticut are records showing that John Young had purchased land in Windsor by 1640.
[00:25:22] Josh Hutchinson: We know John was Alice's husband, because Thomas Thornton wrote to John Winthrop Jr. About John Young's illness, and Winthrop wrote on the back of the letter that "his wife was hanged for a witch at conecticut."
[00:25:36] Sarah Jack: John Young was a carpenter who lived in the Backer Row section of Windsor next door to the Thorntons.
[00:25:42] Josh Hutchinson: John and Alice had one known child.
[00:25:45] Sarah Jack: A daughter also named Alice.
[00:25:48] Josh Hutchinson: Not much is known of the Young's lives in Windsor, but we can give you some background on what Alice's life may have been like as a Puritan wife and mother.
[00:25:57] Sarah Jack: Married women of non-elite status were known by the title Goodwife.
[00:26:01] Josh Hutchinson: A woman was a man's helpmate.
[00:26:04] Sarah Jack: Her daily work involved caring for children, tending livestock, gardening, brewing, making clothes, cooking, cleaning, washing, and having babies.
[00:26:13] Josh Hutchinson: As deputy husbands, women sometimes also shared in their husbands' work duties.
[00:26:18] Sarah Jack: We know some things about Alice Young's neighbors on Backer Row.
[00:26:22] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas Thornton was a tanner.
[00:26:24] Sarah Jack: He married Anne Tinker in London in 1633.
[00:26:27] Josh Hutchinson: They lived among Anne's siblings, as several Tinker families settled in Windsor, most living on Backer Row.
[00:26:36] Sarah Jack: John Young purchased his land from William Hubbard, husband of Anne's sister Ellen Tinker.
[00:26:42] Josh Hutchinson: Thomas and Anne Thornton had six children at the time of Alice Young's trial.
[00:26:48] Sarah Jack: Priscilla, Thomas, Anne, Samuel, Mary, and Timothy.
[00:26:52] Josh Hutchinson: An epidemic, perhaps influenza, ravaged the Connecticut River Valley in 1647, beginning in the spring.
[00:27:00] Sarah Jack: Thomas Thornton lost four children to the epidemic, Priscilla, Thomas, Anne, and Samuel.
[00:27:05] Josh Hutchinson: Priscilla died bravely, and her story was later preserved for posterity by Cotton Mather.
[00:27:11] Sarah Jack: Historians theorize that Alice Young was blamed for starting the epidemic through witchcraft.
[00:27:16] Josh Hutchinson: There are no records of Alice Young's trial, but a typical New England witch trial involved the following phases:
[00:27:25] 1.) misfortune.
[00:27:26] Sarah Jack: Number two, identification of the culprit.
[00:27:30] Josh Hutchinson: A complaint filed with the magistrates.
[00:27:33] Sarah Jack: A warrant for apprehension.
[00:27:36] Josh Hutchinson: The arrest of the suspect.
[00:27:38] Sarah Jack: And the examination with questions from the magistrate, intense physical examination by a jury of women, and possibly swim test to see if the suspect sank or floated. Sinking was a sign of innocence, while floating suggested guilt.
[00:27:58] Josh Hutchinson: Following the examination, the suspect was usually jailed, unless the magistrates thought there wasn't evidence to proceed with an investigation.
[00:28:11] Sarah Jack: Testimonies were gathered.
[00:28:14] Josh Hutchinson: An indictment was written.
[00:28:16] Sarah Jack: The grand jury reviewed the indictment. If they returned the verdict ignoramus, there is insufficient evidence, and the suspect is released. If they return the indictment billa vera, true bill, they find there is enough evidence for trial.
[00:28:31] Josh Hutchinson: Then the petty jury heard the evidence.
[00:28:35] Sarah Jack: They hear the evidence and deliver the verdict. If acquitted, the suspect is released only after paying jail fees. And we know of instances where some people perished, unable to pay those jail fees.
[00:28:47] Josh Hutchinson: Due to the terribly unsanitary conditions in the jails.
[00:28:53] Sarah Jack: If convicted. The sentence is announced.
[00:28:56] Josh Hutchinson: Following a guilty verdict, the justices either issue a death warrant or appeal to a higher court for a ruling on the case.
[00:29:05] Sarah Jack: If there was no appeal or the appeal is rejected, the suspect is led from the jail to the place designated for hanging. In Connecticut's case, we do not know the site of the Hartford witchcraft executions.
[00:29:16] Josh Hutchinson: The bound prisoner is then carried up a ladder by the executioner, who places the rope about the neck and pushes the convict off the ladder.
[00:29:26] Sarah Jack: The prisoner, hung from either a tree or a gallows, chokes out slowly. This could take 10 minutes or more, but usually the convict passed out and didn't have to experience the agony of a slow, ignoble death.
[00:29:38] Josh Hutchinson: The whereabouts of the bodies of those hanged for witchcraft are unknown.
[00:29:44] Sarah Jack: Why is that?
[00:29:46] Josh Hutchinson: The bodies of witches as rebels against God could not be placed among the Elect, the saints in a church cemetery. No respect whatsoever was afforded a witch.
[00:30:08] Sarah Jack: And some of them were excommunicated from the church before their execution.
[00:30:14] Josh Hutchinson: The first execution took place somewhere in Hartford. We don't know where.
[00:30:20] Sarah Jack: The old meetinghouse was located where the Old State House stands today. The hangings may have taken place on Meetinghouse Green or at another location in Hartford.
[00:30:32] We do not know where Alice's body was laid to rest.
[00:30:35] Josh Hutchinson: Tradition tells us some of the Salem victims were secretly retrieved and buried by family. However, we do not have even this much to go on regarding Connecticut's witch trial victims.
[00:30:47] Sarah Jack: After the hanging, the residents of Backer Row dispersed to other communities in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
[00:30:54] Josh Hutchinson: John Young survived the epidemic and relocated to Stratford, where he acquired land in 1652.
[00:31:02] Sarah Jack: He suffered from an illness, which impacted his skin and also caused John to lose hair and nails.
[00:31:07] Josh Hutchinson: John Young died in April 1661, and nobody ever claimed his property.
[00:31:13] Sarah Jack: The first record of Alice Young Jr. after her mother's hanging was for her marriage to Simon Beamon in Windsor in 1654.
[00:31:21] Josh Hutchinson: Interestingly, Simon Beamon had testified against two people accused of witchcraft in Springfield, Mary Lewis Parsons and her husband, Hugh Parsons.
[00:31:33] Sarah Jack: Alice Young Beamon and Simon Beamon resided in Springfield, Massachusetts. They raised a sizable family there.
[00:31:41] Josh Hutchinson: In 1677, Thomas Beamon, son of Alice Young Beamon and Simon Beamon sued a man for defaming him and his mother.
[00:31:50] Sarah Jack: The man allegedly said, "his mother was a witch and he looked like one."
[00:31:55] Josh Hutchinson: There's a lot of speculation about who Alice Young may have been and where she may have been born, and where she may have married John, whether she was a healer. None of this has been confirmed.
[00:32:09] Alice, like the rest of Connecticut's witch trial victims, has not been exonerated and still remains guilty as charged on the books.
[00:32:22] Now, here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[00:32:26] Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunt News.
[00:32:29] Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast is a project of End Witch Hunts movement. End Witch Hunts is a non-profit organization working to educate you about witch trial history and working to motivate you to advocate for modern alleged witches. You'll not find our message sensational or amusing, confusing, or muddied.
[00:32:45] Today, I want you to think about the phrase "additional efforts." Remember when the Connecticut witch trial history was minimized and overlooked, not widely known as a significant part of witch hunt history. Bringing Connecticut to the forefront of which trial conversation took additional efforts, efforts by dozens of individuals over several decades. But in the most recent years, the culmination of those efforts created a new wave of results, and now Connecticut witch trial victims are known.
[00:33:10] Now, we must all work with additional efforts to include the modern witch hunt horror, and witchcraft misconceptions in the everyday witchcraft conversations. Only additional efforts will integrate the modern witch hunt crisis and witch phobia into social justice action. The communities clutched by this behavior need to be acknowledged and supported.
[00:33:28] The United Nations Council for Human Rights is sending the message that we must all begin to address what is happening by making additional efforts. This last month, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported the severity of human rights violations and abuses rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks cause adverse human rights impacts on persons in vulnerable situations and the factors that affect their vulnerability. They have concluded that additional efforts, including more comprehensive data gathering and further research are needed to develop a greater understanding of the various aspects of this complex problem. It recommends a number of actions, such as developing comprehensive frameworks for prevention.
[00:34:11] The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recommends that states undertake action. South Africa, a nation that has been working toward the elimination of witchcraft attacks with overall success is still working to completely eliminate attacks and stop pagan discrimination. Damon Leff, friend of the podcast from episode 14, has dedicated his professional and personal efforts to legal reform action to stop all witchcraft discrimination. He has recently published a response to the Pan-African Parliament's own Guidelines on Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks Towards Eliminating Harmful Practices and Other Human Rights Violations.
[00:34:47] He writes:
[00:34:48] "In July 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council draft Resolution 47, titled "Elimination of Harmful Practices Related to Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks," called a Member States to condemn harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks that result in human rights violations to ensure effective protection of all persons in vulnerable situations likely to be subjected to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, and to promote bilateral, regional, and international initiatives in collaboration with relevant regional and international organizations, aimed at achieving an end to witchcraft accusations and consequent human rights abuses."
[00:35:25] He clarifies that: "The victims of witch-hunts are usually not Pagans, Witches, or practicing any spiritual practice typically considered Pagan."
[00:35:33] " Significantly, Resolution 47 emphasized that states "should carefully distinguish between harmful practices amounting to human rights violations related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks and the lawful and legitimate exercise of different kinds of religion or beliefs, in order to preserve the right to freely manifest a religion or a belief, individually or in a community with others, including for persons belonging to religious minorities.'"
[00:35:58] " In March 2023, the Pan-African Parliament released its own Guidelines on Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks: Towards Eliminating Harmful Practices and Other Human Rights Violations. The 2023 document defines witchcraft in context, identifies two broad classifications of harmful practices related to the manifestation of belief in witchcraft; witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks, and other recommendations on both legal and non-legal measures the Member States could adopt to combat ongoing human rights violations. The Pan-African Parliament also draws appropriate attention to the need to balance competing rights in order to avoid criminalizing freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and culture."
[00:36:35] The guidelines highlight concerns for legal enforcement against human rights abuses and non-lingual and community-based intervention.
[00:36:43] " The Pan-African Parliament guidelines appear comprehensive in attempting to deal with the accusations of witchcraft and related harmful cultural practices on the African continent. The Pan-African Parliament concludes its report by encouraging the international community to continue to advocate for the victims and to advance the discourse on witchcraft, both generally and in relation to harmful religious and cultural practices."
[00:37:04] Thank you, Damon Leff, for your initiatives, and we will continue to amplify your efforts and message. By listening to what I'm sharing here about South Africa, you are enlightening your mind on modern witchcraft nuances and currents in your world. Modern witch-hunt advocates are very pleased with drafts of both the UN HRC resolution and the African Union guidelines. It will be up to all nations and states to implement the guidelines. Every state is in its own stage of confronting their witch-hunt complexities and need our support.
[00:37:32] How can you be a part of these important additional efforts? Write our world leaders. Write your community leaders. Please see show notes for writing to the South African Minister of Justice and the South African Law Reform Commission to encourage robust action on their intentional guidelines.
[00:37:47] The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, an organized collaboration of diverse collaborators, has been working for an official state exoneration of the 17th century accused and hanged witches of the Connecticut Colony. We support the Joint Committee on judiciary bills HJ Number 34, "Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut." We still need your additional efforts. Will you take time today to write a house representative and a senator asking them to recognize the relevance of exonerating Connecticut witch trial victims? You can do this whether you are a Connecticut resident or anywhere else in the world. You can do this as any political party member. This is a bipartisan effort. You should do it from right where you are. You can find the information you need to contact a legislator with a letter in the show links.
[00:38:29] Today, we got the update that the house has calendared the bill. We need the Senate to follow suit, and we need both floors to vote yes to bill HJ Number 34. Your message to them gets this done. You can follow our progress by joining our Discord community or Facebook groups. Links to all these informative opportunities are listed in the episode description.
[00:38:48] I would like information from on the ground in India. Advocates with information and education about which accusations in India, I want to hear from you. Please reach out through our websites or social media and tell me the nuances of what's happening and what can be done.
[00:39:02] Please support End Witch Hunts with your donations or purchases of educational witch trial books and merchandise. You can shop our mech at zazzle.com/store/EndWitchHunts or zazzle.com/store/thoushaltnotsuffer and shop our books at bookshop.org/EndWitchHunts. We want you as a super listener. You can support Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast production by super listening with your monthly monetary support. See episode description for links to these support opportunities.
[00:39:31] We thank you for standing with us and helping us to create a world that is safe from witchcraft accusations.
[00:39:36] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:39:39] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:39:39] What did we learn today, Josh?
[00:39:43] Josh Hutchinson: We learned about witchcraft belief in early New England, the founding of Connecticut, the founding of the town of Windsor, and of course about Alice Young.
[00:39:54] Sarah Jack: I noticed there was a lot of conflict.
[00:39:57] Josh Hutchinson: Yes. Tons of it. And one observation I've made is that it only takes a few minutes to tell the whole story of Alice Young's life.
[00:40:09] Sarah Jack: But we're gonna spend more than a few minutes looking for more information on these victims.
[00:40:15] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:40:20] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:40:22] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:40:25] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:40:27] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends about the show.
[00:40:30] Sarah Jack: Please support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:40:35] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:40:38]

April 13, 2023

Marilynne K Roach on the People of the Salem Witch-Hunt

Records of the Salem Witch Hunt by Bernard Rosenthal

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Show Notes

Esteemed historian and author Marilynne K. Roach (The Salem Witch Trials, Six Women of Salem) gives us a focused conversation on four individuals of the Salem Witch Trials: Reverend John Hale, Samuel Wardwell, Bridget Bishop and Rebecca Nurse. She also gives us an inside scoop on the 2022 Elizabeth Johnson Jr. exoneration hearing. Get a glimpse of what her next book, Six Men of Salem has in store. Enjoy the return of “Minute with Mary” by Mary Bingham, accused witch descendant, writer and researcher. Be sure to listen all the way through the episode to hear about the opportunities to hear Dr, Leo Igwe of Advocacy for Alleged Witches during his May 2023 New England speaking tour.

Links

The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-By-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach

Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Transcript

[00:00:00]
[00:00:20] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to this episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:27] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: We're joined in this episode by acclaimed Salem Witch Trials historian and author Marilynne K. Roach. We'll be talking about two women and two men involved in the Salem Witch Trials: Bridget Bishop, Rebecca Nurse John Hale, and Samuel Wardwell.
[00:00:47] Sarah Jack: Marilynne compiled all the biographies in Records of the Salem Witch Hunt.
[00:00:51] Josh Hutchinson: She wrote Six Women of Salem, and now she's working on Six Men of Salem.
[00:00:58] You're welcome. It's my pleasure.
[00:01:02] Sarah Jack: I'm pleased to introduce Marilynne K. Roach, author of the Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege, Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials, who is currently working on Six Men of Salem.
[00:01:21] Josh Hutchinson: You compiled the biographical notes for Records of the Salem Witch Hunt. Did that prepare you for writing your biographies in Six Women of Salem?
[00:01:30] Marilynne K. Roach: I would imagine that working on the biographies would've helped, cuz I knew more about where you can look. Genealogy books were great, if something existed for that particular person, and old town histories, as well as standard histories of the witch trials, the base, the contemporary sources.
[00:01:51] Of course that always helps, but for obscure characters, a lot of it can be luck, but just trying to look at everything you can get your hands on or over the internet or library archives when you can. That seems to be the way to find things. I think serendipity is the word that refers to find things, but you just have to keep digging.
[00:02:18] Sarah Jack: What's the difference between writing history and writing biographies?
[00:02:24] Marilynne K. Roach: A narrower focus on biographies. Well, history is the big concept, also, but it's human history, and individual humans are making it. One really leads into the other. And I think of myself as a storyteller, wanting to tell a good story, witch trials are, but getting the facts correct, being accurate, and trying to understand it in context, and then explaining it, presenting it in context, because the events of 1692 didn't take place in a vacuum in their own time. And it certainly didn't take place in a 20th or now 21st century mindset, either.
[00:03:11] So yes, you have to think about a big picture, but if it's a particular individual, also focusing it more narrowly on that first. But there's an amazing amount of connections that you could find, where if you find out who else is in the room when things happen or who they're related to or if they had a quarrel with a particular neighbor, which suddenly makes sense of a name that might show up in the testimony or some other paperwork, wills are good, deeds. But just look at everything you can. It's my advice.
[00:03:53] Josh Hutchinson: With biographies, once you've collected all the sources that are available, how do you fill in gaps? Do you just look at other people's lives?
[00:04:06] Marilynne K. Roach: The lives of the people that your subject interact with, yeah, you need that. But finding all the information, I only wish. There's always something that's missed, something you don't know about the archive, you can't get. As I write, I find, and I'm all reminded by seeing my agent, that there is something that's not explained, that there's a hole in the story, and you have to go looking in that direction and hope, hope that you find something and then backtrack and put it in, put the information in. And does it affect the other events that you've already found out about? Does it put them in a new light? It just makes it a little more interesting or complete lot there? There's really no end to it, but try to get as much as I can about people. Of course, as soon as a manuscript, let's say a publisher takes it, and they're gonna print it, and they've wrenched it out of my hands, then something always turns up. But not necessarily anything huge.
[00:05:13] Sarah Jack: Why is it important to think of the historical figures as individual people rather than statistics, stereotypes, or symbols?
[00:05:22] Marilynne K. Roach: The Salem Witch Trials particularly and history in general tend to be stock characters or two dimensional stereotypes, as you said and not for real people at all. There's just here's an example of someone who lived 2, 300 years ago. They didn't have a lot advantages. Some people it seems nowadays can't really get over the fact that people had to live differently because just because of the technology. To the point where people say things almost they weren't very smart, then they had to watch TV by candlelight because there was no electricity.
[00:06:02] And also, information turns up as various people look into an era or a personal topic so that more information does become available, and the more real a particular person will seem, and they were individuals. Assuming I'm remembered 300 years from now, I hope the book's still in print, but not necessarily. I am a person, and I would like my individuality. Not that I broadcast that. I'm always talking about some other character.
[00:06:39] Too many historical characters generally, and the Witch trials specifically, which has a lot of urban legend attached to it. The characters seem to be not real people. They're symbols of something else. They're symbols of something we don't approve of or just of the past, which is a really foreign country to most people. None of us have been there personally, but I don't think there's a great knowledge of what other eras were like, and they're all slightly different.
[00:07:13] They are individuals, and they were actual people then. If we can find out what they were like, we'd have a better understanding of what they went through and what their resources were and what they had to face.
[00:07:28] Josh Hutchinson: With the past being a foreign country, as you described, how do you get inside historical figures' heads?
[00:07:37] Marilynne K. Roach: I try to get inside my subjects by trying to find out about not just their lives, but the culture and what their particular place within it was. In my other book, Six Women of Salem, I prefaced the, and the chapters were fiction, identifiable, fictional episodes, in italics. Oh, I'm not lying about anything. This is make believe, but I believe it's based on as much as I could find. So I'm trying to get in the heads, but there's no guarantees. I don't want people to assume I'm either lying about it or believe the whole thing. With the book I'm currently working on about Six Men of Salem, a lot of that was done during Covid when I was quarantined with all six men. It seemed like ghosts, and their opinions, and I had to get down to work and go out and do things. So it made me get down to work, but it also focused me on thinking about them as I tried to do with the six women in the first book. But yes I'm still haunted by them, and I only hope I get what they might have been thinking generally accurate to their personalities. Otherwise, I could be haunted, even.
[00:09:07] Sarah Jack: When you consider what the other people in their era were saying about them and then what we can say about them now, they're not gonna haunt that. They're gonna celebrate that.
[00:09:19] Marilynne K. Roach: I hope so. You could read somebody's testimony about their terrible neighbor, and we read it, and she seems perfectly innocent, so I'm assuming the transcription of whatever they said was accurate, but the viewpoint totally different.
[00:09:36] Sarah Jack: How can we look at what an individual's perspective is versus what their experience is? For example, on the way to the gallows, they were experiencing something going there, but their perspective of what's happening to them, are those two important dynamics?
[00:10:00] Marilynne K. Roach: They're facing death. They know it's unfair. Sometimes family was in the crowd waiting to see them off, who was sympathetic to them, and they got to say a heartfelt goodbye. That was allowed. They were allowed to speak at the gallows to give last words, and that you often described as very affecting, and it moved some people to. But there's other people there who still believe that they're guilty as charged, that the person about to be hanged is guilty as charged, and they're not being sympathetic about it. I don't know which side had the more population in the crowd, probably the people who didn't like them. So I try to imagine what that would like.
[00:10:48] And besides the fact that this is gonna hurt, it's a considered a shameful death to be hanged. It's embarrassing. Certainly it hurts, it's death for crying out loud. But they're also gonna have to face God and answer their lives, which is why the people wouldn't lie and say that they were guilty. They weren't going to have that stain on their soul if they could possibly help. And they stood fast and spoke the truth to the crowd, and only some people were listening.
[00:11:20] But more and more as the summer went on, I guess I tried to put myself in their place and what would I experience? But, that's really the guesswork, because my life has been different than theirs.
[00:11:33] Josh Hutchinson: We'd like to talk about John Hale now, and how was he involved with the trials?
[00:11:41] Marilynne K. Roach: Reverend John Hale was the minister in Beverly, which is across the estuary from Salem. His house still stands, by the way. Some of his parishioners were accused by neighbors, and he was, I guess you get a summons to come to court as a witness. He did relate what the various feelings feelings of neighbors had been about those individuals.
[00:12:08] He doesn't come out and say they're witches or that he thinks they're guilty, but he's relating these suspicious events, and some of them were suspicious, and their general character in the neighborhood, but he believed that the afflictions on the supposed bewitched was real longer than others did. There's a mention in Thomas Brattle's letter explaining why things were going wrong, why he thought the court is proceeding wrong, and he said, by this time it's fall, " only Paris, Noyes, and Hale still believe that this is witchcraft." And Samuel Parris's daughter and niece have been the first to be afflicted, so he is worried sick kids in the family.
[00:12:56] Reverend Noyes is one of the ministers in Salem, which is where all the turmoil trials is going on and then Hale across the river in Beverly. You could get there in a few hours on horseback. I find him sympathetic, Hale, because although he believes that's what's going on for longer than he should have, he does come to his senses.
[00:13:22] He seems like an otherwise nice person. And after the trials are over, his congregation still thinks highly of him. They're not cutting off his pay as in some, as with Samuel Parris. They were ongoing problems with his congregation. But Hale didn't have those problems, and he wrote a book afterwards. That helps. We have his words. He wrote about witchcraft, turned out to be mistaken that they relied too much on ancient, as in pre-Christian even, opinions about what a witch was and how you identified them and later in the Christian Europe as assumptions that turn out not to be true. They're not really in scripture, but, and they really don't add up in retrospect, because 19 people have been hanged at this point and others have died by other means like disease. But I found him a sympathetic character, and he's on both sides. He's not actually an accuser. He believes them, he's on the side of the court and then it, in the end, he realizes he was so tragically wrong. The accusations get too close to home with his own family, which helps.
[00:14:48] He seems to have doubts, and every time throughout the course of the months that were consumed by this, people were confessing out of fear and the desire to live a little longer, but then someone would confess and say, "no, I really did that." And he believed them, too. Hale was caught between different information and too long trusted the wrong facts and opinions, but I think he came around, and it was too late, as you could see, to help the people who had died.
[00:15:24] Sarah Jack: I really like that you point out how his congregation was still supporting him at the end, because you definitely see how it was part of their church culture to often be in conflict with their minister.
[00:15:42] Marilynne K. Roach: It was a lot as conflict. Sometimes it stereotypes. The ministers were authoritarian, and people had to do what they said. They weren't even getting paid much of the time. Not that they wanted to be rich from being a minister in a small, rural town. But you did have to support your family.
[00:16:00] And there were conflicts. People had opinions. They spoke up, and they criticized. There was a lot of that in Salem Village, where the whole panic began, but not so much in Beverly, where Hale was the minister.
[00:16:16] Sarah Jack: And can you tell us a little bit about his family.
[00:16:19] Marilynne K. Roach: He was married to his second wife at the time of the trials. First one having died. And let's see, when his first wife was alive, the maid servant, hired girl, was stealing from them. They didn't realize that she's pretty clever about it. And the one of the neighbors was in on it and her family. They began to notice things missing.
[00:16:48] But the maid servant at least threatened Hale's daughter that she could raise the devil and that the neighbor was a witch, who would come and hurt her if she told her parents what was happening. And so, after the thefts were discovered, the maid servant, they never knew where she went. She just left.
[00:17:10] But the daughter didn't tell her father how afraid she had been until after all this was over, and he finds it out when his daughter's dead practically. That was sad. But she dies. There's a son from the first marriage, who's still alive, and he remarries some years later, and his children from that marriage, and his wife is, the second wife is going to have another baby, when somebody in the neighborhood accuses her of sending her specter to afflict them. This is at the very end of things of the panic.
[00:17:52] It's also getting into winter, and I think people's heads were cooling after the summer of everybody suspecting everybody else. But that's giving away the plot. But I mean, it's right in the history. He realizes his doubts before were what he should have been paying attention to.
[00:18:11] He wrote Modest Enquiry about in 1697, which was after the public fast that Massachusetts ordered, which is a church service. Everybody goes to their respective meeting house, and there's a religious service where people apologize to God and the community, for whatever's been going wrong, that has made life more difficult.
[00:18:35] The witch trial fiasco was one of the problems, not quite mentioned in the order for the fast, but everybody knows that's what it's about, along with other things like, oh, generally bad behavior, fractious youth and, therefore, there's international problems, because life is out of joint. But everybody knows this is about the witch trials. That was the occasion when the former high court Judge Samuel Sewall, who was on the court of Oyer and Terminer, made a personal apology in his congregation, which people noticed, cuz I guess he was the only one who stood up. But after that, Hale is thinking about what actually happened, and he begins to write the book. Let's see. I may have gotten this from Sewall's diary because he traveled to Salem now and then on court business or just cause he had relatives there, and he was talking with Hale, who mentions maybe we're writing a book. So it's 1697 when he does, but it didn't get published until after he died. So it was like 1701 that it came out, and it was not a huge seller, as I said. People get sick of the whole subject. Let's get beyond that and deal with the current topics and so forth, so on.
[00:20:02] A lot of people would really have forgotten it. Didn't wanna be reminded that they had been that wrong about so many things. But Massachusetts did finally make reparations to the survivors. Not everyone who was found guilty was hanged, because the panic ended before that happened. And also there were reparations to the families of people who didn't survive.
[00:20:31] And beginning in the early 18th century, some of the people who had been found guilty but managed to survive petitioned to have their names cleared. So just in case everything went wrong again, the death sentence would be not be reinstated, and that started them. But in 1711, the attainder, that is the guilty verdict, was reversed for the people who had petitioned for it.
[00:20:57] But not everybody got into the petitions, so actual exonerations continued and the last person was cleared by name last July, in 2022. So it took a while, but at least on paper they're clear, which was interesting to hear about and be a small part of writing letters to your legislature. But this is part of the actual paperwork of the trials. And I get the result in an email, not pen and ink with a quill, but the process had gone on through all that, those changes in history, and the history was completed in my own time.
[00:21:44] Sarah Jack: Thanks for sharing your experience.
[00:21:47] Marilynne K. Roach: It was a little thrilled when that finally happened, a lot of people who had worked on that and really worked on it.
[00:21:55] Sarah Jack: I'm so glad you got to be a part of that.
[00:21:57] Marilynne K. Roach: Middle school teacher in North Andover and her class were the driving forces behind it, in the civic class, to get justice for Elizabeth Johnson. And there was a hearing some while ago with the judicial committee in Massachusetts considered the question, and along with a whole list of other judicial questions about people who needed exoneration now, while they were still alive or other legal matters. And I was able to get a slot to speak a few words, strict time limit on it, in favor of Elizabeth Johnson, and I did it by Zoom. It helped to clear and then it went through other hoops and other commitments that other people were working on.
[00:22:49] Sarah Jack: Can you give us an idea of what you said for her during your testimony?
[00:22:54] Marilynne K. Roach: She survived, and she petitions to have her name cleared and she's left out of the names in the reversal of detainer and writes to. the General Court of Massachusetts, asking them to insert her name, and she never hears back from them again. So I told them that General Court, through the committee, that she had made this petition, and 300 years later we hoped that you finally do it.
[00:23:25] I quoted her words, because she was saying she was innocent, but a lot of people worked on that, and there's a documentary being made about process with the historians and the school kids and teacher. And it took years. It took less time for the state to declare the official dinosaur and the official cookie. But this is more important. Chocolate chip.
[00:23:53] Sarah Jack: Right now there's a bill proposed for the exoneration of the accused witches from Connecticut Colony.
[00:24:04] I descend from one of the accused, but she was not executed. Her name was Winifred Benham, and she was accused in 1697, so she was at the very tail end of Connecticut's trials, and she was the daughter of Mary Hale, who was accused in Boston.
[00:24:27] I feel very excited to be able to speak as a descendant. You were able to quote Elizabeth Johnson. We don't have a lot of that from Connecticut, because their records just are not with us. But we still have all of these other women, like Elizabeth Johnson Jr.
[00:24:49] They're an example that these women in this era that experienced this, they said they were innocent, and they asked to have their names cleared. But for the Connecticut victims, we have to say this for them, cuz, if they got a chance, we don't know what their words were, but I believe that they begged as well to be recognized as innocent.
[00:25:12] Marilynne K. Roach: In the eyes of the world, as well as in the eyes of God.
[00:25:16] Sarah Jack: We're excited for that. And it could all happen really fast, so we're on the brink of it. We're on the brink of it.
[00:25:26] Marilynne K. Roach: I look forward
[00:25:27] News at 11.
[00:25:30] Film at 11. Oh, that would be exciting.
[00:25:34] Sarah Jack: Thanks for all that great information on John Hale.
[00:25:36] Josh Hutchinson: And now it's time for your favorite segment. That's right, Minute with Mary. And here's Mary Louise Bingham to tell us more about Reverend John Hale and some of the lives that he touched.
[00:25:51] Mary Bingham: Reverend John Hale, the longtime minister at Beverly, Massachusetts, offered testimony at several trials for witchcraft in 1692 at Salem. Two testimonies of which are often spoken are those testimonies against Sarah Bishop and Dorcas Hoar, both who either lived near Beverly or in the town itself. However, he was also summoned to testify at my ancestor's trial on the 2nd of July, 1692. That was the trial of Sarah Wildes.
[00:26:29] Reverend Hale told the court about 1677 his member, Mary Herrick, brought her aging mother, Mary Reddington, to him for spiritual counsel at his home. Mary Reddington lived at Topsfield next door to Sarah and John Wilds. Mary did not like Sarah for reasons of which we can only speculate today.
[00:26:54] Could it be that Sarah had a supposed unsavory past and was now the stepmother to Mary's nieces and nephews? After all, Mary's sister, Priscilla was the first wife to John Wildes. Could it also be that John married Sarah only seven months after Priscilla died? We cannot be sure. However, according to Reverend Hale, Mary Reddington spoke of so many stories as to how Sarah afflicted or bewitched her, that he could not recount all of them.
[00:27:31] Mary, however, does tell Reverend Hale, her beloved nephew, John Wildes, Jr. did feel sorry for her. This signified to Mary that her nephew believed his stepmother was a witch.
[00:27:45] Reverend Hale continued by saying that on a separate occasion in 1672, he was invited to travel to Ipswich to pray and advise for Jonathan Wildes, Sarah's other stepson. Jonathan was possibly living with his uncle on East Street and seemed to be exhibiting strange behavior. Some neighbors thought he was strange. Others thought he was possessed, while others thought he was just a faker. After Mary Reddington's visit to him in 1677, Reverend Hale now believed that Jonathan was bewitched. Imagine if such hearsay was not acceptable as part of the court proceedings during Sarah's trial.
[00:28:34] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Mary, for those fascinating insights.
[00:28:39] Sarah Jack: Should we talk about Samuel Wardwell?
[00:28:41] Marilynne K. Roach: Samuel Wardwell was a farmer and a carpenter, but in the spare time, he was also a fortune teller, which was the problem. I think he could probably read people very well, but he would tell fortunes, and he was much addicted to it, said a neighbor who had to testify. He'd look at their hand, and he'd ponder and think about it and then come out with some kind of fortune.
[00:29:08] And enough of it came true that he had a reputation, but the orthodox line was, humans cannot do that. God's not going to tell you the future. So where is your information coming from, if not the devil? And if not deliberately palling around with satanic forces, certainly being sucked into it by buy some fast-talking devil, who you didn't realize was doing that until it's too late, and you were in their clutches. So he's known as a fortune teller. You're really not supposed to do that. It was like the end of August that he's finally named. He lives in Andover, which is north of Salem. And more people were accused in Andover than in Salem. In July, the infection of paranoia or bewitchment spreads to other communities, notably Andover.
[00:30:07] So he's named, and he is arrested on the 1st of September. Not all of the paperwork is there, but he and his wife and two eldest daughters are all arrested, and they all confess, but there's a lot of confession by then, especially among Andover, but he retracts his confession. They were led to believe, or they were just scared, said anything. At least bought them time, because if you confessed, you were held as a co-conspirator to testify against the rest of gang, which some of them acted as if they thought that they would be. That they wouldn't be killed if they turned state's evidence, but that would not have been the case. Eventually, as happened with some of the confessors, eventually they were tried and found guilty, because the confession was believed when the retraction was not.
[00:31:09] Some of the women in Andover who were questioned on a particular occasion that submitted a statement later when things were turning around and said that they didn't know what they said when they were being questioned at the hearing. They were just so frightened that they just agreed with whatever the magistrates were asking them. And they tended to lean towards really leading questions in those days, that occasion. So they just agreed with what they were being accused of to make the questions stop. Or they didn't remember what they'd said at all.
[00:31:43] One of the women said that, remember the name of the monarchs at the beginning of the whatever the clerk said. And after that they really could not remember what it said, but apparently they had confessed, and now they're going through tortures of conscience, because they've lied before God and the community and said that they were in Satan's grasp.
[00:32:04] And some of them would wonder, were they, had I really done this and not remembered it, had I really sold out to the devil? They came around to remembering that they had not. But Samuel Wardwell, did deny his confession. Some people were in jail for months, and then they tried. And the longer you were in jail, if you could stand the lack of sanitation, the better chance you had surviving for this panic to be over.
[00:32:32] But he's arrested the beginning of September. He's tried couple weeks later, where he denies his confession. He took it back. He said, "I did say those things in the written confession, but it's all false." But now the magistrates don't believe that. They believe what he said earlier. And he's tried and he's executed on the 22nd of September. So it took 22 days for the whole process, whereas his wife and the two girls held to the con fession. The wife did her, but they're not tried until the following year, January.
[00:33:11] Trials started up again, but we're not supposed to use spectral evidence. They eventually survive all this, and his wife, Sarah, is one of the first to petition to have her name cleared, so she survived. But course Samuel, he's in, I feel sorry for him. And I like the idea of fortune telling, even though it's a risky thing to try, but he's, things just don't work out for him. He keeps trying.
[00:33:41] Sarah Jack: He confided that he was afraid he would be named. Was he already worried if perhaps he had made some compact with the devil?
[00:33:53] Marilynne K. Roach: I'm not sure if he worried that he had himself compacted with the devil, but people certainly knew he was a fortune teller. He didn't seem to hide it. And that was, that prospect more and more dangerous. So he probably heard that the people were bandying his name around, as he told his brother-in-law. But after he revealed those suspicions of fears of what people might say about him, it seemed, I don't know if it made it worse, or if it was just going get bad anyway. Cause he was a known fortune teller.
[00:34:31]
[00:34:31] He did not get a premonition that he should get out of town now, but it takes money to successfully get away very far. Some people did escape, but they tended to have more money.
[00:34:46] Abigail Hobbs confessed fairly early on. Abigail Hobbs had been rather strange girl before all this panic started. But she had confessed cause she, "oh, I was out talking to devil last night." Sort of a joke. They took it seriously after things started getting really dicey.
[00:35:06] So she was witness against the other supposed witches. She'd seen so and so's spirit at such and such a witch meeting. So she was quite willing to testify against other people. But even that, eventually she was tried and found guilty, it's just that hangings were put on hold in October, so until they could get advice from England as how to proceed with the mess. And so she survives by default, even though she confessed, accused others, and was found guilty. But her name's included. She doesn't seem to have deserved it. On the other hand, she really wasn't a witch, just an inconvenient person to have around.
[00:35:56] Sarah Jack: Let's talk about Bridget. Why was she the first to be tried and executed?
[00:36:01] Marilynne K. Roach: Because she was a likely suspect, having been suspected before. She's a feisty character, but not a witch. I like her feistiness, as people tend to do now. They didn't appreciate it so much then. She had been accused of witchcraft, and the case went to the upper court . There's not enough of the paperwork left. There are only some depositions, as far as I know, by Juan, spelled, w o n n. And he says that he saw her spirit in the chicken house, and she's stealing eggs, and there was a black cat bothering people at night, while they were trying to sleep, but there really was no cat, so it was sent by Bridget Bishop.
[00:36:53] There's not a lot of specific details about the earlier case. But she had been suspected and the case referred to the upper court, which would've tried all capital cases, but then she's alive, so apparently the case was either dismissed or she was found not guilty.
[00:37:10] But neighbors remember that sort of thing. And she had had various disagreements, arguments with neighbors over boundary lines, chickens getting into the garden, a pig going amuck, and various neighborhood things. So she was probably a more likely suspect first, which she was hanged by herself, having been found guilty that was that case. Later executions, it was a group of people who had been hanged. Course of a few weeks, but after that first hanging in June, just Bridget had died at this point, one of the judges on the Oyer and Terminer Court quit, Nathaniel Saltonstall. He didn't like the overuse of spectral evidence where the supposed victims of witchcraft can see the forms, the apparitions, like a ghost, only from a living person coming at them.
[00:38:16] Only the victim can see this, not the other people in the world, they say. So he didn't think that was ironclad evidence, causing the court and Governor Phips to consult with experts on spiritual matters, the Boston-area ministers. And their answer was, you can't trust spectral evidence. It could be the devil's delusion which After the trials were all over, they realized, "we were deluded. The devil deluded us." But they ended this letter of advice by saying, "we trust your best good judgment to use proper scriptoral things.
[00:39:06] And witchcraft is illegal in England, too. And all the precautions, you know, the whole several paragraphs of precautions were pretty much ignored. And they continued with the other cases for that summer. Nobody who was tried in the summer of 1692 was found innocent. They were all found guilty. When the court convened in January 1693, it's now the Superior Court, because Massachusetts had just received a new charter to make its government legal. They did not have as much self-government as before, because the governor had to be appointed by the king, for one thing, but they had to reconsider all their laws and make sure they didn't conflict with the English code, witchcraft being illegal in England, too. Because of the way the trials had been going so wrong, the legislature established a permanent court for the capital cases and upper court, it's now a regular superior court, and also would not allow spectral evidence to be used against anyone.
[00:40:23] Those two things together, the people who were tried the following winter and the next spring, only three were found guilty, and those three were reprieved and eventually exonerated, they survived. During the summer of 1692, just the feeling was so out of hand that nobody had a chance, unless they could stay in jail for a good long time. Some of the women who were going to have babies but were condemned as witches got to wait until after they gave birth, and by then the panic was over and they got to survive and go home.
[00:41:03] Sarah Jack: There's so many layers to what was happening.
[00:41:07] Marilynne K. Roach: Stories within stories. It's not a simple story, good guys, bad guys, no.
[00:41:13] Sarah Jack: Is there anything that we need to set the record straight on around Bridget Bishop?
[00:41:19] Marilynne K. Roach: Well, her court papers were at an early date filed with another Goodwife Bishop's court papers so that they were assumed to be one person. This Bridget Bishop who lives in the middle of Salem and this Sarah Bishop who lived in the Danvers- Beverly line north of that in farming country. They're both married to men named Edward Bishop, which also makes it difficult. So Sarah and Edward Bishop ran an unlicensed, rowdy tavern. That story gets attached to Bridget, whose spector is identified by a few people as wearing a red petty coat or red bodice, which wasn't that unusual a color, if you could afford a good quality of dye. It's not considered too fancy necessarily, but the red petticoat, the tavern get put together, and she's running some dive somewhere in a lot of fiction, but yes, they're confused.
[00:42:34] Interesting character. Her second marriage before Edward was to an abusive husband, and she hit him back, and they both had to stand on the stalk, actually stand on in public as an apology for that sort of, which happened on Sunday.
[00:42:54] A genealogist figured her first husband was somebody Wasselbee, and if he didn't die just before, or on the voyage, shortly after they landed, because she gives birth in Boston to a child, who died. And there had been a child back in England who had died, also.
[00:43:19] She, at least a widow here in New England for a year before she marries Thomas Oliver. She supported herself somehow and moved to Salem and as her life there, which was apparently rocky. They do have a child, who's an adult, married woman in 1692. By then Bridget's Oliver has died.
[00:43:44] And she Bridget's married to one of the many Edward Bishops around, not necessarily related to the other Edward Bishops, but maybe someday someone will figure that out. So she's had an interesting life, and hard.
[00:43:59] Sarah Jack: She had child loss along with spouse loss. Would've that been looked at as just an experience many of the women were having, or would've that added to this list of negative things about her in people's eyes.
[00:44:17] Marilynne K. Roach: Sometimes the families where there had been a number of dead children blame the neighbors witching them too. Some other hard times that she had had to deal with, which maybe made her look cranky sometimes, I can identify. Not well, that's not my experience, but I can identify with her crankiness, but not the same reason. The crankiness seems to be standing up for her rights.
[00:44:47] Arguing with the neighbor whose chicken or Bridget's chickens got into the neighbor's garden and scratched it up, and she had words with the neighbor. But yes, she stood up for herself. Who owned the pig that was in contention? Was it hers? Should her husband have gone and sold it without asking.
[00:45:12] Josh Hutchinson: You've mentioned some trouble with her marriage to Thomas Oliver. What do we know about her relationships with him and with Edward?
[00:45:22] Marilynne K. Roach: They do have the child together, and that child survives. She grows up, but he hit her, and she hit him back. They both complained to neighbors at different times about being bruised by the other person. So she fought back. When they apparently did something in public, yelling at each other in public on a Sabbath, and they were both on the stand out in public with the crime on their hat or something. Be it stand out in public to the gaze of the populous or be fined. Thomas's grown daughter paid the fine for him and left stepmother to stand on the pillory, to the public gaze. So I guess she wasn't on the best of terms with her stepchildren, so it was odd, like Edward sounds not abusive, but on the other hand, he never shows up to speak on her behalf.
[00:46:33] Nobody speaks on her behalf. It's bad. It's, it's an interesting character. You hardly know he was still around, except she's identified as Edward Bishop's wife, something. And he shows up when Oliver's estate is settled after Bridget's death. He's living in the house that he built on the Oliver land that Bridget was given permission to use for the rest of her life, even though she was widowed, it didn't immediately pass to Oliver's heirs, interestingly enough.
[00:47:10] So he's in on the deeds and he's with probate, and the daughter inheritance, something like that. He certainly did not come to the and demand that his wife be perceived as an innocent person. John Proctor did that. He got arrested too. So there's that.
[00:47:33] Sarah Jack: Nobody was speaking up for her, but men were talking about dreaming about her, they were speaking about her. Why were they dreaming about her? Why were they complaining about that?
[00:47:46] Marilynne K. Roach: Pretty obviously dreams that certain men in the neighborhood had had. Either they found her threatening or alluring and therefore a threat. It's not my fault I had thoughts about her. Certainly it's all her doing in their minds, perhaps. She's identified by her clothing. They're obviously afraid of one reason or another. And the description of not being able to breathe, because she's pressing down on them in the night, supposedly, does match sleep disorder, which I think it's traditionally called the hag, where somebody dreams there's a witch on them trying to stop their breath, or sounds like those old legends of cats sitting on somebody's chest and sucking their breath out.
[00:48:42] They phrased their dreams in that manner, I think. Maybe she's so defiant. She's got fan base now. That is where you wanna be a fly on the wall.
[00:49:00] Josh Hutchinson: And you mentioned that she had a daughter who survived. What happened with her?
[00:49:07] Marilynne K. Roach: She's grown up and married a Christian, their first name. She's married to a fisherman. And they have a daughter. And the daughter's daughter was a school teacher in early 19th century Salem, taught all little kids to learn to read.
[00:49:25] She does have descendants, so they would just, I don't know how they got along with the neighbors, but after a few generations, they trusted to send their kids there to learn to read. And then they'd been, you know, the apology, reversal of attainder, and so forth. Or that generation just thought, we have come so far in this, these modern times, that would be like during the China trade years, but there were quite a few children in like the fourth generation.
[00:50:09] Rebecca Nurse was quite a different character and it didn't help her that she had a good reputation generally, and people spoke up for her. She had a, an extended family around her. Lots of kids. They're married, they have kids and the neighbors, the children to pull, testify for at least on paper, don't know if they called it to court. They get petitions signed.
[00:50:36] Lots of people signed the petition, which could be risky. By signing a petition, it might seem that then you, too, were backing a witch, if she's found guilty. But a lot of people stood up for her, and it still didn't do anything in the law. Whereas Bridget had a quarrelsome reputation, probably justified, she had reason to quarrel, but she's hanged, Rebecca's hanged. It was very dangerous.
[00:51:08] Sarah Jack: How do we know that Rebecca was so pious? Her contrast was so different to Bishop's.
[00:51:14] Marilynne K. Roach: Rebecca was a full member of the Church of Salem Town, lives in Salem Village, before the Village had its own parish. Her family supported her and a lot of neighbors did think highly of of her. I would say the level of support that she had indicated what people thought of her.
[00:51:38] And she was found not guilty, actually, the first part of her trial, which caused the afflicted witnesses, first those victims, to writhe in extreme pain and cry out that they were being hurt. If she's not actually indicted for that, at least, is a reason why the uh, chief justice had the jury reconsider some evidence that hadn't been emphasized before, where she had actually made the remark when certain confessed witches had been led into the court to testify.
[00:52:23] But she commented to whoever, "why are you bringing them in? They're one of us." Meaning us accused. The jury reconsidered whether she meant one of us confessed witches. She hadn't confessed, but was she witch? So the jury sent out. They come back and they ask, "what exactly did you mean by that statement?" And she doesn't say anything. She doesn't, so they figure, alright, she's guilty, they pronounce her guilty, and that's that. Then somebody tells Rebecca what had just happened and she realizes she hadn't heard the question from jury foreman. She's hard of hearing, considered elderly in her time, exhausted by all this and she lost her chance to speak up, presumably, would've helped. And might even have turned the tide of the trials, if somebody had actually been found not guilty at this point, but guilty. And that's how the court proceeds. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, but almost.
[00:53:42] Josh Hutchinson: She was nearly reprieved, wasn't she?
[00:53:47] Marilynne K. Roach: Yes. After the verdict comes down, then her family and supporters get depositions together and the petition and get it as far as Governor Phips, who does issue a reprieve, and we don't have the paperwork, but he, he did. And that caused such reactions of agony, presumably they believed it themselves, such a reaction from her supposed victims, that some gentlemen of Salem, not named but maybe the magistrates, persuaded the governor to rescind it, and she's back on the list. That was an up and down, up and down. Hopes dashed. Hopes revived. Quite a rollercoaster there.
[00:54:40] Josh Hutchinson: She has quite a number of descendants. Sarah's one. She and I are both descended from Mary Esty, and we know there's a very active Towne Cousin Association and of course there's the Rebecca Nurse Homestead. So she has quite more of a legacy than many of the other persons that were accused.
[00:55:04] Marilynne K. Roach: And lots of descendants. I've met many of them. The fact that the farm, or most of it is there, and the house, it helps make it more real if you can go to a place where things happen. And the Towne Family Association website and all that. I did give a talk on Six Women of Salem to one of the reunions several years ago.
[00:55:33] Josh Hutchinson: Do you wanna tell us anything about your new book you're working on?
[00:55:38] Marilynne K. Roach: I've my fingers is crossed. Makes you want to work a little magic spell to attract publishers, but you know, one mustn't do that. There's still a lot of work to do on it, but just proceeding chronologically, we've reached September. I need to fill in some blanks to explain things better or just blanks that, explain something more that's been lost, and the six guys are all very real. Some, realer than others. There's more information on some than on others, but there's that they were chosen as these six women were chosen because there is some biographical information. Just the trials where there might be a few papers to somebody about being arrested and jail bill or something, but what did they say?
[00:56:41] What were the neighbors saying about, and before all this blew up and the panic started getting out of hand, what did they, what were they doing the rest of their lives? Does it show up in town records? Especially for the men who had a wider world to move around in. Military stuff going on.
[00:57:02] The problems with French Canada, the French King, the English Glorious Revolution over there. What's going on in New York? What's going on in the wilds of Maine, practically coast, not a lot of hinterland for the English yet, but the indigenous people, the French allying, the economic situation. I had to try and find out something about all that, but it all touches the story, and I hope I know enough to at least make it logical.
[00:57:39] Sarah Jack: It's gonna be great. It's gonna be really important. Thanks for taking it on.
[00:57:45] Marilynne K. Roach: It's fascinating. It's whole bunch of rabbit holes, but they're all interesting. I hope they approve. Maybe sometimes a writer is more accurate than the subject would like that to be, depending what you're saying. But there can be surprises, too of it. Hathorne for example, was praised for his mercy at one point, not by the accused witches, but you'll see when it happens.
[00:58:17] Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with another important update.
[00:58:20] Sarah Jack: This is End Witch Hunts News.
[00:58:22] I am so excited to announce an incredible east coast speaking tour week that we get to assist with Dr. Leo Igwe, the director of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches nonprofit organization will be in the area. Myself and Josh Hutchinson are Salem Witch Trial descendants and co-founders of End Witch Hunts Movement, our parent organization. It is an incredible honor for us to organize a week of these speaking engagements during his May speaking tour in the United States and to accompany him as he speaks in both the Salem, Massachusetts area and in the Hartford, Connecticut area. Both places of historical significance to Early American Colony Witch Trials History.
[00:59:01] We would like to thank friends of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, Rachel Christ-Doane and the Salem Witch Museum, for hosting a virtual presentation of Leo Igwe on Monday, May 15th. Please go to their Facebook event to RSVP.
[00:59:15] Witch persecutions and trials are ongoing incidents in Africa and other nations, reportedly at least 60. Witchcraft accusation is still a form of death sentence. Across the continent, thousands, mainly women and elderly persons or children are accused, tried, attacked, killed, imprisoned, or banished every year.
[00:59:37] Join the Salem Witch Trial Museum on May 15th for a fascinating virtual lecture given by Dr. Leo Igwe. In his presentation, he will use several cases to illustrate the range of Witch persecutions, and why this early modern phenomenon persists in contemporary Africa. The Zoom link will be shared on their event page 24 hours prior to the event. This first event at the Salem Witch Museum is virtual, but Dr. Leo Igwe will be with us in Salem, touring the historic sites guided by a local seasoned in the history, End Witch Hunts board of directors member, and Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast host of "Minute with Mary," Mary Bingham.
[01:00:15] Tuesday, May 16th is your chance to experience a very special evening of in-person conversation with Leo at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers. Please see the Facebook event for details. Thank you to Dan Gagnon and the homestead director and board members for hosting us.
[01:00:33] Isn't this a great week? Make sure you mark your calendars.
[01:00:37] Next you can enjoy an in-person speaking event with Dr. Igwe at Central Connecticut State University on Wednesday, May 17th. Thank you for hosting, Dr. Kathy Hermes, Connecticut Explored Magazine, and the University Library. While in the Hartford area, Leo will be touring known witch trial historic sites with author and co-founder of the Connecticut Witch Memorial Facebook page, and End Witch Hunts board of directors member Beth Caruso.
[01:01:01] But wait, there is more. On Thursday afternoon, May 18th, Leo will be presenting at the Stanley-Whitman House living history center in Farmington, Connecticut. This is hosted by friend of the podcast, Andy Verzosa. I want to break off to congratulate Andy and the Stanley-Whitman House. They have been selected by the award committee of the Connecticut League of History Organizations to be awarded, not one but two 2023 Awards of Merit. The first award is for the museum's book, Memento Mori: Remembered Death, and the second award is for their commissioned play, The Last Night.
[01:01:35] And last but not least, you can support the Stratford Historic Society by attending their inaugural Goody Bassett Ball on May 20th. This is not a speaking engagement for Leo, but Sarah, Josh, and Leo and other members of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project will be in attendance. And we would love to talk to you about the history, the podcast, and how the speaking tour went.
[01:01:56] Thank you to all these witch hunt and witch trial advocates and leaders of witch trial history for your thoughtful collaborations and for giving Leo a platform to amplify his message. We want to see you there, listeners. Please come hear the talk and shake hands with us. This is a very important and special opportunity that is history in the making.
[01:02:14] This is my first time to the historic sites of my ancestors, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty. This is Leo's first in-person interactions with historic witch trial communities in New England. Come join us and make this a week that magnifies the importance of witch hunt education and action against it. Look for Facebook events for all these occasions posted by our social media.
[01:02:37] Would you like to know more about Leo or any of these event hosts? You are in luck, because we have some great podcast episodes for you to listen to. For more on Leo, listen to episode, "Witchcraft Accusations in Nigeria with Dr. Leo Igwe." And to learn more about Beth Caruso and Dr. Kathy Hermes, listen to episode, "Between God and Satan." And to learn more about Dan Gagnon, listen to the episode "Rebecca Nurse of Salem." And to learn more about Andy Verzosa and The Last Night play, listen to episode, "Introducing The Last Night, a Connecticut Witch Trials Play" and keep your eyes open, because another episode with Andy Verzosa will be publishing in the next few weeks.
[01:03:16] Get involved by visiting endwitchhunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop or merch from our Zazzle shop. Our links are in the show description. Come hear Leo. Invite your friends and family. See you there.
[01:03:31] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that information. We'll be sure to head out and attend these events.
[01:03:40] Sarah Jack: Meet you there.
[01:03:41] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shall Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:03:46] Sarah Jack: Join us next week for our next round of Connecticut Witch Trials 101.
[01:03:52] Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:03:56] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:03:59] Josh Hutchinson: Tell all your friends, family, acquaintances, neighbors, and pets about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:04:07] Sarah Jack: Keep supporting our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org again.
[01:04:14] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:04:17]

April 6, 2023

Connecticut Witch Trials 101, Part 1

Connecticut Witch Trials 101 Bibliography

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Show Notes

This is Part 1 of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast’s Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series. Take in this informative New England colonial history conversation with your cohosts and accused witch descendants, writer and podcast producer, Joshua Hutchinson and End Witch Hunts President and people connector extraordinaire, Sarah Jack. Enjoy the new segment, “Minute with Mary” by Mary Bingham, accused witch descendant, writer and researcher. This episode begins the story of Connecticut’s known witch trial victims with only fact backed, trustworthy research and sources. Take advantage of the expansive bibliography, and do some educational reading. Dig into the research with us. This series has been created with thoughtful inquiry and consideration of historian expertise, historic record and available archived material. How do we know what we know? We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

March 29,, 2023 Discussion Panel with State Representative Jane Garibay on Bill HJ #34, A Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.

Press Conference on Legislative Bill H.J. No. 34, March 8, 2023

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: This is part one of our Connecticut Witch Trials 101 series.
Sarah Jack: This series will serve as an introduction to witch-hunting in Connecticut.
Josh Hutchinson: Enjoy.
Sarah Jack: You're gonna learn and be informed on the history.
Josh Hutchinson: Witch trials in Connecticut occurred between 1647 and 1697.
Sarah Jack: 45 individuals were accused.
Josh Hutchinson: 34 were indicted.
Sarah Jack: 11 executed.
Josh Hutchinson: The first execution occurred [00:01:00] May 26th, 1647 when Alice Young of Windsor was hanged in Hartford.
Sarah Jack: Mary Barnes was the last to be hanged, January 25th, 1663.
Josh Hutchinson: Though the last execution occurred in 1663, they still had trials until 1697.
Sarah Jack: The last indicted and arrested were mother and daughter Winifred Benham, Sr. And 13 year old Winifred Benham, Jr.
Josh Hutchinson: We'll bring you more on all of these individuals as the series goes on.
We've carefully researched these episodes and going to share with you now the sources that we've been using in compiling this information. The Devil In the Shape of A Woman by Carol F. Karlsen. Entertaining Satan by John [00:02:00] Demos. The Devil's Dominion by Richard Godbeer. Witchcraft Myths in American Culture by Marion Gibson. Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England by David D. Hall. Before Salem by Richard S. Ross III. Detestable and Wicked Arts by Paul B. Moyer. Escaping Salem by Richard Godbeer. Prospero's America by Walter Woodward. Records of the Particular Court of Connecticut, 1639 to 1663. The Samuel Wyllys Papers. The Matthew Grant Diary. John Winthrop, Sr's Journals, Volume One. John Winthrop Sr's Journal, Volume Two. "Between God and Satan," an article by Dr. Katherine Hermes and Beth [00:03:00] Caruso. John Winthrop, Jr's Medical Records. We'll have links to all of these in the show description.
Sarah Jack: The facts that we talk about are from the primary sources.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes. In each segment we'll be presenting to you how we know what we know.
Sarah Jack: A primary source is a record or writing from the era giving us details of the events.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we'll be sharing a number of primary and secondary sources for you to do your own research, if you want to carry things further from what you hear in these episodes. We do recommend all of these books that we're using.
Sarah Jack: These authors analyze primary sources and interpreted what was happening in [00:04:00] these colonies based on those, but it is young research, and there's limited information. Maybe more information will reveal itself. That's what my hope is, that we find more records, that when you or any one of us take another look at some of these records, maybe we see it, maybe we see something that wasn't noticed before.
Josh Hutchinson: Do we want to give all the victims a name and the story that they deserve?
Sarah Jack: We're still searching for the names of many of the women like Goody Bassett. We wanna find your name. We can track her story, but we don't know her first name. We don't know her maiden name. We want to know.
Josh Hutchinson: In between 1647 and 1663, 15 people were hanged for witchcraft in just Massachusetts and Connecticut alone.
Sarah Jack: That's a really important fact. [00:05:00] 15.
Josh Hutchinson: 15, and 11 of them were hanged in Connecticut. So Connecticut was the deadliest state for witchcraft accusations.
I want to emphasize that there were a lot of victims, especially and say that there's, this is substantive, this is meaty. There were a lot of people, and we're gonna talk more about each one as time goes on. So don't worry that we're only giving your ancestor a brief gloss over. We will bring more detail to them. You don't have to remember every fact that you hear tonight. The transcript is available now, and we will be also converting this episode into a blog post. So you'll have [00:06:00] access to the names again, and then we'll speak to them more over the next two months.
And now we'd like to read for you a document called Grounds for Examination of a Witch believed to have been written by Connecticut Deputy Governor William Jones.
Grounds for Examination of a Witch.
Number one, notorious defamation by the common report of the people a ground of suspicion.
Sarah Jack: Second ground for strict examination. If a fellow witch gave testimony on his examination or death that such a person is a witch, but this is not sufficient for conviction or condemnation.
Josh Hutchinson: Three, if after cursing there follows death or at least mischief to the party.
Sarah Jack: If after quarreling or threatening, a present [00:07:00] mischief doth follow, for the party's devilishly disposed after cursing do use threatenings, and that also is a great presumption against them.
Josh Hutchinson: If the party suspected be the son or daughter, the servant or familiar friend, near neighbors, or old companion of a known or convicted witch, this also is a presumption, for witchcraft is an art that may be learned and conveyed from man to man, and oft it falleth out that a witch dying leaveth some of the aforesaid heirs of her witchcraft.
Sarah Jack: Six, if the party suspected have the devil's mark, for its thought when the devil maketh this covenant with them, he always leaves his mark behind him to know them for his own. That is, if no evident reason in nature can be given for such mark.
Josh Hutchinson: [00:08:00] Seven. Lastly, if the party examined be unconstant and contrary to himself in his answers this much for examination which usually is by question and sometimes by torture upon [strong and great presumption].
The first person known to have been tried for witchcraft in Connecticut was Alice Young. We know this from three sources, John Winthrop, Sr's journals, Matthew Grant's Diary, and John Winthrop, Jr's medical papers.
John Winthrop Sr. wrote that "one blank of Windsor arraigned and executed at Hartford for a Witch."
Matthew Grant in his diary wrote, "May 26th, 47, Alice Young was Hanged."
Winthrop Jr. wrote on the back of a medical record of John Young, [00:09:00] "his wife was hanged for witch at Connecticut."
One theory of why Alice was accused was this epidemic that went through Windsor in 47.
Sarah Jack: Since those entries are all we have to go on.
Josh Hutchinson: Those entries, and then looking at the records from Windsor, you can see that a lot of people died that year from some epidemic.
Several Windsor residents were killed in the epidemic, including children of many prominent citizens.
Sarah Jack: One who died was Priscilla Thornton.
Josh Hutchinson: She was the daughter of a tanner named Thomas Thornton, who lived next door to John and Alice Young.
Sarah Jack: After this life changing event the community [00:10:00] went through, he became a minister.
Josh Hutchinson: Cotton Mather later published Thomas Thornton's account of Priscilla's death. First published it in his appendix for a reprinting of James Janeway's, A Token for Children of New England in 1700, and then again in his own book, Magnolia Christi Americana.
From 1648 through 1654, another six individuals were executed for witchcraft in Connecticut. They were Mary Johnson, Goodwife Bassett, Joan and John Carrington, Goodwife Knapp, and Lydia Gilbert.
Mary Johnson of Wethersfield was a servant who was accused of witchcraft in 1648 and was pressured by Reverend Samuel Stone to confess. [00:11:00] When she eventually did, she said that she was discontented and asked a devil to come and do chores for her. This devil cleared her hearth and drove hogs out of her master's field. Johnson also confessed to murdering a child and to "uncleanness" with men and devils. She was not known to have any heirs when the accusation was lodged and is not known to have been pregnant. She was convicted December 7th, 1648, and hanged in Hartford shortly after.
Sarah Jack: And Cotton Mather gave us some of this information in his account, Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions in 1689.
Josh Hutchinson: The reality of the situation is we don't have much to go on other than [00:12:00] Cotton Mather. There's a court record that says, "the jury finds the bill of indictment against Mary Johnson that by her own confession she is guilty of familiarity with the devil. December 7th, 1648," one thing from Connecticut Colonial Records, what Cotton said, and then something in the collections of the Connecticut Historical Society.
And we'll have links to where you can find all of those online in the show notes.
Sarah Jack: Now we're gonna talk about the first couple that was arrested and hanged, Joan and John Carrington of Weathersfield.
Josh Hutchinson: John Carrington came to Boston in 1635 with his wife, Mary. Both were said to be 33 years old. They're next heard from in Wethersfield in 1643.
Little is actually known about the trial. The [00:13:00] indictment only states that the Carringtons had entertained familiarity with Satan, the great enemy of God and mankind, and by his help done works above the course of nature.
Sarah Jack: It's in March of 1651 that he's convicted for works above the course of nature.
Josh Hutchinson: This indictment's also in the collections of the Connecticut Historical Society. " A particular court in Hartford upon the trial of John Carrington and his wife 20th February, 1650 [which translates to 1651] Magistrates, Edward Hopkins, Esquire, Governor John Haynes, Esquire. Deputy Mr. Wells, Mr. Wolcott, Mr. Webster, Mr. Cullick, Mr. Clarke.
John Carrington thou art [00:14:00] indicted by the name of John Carrington of Wethersfield carpenter, that not having the fear of God before thine eyes thou hast entertained familiarity with Satan the great enemy of God and mankind and by his help hast done works above the course of nature for which both according to the law of God and of the established law of this Commonwealth Dow deserves to die.
The jury finds this indictment against John Carrington, March 6th, 1650/51.
Joan Carrington thou art indicted by the name of Joan Carrington the wife of John Carrington that not having the fear of God before thine eyes thou hast entertained familiarity with Satan the great enemy of God and mankind and by his help hast done works above the course of nature for which both according to the laws of God and the established law of this commonwealth thou deservest to die.[00:15:00]
The jury finds this indictment against Joan Carrington March 6, 1650/51."
So that's how we know he's a carpenter.
Sarah Jack: From what we can know by record, John likely had a son, John, with his first wife Mary. We learn about that in Entertaining Satan. Joan had no sons.
Josh Hutchinson: Goodwife Bassett of Stratford was tried and executed in 1651. We know a little about her, but we don't know her first name.
Sarah Jack: Earlier we talked about the definite connection that Thomas Thornton's family were neighbors of the John Young family, but there's also a possible connection to Bassett and her husband. Thomas arrived in Boston on the ship Christian in 1635. They settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts while Thomas Thornton lived there. [00:16:00] Then the Bassetts lived in Windsor at the same time as the Thorntons. In 1650, Thomas Thornton moved his family to Stratford, so did the Bassetts. Thornton was elected Stratford's deputy to the General Court in 1651, the year Bassett was hanged.
Josh Hutchinson: We know about Goody Bassett's execution largely through a subsequent lawsuit, where Mary Staples claimed to have been defamed as a witch through a chain of events that began with the execution of Goody Bassett and led to the execution of Goody Knapp and the suspicion of Mary Staples.
And this is not the last that we'll hear about Goody Knapp or Mary Staples.
Sarah Jack: We have some specific statements on trial record. "The governor, Mr. Cullick, and Mr. Clarke are desired to go down to Stratford to keep court [00:17:00] upon the trial of Goody Bassett for her life. And if the governor cannot go, then Mr. Wells is to go in his room. May 15th, 1651." In the Mary Staples defamation suit, Lucy Pell's testimony says, "Goodwife Bassett, when she was condemned, said there was another Witch in Fairfield that held her head full high." You can find out more about Goody Bassett and her connection with Thornton in "Between God and Satan" by friends of the show Dr. Katherine Hermes and Beth Caruso.
Josh Hutchinson: Nobody has pinpointed Goodwife Bassett's first name.
Sarah Jack: Here's a little more on Goody Knapp of Fairfield. Was her head held high?
She was executed in 1653. The information found is in this Mary Staples defamation suit.
Josh Hutchinson: The reason Mary Staples herself was accused of witchcraft was that following the execution [00:18:00] of Goodwife Knapp, Staples disputed the presence of teats on Goodwife Knapp's body. Roger Ludlow then claimed that Goodwife Knapp had told him that Mary Staples was a witch before she had been killed. The evidence indicates that Knapp actually remained silent throughout the proceedings, despite the pressure to confess and name names.
Sarah Jack: We know about this due to the New Haven Town Records.
Josh Hutchinson: Lydia Gilbert of Windsor was executed in 1654.
Sarah Jack: She was blamed for the misfiring of a gun during a militia exercise, which killed Henry Stiles.
Josh Hutchinson: She was indicted three years after the fatal accident.
Sarah Jack: That indictment was November 25th, 1654.
Josh Hutchinson: How do we know what we know about Lydia Gilbert? [00:19:00] We've read of her in several books. And those books trace their information to the Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society and The History of Ancient Windsor by Henry R. Stiles. We'll have links to those.
Sarah Jack: And she, along with Alice Young, have a memorial brick in Windsor.
Josh Hutchinson: A simple brick donated by a public citizen in a space where you can purchase memorial bricks. Nothing official, no details available for anyone stepping over her brick. She needs more. They all do.
Following the first seven accusations and executions for witchcraft in Connecticut and New Haven colonies, John [00:20:00] Winthrop Jr. started to become involved in witchcraft trials in the mid 1650s and prevented executions from happening until he left to get the charter for the colony of Connecticut from the government in London.
So the years 1655 to 1661 are relatively peaceful years in the annals of witch-hunting in Connecticut. John was the son of Massachusetts, governor John Winthrop Sr., The famous immigrant who wrote about the City on the Hill.
Sarah Jack: His expertise was in medicine, alchemy, science, and skepticism.
Josh Hutchinson: He practiced what was considered to be Christian alchemy, believing that the [00:21:00] two sets of beliefs were not at odds with each other but actually complimentary.
Sarah Jack: He was first involved in a witchcraft case in 1655.
Josh Hutchinson: Once he got involved, there were no more executions for a while.
Sarah Jack: But there were still accusations and trials.
Josh Hutchinson: Elizabeth Godman of New Haven was brought to court on witchcraft accusations in 1653 and 1655, but was not executed. In 1653, the court told her to behave herself and mind her own business. In 1655, she was examined August 7th, released from jail September 4th, but ordered to return to court in October, which she did on October 17th. Again she was warned to behave, and this time she was ordered to pay a 50 pound [00:22:00] bond for her good behavior, which she paid on January 1, 1656.
Sarah Jack: John Winthrop, Jr. may have had influence over this case. A man wrote to Winthrop Junior about efforts to identify the disease affecting Mary Bishop, Elizabeth Brewster, and Margaret Lamberton.
Josh Hutchinson: Goodwife Bailey and Nicholas Bailey of New Haven were banished for witchcraft in 1655. They were told to leave on July 3rd, but they dragged their feet and got called to court again August 7th, September 4th and October 2nd. The first two of those dates, August 7th and September 4th, they were in court with Elizabeth Godman. After the last of their courtroom visits, they moved from the New Haven colony to the Connecticut [00:23:00] colony.
Sarah Jack: John Winthrop, Jr. was the governor of Connecticut Colony from 1657 to 1658 and 1659 through 1676.
Josh Hutchinson: William Meaker of New Haven sued Thomas Mulliner for slander in 1657 and won. Meaker was accused of the witching Mulliner's hogs.
Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Garlick accused East Hampton 1658. Winthrop's first official witch trial role. Garlick was accused of bewitching Betty Howell to death. Betty was daughter of Lion Gardiner, leading citizen of the town. In May 1658, Elizabeth Garlick was the first person acquitted of witchcraft in Connecticut.
Josh Hutchinson: In 1659, an unknown person of Saybrook was indicted for witchcraft.
Sarah Jack: Goodwife Palmer, likely [00:24:00] Katherine Palmer, of Wethersfield found herself in court and in accusations on several dates. She was first arrested for witchcraft in 1648, following a complaint by John Robbins.
Josh Hutchinson: In 1648, John Robbins complained about her for some reason, and she went to court. In 1660, the Robbins family got sick, actually late 1659 into early 1660. Mrs. Robbins, their son, and then John Robbins all died in a few months. And John had allegedly, according to their daughter, written out a complaint against Katherine Palmer outlining his suspicions of her before he died. So this is a second time that he's [00:25:00] accusing her of causing their problems. But the daughter admitted that the note that he wrote could not be found.
It came back up in 1662, because Rebecca Greensmith said, "oh yeah, Goody Palmer is one of these people that attends Christmas parties with us." So after 1662, she leaves to Newport, Rhode Island with her husband Henry. Most likely they did. In 1667 in Connecticut, there was another complaint against her for witchcraft along with Katherine Harrison, but she was in Rhode Island, so nothing happened to her, Palmer that is. And then in 1672 in Newport, Rhode Island that Henry Palmer, who may be the same [00:26:00] Henry Palmer sued someone for defamation against his wife.
Sarah Jack: And would Katherine Palmer and Katherine Harrison have known each other?
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, they were both seen at the bedside of John Robbins in 1660. So Katherine Harrison, she apparently was also suspected for some years before her husband died and they came after her.
Sarah Jack: Katherine Palmer's story here is intriguing. Harrison's is one of the other ones that has lots of animosity in it.
So we had a few years of acquittals and then in 1661, Winthrop Junior left for London in the summer to obtain the charter for Connecticut Colony.
Josh Hutchinson: Margaret [00:27:00] Jennings and Nicholas Jennings of Saybrook were accused the same year that Winthrop left. They had initially been examined in June 1659 but were not indicted until September 5th, 1661, after Winthrop had left. Fortunately, the jury that delivered a verdict on October 9th was undecided, and the Jennings were freed.
How do we know what we know about all these things? We have medical records, journals, court records, and a hundred plus years of secondary writings.
While Winthrop Jr. was in London attempting to acquire a new charter to make the colony of Connecticut official, the Hartford Witch Panic broke out. Captain [00:28:00] John Mason stood in as governor while Winthrop was away, and with Mason serving in that role, there were 13 trials, two certain executions, two probable executions, and about half a dozen escapes, in the years 1662 to 1665.
Sarah Jack: Elizabeth Kelly, eight years old, accused Goody Ayers. Then William Ayers then accused Rebecca Greensmith.
Josh Hutchinson: Elizabeth Kelly was a young girl who took mysteriously ill and eventually succumbed to her condition. An autopsy was ordered. With the leading medical expert, Winthrop Jr., out of the colony, a physician named Bray Rossiter was called in to perform the autopsy on the body of Elizabeth Kelly. He arrived several [00:29:00] days after her death, examined her body at the graveside, and declared that she had been killed using supernatural means. But what he really found and describes in the autopsy were common signs of decomposition.
Sarah Jack: Ann Cole, referred to as a young woman and as being diabolically possessed, named Elizabeth Seager and Rebecca Greensmith as her tormentors.
Josh Hutchinson: One important question that we'll seek to answer in a future episode is, was Ann Cole possessed or was she bewitched? There's important difference between the two relating to accusations of witchcraft. Was it diabolical possession or was there one of Satan's human servants [00:30:00] behind her pains?
During the Hartford Witch Panic, Mary and Andrew Sanford were also accused of witchcraft. Mary was tried with her husband on June 6th, 1662. The jury was undecided about both cases. On June 13th, Mary was indicted individually and was convicted and executed.
Sarah Jack: Andrew is acquitted and freed.
Josh Hutchinson: While Mary stands trial again and is hanged.
Where's the justice in that one?
She would've tempted him into witchcraft somehow using her diabolical powers, because of course she's the woman, the woman's the weaker vessel.
Sarah Jack: Now we're to the second couple that was indicted and executed, Rebecca Greensmith and Nathaniel [00:31:00] Greensmith. Rebecca accused her husband Nathaniel in her confession.
Josh Hutchinson: One of the things that she confessed to was having an illegitimate Christmas party. Christmas was outlawed by the Puritans, who did not fancy any holidays except for what was directly ordered by the Bible. And Christmas was seen as just an excuse for frivolity that had nothing to do with serving and worshiping God.
Now, Rebecca, when she confessed, she did give a guest list of attendees at this Christmas party, which we'll have more about in an upcoming episode focused on the Hartford Witch Panic. The guest list included Elizabeth Seager, Mary Sanford, Judith Ayers, James Wakeley, Goodwife [00:32:00] Grant, Goodwife Palmer, and Judith Varlet.
Judith Varlet was the daughter of a Captain Casper Varlet, who, before the English took Connecticut, had like a trading post outside of where, what became Hartford. And so he was pretty high ranking guy and stayed there after the English came, but the English were so scared of the Dutch, that may have influenced what happens to his daughter Judith after he died. They accused her, but she was the sister-in-law of that Governor Peter Stuyvesant, and she married his nephew.
Sarah Jack: Elizabeth and John Blackleach were an accused couple. John was once brought to court for his [00:33:00] contemptuous expressions against several persons in authority.
John was a well-to-do merchant. He was the constable for Hartford's North Side. They had 11 children. John sued his accusers for slander.
Josh Hutchinson: The couple were both accused of bewitching a sow, but they fought back against their accusers by suing them for slander, and so their case was basically neutralized. He was a very wealthy man and powerful, and not somebody to trifle with.
Sarah Jack: Is he the same John Blackleach, accuser of Katherine Harrison?
Josh Hutchinson: He went to Hadley or wrote to someone in Hadley and got them to testify against Katherine Harrison, because they had formerly lived in Wethersfield. These people that he [00:34:00] contacts in Hadley had moved. So he's getting them to testify.
Sarah Jack: It's very fortunate that so many from that party were able to escape execution.
Josh Hutchinson: And unfortunately, Mary Barnes was not one of those people.
Sarah Jack: She was the last person executed for witchcraft in Connecticut on January 25th, 1663.
Josh Hutchinson: Elizabeth Seager was acquitted of witchcraft twice in 1663, in January and in June.
Sarah Jack: She was convicted at the third trial on June 26th, 1665.
Josh Hutchinson: Governor Winthrop Jr. asked the court to delay the sentencing.
Sarah Jack: In 1666, the verdict was overturned.
Josh Hutchinson: You've heard her on the show before. Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project co-founder Mary Louise Bingham [00:35:00] is joining us today to share with you a new weekly segment, Minute with Mary. And now here she is with a report on the Sanford family and John Winthrop Jr.
Sarah Jack: Mary has been a great part of this team, because she is able to actively look at these stories, search records, and collect information on these specific individuals, what we can find. She's the one who knows what we know.
Josh Hutchinson: Mary goes back to the primary sources and often uses sources that aren't cited in the major books about the Connecticut Witch Trials or New England witch trials in general, and brings us some wonderful information. You're going to really enjoy what she has to share about John Winthrop, Jr. and these patients [00:36:00] that he was treating.
Sarah Jack: And I would like to note, you've heard us ask for letters to legislators on behalf of the exoneration efforts. Mary was the first. She's the first one that reached out to the legislators by letters.
Josh Hutchinson: Without further ado, here's Mary.
Mary Bingham: Mary Sanford was about 33 years old when she first received medical treatment from John Winthrop, Jr. in early March of 1656/57. After having the opportunity to decipher this document, which does not exist in its entirety on microfilm, this document is at the Massachusetts Historical Society and is part of John Winthrop, Jr's Medical Journals, I discovered that Mary was treated with rock salt, iron ore, and saltpeter. Mary's condition was extremely painful and too graphic to [00:37:00] detail here. However, his treatment with at least these three medicines would probably have cleansed her internally, easing a nasty skin condition while reducing inflammation.
John Winthrop Jr. also treated at least four of the five Sanford children between January 1656 and 57 and April of 1659. These records prove that Governor Winthrop knew this family intimately. We can only imagine the anguish he felt upon his return to Connecticut after receiving the charter from London to find that Mary was hanged for the capital crime of witchcraft and that her husband Andrew was indicted and this was the crime that they did not commit. The other reason that this document is so important is that [00:38:00] it is the only document in existence that actually lists the ages of all five of the Sanford children. So it says that Andrew, their eldest son, was born about 1643. Mary was born about 1646. And Elizabeth was born about 1648. Elizabeth is the one we don't know whether or not he treated, because she died young. So there's gonna be more research done on her. And then there was Ezekiel, who was born about 1656. And then Thomas, their youngest, was born about 1658.
And no doubt that Andrew and Mary, the two oldest children, would have remembered this traumatic event in their lives. And we don't know about Ezekiel or Thomas, [00:39:00] how it may have affected them, because sadly they would not have remembered their mother, which is just so incredibly sad to me and also the fact that Mary was hanged left this household without a woman. And it was a detriment to the family. They needed the woman in the house to be able to survive, which is why he had to remarry rather quickly. That was a detriment to their family to be left without someone to run the household.
Josh Hutchinson: Trials continued to be held after the Hartford Witch Panic. Between 1666 and 1691, several were tried.
Sarah Jack: The trials went on.
Josh Hutchinson: The trials did go on in spite of the return of John Winthrop, Jr. People were taken to court, people were accused. There were informal accusations that [00:40:00] led to slander suits. There were also very formal accusations that led to condemnation, and one person was in fact convicted in this period.
In 1667, William Graves of Stanford was indicted, but not convicted.
Sarah Jack: One of the ways that accused witches sought justice for themselves was by filing slander and defamation suits. Hannah Griswold of Saybrook did so in 1667.
Josh Hutchinson: Katherine Harrison of Wethersfield was accused of witchcraft in 1668. She was possibly the daughter or niece of the executed Lydia Gilbert, possibly related, in her own words, as a cousin [00:41:00] of John, Jonathan, and Josiah Gilbert. Her case is often cited as a landmark in New England legal history.
In future episodes, we will discuss the legal ramifications. She was convicted in 1668, but released in 1669 after a committee of ministers was requested to review the case and come up with their advice, and they decided that there was not sufficient evidence against her, because testimony was allowed to come in from single witnesses, not the two witnesses required by biblical law.
Sarah Jack: In Stanford in 1669, we had a spousal quarrel. [00:42:00] Sarah Dibble accused her husband Zachary of abuse. He in turn accused her of witchcraft. The court rejected his claim.
Josh Hutchinson: In 1673, Edward Messenger sued Edward Bartlett for defaming his wife, possibly named Katherine. Bartlett had said Messenger's wife was an old witch or whore or words to the same purpose, and that comes straight from Connecticut Colonial Private Records, County Court Records, and that's as much as we know.
Sarah Jack: In 1692, we have Katherine Branch having fits. She was a servant in the home of Mr. Daniel and Mrs. Abigail Wescot, whose daughter Joanna had fits years earlier. Sarah Bates was [00:43:00] the midwife practicing medicine. The Wescots consulted her about Katherine Branch.
Josh Hutchinson: In Katherine Branch's fits, she was frequently requested to name her tormentors, and she did name several women, beginning with Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough Elizabeth Clawson and her husband, Stephen, lived in Stamford near the Wescots, who had previously suspected her of bewitching their daughter, Joanna, after an argument over the weight of some flax.
Sarah Jack: Mercy Disborough and her husband lived in Compo, within the boundaries of Fairfield.
Josh Hutchinson: Both women were subjected to the water test, also known as the swimming test, to see if they would sink and prove their innocence or float and prove their guilt. Both evidently floated. Clawson was described as floating like a cork [00:44:00] in the water, being buoyant, and she would not sink even after a bystander pushed her underwater, she bobbed back up to the surface.
Sarah Jack: What an experience. Clawson and Disborough were tried together on September 14th, 1692.
Josh Hutchinson: The jury was undecided, so the magistrates decided to consult ministers and then reconvene court in October.
Sarah Jack: The ministers found cause to believe in the women's innocence. The swimming test is unlawful and sinful. And when you read The Grounds of Examining a Witch, the commentary following the stated grounds does refer to water testing as a bad practice. The minister said that supposed Witch marks must be examined by able physicians. In [00:45:00] other cases you hear of women examining women for the witches marks. The ministers believed that Kate Branch could possibly have been counterfeiting her fits, and they also believed that it's hard to attribute strange accidents to these two accused women.
Josh Hutchinson: This time around, Clawson was acquitted but Disborough was convicted and sentenced to hang.
Sarah Jack: In 1693, Mercy Disborough was reprieved by the magistrates, because the jury had been altered between the September and October court sessions, with a new man taking the place of one who was away in New York. "One man altered the jury is altered."
Josh Hutchinson: Goodwife Miller had brothers on the other side of the border in New York, and she ran away to them.
Sarah Jack: Next Mary Staples had her charges dropped. Her daughter, Mary Harvey, had her charges dropped. And her [00:46:00] granddaughter, Hannah Harvey, had her charges dropped.
Josh Hutchinson: Hugh Crosia of Fairfield was accused in 1693, but the grand jury refused to indict him.
And now we turn our attention to the final two trials, those of Winifred Benham Senior in Winifred Benham Jr. in 1697.
Sarah Jack: These final trials are my family connection.
Josh Hutchinson: Winifred King Benham, Sr., was the first to have been accused out of this pair. She was first accused in 1692, brought back in 1693, and then brought back a third time in 1697
Sarah Jack: Her mother was Mary King Hale, an accused witch in Boston.
Josh Hutchinson: Winifred Benham Jr. ,who was 13 years old in 1697, was also accused.[00:47:00]
Winfred Benham, Sr.'s mother and daughter were both accused of witchcraft, as well as she, making three generations of women to face these charges.
Sarah Jack: They survived. They uprooted from the town they helped found, Wallingford, Connecticut, and fled to Staten Island. Right now in the town of Wallingford, there's no plaque or recognition of her or her daughter, but you can find them on a beer label.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, they do still have a legacy and are remembered, but only vaguely by residents of their town of Wallingford. You can go to town and get a beer called The Witch of Wallingford Ale.
Even though the final trial occurred in 1697, there were still accusations made in the 18th century.[00:48:00]
Sarah Jack: Sarah Clother and Goodwife Brown accused by Bethia Taylor of Colchester, 1713.
Josh Hutchinson: Sarah Spencer was accused by Elizabeth Ackley in 1724. In that case, the court considered subjecting Ackley to a sanity test.
Sarah Jack: There is a record showing that an Elizabeth Gould of Guilford sued Benjamin Chittenden for defamation, being accused as a witch in 1742.
Josh Hutchinson: 1742. That's 95 years after the first trial for witchcraft. Connecticut still had these accusations going on, people willing to go to court over them.
In 1750, when Connecticut's laws were reconstituted, the act [00:49:00] prohibiting witchcraft was dropped and not rewritten.
Sarah Jack: The length is a century, but there's so little detail, a hundred years of lives navigating these accusations and these misfortunes and these devastations and these trials.
Josh Hutchinson: We've brought to you today the names of 49 individuals who were accused of witchcraft, and those are just the ones that we know about. We know that we're missing many records from many of these trials and accusations. We're hoping that records will continue to be found as discoveries are continuing to be made here in the 21st century.
Sarah Jack: I think it really speaks to that whole thought of hysteria. Are we gonna say that this colony was in a state of hysteria off and on constantly for a hundred years? [00:50:00] Or was this a mentality and a behavior and the results?
It really puts the Salem notoriety in perspective. Some of this overlaps. It just shows a continuation of people getting pulled in and accused of covenanting with the devil, over and over.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, and if you were to remove the Salem Witch Trials from the equation, Connecticut had far more witchcraft accusations, trials, and executions than any other colony, including Massachusetts. Connecticut from 1647 to 1663 was by far the deadliest colony for witchcraft accusations, and it's really thanks to people like [00:51:00] Reverend Gershom Bulkeley and Governor John Winthrop, Jr., who made efforts to bring the witch trials to a stop, bring the killings to a stop.
Sarah Jack: When you think back to that era, this was like everyday life. This was happening annually. Your neighbor, your relative, somebody you knew, maybe you're in court accusing. It was just a commonplace behavior, and yet we're just starting to understand what it was all about. What was the crime? Who was accused? Why were they accused? Who was all involved? How were they executed? It's just amazing to me that it was woven so much into the fabric of the history and we're just now getting a look at it.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, and it's easy to [00:52:00] dismiss witch trials as early modern superstition. It's harder to confront the actual facts of the witch trials, why they happened and what happened in them, which is far more complicated, and which we'll be covering as we have in previous episodes. We'll continue to cover that in depth in this 101 series and other future episodes.
Sarah Jack: Take a look at the bibliography now. Order some of these books, and start reading. You'll have a lot to think about, and you'll have a better concept and be ready to have conversations with your circle of influence.

Josh Hutchinson: And now, we'd like to talk to you about the efforts to clear the names of those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut. Exoneration efforts began back [00:53:00] in 2005, when state historian Walter Woodward gave a presentation about the Connecticut Witch Trials. A number of people in the audience banded together to press for getting their names cleared.
After the group that formed in 2005 began to operate, friend of the show Tony Griego was involved and wrote to the government in England to the Queen asking her to pardon those who were convicted of witchcraft and executed in Connecticut, as Connecticut was a British colony at the time. The Queen's office explained that they couldn't grant pardons, because they would need to reopen all the cases, and there just aren't enough [00:54:00] details existing in court records of those cases to do that. So the group connected with the Connecticut General Assembly and was able to get a resolution proposed in 2008. Unfortunately, this resolution to exonerate those accused, not pardon, but exonerate those accused, did not make it out of committee in 2008. It was brought up again the following year and again did not get out of committee.
Sarah Jack: Time passed. Tony did not forget. Descendants did not forget. In 2016, Beth Caruso was doing an author talk on her book One of Windsor. Tony went to meet her and they decided to collaborate and renew [00:55:00] efforts to educate on the witch trials and to find a path to memorialization and clearing their names. They created the CT Witch Memorial Facebook page, where they have reported their research findings and commemorated what they know of those who were the victims.
Josh Hutchinson: In 2017, the CT Witch Memorial group proposed a resolution in the town of Windsor to exonerate Alice Young and Lydia Gilbert, the two victims from Windsor, who were hanged. That resolution passed the Town Council by a vote of nine to zero, unanimously, and was quickly signed by the mayor into law. And you can see a copy of it at the Windsor Town Hall and another copy at the [00:56:00] Windsor Historical Society. And we'll also share that image on our social media.
Sarah Jack: By the 375th anniversary of Alice Young's execution, which was May 26th, 2022, many individuals were asking and looking for the leadership of the state of Connecticut to start acknowledging this history, acknowledging Alice. The exoneration efforts of Elizabeth Johnson Jr. pushed it to a friendly boil, and several people came together to create the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project. It was formed when state representative Jane Garibay got involved. She and Beth Caruso had previously looked at when would be a good time to [00:57:00] propose an acknowledgement bill. With all of these pieces coming together, it was decided that this was the year, and the resolution was written and proposed in the winter session.
Josh Hutchinson: The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project was co-founded by Mary-Louise Bingham, Sarah Jack, Tony Griego, Beth Caruso, and Josh Hutchinson, but has been contributed to by dozens of descendants, as well as others interested in seeing justice for these victims, including historians.
2023 has been an exciting year for the exoneration effort. In January, State Representative Jane Garibay and State Senator Saud Anwar both [00:58:00] proposed legislation in the House and the Senate at the General Assembly. The legislation was then referred to the Judiciary Committee, who wrote up the bill. The Judiciary Committee reviewed the bill, decided to take action on it, held a hearing on March 1st, where our own Sarah Jack and Beth Caruso and Tony Griego testified, along with others. There were many wonderful speakers that day.
Sarah Jack: Those testimonies were full of great historical information and insights as to why an exoneration was relevant and needed.
Josh Hutchinson: We believe that the hearing did sway some of the members of the Judiciary Committee to, drumroll, please.
Thank you, Sarah. [00:59:00] Today the Judiciary Committee passed the resolution. It passed by a vote of 28 to 9, so there was widespread, bipartisan support for the resolution, which now will make its way onto the House and Senate calendars to get the full assembly's vote, which we're hoping will happen in April, possibly early May. Then the next step and final step in the process is for the governor to sign the bill, and we're hoping that does happen in May and that we all get to be there and celebrate.
Sarah Jack: If you have written a legislator, we thank you. If you've intended to, you still have the chance. We still need all of them to give us yes votes. House, Senate, we need it.
Josh Hutchinson: And now here's [01:00:00] Sarah with another edition of End Witch Hunts News.
Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News.
Here is your Connecticut Witch Trial exoneration bill update. Thank you for learning about the women of American Colony Witch trials. This Women's History month, we saw history made with the proposed resolution, HJ number 34. The Connecticut Legislature's Joint Committee on Judiciary heard testimony regarding the Joint Committee's proposed Bill HJ 34 Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut, and they have passed the resolution out of committee with bipartisan support. It was a 28 to 9 vote. This resolution identifies the specific individuals that were formally indicted for witchcraft crimes. This resolution identifies the individuals known to be executed for witchcraft crimes. Every person named in this resolution is historically recorded as being labeled a witch.
The women tried in the colonial trials then proclaimed their own innocence, and the men did not listen. In fact, the men [01:01:00] insisted they confess to witchcraft. Understandably and unfortunately, some had their antagonized spirits broke and confessed to covenanting with the devil. Some even accused other men and women of covenanting with the devil.
We want to clarify a few things. After someone who is a witch trial victim has been ostracized, it takes a family three to four generations to recover, and so the generational impact to the witch trial victim families carried on beyond the Revolution era.
The relevance of historic witch trials can be seen when you consider the modern alleged witch attacks and the societal othering we witness. Today, more than 60 nations are having crisis level witch attacks.
The Connecticut accused witches were accused of signing a compact with the devil. Their charges had nothing to do with modern paganism. Because compacting with the devil is not possible, we know those accused were innocent.
Descendants seeking exoneration have come together in collaboration to tell the stories of their accused ancestors despite coming from different backgrounds, with different belief systems and political [01:02:00] leanings, this should not be a one-party bill.
Granting exoneration does not mean other pressing issues are responded to less. Let's not avoid facing historical wrongs any longer. Correcting the historical record, like exonerating innocent victims of witch trials is the right thing to do. Today, I heard Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz state that she would like to see this and the other historical wrongs made right. She's willing to take the time to make things right.
What we want is collaboration, not a pardon, an exoneration, because they were innocent. No reparations.
We want the next steps after this to be memorials, educational programs, and Connecticut's recognition in this unique history.
This Women's History Month, we have proclaimed their innocence, but has this message found a more receptive audience? Overall, that appears to be the case. We are encouraged to see legislators vote on the proposed bill, we are having record podcast episode downloads, and we are seeing the known facts reported more accurately by the media and likewise the public.
On Monday, March 27th, the [01:03:00] Joint Committee on Judiciary passed HJ number 34 Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. We thank the committee for coming together and taking the step. HJ 34 is a resolution to clear the names of the innocent Witch trial victims for descendants and everyone and anyone who cares about injustice now.
The resolution has been submitted to the Legislative Commissioner's Office, and we anticipate the House and Senate will soon add the resolution to their calendars. We encourage the General Assembly to vote yes, and we urge Governor Lamont to sign.
Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz is working with State Representative Jane Garibay and Senator Saud Anwar to raise awareness to the importance of voting on and passing this bill in the General Assembly. We must keep communicating. Will you take time today to write to a member of the House and Senate asking them to recognize the relevance of exonerating Connecticut Witch Trial victims? You can do this whether you are a Connecticut resident or anywhere else in the world. You should do it from right where you are.
Now is the time and place to stand for acknowledging that women were not [01:04:00] and are not capable of harming others with diabolical or maleficent powers. The victims we wish to exonerate are known to be innocent. The victims of today that we wish to protect are known to be innocent. You can find the information you need to contact a legislator with a letter in the show links.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project strongly urges the General assembly to hear the voices of the witch trial victims being amplified by the community today. They were not witches. We hope you'll pass this legislation without delay.
Our project is offering several ways for the exoneration supporters to plug in and participate or learn about the exoneration and history. Links to all these informative opportunities are listed in the episode description.
Use your social power to help Alice Young, America's first executed witch, finally be acknowledged. Support the descendants by acknowledging and sharing their ancestors' stories. Contribute to making historical wrongs right. Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and amplify the message. Please follow our project on social media @ctwitchhunt on [01:05:00] Twitter and visit our website at ConnecticutWitchTrials.org.
We thank you for standing with us and helping us create a world that is safe from witchcraft accusations.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that important update about what's going on with the exoneration effort.
Sarah Jack: What did you learn?
Josh Hutchinson: What did I learn from this episode? That researching a bunch requires a lot of effort and looking through every available book and getting back to the primary source documents to confirm that the authors of the generally accepted books are on the right track with what their analysis is of those past events. You need to get to the source. As Margo Burns would [01:06:00] say, "how do we know what we know?" We need to know at all times how we know what we know about the historic past and not just replace knowledge with conjecture.
Sarah Jack: Conjecture is something that seems to shroud witch trial knowledge and stories, and we have lots of sources to look at, and it's never a waste of time to take another look and just see it for yourself. They're available, and we need to look. New eyes, new times, new information, new records. It brings us back to the historic record and focusing on that.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we're very much motivated by getting to the true facts. At the heart of any [01:07:00] proper analysis of these events, you have to know the truth. Otherwise, your analysis is gonna be flawed.
Sarah Jack: And one of the truths that we know is how these victims were targeted and are innocent of these crimes. And evaluating that and talking about that is relevant because of what is still happening in our world today in over 60 nations, where women and children are being accused of causing misfortune through supernatural means.
Josh Hutchinson: Still today, between the years 2009 and 2019, according to a very recent United Nations report, at least 20,000 incidents of witch hunting were reported in those 60 nations. And [01:08:00] also, the even more widespread problem has to do with accusations against children. According to the available data, every year, hundreds of thousands of children are abused, subjected to physical, emotional abuse based on the belief that they are actually practicing witches, children, young kids. It's shocking and appalling that this continues to happen, and we vow to throw everything we have at the problem and press for additional efforts to be made to end these violent mob attacks on persons accused of witchcraft.
[01:09:00] Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us next week for an expert interview.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe to Thou Shalt Not Suffer wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast is a project of the organization End Witch Hunts. Please support us by going to EndWitchHunts.org.
Josh Hutchinson: Please support the efforts for Connecticut Witch Trial victim exoneration by going to ConnecticutWitchTrials.org.
Sarah Jack: Get involved by visiting EndWitchHunts.org. To support us, purchase books from our bookshop or merch from our Zazzle shop. Our links are in the show description.
Josh Hutchinson: Continue to follow us on social media, on Twitter, @ctwitchhunt and @thoupodcast.
Sarah Jack: Share us with your circle of influence.
Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell all your friends, family, [01:10:00] acquaintances, neighbors, and childhood friends about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

March 30, 2023

Emerson Baker on the Salem Witch Trials, Protective Magic, and Proctor’s Ledge

“A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience” by Emerson Baker

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Show Notes

Emerson Baker enchants us in this ineffable discussion on Early New Englander and Puritan folk beliefs, protective magic and the safeguarding of the execution grounds for the Salem Witch Trials, known as Proctor’s Ledge.

Pour your best beverage and sit back to take in this insight packed episode. Dr. Emerson Baker’s mastery of these topics are revealing, invaluable and instructive. You will walk away enlightened and excited to have a better understanding of the fear that gripped this culture. We have some laughs and heartfelt conversation while focusing on key facets of the witchcraft traditions of the 17th century. We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

“The Devil of Great Island: Witchcraft and Conflict in Early New England’, by Emerson Baker

Support our show, buy “Records of the Salem Witch Hunt” through this link.

“Witches and Witch-Hunts” by Wolfgang Behringer

University of VA, Salem Witch Trials Documents and Transcriptions

Human Rights Council: Study on the situation of the violations and abuses of human rights rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, as well as stigmatization.

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to an exceptional episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: Today we have the privilege of speaking with the esteemed professor Emerson W. Baker of Salem State University, Salem Witch trials expert. We get to talk to him about counter magic, material culture, protective magic, the Gallows Hill Project, which located the actual site of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials hangings,[00:01:00] and we'll hear a lot of great stories from him and learn about what kinds of objects were used to protect a home from magical invaders or invisible, spiritual, witches, demons, spiritual threats. We talk about objects found hidden in walls of colonial homes. We talk about protective magic. We talk about marks made on walls to protect the entrances, especially, doors, windows, chimneys, wells.
Emerson began his career as an archeologist, and he loves studying material culture. In fact, he teaches two classes on material culture.
We'll learn about the room in his house [00:02:00] that contains a gateway to hell. We'll talk about whether these beliefs constitute superstition, and we'll talk a little bit about our modern superstitions.
And then we'll talk about Proctor's Ledge, learn about the oral history of the location of the hangings and the oral history of the secret burials of the unfortunates who were executed. We'll get to hear Emerson's dedication speech from when they dedicated the Proctor's Ledge Memorial to the victims.
And throughout our conversation, it just comes out that Emerson is a local, feels like he's from Salem, and gives you the local [00:03:00] tour of the location, the history, his stories are evocative. You listen to it, and you feel like you're actually there in that time and place.
Sarah Jack: And now Josh will tell us about the innocent victims of the Salem Witch Trials.
Josh Hutchinson: The following individuals died as a result of the Salem Witch Hunt.
Sarah Osborne died in jail May 10th, 1692.
Bridget Bishop, hanged June 10th.
Roger Toothaker died in jail June 16th.
Infant Good died in jail before July 19th.
Sarah Good, Susanna Martin, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Wilds, Elizabeth Howe, all hanged July 19th.
George Burroughs, John Proctor. Martha Carrier, George Jacobs, Sr., John Willard, [00:04:00] hanged August 19th.
Giles Corey pressed to death with stones September 19th.
Mary Esty, Samuel Wardwell, Alice Parker, Mary Parker, Martha Corey, Ann Pudeator, Wilmot Redd, Margaret Scott, hanged September 22nd.
Ann Foster died in jail December 3rd.
Lydia Dustin died in jail March 10th, 1693.
Sarah Jack: Thank you Josh for helping us to remember the victims.
Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome. I think it's important to know their names and what happened to them, and to never forget and work as hard as we can to avoid repeating our mistakes.
And now it's my privilege to introduce Dr. Emerson W. Baker, professor of history at Salem State [00:05:00] University, Salem Witch Trials expert, and author of A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience.
Emerson Baker: I'm first and foremost still consider myself to be an archeologist more than anything else, but it's with a, I would say, with a small a. And so I spent over 40 years now studying material culture of one form or another. And what's really fascinating is the different ways that you can look at the material evidence of the past to even look at witchcraft in ways that I think we're only recently realizing.
Frankly, when I was in college, one reason I decided I could actually maybe make a career into this was through material culture and archeology when I realized that there are so many things about Early America that we don't know, that maybe we have all these documents that have been studied to death. Look how long we've had available, in one form or another, at least most of the Salem Witch Trials transcripts.
So what's the new way to look at the past and something like Salem? One answer to that is material culture. So specifically we're [00:06:00] talking about things like material objects left behind, poppets, or what we colloquially call voodoo dolls, or witches bottles and other things used to ward off evil, horseshoes, old shoes, carvings essentially what we'd consider to be the graffiti in old houses.
When we first purchased our old home here in Maine about 25 years ago, it's only a little over 200 year olds, it's built about in the 1790s. Okay. After the Age of Witch Hunts, in theory, we found an odd carving in the wall. At the time, I thought it was some board kid on a rainy day, took out a jackknife or a compass and made this unusual little design.
And then only a few years later did I realize that nope, no. In fact, that was counter magic. So long way of answering that, Josh, is it can take lots of different forms. And what's exciting about it is only really in the past, really maybe 20 years or 30 years, have scholars even begun to realize that some of these weird things that they find on archeology digs or in old houses or old churches [00:07:00] is not there by accident.
Sarah Jack: Why is it important to understand the early modern New England Puritan worldviews?
Emerson Baker: In special relation to that material culture. What's I think the most important point that I would make is several, but one is what we are seeing in here regularly are evidence of what we would call white magic, right? And well in some degree, some would say, would say maybe even black magic. What it really talks about is the fact that early New Englanders, be they Puritan or whatever faith, have these underlying folkways and folk beliefs, which in many ways are pre-Christian, indeed really anti-Christian, right? And that, in fact, if the minister knew what they were doing, he would be rather upset.
And the same time, it goes along with the, and I'm sure you folks are well aware of these things, but the differences between black magic and white magic and how they were viewed. And we all know this, because we've all watched the Wizard of Oz, and we know we have the wicked witches of the east and the west. And of course, if you didn't know that they were wicked they're dressed in black. [00:08:00] And then you have Glenda, the beautiful, dressed in white, good witch from the north who's there to help Dorothy and help her find her way home, and to some degrees here's the problem. Cotton Mather and Increase Mather would say it doesn't matter, because even though Glenda's a good Witch, she's still a witch, and she's still invoking the dark powers of Satan to try to help Dorothy, right?
And so when you are using counter magic, even if it's to ward off witches, it is not God that's helping you. All that you really should need is praying to God and God will hear you and hopefully answer your prayers and will protect you from evil. As opposed to though, but when you are doing things like using witches bottles or horseshoes or things like this, you are, whether you mean to or not, you are invoking dark powers. You were invoking Satan.
So the simple fact that you have material evidence of witchcraft demonstrates these underlying folk beliefs in white magic, or really the idea of cunning women and cunning men that we assumed were there, but you don't have a lot of evidence of it, because, again, not many of these folks wanna get up in front of the congregation and announce the fact that, by the way, [00:09:00] afterwards, I'll be leading a charm circle next door or something, because it's going to get them in trouble.
So that's one important thing. But I think maybe, to me, the bigger issue is the continuation of belief. When you're dealing with old houses, and you find things like shoes buried in the wall or horseshoes buried under the sheathing or other things like this or carvings like daisy wheels, hexagrams, which is what we found in our house.
They can be incredibly difficult to date, because if you're in a house like ours as it was built in the 1790s, that daisy wheel could have been carved in 1790 when the people arrived, or frankly, it could have been carved maybe a year before someone sold the house to us. But at least you can know, for example, and a house is built in 1790 that we're talking like a hundred years after the Salem Witch trials.
And people still have some kind of belief and fear of supernatural and of witchcraft. And so it speaks to that continuation of belief, and particularly to me, it talks about the changing nature of belief and also the ways to stop witchcraft, right? People, many people, and I know you folks know better, many sort of members of the puplic would [00:10:00] just say, "wow. So the Salem Witch trials, those were the last Witch trials. So after that, people stopped trying witches, because they stopped believing in witchcraft," and no, absolutely not, right? Nothing could be further from the truth.
They stopped the witch trials, because they realized it was, well as Increase Mather said, I'll sort of paraphrase, "better that 10 witches live than one innocent life be shed." The point being that we cannot, it's so hard to be sure that we actually have a witch as opposed to an innocent person. And the fact that, of those 19 people that died, the Mathers would tell you, I'm sure, they were all guilty. Cotton Mather would say, "absolutely." Increase would say, "I hope so."
So the problem is, if after 1692, the courts have pretty much decided that they're not gonna be able to successfully try witches, especially when Massachusetts says we can't use spectral evidence, which again, frankly was, thank God.
How are people gonna protect themselves from witches, when they still know that they're real? And what you really have to go to is the home security system of colonial [00:11:00] America, which is counter magic, right? You have to protect your house with things from boughs of greenery under the threshold, horseshoes over the threshold.
I think what we see evidence is of, like, people finding other ways to try to protect themselves against witches and against Satan. And to me, the fascinating thing there is, again, it's not just houses from the 17th century. It's not just things before the Salem Witch Trials, it's houses that weren't built until the late 18th century or the 19th century.
And, in fact, a few miles from where I live here in York, Maine, and down in Elliot, there was a house museum, which was built in 1896. And when they were doing some work on it a few years ago, what did they find in the attic? But in the attic, in the louver, they actually found a bottle with a pentagram on it, scratched into the side, probably a witch's bottle. And a couple other things, too, that were clearly counter magic. We are talking about something that took place almost in the 20th century, where those beliefs continue to some degrees. And in fact, it really continued to some in that way today, too.[00:12:00]
Think of the horseshoe, right? To us it's become a symbol of good luck. But if you start pushing harder on that, you can tie it directly back to the belief that it was protection against witches. And you see them showing up in the records of some of the witch trials, particularly, the Morse case in about 1680 in Newburyport. A neighbor comes in and scolds the family for having a horseshoe over the door. And he says, "this is basically witchery and superstition." And he takes it down and then they say, "but the next day, our neighbor Goody Morse who never came in the house, all of a sudden she came in. So you see, it was warding off witches, cuz everybody knows she's a witch." To me, it's a fascinating way to try to tease out those beliefs, cuz the problem, of course, with studying witchcraft is for the most part, right? Again it's not tangible, right? It's intellectual history per se.
And to be able to find a horseshoe buried in the wall of an old house and it's not, and it never served any purpose as a barn, you can say, and we find these on my archeology sites, we say, "boy, if you find a horseshoe on a barn, it means one thing, you find a horseshoe about where the threshold of a house was, that means something very different."
Josh Hutchinson: My [00:13:00] parents several years ago purchased a house in Arizona that had a horse-themed room with a big horse mural on one of the walls, but they found a horseshoe in there, and so they hung it above the mantle, purely decoratively. A friend came over and said, "you've got your horseshoe upside down. You're letting all the magic out, or the good luck out." And that was five years ago or so.
Emerson Baker: And there's all sorts of debate over that as to whether it needs to be upside down or right side up. There's all sorts of stories about where that belief comes from, but one aspect of it seems to be that iron artifacts, in particular, believe to have magical properties. And again, if you go back to medieval Europe, iron was a pretty amazing thing, right? And particularly sharp iron objects. So horseshoes, maybe not in that sense, but, so for example, the same room of our old house here that we found the daisy wheel or hexafoil, which again is a counter magical symbol [00:14:00] carved into the doorjamb inside that room. When work was being done, we had to pull up the floor, cuz the sills were rotting. Buried in the wall of that house, we found a broad ax that was 200 years old and razor sharp, still complete with the handle. You could have gone out and hewn wood with it. And the same thing too, like in witches bottles, where you usually find nails or pins. So iron is a pretty amazing thing. It's considered to be magical.
And then also too sharp iron objects, again, are one direct way to ward off evil. So when you, again, like when you just finding that ax buried in the wall wouldn't be one thing, but when you find it in comparison with other things. And then when we pulled up the floor in in that room, what else did we find? We found that was the old laundry room in the house cuz there was a well under the floor.
Evil seems to me is not all that bright. Evil tries to get into houses kinda through the openings, through the doors, windows, the chimney. And we could have a long talk about different kinds of spirits, this could have been your Christmas show, either [00:15:00] evil or nice coming down the chimney.
But think about this. What room would you be worried about in your house if you were worried about evil coming in? How about the room that has the direct passage down into hell? Through the well, right? Again, these things and if you look at old houses, I would say, too, the other thing to me that really is fascinating about this is if you look at most old New England homes built certainly before 1800 and maybe before the Civil War, you almost invariably will find some form of magical slash superstitious kind of protection, be it a horseshoe or some carving, even one of these different types of, if not a daisy wheel or hexagram, maybe a Marion mark or was known as a demon trap, all kinds of things like that. And the issue is until people started to think about this again, like maybe 20 years ago, people said, "boy, the carpenters made this odd mark here, didn't they?" Yeah, no, they didn't.
Sarah Jack: And would've it been like the husband that would do it? The wife?
Emerson Baker: These are the kinds of things. Here's the problem again, no one writes down in their diary, "today the wife and I carved the hexafoil in the barn door to keep evil out of the [00:16:00] barn, because old Bessie hasn't been milking really well lately." We really don't know.
It probably could have been any adult member of the family. And for lots of different reasons. My former grad student, Alyssa Conary, and I just published a really short piece in a new book on Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Portsmouth in 101 Objects. And we published a piece on the the daisy wheel or hexa foil that's in a partition room upstairs at the Jackson House. Now, the Jackson House was built in 1664 or so in Portsmouth, but the upstairs room was divided in the 1710s. So again, we know this has to be an 18th century piece.
But in this case, we know that the room, one side of that room, the partition was occupied by a member of the family who had mental illness we would call it today. But at the time, in the 18th century, mental illness was the belief to be something that Satan sort of inflicted people with. So in this case, some member of the family, well-intentioned, member of the family, and again, we don't know if it was a brother or sister or aunt or uncle, were trying to protect that member of the family from evil. And I suspect it would be, it could well be any member of the family who's trying to look [00:17:00] out for them.
But these are the kinds of things that we just, we're still trying to figure out. And sometimes you can figure out by maybe who was living at the house at a certain time as who would be, but it's, I'll tell you, Sarah, it's a brave, new frontier. If people are interested, they can start studying their houses and others, and then looking at the house history and trying to figure out when and how did this get here?
Josh Hutchinson: We probably don't know then if they had a little ritual to go along with placing the object or the mark.
Emerson Baker: No, but I think you're on the right track there, Josh. I'm assuming it's not something where you just randomly do it right. If you're considering that you're like blessing and protecting the house, one would assume there would be some kind of ritual with it you know, It'd be really, be interesting to try to sort some of these things out. I just came across a talk. I think we must have been an 18th or 19th century like magic book that was just found down in the South somewhere. Have you heard about this? There's a talk being given about it.
And so I'm thinking, like, to what degree would people have had known spells and charms or would've had [00:18:00] access to physick books or those sorts of things to aid them. And again, in England too, they're beginning to find more of these sorts of things, and they go later into history than one might think into the 18th and 19th century.
I think, too, as these are things that would not have been done, again, like offhand and lightly, would've had a probably a degree of ceremony to it as well, too, right?
Josh Hutchinson: You'd think they'd at least say some words along with it.
Sarah Jack: Do you think they would've mixed maybe a prayer with the magic symbol to cover both ends?
Emerson Baker: That is a really wonderful question. I wish I knew. I will tell you this. I think a lot of these times these things are deliberately hidden. My favorite example of this is the Zerubbabel Endicott house down in what's now Danvers. And I actually have the artifacts from it in the in Storm of Witchcraft. But when that house was being disassembled by Richard Trask, and they had to make, they were in the seventies, it was the old, this is governor Endicott's grandson, it's a Harvard graduate, I believe, right? He was a doctor, Zerubbabel Endicott. [00:19:00] And he built a house in the 1680s. And, unfortunately, it had to be taken down in the 1970s when they were putting in a new shopping center and a supermarket in Danvers.
But in this case, the owners of the new plaza there allowed Richard Trask and volunteers from the Danvers Alarm Company to disassemble the frame. And it's actually reassembled today, as you probably know. That is the Rebecca Nurse Farm that is actually, they've reassembled it as a as a barn. And that's where the visitor center is. And you can go in there and see what they found. What they found when they took down the house, they took down the sheathing, the outer boards over the frame, and then nailed to the frame under the sheathing, they found a horseshoe on one side of the doorway, and on the other side was a three-pronged eel spear trident, which we would also know as the Devil's Pitchfork.
So here's a sharp iron object that has associations with Satan. So the interesting thing is, in these cases, as I mentioned, is because these were hidden under the sheathing of the house and only the Endicotts and maybe their carpenter [00:20:00] would've even known these things were ever there.
And so on the same time when Reverend Parris came over to have dinner with the Endicotts, he would've had an enjoyable dinner. And the Endicotts, when he left, they probably kind of of smiled and said, "you know what? He didn't even realize he was walking through a threshold that had magic in it, and good thing we buried into the wall cuz otherwise he would've spent the evening giving us a lecture." Because, again, white magic. But having said that, too, I think it's clear, and if you look at some of the work, oh, like David Hall's work, really, of looking like a sort of folk magic within Puritanism, some of his writings.
I think while Reverend Parris would've shuttered the thought of this even being in the house and would've been unhappy with the thought of any kind of prayer there. Who's to say what even God fearing Puritan families might have done in any effort to protect their home? So it's certainly not beyond the realm of reason.
I keep on still waiting and hoping that we'll find some kinds of diaries or something that might give us some insight into this, into how some of these, what the spells were and how they might be used and what relationship they [00:21:00] might have to the Christian faith of these folk. To me that's why it's fascinating, and to me, at least, a physical manifestation of it gives you evidence that this stuff really was taking place, and it's not just something we're making up.
Sarah Jack: Finding somebody's writing about it would be fantastic.
Emerson Baker: There is the only and there is one, it's a very famous image, at least in these circles. There is, oh, it's like a print from late 16th century German print of Walpurgisnacht, I think, the Witches Night. It shows the house that's torn down, really, and nothing's left of it except for the hearth and the fireplace and the chimney. And you have, guess what? You have all kinds of marks carved into it. Again, too, it's see it's real. But again to what degrees is someone going to want to commit to that in writing for posterity? Probably not likely, but again, maybe you can find something in a wall sometime or something that the curse or the chant that was put in there, cuz we do know that people had these sort of rituals, again, like using of poppets. We know in the Salem Witch trials transcripts, there are what, five or six of the people testify about the use [00:22:00] of poppets, including several that are using them as counter magic. The one woman even, who said, they say, " so well here, you might have poppets" and says, "oh yeah, absolutely, because I use it to get back at that witch. He's trying to get me."
Of course, this one woman I'm talking with is Reverend Higginson's own daughter, and he says that she might have been having some mental difficulties of her own, which is the reverend's excuse for it. But at the same time too, she sees it the best way to protect herself from witchcraft is to take the offensive, right, with poppets. They're used as evidence against Bridget Bishop, right? Where the carpenters say, "yeah, I've always wondered about her, cuz like 10, 11 years ago when I was working on her house and working on the foundation in the basement, found puppets in the holes in the stone foundation," right? And as I like to point out, that's one of the reasons that Bridget Bishop was one of the first, I think was the first one to be tried, because the case against her was so very strong. The crown's attorney was no fool. He knew he wanted to go from the strongest cases first. Even though people talk about 1690s people being executed for [00:23:00] witchcraft, I really think that if they'd presented the Bridget Bishop case before a court in London, sadly, she probably might have lost her life, too.
And again, by our standards, it's, "okay, so you say you saw a poppet there 10 years ago. Where is it? Do you have any evidence of it today? Can you show it to me?" And you'd say, "what?" But at that point, they would, by our standards of the day, it was the King's Justice and it was English common law, but not quite as we'd recognize it. But I really think that kind of testimony, again, made under oath, and if you're lying, you're gonna be eternally damned in hell. To make that kind of testimony, it would've probably might well have gotten someone executed in London in 1692, I think. Combined with the other complaints about all the things that Bridget had apparently done to people over the ensuing 10 or 12 years.
Josh Hutchinson: You've mentioned that the well in your house, the wells were like a gateway to hell. Why would they believe that?
Emerson Baker: It's a large hole that goes directly into the ground, right? And in that sense again, it's an any [00:24:00] opening to the house. Is dangerous. And this the, probably you've seen this, the famous illustration from Saducismus Triumphatus where he shows the demons flying around a house and trying to get in an attic window, right?
Again, if you consider that the demons are minions of Satan, Satan controls the underworld, it makes perfect sense to think that they're gonna, why bother trying to come down the chimney and we just have to come up from hell and just come right into the place? And how are you going to protect that? And in fact, again, if you read some of the literature, particularly in England and books like, Keith Thomas's work and others, they will talk to you about the magical power of wells. Look at again, today, what's the tradition? You know, there's old well, throw in a penny and make a wish, right? So again, wells have always considered to to have some sort of perhaps supernatural power to them. In the back of your mind, you said, "oh yeah, it's a wishing well." Be careful what you wish for, right?
Josh Hutchinson: I guess they work both ways.
Emerson Baker: Yeah. And that's frankly the way it is with a lot of these things about magic. Ouija boards, of course, are classic example of [00:25:00] this that are really, the 17th century it was divination with sieve and shears. It's basically the, yes, no, which way it falls is to answer the question. But again, it could be this could be used for good purposes to try to help people find lost objects or things like this, or it could be used for, more dubious ones, like, "what's my future going to be like? Am I going to marry the handsome farm boy next door?" Those kinds of things, which of course is again, is an element of course in Salem in 1692, but of course has been way overplayed.
The Crucible unfortunately, does a real bad number on this. Arthur Miller maybe is America's greatest playwright, but maybe one of its worst historians, right? In fact, no, we cannot attribute Tituba to practicing Voodoo and doing all this fortune telling. Because as my friend Mary Beth Norton, I think, has proven pretty thoroughly, is that, yeah, we only really only know of maybe one of these afflicted girls who had anything to do with sort of fortune telling and that it really does not seem to have been, there's no real evidence, contemporary evidence, that it was important to the witch trials, except to say that we do know that [00:26:00] Cotton Mather was dead set against it, and that it did seem to be very much the rage in Salem and Massachusetts in the 1690s.
Oh, and by the way, most interestingly, of course, is that when Mather writes his biography of William Phipps, he does talk about an old fortune that had been written for Phipps that was found in his sea chest, which is a really interesting thing for Mather to write, considering it's really more of a hagiography than a biography. Cotton Mather was the ultimate spin doctor of the 17th century, and here he is admitting it in a published history that, yeah, Phipps, he toyed with fortunes, as well, but then he says, but he didn't pay any attention to it. Or for something like, but he had didn't ask to have it done, he's trying to dismissing it.
When you think of what Massachusetts was like in the 1690s, people were really concerned about the future. Was it a good idea to be communing with dark spirits to try to find the future for you or the colony? No, not at all. But you can understand in those uncertain [00:27:00] times why people would really be concerned and want to know what was going on.
And it's that you really have so many bad things going on in the colony. What does this say about the future of the puritan experiment, about that city upon the hill? And so, to some degrees, again, I even see that sort of interest in fortune telling is fitting right in very much with people's fears about really the decline of their society and everything they believed in.
Josh Hutchinson: We talked to somebody who said that during the pandemic, the sale of tarot cards went up, while people were staying at home wondering about the future.
Emerson Baker: Wow. That would make a lot of sense. If you look at what factors create Witch Hunts, and I don't know if you've read Wolfgang Behringer's witch hunts book, I can't remember the exact title, but basically his world history of witch hunts. If you haven't, really good book. And of course, Behringer's German historian who's actually I think at Cambridge or Oxford, maybe, or London. And he's an expert on two things, and they closely intersect, right? But one is witchcraft, and the other's history of weather. [00:28:00]
And what he really says in this book is two things usually go wrong to cause witchcraft, witch hunts. One is historically bad weather. And in a pre-modern society, historically bad weather means crop failure, means famine, means death, means inflation. People can get by that as long as they have the other thing. And that is a strong government that they believe is there to help them and look after them. Because if they do that, they know that, okay, the king's gonna make good. He's gonna find food for us, we're gonna be okay. But if you have that central government that you don't trust, don't believe is going to help you. Yeah. Cause a problem.
And of course, the other factor that we had in Massachusetts in the 1690s, as well, yeah, pestilence, disease, epidemic. In 1690, Massachusetts is hit by a smallpox epidemic. And it's the most unfortunate named person maybe in the witch trials, Martha Carrier, right? Because it [00:29:00] is her family who are the ones that are believed to have carried smallpox into Andover, killing several members of their family, as well as others that may have singled the Carriers out for, shall we say, special attention that led to the witchcraft charges.
So in this sense, too, I think about this, right? When I think about witchcraft and belief again in supernatural, if you think of things like what we faced during the epidemic, historically bad weather, lots of concerns about stability of government, combined with epidemic. And especially, too, for our society, because here's the deal, folks, we all grew up thinking that we were gonna live long, healthy lives unless something really horrible happened. That we had antibiotics, and we had almost no one died in childbirth anymore. And unless something really horrible happened we probably would live really old lives, and all of a sudden all bets were off. And I think it caused a lot of people to turn into some really interesting ways. And I'll just say, I think, the historians of the next generation will have a really interesting time writing the [00:30:00] history.
That old Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times." It, honestly, it's really when you think about this I always wondered, is this a story, and what it might be like to live through something? Not that I wished it, but what would it be like to live through something like the Black Death where all bets are off, where you don't know if you're gonna be here tomorrow? If you don't know if your family is going to be, how does that affect your daily life? How does that affect your faith, your faith in government, your faith in the medical community, your trust of your neighbors? Really interesting thing and to some degrees, again, in many ways, a light. People have always asked me about why do you talk about outbreaks of witchcraft, right? Why do historians seem to be fascinated with comparing witchcraft and its spread to a contagion, to a disease. And I've never really tracked down the origin of who was the first to make that analogy, but it certainly seems to be something where you can certainly trace its growth, and it will spread, can spread like a disease, unless it's stopped. And as we see in a place like Salem, can be incredibly contagious.
What's fascinating to me by it [00:31:00] is the variety of objects and belief and the fact that as the physical manifestations, and also too, that you actually can read in the 17th century accounts efforts to make it, right. Like in in my earlier book, The Devil of Great Island, which is about the bizarre stone throwing devil who's supernaturally assaulting the debauched Quaker tavern. Again, that's a whole different show. It's not like in Salem Village, where they're trying to make the witch cake, but in this case, what they're trying to do is they're boiling urine up with some other things and trying to put it into a witch's bottle. And of course, what happens in the meantime is the stone throwing demon starts throwing rocks down the chimney of the house, which breaks the vessel that they're trying to cook. So you imagine you have this hot urine spattering all over the hearth, which as I like to think would've probably warded off far more than evil, right?
This is not superstitious belief. I get so upset when people talk about people in the 17th century, saying, "oh, how stupid, how superstitious could they be to believe this stuff?" Because in fact, these were God-fearing Christians, many of them college educated, and that everybody believed in witches in the 17th century, kings, [00:32:00] ministers, popes, governors, you name it, because witches were real. They're in the Bible, as you folks know, thou shall not suffer a witch to live. And even, too, there is a science to a lot of this stuff, and you see it in Thomas Brattle's letter, some of these things, the idea of the evil eye or the fact of the curse and the witches and the touch, right? The touches test.
And those are essentially, and the same thing too with the the urine, and the idea being that when a witch casts a spell, they take some of their evil and it gets transmitted to the victim and then to some degrees then. But then when a person who was afflicted by a Witch would urinate, some of that evil would come out in the urine. So that if you can find ways to harm that urine, you can harm the witch. So in this sense, in some degrees they didn't, they obviously didn't understand electricity at the time, but in some degrees, if you think of, if you think of in the 17th century, them thinking of spells being cast and evil being sent into people almost like electricity, some sort of invisible force.
Again, just so may, maybe that's the way to leave it, Josh, is like to say that these aren't crazy people that are just boiling urine up for the, cuz there's nothing else to do on it. It's a boring Saturday night [00:33:00] in Salem, so let's boil up some urine and bake a loaf of witch's cake with some of the dog's urine and have a good time. No, these are people who are, these are desperate times with people who are looking to the remedies that the leading scholars of the day and thinkers are offering them as to how to protect themselves from evil. And I guess to me, what's the fascinating about it is to some degrees is like how little we know about that today, but in large part again too is because, if you think about this, there's lots of things in our society today that are clandestined, that are not accepted by the government for various reasons or by your neighbors that you have to do in quiet. Those sorts of stories are ones that never seem to get written down.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I wanted to just comment a little bit what you were saying goes back to the importance of understanding the worldview because you have to understand that witchcraft was real to them. Not a superstition. It's just an ordinary part of their world and could happen at any time, and I think that's important to think about.
Emerson Baker: Give you the brief version of the [00:34:00] last page or so of Storm of Witchcraft, where I say, so supposing there is a terrible evil out there, and you know that it's out to get you, but you don't know who it is or how to make them stop, how to round them up, and the government is doing their best to help you, but frankly, this evil doesn't have to be present to harm you. It could destroy you and your family and your faith and your government from miles and miles away, right? Essentially, if you swap that 17th century word "witch", and this very distinctly with the 17th century and no cast, no aspersions at all to the modern Wiccan faith, which is a very different thing. But if we think of that 17th century witch in league with Satan trying to kill people with Satan's powers and swap that word "witch" for "terrorists" today, I think you have a much better understanding of the difficulty 17th century society faced when evil could be in any form and could strike at any matter.
And ever since [00:35:00] 9/11, I think every time you hear a siren go off or a large explosion, if it's just one, you don't think too much about it, maybe somewhere back in the back of your mind, right? But then if you hear a second siren or a second explosion, or you see a large, black cloud, oh boy, I think your mind takes you to some of the darkest places possible. You're absolutely right. This was their belief system, their knowledge, and it's all part of that. And just like our modern world with where our fears come from, too. So yeah. Sobering stuff, it really, this is heavy duty stuff, witchcraft and fears and the unknown. And witch hunts, right.
Josh Hutchinson: And then to say that we're not superstitious today also strikes me as funny.
Emerson Baker: Yeah. I like to point out in the good old days when the Patriots were in the Super Bowl, like just about every year I, as long as they were leading, I refused to get out of my chair. And I still attribute one or two of their losses to the fact, like at halftime I really had to get up and go to the bathroom, but [00:36:00] then again wait, you really think you have that kind of power? Yeah, no, I guess I don't. I think we all have various traditions, superstitions, whatever, habits? They're deep down, buried inside sometimes. But you put a society and individuals under pressure, and they start coming out, don't they?
Sarah Jack: Yeah, we've just started talking between us a little bit about that. Where's the line between ritual, tradition, I really try to understand, so we're not gonna reflect back as it as if it's superstitious, but in our modern time, superstition, it's very important to people. So it's like really hard to get to, to ask people to not look through their superstitious lens at what we view in the past is superstitious.
Emerson Baker: And believe me, working in Salem for almost 30 years, superstition is a fact of life.
Josh Hutchinson: And one thing that's helping us understand the fear that people experienced in the 17th century is [00:37:00] understanding the fear people experience in places like Nigeria and South Africa today, where they're still accusing people of witchcraft.
Emerson Baker: I wanna listen to that episode. There was the Salem Film Festival, I think it was it last year? They had a a really powerful film about witchcraft, a documentary about witchcraft in Africa, that the parallels to Salem were scary. I'll just leave it at that.
Sarah Jack: it is alarming.
Josh Hutchinson: We spoke to a South African activist for last week's episode, and he was talking about the parallels that he listens to our show and he hears us talk about early modern witch trials, and he's like, "that's so much what we've got going on here." And then we spoke to Leo Igwe of Nigeria, and he said that in Nigeria we're where you were in the early modern period, as far as witchcraft goes. [00:38:00] So they both see the parallels to our history.
Emerson Baker: And a lot of it, too, it sounds like, is jealousy over land ownership, which again, Boyer and Nisenbaum 101 kind of stuff.
Josh Hutchinson: Sarah, do you want to take us into the Proctor's Ledge?
Sarah Jack: How did you get involved in the project to identify the location of the hangings?
Emerson Baker: Well, this goes back a long ways. There were a number of us who had worked on documentaries, several documentaries on the Salem Witch Trials that our good buddy Tom Phillips filmmaker was involved in, and Elizabeth Peterson, who of course at the time ran just the Witch House for the city of Salem and now runs the Witch House plus Pioneer Village plus the Charter Street Burial Ground. The two of them and then a few of us, myself, Marilynne Roach, Ben Ray, and also my buddy Peter Sablock geology and geo archeologist at Salem State had, most of us had worked together on a couple of these documentaries, and when Elizabeth actually had gone back and was doing some of [00:39:00] the reading, including some of Marilynne's earlier work, said, "hey, I think the city of Salem owns the execution site of the witches in 1692, and it's like the trashed backyard where everyone throws their garbage and walks their dog. And could we find out if this is like the real site? Cuz if it is, the city should do something about it." And Tom's going, " yeah, and we should actually make a documentary about this." and we all said, "Sure. Absolutely." And this was back around 2010. Of course, the long story short is again the site was never really lost. Okay. I think the city of Salem had a collective amnesia from the summer of 1692 onward, doing their best to forget this site.
Much as I think the actual site of the courthouse they actually destroyed when they built the MBTA and buried it right down Washington Street in Salem. Was that deliberate? Not necessarily, but did anybody object when they did it? Yeah, probably not. There's a lot of shame in Salem to this day over what happened in 1692, frankly, shame over [00:40:00] the commercialism over the witch trials that has replaced it. So I think Salem did this best to put this place out of its mind. But bottom line is as early as Elizabeth knew. And we all knew it, and again, Marilynne had done previous research on this. As early as 1901, Sidney Pearly had said, "hey, the site is not the top of Gallows Hill," which was one of the believed sites. It's a long debate as to where Gallows's actually was. And we can talk about this, cuz, frankly, there are almost no 17th century documents that talk about its in specifics. It seems to be almost like a taboo subject, even in 1692. But throughout the 19th and early 20th century to this, really till recently, there had been multiple sites that were considered. Was it the top of Gallows Hill? Was this lower spot on Gallows Hill, known as Proctor's Ledge? Was it over on Mack Hill, which is like the next hill over. And you could make cases by and large for any one of a number of those.
But finally, Sidney Perley, who's and to me is really the hero of this story an local antiquarian and historian who did [00:41:00] amazing work as an antiquarian, while also being a successful lawyer and raising a family. And I really, back in the days before, not even laptop computers, but even photocopy machines to transcribe and understand all the records and publish all he did as much is truly amazing. And he wrote numerous articles on Salem's history. He wrote a history of Salem, and in it in 1901 he wrote it, this piece, in 1901, which first said, if you look at all the evidence, it seems pretty clear that Proctor's Ledge is the spot. This lower piece on Gallows Hill, which of course as we know, today is really between Proctor and Pope Street and Boston Street, right behind the Walgreens, which of, ironically, of course, Walgreens motto is the corner of happy and healthy. But it's not only the location of the executions, but it's also where the Great Salem Fire broke out in the early 20th century.
Anyhow so we started, basically we started, Elizabeth said, why don't you guys all, we asked, we'd all do our research. Elizabeth and Ben and I, who were all historians of the witch trials and had been for a long time, independently [00:42:00] looked at all the evidence, went back and read Perley, looked at his evidence, looked at other documents, looked at depositions and things that Marilynne had pulled out in particular.
And we all spent a year or two chewing through the data individually and then came together and we agreed that, yeah, we all believe that based on all the factors that Sidney Perley was right. And in fact in 1921, he had published a much more definitive article locating the witch trials and what we really, we used, had to use. It is one of these sorts of things where if there's no direct evidence, again, like you don't have anybody saying, "so we took the people up to the execution site and it was such and such." No, all you have is a couple really of the writs for execution by the sheriff, saying, yes "I took Bridget Bishop to the place of execution," very vaguely.
You have a couple of distant eyewitness accounts, if you will, maybe, of what might have happened on that day. But if you triangulate three or four lines of evidence, if you take what surviving documents you have, if [00:43:00] you take the oral history and tradition of the area, in the families of the victims and the neighbors there, and three or four other different types of evidence, you can triangulate and really come into the fact to the location of the site.
And I can talk more about that. But the first thing I just wanna say is that bottom line is, ironically, even though this was named one of the top 10 archeological discoveries of 2016 by Archeology Magazine, that is discoveries in the world, we have said from day one, we did not discover anything. We only confirmed the evidence that Sidney Perley had made public that frankly, the Proctor family probably knew forever and had been lost. And our job was not to find anything. Our job was to make sure that the site was never, ever forgotten again. Because in fact, from Perley's time on up to about 2000 or so, about every 10 or 20 years, there'd be an article in the local paper, in the Salem [00:44:00] News or something saying, " oh yeah, someone says that we're, it's the wrong place. And it isn't way up here at the top of the hill. It's down here at Proctor's Ledge." And I'm more than happy to talk in any aspects of that, Sarah, what do you, ask away?
Sarah Jack: No, that was very wonderful. You're hitting so many of our questions, it's fantastic.
Emerson Baker: It's almost like I've talked about this before.
Sarah Jack: Did you do any analyzing of the ground?
Emerson Baker: Yeah. That was really important. One reason I brought Peter Sablock and his wife, Janet, are now retired, but at the time were professors in the geology department of Salem State and, maybe more important than that, they were friends and neighbors. They live near my wife and I here and are close friends and also partners in crime on archeology science, where they would do the geo archeology and the soils work for me.
And when they started talking about Gallows Hill, I immediately said, "I gotta get Peter involved in this." Because once we had the evidence that the people were, we were pretty sure this was the site, that was the time for Peter and his geology students from Salem State to go do some work on this site. And I'd like to say even before Peter and his folks were out there, [00:45:00] this was the worst kept secret in Salem, that there already were tour buses that went through that street and said, "here's the burial site and the execution site." And because again, too, there are enough sources out there from Perley and even more recently, at least one of the guides to Salem talks about this , and there's a sort of a bad photo evidence. In that sense, it's a good bad photo. It's deliberately vague, so you couldn't say exactly where it was. I think we realized right off the bat that if this was the site, it wasn't going to be enough to say the site. And I'll say this, nothing if no other reason than because yeah, this is Salem.
And probably the first question is this, "how do you know?" The next question is going to be, "where are the bodies?" I don't mean to be grim about this, but this would be the fascination. And we kept all of our work pretty much to ourselves, and Peter and his students went out there and worked off and on for a couple summers doing work in the backyard there on the city-owned parcel of land. Elizabeth was our link to the city, and the city kind of knew what we were doing, but we kept a very low profile. And when anyone asked, [00:46:00] Peter and their students gave this sort of standard archeologist, geologist answer, when people would ask what you're doing a little, maybe a little white lie, but you'd say something like, "oh, septic work." Which usually immediately people lose interest and say, okay have fun with that as they hold their nose and walk away, most of 'em, at least. There were some folks that, some of the locals who knew, cuz they knew the tradition, but they were very good at protecting the site, as well, too.
But we really knew we had to find out, okay, this is the site. Can we come up with the exact site? Was there a gallows here? Are there, in fact, any burials here? And we had to know that well before announcing this, because we had to know what we were up against. Because we knew as soon as we announced, the site would be overrun with tourists. And frankly, also people who wanted to pay honor to the victims there, as well.
Peter and his crew were out there, and over several years, they did various different types of evidence, particularly ground penetrating radar, which tells you how much soil is there, what the nature of the soil is to bedrock. He did ground penetrating radar and soil resistivity, which measures the conductivity of the soil, which basically can tell you how compact the [00:47:00] soil is and how wet it is, which tells you if it's been dug up and is really good at locating things like grave shafts.
You never think about this until you go out and dig a hole. When you put back the soil, you always have a difficult time getting it all to fit back in the hole. So issues like compaction, locations of walls or wells or things like that or graves will show up through either radar or through soil resistivity.
And what Peter and his crew found was up on the Proctor's Ledge was called Proctor's Ledge for a reason. And that is because there was almost no soil up there and that the deepest deposit he found was a shade less than maybe right around two feet. So that there really was no place to even really bury people. And of course, there's the account by Calef in 1700, where he writes about supposedly being present at the execution on August 19th or in the aftermath, describes it pretty well. And he describes, oh, George Burroughs' hand and maybe someone else's leg being shown, [00:48:00] sticking outta the ground in some sort of like hastily buried grave. We'll say this soil there were so shallow we don't think anyone could have been buried there successfully. And frankly, even if they had been, the soil was so completely perturbated through, disturbed that is, through earthworm and natural root action and natural processes. And there was such wet ground because of close proximity to ledge that there would've been absolutely no evidence of any bones whatsoever.
So that was really important work, but we also, too, then started combining that with, okay, then where would they have buried the people? Was it possible that they were buried there short-term, yes, possibly. And the first thing you find out is that on the executions on August 19th, the weather was so hot that they had to get the dead underground almost immediately.
And we, how do we know this? We know this from Samuel Sewall's diary who Sewall one of the witchcraft judges in at least the version of the diary that survives today. And I often wonder about this, right? He talks about attending every funeral on the planet and all these sorts of things, but almost nothing on the witch trials at all.
[00:49:00] But, in fact, during the execution of August 19th, Sewall, like the other judges, are back home, and Sewall's in Boston, and he writes in his diary within a day or so of that, about a friend of his dying. And he says, it was so hot the friend died in the morning, and the weather was so hot the body would not keep. They buried him before sunset. So that is to say, I could certainly understand why they might have thrown people in a crack in the rocks or whatever, and just thrown some dirt over them temporarily. But what we found out more so in studying this was that it seems pretty clear that the families came and removed their loved ones under covers of darkness.
There are traditions that survived in three of the families, ones that have really strong family traditions, right, the Proctors, the Nurses, and the Jacobs, of their loved ones being brought home for burial in the family burial ground anonymously. Only the family would've known where they were. Because again, the [00:50:00] neighbors would've gotten upset that you did what? So those traditions persist. And in fact, of course, George, the remains that we believe might have been George Jacobs were actually dug up in the 19th century, and then again, what I think in the 1970s when they put in a subdivision in Danversport. And were eventually, thanks to the work of Richard Trask, were reburied in 1992 at the Rebecca Nurse Farm with a replica gravestone.
So we know that from those families and that we think, and a matter of fact, we actually figured out pretty much where John Proctor was buried too, I think, at least originally, on what had been the only land that he owned in 1692, which was not even where his house was but was, it was down Wall Street even further. But we also put this together with the oral traditions in the people who lived in that neighborhood in Salem. And, interestingly enough, it was a largely that neck of the woods with families like the Popes who were Quaker, which is a really interesting twist, cuz about 10% of Salem's population at the time were Quaker.[00:51:00]
And we know from the accounts that were first written down by, I think, a grandson of the person who was there in 1692 that heard the families or knew the families were coming to retrieve their executed family members and went out to help them. If you think about 1692 Salem, very little source of natural light, where noise carries a long way. If you're living fifty or a hundred yards from Proctor's Ledge, which these people were, at night you'd see the light, and you'd hear the noise when they started to dig, and you'd know they were there. And we know in this case that several of the local families, mostly apparently the Quakers, went up and helped the families retrieve their loved ones, get them onboard probably small, little rowboats, because at that time you could row a boat all the way up to the site. It's right along what's now a canal. As a matter of fact, with a really bad flooding, they had last, what was it, a week or two [00:52:00] ago, that area there, which is now along the street there, was all flooded. You could have come in and wouldn't have had to carry a body more than probably a hundred feet to get them to water, put them in a rowboat, and quietly row away. And in this case, with both the Proctors and the Nurses and the Jacobs, they could have rowed to within probably a short distance of where these folks were buried, going up, following the tide along the coast and up into rivers and streams.
So armed with that kind of tradition, as well, once we knew this, there's no evidence of any bodies being up there. The oral tradition says we know where they were buried. And again, it's hidden and largely lost to time. Once we know that, then we felt it was safe to actually go ahead and make the announcement, and we did that in early January 2016. And again, we knew months before this, but we, let's just put it this way, we weren't gonna announce this during Haunted Happenings, were we?
Uh, let's wait until January, when the ground is solid and there's no tourists in town to speak of, and we can [00:53:00] control the narrative and let people know that there really is nothing there. I'll say this, people still didn't believe us. And that spring, we know at least one person who came and knocked on the door of a fellow who's a former actually fire chief in Salem who's retired and whose family had lived in the house, it was the first house built really on Proctor's Ledge in the early 20th century. He was the one who knew the tradition, knew the story well. In fact in the 1970s, he was out working in his yard, and a big, black limo pulls up. And this driver asks, "can you direct me to Gallows Hill?" And he points, and then he points up the hill to the water tower. And then the people in the backseat roll down their windows, and it was John Lennon and Yoko Ono. As he said, "it was the Beatle. It was the Beatle," because it turns out, yes, he found out later on that they were in Boston for a concert at the Garden that week. And Yoko is very interested in the world of pagan lore, and so she wanted to see the site, [00:54:00] at which point I've said, " no, for you guys, it's over here in my backyard." But nope his lip.
But having said that, so this person came up to his house, I think with a shovel, and said "hey, can I dig in your backyard?" And Tom said, "no, you can't." He said, "that's okay. I think it's public land over there that the city owns, and I'm gonna go dig over there." He said, "no, you're not, as long as we have a police force in Salem." But see, so this is the level of belief, right? Where and again, I'm saying like no one goes to Gettysburg with a shovel and says, "where can I dig?" What on earth possesses people to think it's okay to do this? So the good news was that we really don't think anybody is buried there, that there is nothing to look for. And the other good news is that, yeah, the site, people keep their eyes on it, and the police do regularly drive that route.
Josh Hutchinson: That's an amazing story.
Emerson Baker: The whole episode was an amazing story to me, I guess in part because so I didn't realize how important and big a story it would be. And frankly, actually, we were told by [00:55:00] people, "don't bother with the press conference. Just send a press release out to like the Globe and the Salem News and maybe they'll pick it up."
That was Monday morning. By Wednesday, I was being contacted by the media worldwide. My younger daughter was off at college at the time, and she texted me Wednesday night, I think it was, and said, hey, they'd made me the spokesperson for this thing. I didn't really want it, but I was cold, and I had other things to do. It's January. She said, "Dad, you and Gallows Hill are trending on. I think it was Wednesday, actually. I was on Fox News at midday, too. And like the interest in this was amazing and frankly, to me, it was overwhelming, because I had no idea just how important this was to how many people.
I don't like to admit this, because I think people think this is why I got involved in it, but I found out in the middle of writing Storm of Witchcraft that Roger Toothaker was like my ninth great uncle. And that's not why I got involved in this, but what it points out to the fact is, if your family's been in New England for more than a generation or two, you're probably related to someone involved in the trials. What I will say is to me, I took it maybe because I work in Salem and study this stuff, that wasn't unfinished business to [00:56:00] me, but it turned out it was to lots of people. And literally when I was on, I had a four minute spot on the midday news on Fox nationally on that Wednesday, I think it was.
And I checked my voicemail later that day., And it was full. It was full with what I would consider to be testimony by people, mostly elderly members of their family, who wanted to thank me, to thank the city of Salem, for what we were doing. They considered this sort of the injustice and unfinished business, and that we were righting an old wrong, and they wanted to come. I got voicemail from pretty much all over North America by people wanting us to know when we would be building a memorial and dedicating it, because they wanted to be there, because this was important to them. Again, it was important to their family.
And you just didn't realize how important this was when people would say that they basically considered this something that had worn heavily on them ever since, and in many cases, sometimes these people, sometimes they'd known since they were kids they were descendants. Other times, they'd only found out when they got old and started doing [00:57:00] genealogy. But you see this, and you may, folks may have seen this, if you visit the original Witch Trials Memorial in Salem, the 1992 Memorial, where they have the benches for each person, when you go and visit, you often see remembrances left to the individual victims. And it can be things from good luck pennies to roses to quartz crystals to notes. And the notes can be, you read them, and they really hit hard. Same sort of theme of, I remember one for for Giles Corey, were like it was a ninth or tenth great descendant saying, "we have not forgotten you. We love you. You are a member of our family. We remember, we honor you, for we know what an injustice this was." It's really powerful stuff. It really is. And again, to me, that's why I said we had to make sure that the spot wasn't ever forgotten again.
Josh Hutchinson: I've been to that memorial a few times, and I've seen all of those things that you describe. People put flowers on every, single bench and pennies, and I [00:58:00] saw a couple of notes there one time and, yeah, candles, you name it.
Emerson Baker: And you get same sense frankly of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. It's a sacred place where you can reach out and be in touch with those people. And we tried to build a memorial that was reflective of that at Proctor's Ledge, as well, too. I should add, too, on the Proctor's Ledge story, that Mayor Driscoll and her staff were wonderful. When we all sat down with her, the whole team, and told her exactly what we found, we had no idea what her reaction was gonna be or the city's. We were a bunch of four historians trying to figure out how on earth we're gonna raise the money to memorialize the site. And from the start, mayor Driscoll said, who by the way now has been sworn in as Lieutenant Governor Driscoll of Massachusetts, so good for Kim, we're sorry to be losing her in Salem, but glad she's our lieutenant governor. Amita said, "no, Salem must do this. The city of Salem must properly commemorate this site. This is our business, right? This is our duty." And they took that very seriously. And [00:59:00] at which point it took us another over a year or so to get a memorial built, because then we had to start talking with the neighbors, because no one who bought a house, and you're in the backyard of six houses, as well as a Walgreens, none of those people bought in thinking that they had a mass execution site in their backyard. How do you deal with that? But also the fact realizing that again, this is an important site. The other piece of that, too, is no one wants to turn this into another tourist attraction. We don't want a stand popping up next door, Sarah, selling what I describe as fried dough and vampire fangs, right?
How do you mediate this? How do you make it a place where people can come and pay their respects? Cuz believe me, when those 10th great-grandchildren from Arizona or Canada make the trek to Salem, they want to visit that site. The other memorial is nice, but it's got nothing to do directly. It's only association with the witch trials is that it was an empty piece of land that was there when they were getting ready for the tercentenary. But the execution site is really that kind of hallowed space to them. And so we [01:00:00] mediated on that.
And again, the neighbors, we tried to come up with a low impact way, so it wouldn't bother the neighbors too much. But that'd also be a site where people who were in the know could come and go. And to this day, if you look in all of the Destination Salem materials, the official Salem tourism maps and things, the site is not listed, again, out of respect to the neighbors and frankly out of respect to the victims but that people who want to know can find it and can go there and pay their respects and take in the sense of the place and the enormity of the events of 1692.
But again, like the other memorial, I think it tends to be, it's understated, granite, not a lot going on. Martha Lyon, landscape architects, really talented, has done a lot of work in Salem, and helped us out like a Charter Street, and I think put together a really nice, very much fitting memorial even the way is how do you deal with the site when, essentially, it's all uneven rocky ground that is not easily accessible. Certainly not handicap accessible. So essentially we made it like viewing it from essentially just the sidewalk really. And to do that, and I think it turned out really well, [01:01:00] I really do as a proper way to balance all those sort of competing interests in Salem and to have a place where people could go and commune with the victims and, at the same time, not be a tourist trap, right?
My team asked me if I would say, the dedication ceremony, if I would say a few words on behalf of the team. And of course, we dedicated it on July 19th, 2017, quite deliberately the date of the first mass execution on that site. We really weren't sure we could get it ready for June 10th for the execution site of Bridget Bishop. So we went, we wanted, make sure we had plenty of time so we did it on July 19th and ended, I hoped that this could be a, I'll read the last paragraph so to you.
"Finally, it's my sincere hope that today marks a new chapter in how Salem treats the witch trials. We became the Witch City in 1892 on the bicentennial of the trials. While done largely for commercial reasons, I see it as Salem's self-imposed scarlet letter. The term Witch Hunt is synonymous with Salem, and it stands a symbol of persecution, [01:02:00] fanaticism, and rushing to judgment. But with that title also comes responsibilities. From this time forward, I hope that residents and visitors to Salem will treat the tragic events of 1692 with more of the respect they are due. We need less celebration in October and more commemoration and sober reflection throughout the year, for there are tragic lessons to be learned from this story. So our job is to make sure that this site and what happened here is never, ever forgotten. Only through actions like today, where we acknowledge and confront a troubled past, can Salem truly become the city of peace."
And of course, as you probably know, Salem is really short for Jerusalem, city of peace.
Some of my friends tell me that I was maybe being too optimistic, that maybe the city taking ownership for this and doing these things and commemorating the site was an opportunity for a new start. But they haven't seen too much change. I guess I [01:03:00] tend to be more optimistic, which I tend to be usually a pessimistic, my friends would tell you, pessimistic, glass half empty, kind of guy. But in this case, I really think this is an opportunity for Salem to more regularly and vigorously confront that past.
And I'm hopeful that we'll continue to do so more and more in the future. Cuz I really do think that Salem is a place where people tend to be less judgmental, more forgiving than most other cities. And to some degrees and think, a lot of people have come to Salem, right? Damien Echols, one of the West Memphis Three, come and move to Salem not long after he got out of prison. And we talked to him about this, why did you do this? And he said, always loved Salem and fascinated with it. But also, too, this sense of this is a place where you know what it's like to judge people too quickly and too harshly. And that you seem to understand that we need to accept people as they are. Again, I'm optimistic that Salem is a place where people can do that.
Sarah Jack: We share that optimism with you, even though [01:04:00] we are not local. We have that general optimism for the world to start to understand witch hunts better, why they happened, why they continue to happen, and what we are supposed to be doing for each other.
I share that same optimism with you.
Emerson Baker: As I mentioned at the top, really when I talk about this, more and more, I'm not talking about history. I'm talking about issues of social justice, of scapegoating, rushing to judgment, judging people because they look, act, or speak differently than we do.
How do we define what's normal? And how can we learn to accept others and be tolerant of others? And I think, too, the problem is, honestly, in our society today, people of all walks of life, all political persuasions, we tend to very much get into our own bubbles, right? And we're reaffirmed, because the people, most of our friends and neighbors and coworkers are in the bubble with us. And I think this is particularly bad, right, during the epidemic. But it's but what [01:05:00] about those people that don't think about like us, right? No they don't live around here. They're not one, no. Yeah, they are. How can we have some open dialogue and really try to look and try to find some common ground here? So I appreciate what you folks are doing to try to explore those issues and wish you all the success in the world in getting people to think about this in really thoughtful ways.
Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with an important update on the witch hunts happening now.
Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News.
Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast is a project of End Witch Hunts movement. End Witch Hunts is a nonprofit organization working to educate you about witch trial history and working to motivate you to advocate for modern alleged witches. You'll not find our message sensational or amusing, confusing or muddied. When we talk about the witch, we are stating that the deep-rooted elemental fear of her guided the destruction of the lives of ordinary women and children in our world history. [01:06:00] That the consternation of misfortune today and continued misogynistic behaviors sustain the hate of the witch, driving a violent crisis that is so unbelievable in numbers. Today, mob style witch hunts target and brutally take down ordinary women and children in 60 nations. You heard that right. 60 world neighbor nations have witchcraft fear violence and murder threaded into their communities now.
Here's an excerpt from the most recent published report released this month at the United Nations Human Rights Council's 52nd session. But don't just catch what I highlight now. Please go to the podcast episode description for the link that will take you to the full report. Take time to read the report and share the information with your circle of influence. From the report:
"Women have been disproportionately affected, including older women, widows, women with disabilities, and mothers of children with albinism. Data on respective [01:07:00] human rights violations is under-reported, incomplete, and diffused across various entities. The secretive nature of such incidents makes it even more difficult to track them systematically. While data is hard to source, at least 20,000 victims across 60 countries were reported between 2009 and 2019.
Reportedly, accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks take place more often in conflict and post-conflict situations, areas affected by natural disasters and environmental degradation, regions with economic and public health crises, and settings where internally-displaced persons and refugees are found, including reintegration initiatives.
Conflict, instability, intercommunal hostility, and an absence of State authorities have reportedly increased the occurrence of such practices. In some countries, accusations of witchcraft have been identified as the most dominant triggers for the outbreak of intergroup armed violence.[01:08:00] In others, militia have used young girls in the frontline of combat, believed to have the power to intercept the projectiles of firearms in their skirts, while older and better equipped militiamen, even with automatic weapons, were placed in the line of combat further back. In some countries, being labeled as a witch is tantamount to receiving a death sentence. The various forms of violence related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks are often committed with impunity, related to the victims' fear of reprisal and the lack of a law enforcement response. Perpetrators include individuals, such as relatives and local community members, and in some instances government security forces or non-State armed groups. Sometimes belief in witchcraft is spread across all sections of society, affecting also police officers and judges. That reportedly results in an unwillingness to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators."
If you are becoming more familiar with witch trial history, you'll immediately sense that witch fear is being applied in the same ways today that it [01:09:00] was in the past. The same ways. Just like now, in the past, being labeled a witch was often a death sentence, but always a virtual brand, marking families for generations with scrutiny and demoralized futures. It is not a historic crisis.
Start talking about this. This information must become common knowledge and of importance to the whole world. It is your responsibility to talk about it. Remember when the Connecticut witch trial history was minimized and overlooked, not widely known as a significant part of witch hunt history? Now we must work to include the modern witch hunt horror in the everyday witchcraft conversations. We are the ones that should and can integrate this topic as an expected consideration when addressing the witch hunt phenomenon.
Please support us with your donations or purchases of educational witch trial books and merchandise. You can shop our merch at zazzle.com/store/endwitchhunts, zazzle.com/store/thoushaltnotsuffer, and shop our books at [01:10:00] bookshop.org/endwitchhunts. We want you as a super listener. You can support Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast production by super listening with your monthly monetary support of any amount. See episode description for links to these support opportunities. We thank you for standing with us and helping us create a world that is safe from witchcraft accusations.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that important update.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Find our other great episodes at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, associates, and neighbors about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more and donate.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:11:00]

March 23, 2023

Goody Bassett, Accused Witch of Stratford, Connecticut

Goody Bassett Inaugural Ball Tickets

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Show Notes

Goody Bassett, Stratford Connecticut’s local accused witch legend is now being acknowledged as her true self and reintroduced to us by the research and presentations of both Stratford Connecticut town historian, and Stratford Historical Society’s Vice President David Wright and author Richard Ross III. The community is hopeful that the Town Council will accept their proposed resolution to clear the good names of accused witches of Stratford: Goody Bassett and Hugh Croscia. Gail Liscio, President of the Stratford Historical Society shares about their upcoming events highlighting local witch trial history.Don’t miss these specially curated educational, memorializing and celebrating events this Spring offered by the Stratford Historical Society: Goody Bassett’s Last Mile History Walk, Connecticut Witch Trial History Presentation at Stratford Town Hall by Richard Ross III, and the Inaugural Goody Bassett Ball Society Fundraiser.

Upcoming Stratford Historical Society Witch Trial Events

“Before Salem” book, by Author Richard Ross III

Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project Website

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to a bonus episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: Today we talk with Gail Liscio and David Wright of the Stratford Historical Society, as well as author Richard Ross. We'll be talking about events coming up in remembrance of Goody Bassett, there will be a talk, a walk, and a ball.
Sarah Jack: In this [00:01:00] bonus, you get to hear how Goody Bassett, Stratford, Connecticut's local accused Witch, who was legend, is now being acknowledged as her true self and reintroduced to us by the research and presentations of Stratford Connecticut's town historian, David Wright, and author Richard Ross III.
Josh Hutchinson: We'll give you all the details about the events, when, where, how.
Sarah Jack: You've heard of Windsor clearing the names of Alice Young and Lydia Gilbert. But now the Historical Society in Stratford and the community is asking the Town Council of Stratford to accept their proposed resolution to clear the good names of accused witches, Goody Bassett, and Hugh Crosia.
Welcome guests Gail Liscio, David Wright, and Richard Ross III.
First we would just like you to go through and introduce yourselves and tell us your connection to the Stratford Historical [00:02:00] Society or community.
Gail Liscio: I'll go first. My name is Gail Liscio, and I've been the proud president for the past five years. Stratford is pretty much my hometown, so I'm very proud to have reached this pinnacle in my older years. Yeah, the society is definitely a challenge. We're really very dedicated and very proud to be the forefront of the history of the town of Stratford.
As David will tell you, when I turn it over to him, he has been my right hand man. He's also my vice president, and he really brings so much to the society. I could never do anything without him and the other people that we have on the board. We're very blessed to have the board that we have at this time.
So that being said, Dave, you wanna add anything.
David Wright: Thank you Gail. My name's David Wright. I'm vice president of the Historical Society, and I am the historian for the Town of Stratford. I've been associated with the Historical [00:03:00] Society for about the last 10 years, and I'm also the newsletter editor for the Society. I think it's up to you now, Dick.
Richard Ross: My name is Dick Ross. I go under, of course, my, real name, which is Richard S. Ross, and I go under the third because it's somewhat of a common name in it. I noticed when I first put my first book out that it was getting confused with my son and a whole bunch of other people. So that's why I have added the third on there.
Just to briefly tell you, I have um, this is my first book. It's called Contagion in Prussia in 1831. And it's a book basically about epidemic disease. And I came out in 2015 and, I'm, it's a very interesting, good book and it's done very well.
And my second book is this book called Before Salem: Witch Hunting in the Connecticut River Valley, 1647 to 1663. And, to tell people it's non-fiction, obviously. I'm a historian. I have a PhD and an [00:04:00] MLS. I was the head librarian at Trinity College from about 2000 to 2015, I believe. I never can get my dates straight, but anyway, I do in history though. And I've been obviously I retired and I've been doing some, a lot of, I do a lot of talks and, gotten involved in a couple of historical societies, and every year it seems like people are more interested in the witchcraft business and witch trials, et cetera. So I'm very happy about that, and I like to go out, and I particularly like to go to libraries because I have an MLS I told you. And I like to talk to people there, but I also do historical societies, so that's about what's going on.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much. Now we'd like to hear some more about the historical society. What can you tell us about that, Gail?
Gail Liscio: 2025 is our a hundred year anniversary. We have a lot of things planned for the celebration right now. We have begun charging [00:05:00] Goody Bassett with our first ever inaugural ball, which we always heard the legends of Goody Bassett and whatnot. They were mostly legends. Now, David has informed us that there's been so much more information that has come to the fore in the past 10 years that makes her more of a reality than a legend.
But we're really looking forward to it. It's going to be May 20th. I'm sure you've heard, you know, us mention that we've done very well already with solicitations from town people to sponsor. We're really psyched. That's about the only word I can use. We're really excited about this. We really are optimistic for the coming few years until we get to our hundredth anniversary.
Sarah Jack: We're really excited for the resurgence you guys are experiencing, too. David, it sounds like you brought some of the story to light and the intersection of lore and the history is really interesting and important. How did you gain your understanding of [00:06:00] her?
David Wright: Well, Goody Bassett, it's been in our history since the first histories of Stratford were written. And if you go back through time, it's the one consistent story that's told throughout our history, and interestingly enough, the home that really began the society formally, the society was formed to preserve the Captain David Judson house, which is located on Academy Hill Road in Stratford. And interestingly enough that home was more than, well, the home one of the walls of the home was the original home wall of William Judson, who was one of the original settlers of Stratford. And his home, as you look at the map of the original settlement of Stratford, was probably one of the homes Goody Bassett would've passed by as she was on her way to the gallows.
So we have a special connection to her, because she's been part of our history for [00:07:00] so long, and we always considered Goody Bassett a foregone fact in town until sometime, it appears in about the 1970s, when she became more of a legend. Now with the work that Mr. Ross has done and Beth Caruso has done, they've connected a lot of the dots for us.
So there's a man by the name of Thomas Thornton, who was one of Goody Bassett's neighbors in Windsor. Another one of her neighbors was John Young. And interestingly enough, all three of those people ended up in Stratford. 1650, Goody Bassett and her husband came to town, and 1651, Thomas Thornton and John Young came to town. We always knew that, but we didn't realize the connection. And what Beth Caruso has done in her latest article in the Connecticut History Review is really tie those three individuals together, [00:08:00] and It's an interesting thing, because not only was Thomas Thornton around and more than likely involved in the hanging of Alice Young in Windsor, he suddenly appears, and Goody Bassett was an associate of Alice Young and probably was guilty by a association. He suddenly appears in 1651 in Stratford, and then after Goody is hanged, he suddenly appears in Fairfield in 1653 at the hanging of Goody Knapp. So Beth has done a fabulous job of tying it together.
It's not that we didn't know about Goody, it's just that we passed through a period of time where there was so little indicating her actual personage and the reality of Goody Bassett that a lot of the people, I think, in town just assumed that it was one of those fun stories from our history with really no significant foundation to it. So as we've been able to [00:09:00] learn more and as people like Mr. Ross and Beth Caruso have been able to tie things together, it's pretty obvious that we're talking about a very unfortunate woman with a very unfortunate set of associations, one of them being Thomas Thornton, and they all seem to come together for us in 2023, which really made it a watershed opportunity for us to talk a lot about Goody Bassett and to make our attempt in town to exonerate her from the charge of witchcraft in the town. And then hopefully we're able to celebrate that exoneration in May ,which is on roughly the day that Goody Bassett was hanged in 1651.
Josh Hutchinson: It's wonderful. We're really happy that you're doing this. It's exciting for us to see others in Connecticut bringing [00:10:00] this history to light and we appreciate that. Is there anything else anyone would like us to know about the life of Goody Bassett?
David Wright: Unfortunately, we know precious little about her. We only have some evidence from New Haven and some evidence from Goody Knapp's trial in Fairfield that really add to what we know about Goody Bassett. But of course, formally, all we really have is the passage from from Connecticut history where it says the lieutenant governor and two of his associates went down to hold trial in Stratford.
And without the other circumstantial evidence that has been uncovered related to the witch trial in New Haven and the witch trial in Fairfield, it would be very difficult for us to even be able to prove that Goody Bassett had actually been hanged. So it's just [00:11:00] really this year that everything's come together for us.
But it doesn't give us a lot of information about who Goody Bassett was or where she came from. We don't find anything in the records of Windsor that talks about her, at least not that I've seen. And we don't have anything in the town of Stratford that really talks about her. So I wish we knew more. I wish more was written. I think Beth Caruso has done a fabulous job of explaining to us why we don't know more, but it's just unfortunate. And so we have to fill in the blanks with other associated pieces of information that we can bring together and put some meaning to her life and how she ended up being accused of witchcraft.
I don't know if you'd like to add anything, Dick, to that. You're certainly much more knowledgeable than I on this topic.
Richard Ross: Yeah, I haven't seen Beth's article yet, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and get hold of it to read it because I like, obviously I need to look at the [00:12:00] sources. And it sounds pretty legitimate from what you're saying. The one thing that I noticed when I was doing my research was that I'm, I believe, and I've seen other reference to it, that she was married to Thomas Bassett and he had come over on the the ship, the Christian, and he was a carpenter. And he's, and I believe he's the one that married the Goody, whatever her first name was, we don't know. Maybe there's more in Beth's article.
I haven't, as I said, I haven't seen it, but the thing that's interesting to me was interesting to me was that so Alice is hanged, as we know, Goody gets accused of being a witch through probably association in some way. Lydia Gilbert, who gets hanged in 1654, was also from Windsor, and I believe was also had some kind of connection with Young and I don't think Bassett, but she might have. Cuz I think Bassett left in 1640, 1641. But Lydia was in jail in 1642 with the guy that she [00:13:00] eventually married. And then Mrs. Marshfield or Goodwoman Marshfield who left and went up to Springfield and was accused of being a witch, too, up there. She never got hanged or anything like that, but she was accused by another woman who ended up actually being tried for being a witch. So anyway, but to me it's, there's some kind of they, all of 'em probably represented, just to say this, and I could be wrong, but I, they seemed to have represented, for example, Mrs. Marshfield husband was really, he lost a lot of money. He caused a lot of problem, economic problems in the town of Windsor and deserted his family. And obviously she had gone down in status, cuz she had, must have had pretty good status when she first came over from from England in the west country.
So I think all four women had some sort of lower status in the community than the other people, many of the other people that lived in the town of Windsor, because a lot of the other people in the town of Windsor were, from what I could tell, [00:14:00] pretty well off when they came over, and they knew each other. They were like yeoman class, et cetera, et cetera. If you lost status at that time, it meant that you obviously didn't have the favorability of God, let's put it that way.
Sarah Jack: And then are you also acknowledging Hugh Crosia?
David Wright: How we found that was I think there's a book called Connecticut Witch Trials that, that appeared in the book was written, I'd have to check in the thirties, but Hugh is Stratford's other Witch. He was actually accused in what is today's Bridgeport, but he was tried and found essentially innocent by ignoramus, or they returned to a verdict of ignoramus, which meant that they didn't have enough evidence to convict him.
He was never hanged. He, I'm sure, had to leave the community or experienced a lot of distress continuing to live in the area. But we also had the benefit of it being 1692. [00:15:00] And because Governor Winthrop had largely put an end to witch hanging when he returned from England in 1663, Hugh, while accused, the charges were dropped against him.
We're including him in at least the resolution that we're presenting to the town council. Since we're talking about Goody Bassett, it seems good to just remove the curse of witchcraft everywhere that we know that it existed in the town. And Hugh just happens to be one of the unfortunate people that got swept into that. We know a little more about Hugh than we do Goody Bassett, not a lot about his life, but there is significantly more written about him in the trial, and so we can substantiate his charge of witchcraft and a little bit about the court proceedings a whole lot better than we can with Goody Bassett.
Josh Hutchinson: Great. What can you tell us about the events that you have planned?
David Wright: [00:16:00] We have the honor and privilege of having Dick Ross come to town on the 27th of April, he's going to do a presentation that I'm not sure what Dick's calling, but for marketing purposes, we're calling it Before Salem, a little bit of a takeoff on his book. I had the privilege of being able to hear Mr. Ross in Naugatuck back in 2019, and since everything else was coming together for this year, I thought it'd be really nice to have an expert come to town and talk about the Connecticut witch trials in general. It seemed to make more sense to have all of the witch trials brought together for people to think about why we got there, how we got there.
And I think it puts a little more meaning to what we're talking about as it relates to Goody Bassett since we don't have a whole heck of a lot of information about her. We're. In the process of creating a resolution that we want to [00:17:00] present to the Stratford Town Council. I don't know what the council's reception is going to be. I'm hoping that with the activity in the state legislature and what the Connecticut Witch Exoneration Project is attempting, that maybe that will motivate them a little more. We're going to, of course, let them know that Windsor has already done this. We've patterned our resolution after Windsor's and we'll be submitting it to them in the month of March, just as soon as we can finish crafting it.
And then in May and early May, the 3rd and the 10th, we're going to do a couple of walks attempting we, we can't do it with anything but speculation, and some of the streets don't even exist in exactly the same places as they did in 1651. We have a really good map of the settlement of Stratford that was done in about 1660.[00:18:00]
And so we're going to try and use that to retrace the likely path that she would take. And what I've done is looked at the shortest path from what would've been the original congregational church at that time to Gallows Brook, and I think taking her there, they probably would've chosen the shortest path possible to get there. So I'm, of course, taking a great deal of liberty at trying to retrace that path based on the fact, particularly, that some of the streets aren't even on that original map that we'll probably be walking on. But I'm gonna attempt to come as close as I possibly can. And we know who lived in all of those homes and some of the people who would've been living in those homes would've been the original founders, and they would've been very powerful men in town.
And I think what I want to do as part of the walk is talk about who those people were, because Goody wouldn't have found her way [00:19:00] to the gallows without the complicity of a number of the more powerful men in town. And so I think it will be helpful to talk about some of those people that were living in town and describe when they came to town and where their homes were. And we're gonna talk a lot about Adam Blakeman, who really led the first 47 settlers to the town of Stratford in 1639.
Then as part of our gala on May 20th, we're hopeful that Mayor Hoydick is going to read a proclamation, which will essentially proclaim Goody Bassett Day and explain that the town of Stratford, as she currently governs it, is doing what they can to absolve Goody from the charge of witchcraft that was brought against her. So we've got a pretty full next couple of months. We're looking forward to it. I'm really [00:20:00] hoping that we'll have a really good turnout at Mr. Ross's presentation. We're hoping that you can help us with that.
The walks, certainly anybody is going to be welcome to attend. So we'll certainly let everyone know if the demand continues and people want to have additional walks, I'll be happy to figure out what we're gonna do with those. But I wanted to have them before the gala and when things wrap up for us. So that's why they're planned when they're planned, and we'll see what happens.
Gail Liscio: We're really looking forward to any help we can as far as, you know, promoting the ticket sales for the actual ball. It is a fundraiser, emphasis on fund F U N D, and we just need as much participation. I love the idea of exoneration, but we just need live bodies there at the bash as well to just celebrate and bring us back into the forefront of the town of Stratford. David, it's been [00:21:00] great with the walks. People love them. He's a great orator, but as far as anything else goes, whatever help we can glean from anyone, more than grateful. So I thank you very much.
Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome. And how can people purchase tickets to the events?
Gail Liscio: They will be on sale starting March 15th. They will be on Facebook, and what we can do is we can send you the link, whatever you need, and quite frankly, word of mouth helps. Anybody who wants to purchase a ticket can also call the society and leave a message. We will be glad to call each and every person back.
We're just really pushing this to be a real knockdown, drag out event for the town. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We've gone to great lengths to promote it. We've gone to great lengths to have a fabulous menu, great entertainment. So I hope to see you all there. That's about all I can say. It's gonna be really wonderful and I thank everyone for helping.
Sarah Jack: It's very exciting. [00:22:00] Is the gala located at your facility?
Gail Liscio: What it is it's located at Vazzano's Four Seasons. That's one of the biggest facilities we have in Stratford. In fact, at one time, it was an old, small grand union supermarket, but it's since been converted over the years to a beautiful venue for weddings, bridal showers, anything of that nature. I really think that the town uses them quite frequently, because it holds up to 400 people, which is a real great event site.
Other than that, we're just counting down the days until we get everything rocking and rolling, and we'll take it from there. I can't wait to meet Mr. Ross though, that I really wanna grill him on a few things.
Josh Hutchinson: David, you also spoke or wrote to us about a marker, historic marker for Goody Bassett. What would that look like?
David Wright: We're working on that with Mayor Hoydick. I'm not sure how that will come together exactly, and the reason is because the marker that we're looking at will be [00:23:00] something modeled after the marker that was put in place in Bridgeport at the Burroughs Community Center for Goody Knapp a few years ago.
And we'd like to do a similar thing, but we have a large forest in the north end of town that has some very large rocks. And it was originally a quarry actually. And one of the markers at the place we'll be beginning the Goody Bassett Last Mile walks was actually brought from Roosevelt Forest. It's called the Mac's Harbor Marker. And we'd like to do something like that. We like to place it in the center of West Broad Street. It will probably be very near where I 95 crosses West Broad, which won't be far enough north by probably a hundred yards to where Gallows Brook would've run. But we have to work with the property that we have at this time, and if we were to put [00:24:00] the the marker where we think the gallows were, that goody was hanged from, it would be right in the middle of Metro North Railroad tracks. And we were thinking they probably wouldn't approve of that. We're moving it a little further south, on West Broad, there's a strip of land that the town owns.
The mayor has certainly been supportive of that, but now we're going to have to find a stone of the right dimensions and get it transported down to that location. So I just don't know that we can do all of that before May 20th, but that doesn't mean we're not going to try.
The mayor's time is not open to us whenever we need her, so we kinda have to work around her schedule and the scheduling that she can give to us. So she's supportive. I've had the conversation with her already. And so just as soon as we can put that marker in place, it will be placed. But that may take a while. I probably started talking to the mayor about this four or [00:25:00] five years ago, but it just, time passes much too quickly in some cases.
Sarah Jack: And thank you both for all the information. I'm really excited for your community. They're very fortunate to have you guys working on this project, and I think it's gonna be fruitful and wonderful.
Josh Hutchinson: This has been Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. You'll find dates and links to all the events in the show description.
Sarah Jack: Join us again Thursday.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends and family and anyone else who may be interested.
Sarah Jack: You can support our efforts at endwitchhunts.org.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:26:00]

March 20, 2023

Finding Your Salem Witch Trial Ancestors with David Allen Lambert

AmericanAncestors.org

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Show Notes

Take in this informative research conversation with author David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist from the New England Historic Genealogical Society and Stoughton, MA town historian. This is a family research tip-packed episode with laughs and heartfelt dialogue about our family histories. Thoughtful reflection about descending from ancestors involved in the Salem Witchcraft Trials pulls us into an instructive talk on utilizing American Ancestors resources and expansive archives. We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

“A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries” by David Allen Lambert

Vita Brevis Blog Posts by Author David Allen Lambert

“Bewitched” blog post by David Allen Lambert

Support our show, buy “Records of the Salem Witch Hunt” through this link.

University of VA, Salem Witch Trials Documents and Transcriptions

Press Conference on Legislative Bill H.J. No. 34, March 8, 2023

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

Purchase a Witch Trial White Rose Memorial Button

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Social Media for State Representative Jane Garibay

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we speak with the chief genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, David Allen Lambert. We're going to talk with him about verifying your descent from those accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Hunt, and you can apply these same tools, many of the tips that he gives us, to genealogy in general. It'll help you [00:01:00] become a better family history researcher.
Sarah Jack: You are gonna find this conversation very motivating. You're gonna wanna open those projects back up right now and start working and using his tips.
Josh Hutchinson: His advice to you and to us is so good, it makes me want to write books about my family history right now. I wanted to immediately get on the websites and do all the things.
Sarah Jack: When you hear David talk about American Ancestors and the genealogical society, you realize what a supportive community is available with a vast amount of resources.
Josh Hutchinson: We have a fun chat. Serious advice is given [00:02:00] out. You'll want to take notes while you're listening to this one and follow the steps that he provides to confirm that you have one of these ancestors in your tree. Or if you're just starting to look at your tree and investigate who your ancestors were, he gives pointers on how you can link them to a historical event like the Salem Witch trials.
Sarah Jack: He refers to many important, available collections and databases. So you wanna take note of those.
Josh Hutchinson: Or if you're unable to take notes right now, just download the episode and listen to it again. You'll have a good time both times.
Sarah Jack: Have your friend listen to it and make them take notes for you.
Josh Hutchinson: Or pull up the transcript at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
And David also shares about his [00:03:00] own personal family connections to the witch trials and has many interesting stories to tell us.
Sarah Jack: It really shows how when you get to looking more specifically at the lives of some of these ancestors, how meaningful it can be and personal. Those personal connections are right there and you can hear that come out of David's discussion and why his connections are so meaningful to him. And he talks about where they were from and some of the things going on in their lives. And it's very interesting.
Josh Hutchinson: And you'll learn from him many ways that you can investigate the story of your ancestor and get to know them on a more personal level than you have before. If you implement David's [00:04:00] techniques and take advantage of the resources and databases that he points us all to, you will experience a new level of genealogy.
David Allen Lambert has 30 years of experience at New England Historic Genealogical Society, and yet is fresh and young and motivated by what he does, enjoys his job. You'll get a real good sense of how much he loves what he does.
Sarah Jack: And that really adds a richness to their offerings.
Josh Hutchinson: And we chat about how much things have changed in genealogy in the past 30 years, going from microfiche to internet databases and DNA, and then he gives so much good information in the show about the resources, how many there are. It's mind boggling. So much [00:05:00] information that is available now that you used to have to go do a lot of traveling and spend an extensive hours of time navigating through microfiche and old papers. And now it's available with a mouse and a keyboard from the comfort of your own home. It just, I remember going to the Family History Center in town and going to town, public libraries and historical societies and looking through collections manually. And you can still do that. There's a lot of extra records at NEHGS in Boston. It's well worth a visit, and you'll discover so much.
It's great to learn the individual stories of your ancestors and try [00:06:00] and put yourself in their place for a little while. I wanted to say getting into the heads of our ancestors whichever side they were on is so important to help us understand why witch trials took place, so we get an insight into our own behaviors and thoughts and how we treat people today. Just talking about ancestors, it reminds, you know, how instead of just putting the names in the blanks on the tree, you wanna learn the stories of the individual people and like you're learning the stories. You get into their head a little bit, and it gives you a good insight. You start thinking, why did they accuse people of this? And then you're like do I behave like that? Do I think like that? And it gives you really good, [00:07:00] valuable insight and education. And that's part of our mission, I think, to help people get to that point. So I think this episode, learning about your family history is a really good way to get connected to the history and to try to understand both sides of it. They are witches, they aren't witches.
Sarah Jack: And now you get to enjoy our guest, David Allen Lambert, chief genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston, Massachusetts. We talk about verifying descent from those accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Hunt. Learn about the broad scope of membership benefits, the vast and unique record collection at American Ancestors, and the professional genealogical assistance available to members.
David Allen Lambert: You guys have done some really wonderful interviews. I'm really honored to be part of this, [00:08:00] actually. One of the ironic twists of this is because my seventh-great grandmother was Ann Sewall Longfellow, the sister of Judge Samuel Sewell. He was in Boston and had his minister read his apology, and every year for the rest of his life, until 1730, he had a day of fasting and prayer, but I can tell you, our town's namesake, Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton, didn't seem to shed a tear that we know of. It's remiss to me why he would've not had any reason not to. But then he followed a major political career, and he died in 1701.
So maybe if he lived past, he was about 70 years old when he died. Maybe he would've later in life decided that it was wrongdoings. But in 1727, 25 years after he died, they named my community where I live after him. There's some talk that maybe have been honor of him or his father, Israel Stoughton, who actually had a mill in Dorchester on the Neponset River. And so what was the south [00:09:00] precinct of Dorchester became my hometown, Stoughton. And I'm the town historian there, but my main job is chief genealogist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society. And I've been here, this year will be 30 years. I started when I was two.
I started doing genealogy when I was seven. So there's some, great interest. I've always had. I I've always known through family stories of our connection with the witchcraft trials through Sewall. And then with my own research learning further information about Mary Perkins Bradbury, one of the fortunate to almost meet the gallows in September of 92. And she made it clear, and we don't really know if she was they bribed the jailer or her husband bribed a jailer, but she got out of there and they, we believe escaped to what is now Northern Maine or lived pretty much, we know by 1695 when her husband died, Thomas, I leaves in his will, care for my wife, so she wasn't out living in the woods still. And by then, of course it had died down by a couple of [00:10:00] years.
Sewall is somebody I've always admired. I thought, for one, the book he wrote early on, The Selling of Joseph, which is almost like an abolitionist movement, a century and a half before there really was an abolitionist movement.
And then, of course, with having that connection with the witchcraft trials with Mary Perkins Bradbury, and ironically my wife and I share some colonial New England ancestors, and the only accused witch she has is Mary Perkins Bradbury, so my two daughters have her twice. She's my 10th great-grandmother. However, Sewall was the older brother of my seventh great-grandmother. My generations are a little askew. Where some people would be their 10th or 12th great-grandparents in that generation, sometimes it's my fifth and seventh. My, in fact, my, one of my fifth great-grandfathers who I still have autosomal DNA for, was born in 1678. I still, he's my fifth great-grandfather. He had a child in the 1730s with his younger wife who had the [00:11:00] last child was my ancestor, their last child was my ancestor. So it's fascinating.
Sarah Jack: That's super fascinating.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's really close relationship for that period of time.
David Allen Lambert: Yeah, to think that I have DNA alive that was actually around during the witchcraft trials is kinda scary in a little bit.
Sarah Jack: Wow. That is fascinating.
Josh Hutchinson: Really fascinating.
David Allen Lambert: I can tell you a little bit about what I do, just to give you a little background myself. So I'm the chief genealogist for the American Ancestors, the New England Historic Geological Society in Boston. We're the oldest genealogical organization in the nation, for that matter, really in the world. Europeans really didn't have a need to research their ancestors and create a library, cuz well, there most cases, they were still there. When we were created in 1845, there was a need of preserving the past of New England, getting those stories. And of course, we're American Ancestors now. So we far exceed the collection of books we started with. Our website, American [00:12:00] Ancestors, has 1.4 billion searchable records, and that's at americanancestors.org. And you can even sign up as a guest member. You don't have to be a paid member right off. We have, let's see, a quarter of a million books, local history and genealogies.
We have in our manuscript collection over 28 million manuscripts, including a letter from September 20th, 1692 between Cotton Mather and Stephen Sewell that discusses the witchcraft trials, which I'm hoping will get linked on the Salem Witch Documentary Archives down in Virginia, cuz it's, we have it on our DLA, our digital library archive. I'd be glad to share you a link to see that.
And of course one of the things that we continue to do is help people with their genealogy, no matter where in the world they come from. But I have a special place in my heart when I run across people who have someone who is accused of witchcraft. And I even still have a warm place in my heart for those descendants of the accusers. I've met a few [00:13:00] Putnams, and I don't have any anger towards them. You can't be responsible for what your ancestors do. And then when I tell them I live in a town that's named for the judge, so I guess it balances out.
Josh Hutchinson: My grandfather is from Danvers, so I have quite a lot of ties to all sides of the witch trials from Salem Village. My Hutchinsons were involved on both sides of the trials.
David Allen Lambert: Yeah, I'm an Ingersoll, and I have the next generation of my immigrant, they were accusers. There's distant connections in my family with other people that were accusers. I did the honor of doing the genealogy of a few notable people. I did genealogy via NEHGS for David McCullough, Michael Dukakis, Ken Burns, and the one I did recently a few years back was for Nathaniel Philbrook. And he thanked me for the work I did, and I said, "I'm just returning a favor." And he said, "what do you mean?" And so, "one of your ancestors signed the petition to [00:14:00] save my ancestor Mary Perkins Bradbury's life. I'm just returning the favor. So thank you for what your ancestor did." So that was fun.
Sarah Jack: That's
cool.
Josh Hutchinson: That's, .
It sounds like you have a very, I don't know, cool seems the best word for it. A cool job.
David Allen Lambert: It really is. I think it doesn't have any element of getting boring because every question's different. What I do now, a combination of lecturing. I travel around the country representing NEHGS. There's a big conference coming up in the beginning of March called Roots Tech in Salt Lake City, and the last one before Covid drew 27,000 people there. And now of course it's even a bigger audience, because of the virtual aspect.
I had the honor of writing 11 books, a few through NEHGS, and authoring a variety of different honorary genealogies for people that have been our keynote speakers over the past 30 years. It's really rewarding because in some cases you're connecting a person not with [00:15:00] just their distant ancestor from 300 plus years ago, but maybe it's finding what happened to their grandmother that disappeared or reconnecting people by using DNA and finding cousins that are still in Europe that survived the Holocaust.
So we have a strong element of a global outreach for genealogy that tries to serve all people, and the building's expanding. A lot of places are going forward with, just being a website per se, not to name any in particular. We actually purchased the building next door. in March, we will be closing the building at the end of the month for probably the remainder of the year it seems. But we're gonna be expanding our footprint on Newbury Street in Boston, where we're located, and putting in a new discovery center, which is actually going to introduce genealogy on a global level for the person who just walks in off the street, wants to know a little bit more.
And then, of course, we have the resources and the staff to take you on a global trip back, or if we don't have the resources, we'll tell you how to find them.[00:16:00]
Sarah Jack: What an exciting project.
David Allen Lambert: I wanna commend both of you for all the efforts you're doing to help with the exoneration of the Connecticut witches, I must say that I was one of the people who signed the thousand name petition, because I think that's wonderful. That's wonderful. My fingers and toes crossed for you. I think, I can't imagine there would be any instance where there would not be a hundred percent approval of that.
It's interesting with the last recognized Salem accused was finally just last year by the efforts of school children. And then I find out indirectly, she's a distant cousin of mine through a shared ancestor. One of my New England ancestors, Edmund Ingalls of Lynn, had quite a few family members that were tied into that.
And even with the Bradburys, there always seems to be some sort of riff, if you will, where like the Carr family had issues with my family in Salisbury, George Carr's house lot, I mean, and then of course the [00:17:00] spectral evidence is just a wonderful thing anyways, to read some of the nonsense that people are being accused of. And we think about it now and how we would not even think twice something that's just ridiculous. But the idea that my ancestor becomes a blue boar and rushes out at George Carr's horse and then disappears into thin air, it's like you would think that people were, I don't know. I would've thought more well adjusted in realizing what's rational and what's not.
And I don't know what your personal take on how the hysteria got started, but I always like to say it's a bunch of teenagers that got caught up in a lie. And and then fingers are pointed towards we need more people. There must be more. And then they're just naming people. They don't even have any common sense of, oh, it must be this person. It must be that person. And it truly a hysteria. And we're just so lucky that it didn't go on for longer. Look at what happened in Germany or in Scotland. It's un unthinkable that if that went on for another [00:18:00] decade, how many hundreds of people could have been executed or jailed? The ideas that infants died in jail, that had been born. I know I'm putting a toddler on trial. it's, but and in 300 years people look at us and think that we're archaic.
Sarah Jack: So we wanted to talk just a little bit about your webinar that you have done around Salem descendants and so what historical background on Salem Witch Trials should a family history researcher know?
David Allen Lambert: As we know about the witchcraft trials, you don't necessarily have to be from Salem Town or Salem Village. And you could have been like my ancestor from Salisbury, Massachusetts up in Essex County. You could have been from Boston, Middlesex County, like the Toothakers are over in Reading. You really were part of the New England community, and your ancestors were alive in 1692, they would've known this was going on. This would've been the talk in the church. So your [00:19:00] connection may not be going online to, say, Salem's Witchcraft Trial Documentary Archives, and finding out your ancestor was an accuser or accused for that matter. You probably had somebody who was alive that knew this. This was front page news. We didn't have a newspaper then. But we had the word of mouth.
The way to look into your genealogy, obviously you wanna start with yourself anyways, but if you know that fast forward, you have 17th century ancestors, a lot of these vital records are already published and online on American Ancestors. We have for at least Essex County and other counties, all of the pre 1850 birth, marriages and deaths, searchable, right online. We also have periodicals like the 19th century Journal of the Essex Antiquarian, the 20th century the Essex Society of Genealogists up in Lynnfield, Mass. published The Essex Genealogist. We have that online and that has plenty of articles about various witchcraft related families, accusers, accused, et cetera.
But one of the best pieces of academic scholarship was done by the late David L. Green, and [00:20:00] he was the editor of The American Genealogist. And what he did was start to do the families of the witches that had been accused and basically took their ancestry back to try to find if they could find a baptism in England or a marriage or find that voyage that came over. My ,ancestor Mary Perkins Bradbury, her family arrive early into the 1630s and then settle up in Ipswich, originally.
And so looking for that type of detail, but now with the sense of the internet, we can pretty much Google a name and then put the word witchcraft after it, yup, here's your link. But it does take federal research, because unfortunately there's a lot of trees out there online where people make leaps of faith, if you will, that ancestor was this person or that person. And it turns out that it's not them at all. The worst one I ever saw was somebody had an online tree of their ancestor who died in 1802 was an [00:21:00] accused witch of Salem. And I said, "that math doesn't work at all. Did you mean 1702?" And no, the person was born in 1755 and was born 60 years or so after the trials, approximately. You have to be careful with online trees. I'm one of the people that feels that if you are gonna see something online, I wanna click on a link, see the original document, and be a hundred percent certain that all t's are crossed and i's are dotted, that I'm looking at the genuine article.
There's, there's a lot of leaps of faith being done in research online now. So when I gave my lecture, the witchcraft presentation, which is back in October, I also created a 10 page syllabus that we sold at that time. And what I decided to do is put together all the material that is in print on specific accused witches. That way you could look person by person, see what was available, see what the best scholarship. I There are some things that were done in the 19th century which are still nice to have. Samuel Gardner Drake wrote an [00:22:00] account, I think back in the 1860s, which is interesting. I Of course, stuff that Sidney Perley does is tremendous, and of course has led us to know now where the gallows were with the ledges.
So gathering up material that is already in print but also looking at new scholarship. I know that there's a new book that was just recently done on Rebecca Nurse, so we're still learning. Turning those pages of the documents are giving a fresh approach. And I think it's important. in respect to your topic on the Connecticut hysteria, I wish there was equally that much amount of scholarship written up about them.
I've been to Williamsburg, Virginia, where they do a presentation of Colonial Williamsburg called "Cry Witch" about the accused witch in colonial Williamsburg. And at the end of it, they, " do you judge her guilty or innocent?" And they don't know what happened to her, cuz they don't have the surviving court records to know that if she was executed or set free.
So there, there's a lot of gray area in research, and one of the [00:23:00] fascinating elements that a people are doing now are reconnecting other family members and having reunions of descendants and whatnot. I The Associated Daughters of American Witches, of course, are taking Connecticut, as well. And the same thing with Salem. And you're really having a good chance of combining efforts, if you will, to get more research done.
Josh Hutchinson: We see a lot of groups online about that, and sometimes they have those in-person reunions, like the the Towne cousins do reunions every year, and we are both Towne cousins, Sarah and I.
David Allen Lambert: Oh, okay. We were all in the same mix back in the day, weren't we?
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, exactly.
David Allen Lambert: And it's ironic to think that the people that our ancestors lived next to, went to church, sat in the same pew with, would turn on you just like that. For what gain? Correct me if I'm wrong, were any of the accusers given a financial kickback, compensation of any sort? I know ultimately there was thought about land, but I can't [00:24:00] recall seeing anything where would be of any, maybe they thought they were saving their soul . I don't quite understand it.
Sarah Jack: Yeah.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah.
Sarah Jack: We actually have some interviews coming up soon that we'll be answering some of those questions. We just had a really good chat with a historian yesterday on some of that.
David Allen Lambert: Oh, excellent.
Josh Hutchinson: So if someone is looking at their family tree and trying to determine if they're related to one of the accused, what's their first step? How should they get started doing that?
David Allen Lambert: Again, it's looking at where geographically you're placing your ancestors. I'm not saying that there weren't accused, there weren't in Southern New Hampshire and what's now Southern Maine, but again, Essex County, Middlesex County seem to be the hotbed of where the accused and the accusers are from. You don't have to do anything more than familiarize yourself with those that were part of those lists. And again, the Documentary Archives with Virginia edu on [00:25:00] the Salem Witchcraft Trials is a great place to start, cuz you have all the cross reference to the names, et cetera.
When you look at the records, you may not find a published genealogy that gives extraordinary detail as to the person's life. A lot of early genealogies were just names and dates, children, names, dates, and children. It's more of the modern sense of genealogies probably done within the last, let's say 75 years, that people have dug a little deeper, start looking at court records and saying, "oh, wait a second. This person was an accuser during the witchcraft trials. And he may have just been at one of the trials, but it's still an important fact." So you may have to stumble across it. So I would say the first thing, Josh, would be to have people make a list of their 17th century ancestors that were in Essex County, Massachusetts, and then kind of spiral out from there. That would probably be the best opening part of the research.
Josh Hutchinson: What is your connection to Samuel Sewell?[00:26:00]
David Allen Lambert: And of course, Samuel Sewell is the older brother of my seventh great-grandmother, Ann Sewell Longfellow. She married William Longfellow, and they are actually the immigrant ancestors of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. So they're the Longfellows all come from William Longfellow ,who came from a town near Leeds in England, and he unfortunately perished. The interesting thing about Sewall, he doesn't speak very highly of Longfellow. I'm not sure if he calls him a drunkard, but pretty short of that. But then in 1690, his brother-in-law perishes when the Phips expedition to Canada the ship went down in the St. Lawrence, and a lot of men from Newbury and Dorchester perished.
And I joined the Colonial War Society under William Longfellow. And then, of course, in his diary, he laments his poor brother. And at that point in time, their son, my ancestor, Stephen Longfellow, was only four or five years old. And with Longfellow's poetry, you hear [00:27:00] of the courtship of Miles Standish. And that's on his mother's side of the family. There are some historians will debate this. Some say it's a blacksmith in Cambridge. But Longfellow's son, Stephen Longfellow, he actually was the village blacksmith in West Newbury, Massachusetts in the 17th century. And in the Longfellow Mansion in Cambridge, they have Stephen's account book. So he had some influence. So I think he did one poem for his mother's side, one for his father's. Again, other people will debate that, cuz we don't have a clear answer to that. But I like to think that blacksmith, and his house is still standing.
And he definitely would've known his Uncle Samuel Sewell and that Stephen was my sixth great-grandfather. And my fifth great-grandmother, Anna Longfellow Poor would've been about 14 when her Great Uncle Samuel Sewall died. And her son went off to fight in the American Revolution, Captain Jonathan Poor, [00:28:00] and my grandmother knew his grandson. It's a really closer connection to history, if we really stop and think of the older generations that we have.
Sarah Jack: I really love the way your organization has the documents and the support to help people stitch that stuff together and see all the dimensions.
David Allen Lambert: There is, and the nice thing about our website is besides being able to just plug in a name, I like to use the the advice of looking at what categories in the databases that we have. And that's just on americanancestors.org. You come into our facility, and we have a quarter of a million books over an eight story research facility. The seventh floor is nothing but published genealogies. The fifth floor is nothing but local history for U.S. and Canada. The first floor is all international. You could get lost here for a week or two, if you've just started in your genealogy. And I can tell you that I still find things, and I've been a member since I was 17 years old, when I [00:29:00] first came in back in the late eighties.
And it, it is mind blowing to think that some people say they're done with their genealogy. I always say, come on in. I bet I can find something new. Cuz just using the FAN approach and using that with the Salem Witchcraft Trials, how, what are the connections? You have family obviously, so you might wanna see the siblings and are they related to someone who was accused, because all the girls are gonna have different married names, so you should be looking for them, as well. Then you have associates. Did somebody they went to church with get accused. And then they have their neighbors that could have been an accuser or an accused. And how that changed the dynamic of their own community. I know that we spoke before our call, and I wanted to share one connection with Mary Towne Esty. Mary Towne Esty had a son, Jacob, and he actually left the Topsfield area, and he went to the south precinct of Dorchester. And before he died, the town that he settled in became named for the man that put his mother to death, Stoughton. Is [00:30:00] that not a terrible irony?
Sarah Jack: It is. Yeah. Yeah. You just can't get away from some things.
David Allen Lambert: No, you were, like I say, in this case, he moved. I'm not sure, I'm sure that there was probably some connection for generations. I can tell you, and I have no problem with sharing this story. When I was about eight or nine years old, I bought a Ouija board and at a yard sale, thought it was cool. My friends had one, and I brought it home. And we weren't very overly religious. I was raised Congregational, some things don't change in nearly 300 plus years, right? And my mother looked at using that, and she picked it up and took it away and threw it away. And she goes, "our family doesn't use those." And I never really asked her. My mother's been gone for 25 years now, and I often think cuz she knew of the story, of our connection with the witchcraft trials. Even then, it had been passed down in somewhat that probably you didn't want to get caught with [00:31:00] something like that.
Or it could have just been my mother didn't like Ouija boards. It's set a precedent in my mind and thinking to myself, I said, "how many generations of my Bradbury's were, oh, your mother was her. Huh? Your grandmother was, oh, you're one of them." And that must have been went on until the Revolution era, if not longer in some cases, especially in small towns. I know that there's still people when you say that you're a Putnam and you're from Danvers, oh, you're one of them, but it's ,of course, that referring to an accuser. But if I had to pick any judge to be related to by an uncle, I think Sewall was the one I'd want to be connected to.
Sarah Jack: What kind of responses do your visitors and researchers have when they are surprised by a connection to Salem?
David Allen Lambert: Some of them are shocked because they're like, "oh, I love going there. I must have some connection in my family to Essex County or to Salem." And then when you find out they actually have somebody that was [00:32:00] accused or executed or was an accuser, when they find out they have an accuser, I mean, it's not with everybody, but there's some remorse. They're like, "do we have involvement in doing that?" And it's, you think of just other parts of history where a person's ancestor was on the wrong side, if you will, that you almost hold blame for something you know, your parent may have done. But this is for your great-great-great grandparents. And I think that it shows that the human spirit and people have this remorse after that many years. So that is something. So then they wanna learn more about who did their ancestor accuse, what's their story? And I think that is part of what Sewall did for his apology. I think being repentant in the respect of knowing what harm your own ancestor did is probably a good way of moving forward with some sort of healing.
When they find out that their ancestor was an accused witch, they're like, they want to know locations, they want to know where [00:33:00] the trials were. Some of them were held in the Boston Jail, and the Boston Jail is not very far from government center in downtown Boston. The ironic twist on that, if you've ever stood at where the Boston Jail is, it was later the building for the Boston School Department, and kids will sometimes associate being in jail with school. This jail was also used for pirates. William Kidd was held there later, before he was transported to London and executed. It has a plaque on it. But I always bring tell people that you don't have to go very far. Others will want to go to where they're buried. And I say unbeknownst to us, we just know of, perhaps, where Rebecca Nurse or her family, secreted her body back and buried her at the homestead. We really don't know of the others. I think there's speculation that was it that Giles Corey maybe buried on the Nurse property? There was one of the male accused.
Josh Hutchinson: George Jacobs.
David Allen Lambert: Jacobs. Yeah. And then there's the macabre. I, I remember [00:34:00] years ago where people were, " should I name my child after somebody who was involved in the witchcraft trials? Oh my gosh. I named my daughter Ann. It's one Ann Putnam." I don't think that there's a generality with that, but people may be naming their child in honor of someone who was accused and maybe giving them the middle name as their surname or something like that. Like by naming somebody Mary Bradbury Johnson or whatever. That's, that I think is touching.
The other thing with research, I think people have a tendency fixate on now they have this connection, so going to where the thanks to Emerson Baker and, the late Sydney Pearl for writing it down to begin with. Where, where the ledges are, where the gallows were in that, the lovely memorial that they've erected. And even before then, the benches were nice, by the cemetery right there. But people will misinterpret that as that's where they're buried. I'm like, no, those are just memorial benches actually.
Sarah Jack: Yeah, that's [00:35:00] good to clarify that.
David Allen Lambert: People are apt to want to download all the documents and they can get their hands on their ancestor. And then then it becomes really, truly job security when people are trying to suffer reading the 17th century court script. And I can turn and actually read it for them, but then I have to say in most cases it's already been transcribed. Cuz that ominous tome that I own that has all the documentary records from the witchcraft trial that I call that one a toe breaker. But that's, it's a great book. And that's one of the ones in my syllabus.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I've got that one beside me. And we had the privilege of speaking with Margo Burns recently, who did quite a lot of that transcription work.
David Allen Lambert: I'm looking forward to meeting with her about William Stoughton very shortly. I have mixed feelings about the gentleman myself. We've actually had people in Stoughton want to consider renaming the town over the years, and our town is about to have, its tercentary. We'll be 300 years old on the 22nd [00:36:00] of December, 2026. And it'll be interesting to see what we do with regard to William Stoughton. As town historian and on the 300th committee, I can tell you that much his memory will not be heralded. But if Margo or anyone writes a book, I know that we'll definitely want to be involved with helping out with whatever we can telling about the connection with our town.
Josh Hutchinson: Margo actually explained some of his good side, as well, that he donated quite a lot of money to charities, and a charity of his, fund he established, recently helped some people with the Covid recession. Town actually paid out a fund that he had donated 300 plus years ago.
David Allen Lambert: And of course, the Stoughton Hall at Harvard University. The original one was barracks for the Revolutionary War soldiers. And the one that's here now, I think is from 1805, but it's still called Stoughton Hall and Harvard University.
[00:37:00] The sad thing about Stoughton is that we don't know a lot about him, from the point of fact that his diary, if he kept one, doesn't exist. Many of his papers don't exist. For that matter, much of his library doesn't exist. So unlike a lot of people, where their collections, like the Sewall diaries are at the Mass Historical Society, and I'm an elected fellow of the Mass Historical Society. And I was viewing the original pages of the Sewall diary, even though it's been published for years. And just going to the entries where he talks about, I visited my sister Ann to, I'm like, wow, he just, he could have just been right there writing it right beside me. So yeah, so for Stoughton, we don't have a lot of those documents. I'm lucky myself as a collector. I have one or two documents that he signed. It's interesting, his wax seal was a black swan on some things, which is interesting, because the Associated Daughters of Colonial Witches uses a swan on the logo.
Sarah Jack: They do. Yeah. Was that incidental?
David Allen Lambert: The [00:38:00] story of Stoughton is an intriguing one, and I wish Margo luck. I, 30 years ago started to gather up stuff with the idea that I thought I would write something. But it's just, it's piecemeal, and with history, when you only have certain things, you have to leap to conclusion. But I understand that she has been over to England and may have found some things on his early ecclesiastical training. I said, I think he originally wanted to be a minister.
Josh Hutchinson: She told us she went to Oxford and did some research in basically an old castle there and had a great time doing that. On the research side of things, we wanted to talk about how do people firm up their branches and know that they've got true connections? How do people, say you're getting information from your aunt or your third cousin, how do you know, confirm that's accurate information?
David Allen Lambert: Yeah, and this is true with every aspect of genealogy. So you could create a genealogy chart. [00:39:00] Some people call them pedigree charts. And you put your lineage down. It's one thing to fill in the blanks. It's one thing to have the solid evidence. Primary sources say for the 17th century, right through the 19th century, practically about the same.
So you're gonna have your birth records, your marriage records, your death records are gonna be recorded on the town level. Some vital records like marriages and births in Essex County were recorded in the quarterly court in Salem. So you may find some vital records there, but for the most part, for prior to 1850, if we're using Massachusetts as the baseline here, they're all in print, for the most part. Starting in 1841, Massachusetts becomes the earliest state in the union to record birth, marriages, and deaths, getting returns from the town and city clerks. So we're lucky we have that checks and balances system. 1841, right down through 1920, you can search on American Ancestors every birth, marriage, and death besides the records early on.
The other thing that people want to do to find connection, when you [00:40:00] can't find a birth, is maybe find the church record. The christening record of a child would name his parents or her parents. A marriage record in a church won't necessarily name who the parents are, but a witness might be a clue, because maybe it's the father or maybe it's the mother or a married sister, who is identified as one of the children of their ancestor.
The burial records can give you some clues, obviously to where they're buried, and maybe it's the placement of that gravestone in the cemetery that groups a family together.
Probate's really a, a true cement though, Josh, because that's going to name in the probate record I leave to my daughter, Sarah, now the wife of John Taylor, so that helps. Deeds too, because you could sell a piece of property for a dollar or a pound and have it, or simply love and affection to I give to my child. So these are the main things, vital [00:41:00] records, church records, probates, and deeds, just count on one hand, let alone court records with depositions.
There's a really untapped collection that I use all the time, and it is on familysearch.org. It's the Mass Archives Collection, and this is 328 volumes that are now digitized. There is a card index, and it is petitions and letters to the governor, muster rolls. 328 volumes, and they go from 1629 to 1783 I and most genealogists I know that are researching that era have never even heard of that collection. Like for instance, volume 135 of the Mass Archives Collection is where most of the witchcraft trial documents are housed in. And in fact, you'll find them on the Salem site, as well. But familysearch.org is free, and you can register for an account there. And if you just search under records for the Secretary of State's [00:42:00] office of the Massachusetts State Archives, you'll find the Mass Archives collection pretty fairly simple.
And it's great. And again, that's gonna be a document that may say, I was there when my father died, and on his deposition, he recounted the following. And that shows you a relationship. And of course, we have that wonderful thing called DNA now, which we can use as a clue in some cases.
Josh Hutchinson: We wanted to ask about the DNA. We know that it's, you can now link it to your tree on americanancestors.org. Can you tell us about what resources are available once you've linked your DNA to your family tree?
David Allen Lambert: Sure. We have some applications under American AncesTrees, as it's called, that will allow you to see how your results pan out. So that's a tremendous added advantage. The other thing that we have on American Ancestors, is we have people like Melanie McComb, who I work with, and she is well versed in genetic [00:43:00] genealogy.
Autosomal DNA is what you typically test. Most people will test that with ancestry.com or 23andme or a variety of different other, MyHeritage. That really only goes back to your fifth great grandparents. And like I say with mine, I have that one exception of somebody born in 1678, but if you're trying to get back to the earlier generations, it's something that our grandparents and our great-grandparents probably should have done. Of course, the technology wasn't there.
Where the DNA is helping out, I think people for the accused of the witchcraft trials or accusers or whatnot is the Y-DNA, because that's the direct male line. So if your Hutchinson line, you'll have the same Y-DNA signature as your immigrant ancestor and even thousands of years, even before surnames. And that's where the strength of trying to connect links back, because if you knew that, say for instance, if using this as an example, if Giles Corey was [00:44:00] the only one that had this particular Y-DNA and a proven line to Giles Corey, what his Y-DNA is may help somebody who's a Corey in South Carolina, who suspects that they may be related to him based upon that haplogroup.
And there's a whole plethora of study projects on Y-DNA. Mitochondrial is useful, too, not to discount what our mothers give to us. And ladies, of course, have the mitochondrial DNA they can test, whereas men only have the Y-DNA and the mitochondrial. Mitochondrial will be your daughter's daughter, so you'd have to find a daughter of Mary Perkins Bradbury, daughter of that person, all the way down to a living male or daughter to test that back. Where the surnames change every generation, it makes it a little bit more difficult, but it's still a valuable tool.
Sarah Jack: What kind of organizing do you guys recommend for people? You've got the pedigree stuff people are building out, they're trying to gather records, they're trying to connect to [00:45:00] cousins, they're trying to learn about locations. Is there multiple things you have to do to organize?
David Allen Lambert: Well, it really depends what the end result is gonna be. I give a lecture called "What Time is it on Your Genealogical Clock?," because I think as genealogists, we gather, it's going to the grocery store for 30 years but never going to the checkout counter. Essentially, you get all this material ,and what happens is that people just don't publish it, don't distribute it, and then when they pass away, there are kids that are not interested, that don't know what to do with it. And I have too many horror stories where I can tell you bags upon bags of things are just thrown out. But we have also become the repository, if you will, for a lot of these genealogists works since the 1840s, that they never did do a book or they never decided how exactly they wanted to put it out.
So I always say just like anything in life, create a plan. First off, what you want to have done with it. Are you gonna create a website? Are you going to create something you [00:46:00] wanna self-publish? We have an NEHGS, for those that have the budget for what's called the Newbury Street Press, and where we take and put together the entire book. Now that does cost a quarter of million dollars, but we do have people that produce these books and we've, over the past, nearly 25 or more years.
But you can self-publish by getting your genealogy program that you buy and just print out the copies and then just put on the title page, "this is the 2023 edition." Make it a PDF and send it to other cousins. Create a tree on AncesTrees. Create a tree on ancestry.com, Family Search, and just organize it.
And then what people will do is that they occasionally, all right, what is the next step? What's right for me? A lot of times they'll have consultations with myself or my colleague Melanie McComb. They'll come in and talk to a genealogist in the library, who's on the desk and say," I really don't know what, what I should do with this". And we will help guide people to, what should [00:47:00] be the final deposition of the paperwork they have. And sometimes our archivist may suggest another repository, because it may not fit the scope of what we have.
We had somebody one time that had clipped out obituaries for generations out of newspapers in the town, but we determined that it would've been better to give it to the local historical society. The other thing is work in a group. I think just any project, it's better with more than one person. And if you can involve a child and nephew or a niece or a cousin or better yet, find out somebody who's also working on the same ancestor, combined efforts, that's a checks and balances. You're checking in with the other person. You have that end results. And of course NEHGS with a quarter of a million books, we're always welcome any new book that's being produced, so if you create something, and it doesn't have to be ready for a Pulitzer Prize. My only suggestion is if you're gonna state something in your genealogy or your work, try to put the citation to where it comes from .
That even goes true with [00:48:00] family stories. People say I never was able to solve this mystery in my family. It's only a family story. Great. Write the story out in the genealogy and footnote it and say when you heard that story from your grandmother or your grandfather on the porch in Stoughton, Massachusetts in 1975. And then ask your other cousins that they've heard another version of it. And I always say there's a pound of truth, even in all the different ounces of fact and fiction that may be there. There's gotta be some story to it.
My grandmother told me it when I was a child, when I was seven, that my great-grandfather was on a whaling ship. That's a great story, but how do you prove it? I tracked down the whaling ship log and found his name on it in 1871, and then 20 years later, somebody found the log book for the ship, and there's his name right in it.
You never can give up. I think genealogy is like wet cement. It's never completely dry, solid. And there's always gonna be new material that's being found. What [00:49:00] people find now in their DNA to find that maybe their paternity or great-great-great grandfather isn't who they think it is, because DNA's disproved. And now you have to open up that can of worms in your research. And then when you write something down, like I say, if you want to do a second version or an addendum, go for it. There. There's no rules. But getting it out and getting it finished is a good thing. So if you set aside, I'm gonna get this done by the end of 2023 or by the end of 2024 or maybe five years down the road, but set yourself a goal and stick to it. And we're here at American Ancestors to help in case you need any guidance or just a nudge in the right direction.
Sarah Jack: Is it by appointment only. How far ahead does somebody need to plan to come visit you guys?
David Allen Lambert: If they're just coming in to do research and use the library, we're open Tuesday through Saturday, so Tuesdays we're open nine to one. That's our early day. Wednesday through Saturday, we're open nine to five. That being said, on March [00:50:00] 24th, we will be closed for the rest of the year, because of renovations and construction of a new building next door attached to what we have.
It's $20 a day to use the library if you're not a member. Membership ,you can do a three month membership, or you can join for a year for $99.95. And then, of course, when you're home, you have access to all of the databases that we have on American Ancestors. And we even have external databases, including Early American Newspapers, so every newspaper that was published between, I mean, there's one issue of Boston's Public Occurrences from 1690. Then you have to fast forward to the Boston Newsletter in 1704. So I always say 1690, 1704. All those early papers are searchable right through about the 1830s, and that's part of your, what you get for this subscription. And then, of course, if you're in the library, and you want to meet with one of us, the people are on the reference desk are always available there. We do paid consultations for members for 150 an hour. We book them usually four to six weeks out, but we [00:51:00] can also do them through Zoom or through a telephone call, whatever medium works best for you, and we can help people with that as well.
Josh Hutchinson: That's excellent. You have so many resources available. It's hard to grasp almost.
David Allen Lambert: It really depends on the avenue that you're going in. There are people that have ancestors involved in the witchcraft trials that live in Canada now, because two generations or so afterwards, they become planters, or three generations afterwards, they become loyalists, and they go up to Canada, and their families are still up there. So I have people that are Canadian that come down and say, "I'm related to a Salem Witch, really?" And then, of course, now they have to figure in time how they're gonna get the Salem up from, "can you walk from Boston to Salem?" I'm like, "not really, but you can take the train." I always advise people don't go to Salem during Halloween. And for just not a principle. I don't know. Personally, I try to avoid it during Halloween. I just think that isn't the best way I'm gonna remember my ancestors.
Josh Hutchinson: I've been there in October, and I remember walking into [00:52:00] the Old Burying Point, and there was like a carnival set up next to it. So people were eating funnel cake, walking through the cemetery, just walking off the path and everywhere, and that really got to me.
David Allen Lambert: I think that people are entertained by history, and then some of us respect history and try to preserve it and tell the story and get the word out. I've always think of us as historians, as sentinels of their past. We're keeping their memory alive. They have no voice anymore, so we have to apply it for them. And yeah, I don't think I approve of funnel cake or cotton candy or balloons running through a cemetery, especially in Salem, or any place for that matter.
Josh Hutchinson: I know now they control the cemetery in October. They limit how many people can be in there so they can keep an eye and make sure people stay on the paths and behave themselves. So [00:53:00] it's improved since the last time I was there.
David Allen Lambert: Yeah, I've had a great love for cemeteries. One of the books I've published for NEHGS is called A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries. It started as a Rolodex when I worked at the Mass State Archives right outta high school, cuz nobody knew where all the cemeteries were in Boston, or for Salem for that matter, and how to get in contact, what was in print. So I created this book. Now it's even an app that you can have on your Kindle, but it gives every cemetery, when it was created, the alias names and anything that's been published on, it's for every town in Massachusetts. So that I have a great love for cemeteries.
Sarah Jack: That's a fascinating project that you did. That was one of your first projects maybe.
David Allen Lambert: The day after I turned 18, I went to work as an intern at the Mass State Archives, and I was hired as a genealogist to work in the reference desk. And what I did basically in my free time is people would ask about Granary Burying Ground or King's Chapel Burying Ground. I'd say, all right, where is that? [00:54:00] So I'd take the yellow pages out and look for the phone for the addresses. There was no guide to cemeteries. There wasn't a Findagrave or Billion Graves back then. And then I went to NEHGS, and we have thousands of gravestone inscriptions, and what's, why those are so valuable, a lot of those are done in the 19th century when the stone was still upright and legible. So we have these transcriptions. The DAR library in Washington also has thousands of transcriptions. So I linked all of those in the published vital records in Massachusetts, there's usually a code if they got the information from a gravestone. So here's a book done in 1902. You can't read the stone anymore, but it tells you the location from that inscription. So I linked all of those.
So it was a real labor of love. It went from being a Rolodex to a 300-page-plus book. So and I'm still finding stuff on it ,which is amazing, Sarah. It's people say, "oh, there's a graveyard out in the back woods with about four gravestones. Do you know about that one?" No. But I do now. So it's still a work in progress after 20 [00:55:00] years
Josh Hutchinson: That's a remarkable resource.
David Allen Lambert: Thank you. Yeah. It's a pleasure to work on.
Josh Hutchinson: And you mentioned earlier you're also involved with the Extreme Genes Podcast and radio show. How does that show help family researchers?
David Allen Lambert: Well, we mix a little bit of sometimes black sheep in your family history makes an interesting, old, crazy Uncle Charlie that everybody used to talk about at the Thanksgiving dinner table. How do you find out why he was so crazy? It's interesting. We have a variety of topics everywhere from DNA to having guests like Henry Louis Gates on this show, leaders in the genealogical field, CeCe Moore, who's a genetic genealogist, a good personal friend of ours, is on there.
We highlight what's new in genealogy news. So what I give every week, including when I tape today, is what's called Family Histoire News, and essentially talking about what's new in the industry, what's going on, like upcoming conferences, and I help him find guests. So [00:56:00] like the two fine people I'm talking to right now that we want to talk about what you're doing, because we have to have the audience of genealogists because, genealogists, not everybody's on Twitter, on Facebook, but we're on radio, we're on 60 radio stations nationwide, and on our podcast download now we're on iHeartRadio, YouTube, Spotify, and we get on an average 20,000 to 50,000 downloads a month.
And he's been out for eight years sponsored by ancestry.com, but we're not, the mouthpiece of Ancestry, obviously, but they're one of the sponsors. But it's a lot of fun. We make it fun. I, one of the things I like to highlight are the unusual stories in genealogy or in history that will parallel or some centenarian that just passed is the last of the Dambusters from World War II that helped destroy the German dams, which were an integral part of the war effort. He just died at 101 years old, and thinking, does somebody have a [00:57:00] connection with that?
It started when I was on the show, it was Fisher thought I had a pretty good dynamic with him, and he calls me his brother from another mother. And I was telling em about friends I've had. I was lucky to be friends with over 25 years with the last passenger of the Titanic. I met her when I was a teenager, and she used to send my children Christmas gifts every year, so we fondly recalled our Auntie Millvina. She was eight weeks old when she was on the Titanic, but I knew the last first class passenger, unlike Kate Winslet's character in Titanic. There was a woman who lived to be 101 in Massachusetts. Her name was Marjorie Robe, and I remember talking with her on the phone about, were they playing "Nearer my God to Thee" on the boats and her and her stories and all that.
So I've always had a connection with trying to find something as far back as I possibly can. I mean, I remember writing to Spanish American War veterans and widows of Civil War veterans when I was a kid, silent movie actresses. I sat with Carla Lemley, whose uncle started [00:58:00] Universal Studios, when she was like 103 years old. She was in Phantom of the Opera in 1925 as the prima ballerina and was delivered the first speaking lines in a horror movie, 1931 Dracula. She is sitting in her house in Hollywood she owns since 1937, reciting her lines from all these movies as and wearing a, like a Chinese dressing gown, and we're eating Chinese food. I knew her niece, and it was great. I love touching history. I used to be a Civil War reenactor, because I wanted to know that next step to what the past was like.
Sarah Jack: I love that you just said touching history, because it is, and there's so many ways that people can, and they need to be brave and do it, reach out and get started.
David Allen Lambert: Yeah. And then with genealogy, I think that, even if you sit down and somebody listens to this, and we got one person who calls up their grandmother or their mother and say, "hey, what was your grandparents' [00:59:00] name?" I mean, if you ask your grandmother who her grandparents are, you now have your great-great-grandparents.
And it's so easy, especially with younger folks or people that are fortunate to have their parents and grandparents or even great-grandparents alive, to just get started. Don't put it off, because if you put it off, they may not be there. And there are so many great stories that you can ask people. When you're doing genealogy, one of the big key questions, I always say, ask your parents how they met. Ask your grandparents how they met. You won't find that on any record. It won't be on the marriage record, won't be on the marriage license. Might have been written up in a newspaper article on their 50th wedding anniversary, but probably not. Adding the human element, and I think that's what we search for as genealogists and family historians, is we pour over these records.
The unfortunate ancestors we have that were accused and executed during the witchcraft trials, but we have their depositions, we have their words. They're more than just a name and a date. They're, they actually come alive. And it's to, to me it's so personal when you can see a [01:00:00] deposition or you can see, either pro or con against somebody, that this is their words, this is their thought process. This is what they believed in. And they're just more than a piece of paper or a gravestone.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. Specifically, Rebecca Nurse, my ninth great grandmother, she said that the world would know of her innocence. And when I read that, I just, I'm like, they do.
David Allen Lambert: Have you been to her homestead?
Sarah Jack: I have not had the opportunity yet, but it won't be long. I'm gonna make it happen.
David Allen Lambert: It will be amazing. And I only have the connection by association, having someone in the trials, and it was moving for me. To think that you're in the home of somebody who was basically dragged out of bed and brought into trial on a cart. The whole story is just is amazing. But when you can have those touch points in history where you can physically see a building or be at a graveyard or now, like I say at the gallows. I think [01:01:00] that's really important cuz it's more than just reading something. So I look forward to hearing your reaction when you actually go there.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I hope I get to see that, because the Rebecca Nurse Homestead is actually what got me started in both genealogy and witch trial research, because I visited, I was fortunate to be able to visit when I was in high school, up there looking around at colleges and went there with my father and my brothers and we learned that our family was connected to the witch trials. And that got me hungry to do more research. And it was just a really powerful experience to actually be present where somebody accused had been.
David Allen Lambert: And that's usually the reaction that people get, Josh. And obviously it's the same with you, Sarah. It's like you find that you have that connection. It's like [01:02:00] a yearning. I like to attribute genealogy as a very thick book that we know the first couple of chapters cuz we know that generation, but somebody's tore all of those pages out. I like to think of places like NEHGS where I work in Boston. We have those pages, and they do all fit in there. It's just a matter of doing the work to put it back together again. We're only trying to relearn what wasn't told to us and what's been lost to us. And I can almost see where in some cases where people may not want to remember having somebody accused in the witchcraft trials because the pain and just a disassociation.
I Look at Mary Towne Esty's son going to what became Stoughton. I mean, it's, starting anew, and we don't talk about the past. I hear that all the time from people. I said did your grandfather ever tell Oh, nope. They never, they said, leave the past. In the past. We don't talk about things. We talk about now. Live in the present. And that's why a lot of this history has been lost, I think, to people. [01:03:00]
Sarah Jack: Yeah. There always seems to be somebody in a generation that really wants to dig back and find out about their family, but things are lost forever.
David Allen Lambert: Yeah. Photographs specifically. And I think David McCullough, when I had the honor of work on his genealogy, he gave a presentation to us and he said, if you want to be remembered in the 22nd century, keep a journal. Think of what we're doing, Sarah. We have, everything is, a cell phone right here, we have our photos on it, we have our correspondence, we have our text. What do we print out? How many people go and print off on a quarterly basis or a yearly basis, more than maybe a handful if any of their photographs? They put 'em on Facebook, they put 'em on Twitter, on Flickr, whatever, in Instagram. They don't print out something that's going to be there for the next generation.
We don't send postcards anymore. In fact, you go to [01:04:00] most places now, you won't find a postcard. When I was in Disney World, I thought, it'll be fun. I'll send a postcard. There aren't any postcards at Disney World. You can't buy them. There are places that we would look at, alright, we're gonna get a letter when somebody had a baby born. And now we're getting, a Facebook update with a picture. Those important events should be printed out and saved. We're really not leaving much to the 22nd century in this century. There's almost gonna be a real void of information. So like I always tell people, if you want a New Year's resolution, leave the future a picture of yourself. Write down what you do. Talk about yourself. It's not vanity. It's leaving a chapter of history.
Sarah Jack: Wow. What a really important point.
David Allen Lambert: Could you imagine if we had diaries of all those people that were involved in the witchcraft trials, how the story, and think about that. How many voices do we really have from the trials that are day by day? It's Sewall's diary, and when I was turning the pages [01:05:00] reading September of 1692, I just was like, this page is as old as what he's writing about. And I'm like, I'm turning this page. And it was one thing to read it. I have the published version of his diaries, but it was one thing to see the original. And that's, I think, again, just touching history and learning about it.
Josh Hutchinson: That has to be a remarkable experience to know somebody wrote that 330 years ago, and that's amazing to connect with that.
David Allen Lambert: I mean, and that's true with probate records. You could go to the Mass State Archives and ask to see, you have to make an arrangement, but the original probate record can be taken out, and you can look through the handwritten last will and testament of an ancestor. You can go to the cemetery and see the gravestone and read that faded epitaph at the bottom that meant something to the family.
May it be biblical or just, some verse. You can sometimes stand in the doorway of your ancestor's home or the cellar hole where they [01:06:00] stood. It gives you a closer connection. I always say genealogy field trips are important. We're doing a trip to Scotland in June, and one of the things I plan on doing is reading up more on the Scottish witchcraft trials and trying to visit some of the sites that are around Edinburgh that occurred. And it just fascinates me. And again, I don't have a connection with it. In fact, I have very little Scottish heritage. My wife is a quarter Scottish, and I often think the records only go back for the most part in Scotland in, for genealogical purposes into the 1600s, sometimes if you're lucky with the church. So she could have easily had ancestors who were executed during the witchcraft trial by historians that went on in Scotland, or for those matter in Germany or something like that. And the ancestors will never know or connect to just because there's no records between that point in history and when the records start being recorded.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We learned from Mary W. Craig when we spoke with her about the Scottish Witch [01:07:00] trials that a lot of the people who are descendants of the accused and executed have no idea about it because the future generations felt such shame at their ancestors being executed. They basically erased them from the family tree.
David Allen Lambert: Yeah. And that's, I think that kinda hearkens back to New England through the Victorian era. People just didn't wanna mention it because, oh, your ancestor was accused as a witch. From being teased in the schoolyard to maybe being refused employment or maybe not given that bank loan or whatever you might need. It's funny to think what may have been the trickle down for how many generations that stigma was still there. Even if, for those who weren't executed, the ones who were just accused, the humiliation of the whole thing and public scrutiny.
Sarah Jack: In the countries that we've been talking to, [01:08:00] Nigeria, South Africa, where people are experiencing accusations, family have to try to leave and find another community that doesn't know what happened to try to reestablish themselves, that the shame does follow. It's interesting how many parallels there are, but witch hunting, whether 300 years ago or this week, it has a lot of the same harmful elements.
David Allen Lambert: Are they using spectral evidence, as well? I mean, is that where the most of the accusations are coming from? Claiming somebody got sick or an animal died based upon what somebody may have done?
Josh Hutchinson: It's mostly illness and death that they attribute to extraordinary causes rather than a cause that's known to them. And it's generally, it's mob violence. It's they [01:09:00] go to a diviner or someone and have them name the witch, they call it witch finding. And so once the witch is named, they just gather their acquaintances and go over there and execute them.
David Allen Lambert: Wow not even with a trial.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. No trials. It's just mob violence, brutality, torture. If you're lucky, you just get chased outta town or you run to the police, and the police lock you up for your own safety.
David Allen Lambert: Wow. We really haven't come very far, Josh, in 300 plus years have we as a society in the world.
Josh Hutchinson: No, no. And we see parallels in America and Europe and everywhere in the world, that same mentality of treating people who we think are different from us poorly.[01:10:00]
Here's Sarah with another important update.
Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunts News.
Here's an update on the Connecticut witch trial exoneration bill, HJ Number 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. There are currently 23 bipartisan Connecticut legislators who are supporting the exoneration by co-sponsoring the bill.
The bill must be voted on in the Joint Committee on Judiciary. Please continue to write Connecticut legislators of all political parties, asking them to sponsor the bill and vote Yes. Please go to our show description for the link for the March 8th press conference held by Senator Saud Anwar and State Representative Jane Garibay. Please listen to the statement of support by Connecticut's Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz. Take time to understand what historian Dr. Kathy Hermes states at this conference. Share the bold words that author Beth Caruso, student Catherine Carmon, and descendant Sue Bailey arm us with. Arm yourself with the facts of history, and find yourself a [01:11:00] platform to work with us and share the message.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, an organized collaboration of diverse collaborators, has been working for an official state exoneration of the 17th century accused and hanged witches of the Connecticut colony. We support the Joint Committee on Judiciary's bill, HJ number 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. Will you take time today to write a member of the judiciary committee asking them to recognize the relevance of exonerating Connecticut witch trial victims? You can do this whether you are a Connecticut resident or anywhere else in the world, you should do it from right where you are. You can find the information you need to contact a committee member with a letter in the show links.
You can follow our progress by joining our Discord community or Facebook groups. Links to all these informative opportunities are listed in the episode description. Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our project on social media @ctwitchhunt and visit our website [01:12:00] at ConnecticutWitchTrials.org.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is a project of End Witch Hunts movement. End Witch Hunts is a nonprofit organization founded to educate about witch trial history and advocate for alleged witches. Please support us with your donations or purchases of educational witch trial books and merchandise. You can order a white rose exoneration supporter pin in our merch shop at zazzle.com/store/endwitchhunts, shop our other Zazzle store, zazzle.com/store/thoushaltnotsuffer, and shop our books at bookshop.org/endwitchhunts. We want you as a super listener. You can help keep Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast in production by super listening with your monthly monetary support. See episode description for links to these support opportunities. We thank you for standing with us and helping us create a world that is safe from witchcraft accusations.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you Sarah for that update on the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration [01:13:00] Project.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome, Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, associates, and neighbors.
Sarah Jack: Please support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

March 16, 2023

Women and Witch Trials with Ann Little

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To honor Women’s History Month and March 8, International Women’s Day we have created a special episode with Colorado State University’s Dr. Ann Little who specializes in the history of colonial America, with special emphasis on the history of women, gender and sexuality. She is a professor, author and expert consultant for Who Do You Think You Are? We discuss past and persisting mentalities toward and in women including their fertility and sexuality power in society. What is the impact of this narrative on historic witch trials and in modern attitudes influencing women’s rights?

Links

Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany, Lyndal Roper

The Devil in the Shape of a Women: Witchcraft in Colonial New England, Carol F. Karlsen

The Republic of Nature, Mark Fiege

Press Conference on H.J. No. 34, March 8, 2023

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

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Fact Sheet for Connecticut Witch Trial History

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0023 Ann Little Download

March 9, 2023

Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World with Boris Gershman

Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World: An Exploratory Analysis

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Learn what the world believes about witchcraft today with American University’s tenured Associate Professor of Economics, Dr. Boris Gershman. He is an active academic researcher and writer who has written several academic articles on the relationship of witchcraft beliefs and sociodemographic characteristics. We discuss his journal article “Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World: An Exploratory Analysis.” Find out about solutions to the current global witchcraft accusation crisis based on Dr. Gershman’s evaluation.

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BorisGershman.com

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Sarah Jack: Welcome to this episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: And I'm Josh Hutchinson. In this episode, we speak with economist Boris Gershman about his report, "Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World: An Exploratory Analysis." In the report, Dr. Gershman analyzed global data from a series of surveys by the Pew Research Center that included a question about belief in witchcraft and determined that approximately 40% of people in the world believe in witchcraft [00:01:00] as defined as the ability to cast a curse or a spell to do harm to someone else.
Sarah Jack: This is about who believes in witchcraft. But the study's about more than that. The data on witchcraft belief sets the stage.
Josh Hutchinson: Many other factors are analyzed, and their relationship to witchcraft belief is studied. He finds correlates between religious belief and witchcraft belief, and other factors like the level of traditionalism and conformity in a society to the rate of witchcraft belief.
Sarah Jack: This information's for everybody, even if you don't think you would be interested in hearing such an analysis. And the reason is because of what it tells [00:02:00] us about the witch-hunts of the past and why they're so hard to stop in some regions today. And Boris takes his analysis to the place where solutions are weighed.
Josh Hutchinson: That's an excellent recap, Sarah. The episode is so fascinating from the beginning. The study that he did, the data that he looked at, the way it panned out is intriguing. Just looking at the different countries around the world and seeing that witchcraft belief is prevalent in most nations of the world and is a part of life in every nation that was studied. 95 nations were studied. The lowest rate of [00:03:00] witchcraft belief was 9% in Sweden. The United States comes in with 16% belief, so that's one in six people in America believe in harmful witchcraft, and that means that we all know people who have these beliefs.
In our country, the level of belief isn't past the tipping point where it becomes dangerous. We don't often hear about attacks on alleged witches or killings of alleged witches like we do, unfortunately, in so many countries, where the level of belief is higher. But it's still something people carry around with them every day and affects their choices they make and how they live their [00:04:00] lives.
Sarah Jack: It's about how much someone may believe harmful witchcraft is affecting them personally or their community. How big of a implicator is it in their wellbeing?
Josh Hutchinson: Are they blaming it for their misfortunes, and are they identifying people that they believe to be the perpetrators?
Sarah Jack: If you also love analysis with charts and comparisons, he's got that for you, too.
Josh Hutchinson: And maps.
Sarah Jack: And maps.
Josh Hutchinson: So we have quite a lot of interesting discussion about these things with Dr. Gershman, and there are solutions out there, and Boris talks to us about how you can implement a lot of change, and you can bring in or improve your nation's institutions [00:05:00] to make change without going in trying to get people to suddenly stop believing in witchcraft. You don't have to change the belief in witchcraft, in order to replace the social function.
Sarah Jack: The innovation and the economic development must continue to flourish and be encouraged, but the witchcraft beliefs don't have to be driven out at the same level.
Josh Hutchinson: That's right, and we've heard in our talks with Damon Leff in South Africa and Leo Igwe in Nigeria, that the laws that exist aren't helping with the problem, and new laws aren't going to change anything. And Dr. Gershman talks to us about going in with heavy-handed [00:06:00] legislation to ban witchcraft accusations hasn't worked and won't work. You need to address the factors that lead to witchcraft accusations. You need to address what happens when there's a disaster or misfortune happens to someone.
Sarah Jack: Listen closely and enjoy this witchcraft fear analysis and conversation with American University's tenured Associate Professor of Economics, Dr. Boris Gershman. He is an active academic researcher and writer and has written several academic articles on the relationship of witchcraft beliefs and sociodemographic characteristics. Today we get to discuss his journal article that you may have read in fall 2022, "Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World: an Exploratory Analysis." And now Boris.
Josh Hutchinson: For the purposes of your paper, how did you define witchcraft?
Boris Gershman: I'm glad that this is the first question because I want to be very clear about [00:07:00] that. So if we're talking about my latest paper, there is a single question that I used to pinpoint witchcraft believers. And so the question is a survey question, which sounds as follows. "Do you believe in the evil eye or that certain people have an ability to cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen to someone?" So that's the question, and there is a lot to unpack here. Let me first explain why I use this question. I use this question, because it is the only question that was available in every single survey. And so it allowed me to cover the largest sample of countries around the world. There were some other, alternative witchcraft questions, but they were only present in a small subset of those surveys, so they wouldn't allow me to have a large sample of countries.
In principle, this [00:08:00] question to me, it's not ideal, but it's not too bad, either. The main reason why it's not ideal is this initial reference to the evil eye, and, as you may know, the evil eye belief is actually different from witchcraft beliefs. I have a paper on that as well. And so the evil eye belief is typically viewed as a belief in the supernatural, destructive force of envious glances.
So that's a bit more specific, actually a lot more specific than and witchcraft beliefs. And so my hope was in my study is that the second part of the question, the clarifying part, the part in which the interviewer basically explains to you that they mean the belief that some people have an ability to cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen to someone. So my hope was that this clarification kind of settle things and focuses the respondent's attention in such a way that they know what they're being asked about.
One may, by the way, disagree in principle that's the definition of [00:09:00] witchcraft, by the way, even that second clarifying part. And curiously, after my paper was published, this most recent paper was published. I received a couple of emails from quite disappointed people who told me that I am propagating a negative view of witchcraft.
And so in their view, witchcraft actually meant a very different thing, and they viewed witchcraft as using supernatural powers for good. So it's a bit unfortunate though, of course there are these different views about what witchcraft is. And so I had to explain to that person that I'm following in the footsteps of a large literature in history and anthropology that does view witchcraft as this ability to cause harm through supernatural means.
But of course there are many related beliefs and sometimes they're labeled the same way. Beliefs in healers, who can have healing powers, supernatural powers [00:10:00] to cause good stuff. And so that's the phenomenon that I don't explore at all. And so in my view, I'm using the traditional, standard scholarly definition of witchcraft, but some of the people, including maybe some of your listeners may disagree, in which case this is just not a paper about the phenomenon that they are curious about, and that's fine.
Sarah Jack: Thank you for touching on that too, and all of that. This thing that we're navigating through, it deals with all those facets, so thank you for speaking to that.
Boris Gershman: I don't want to say that people who view witchcraft differently are wrong in some way. I'm just saying that's the definition and approach that I'm using and that it's not weird. It's actually following a long tradition among anthropologists and sociologists and historians who viewed witchcraft the same way, so it's not a weird definition.
Sarah Jack: [00:11:00] What was your main goal?
Boris Gershman: So I should mention that by the way, this paper that we are focusing on right now, published just a few months ago, that's not my first paper on the subject, and I've been working on that for quite a while. But in this particular paper, my goal was to collect as much information as possible on the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs around the world and compile this global data set and then use that data set to explore the correlates of witchcraft beliefs.
That is to identify the factors, the variables that go together with witchcraft beliefs at the individual level and at the country level. So in a way, it's a descriptive paper in the sense that it doesn't establish cause and effect. And again, I want to be very clear about that from the get-go, because oftentimes you read, say, a [00:12:00] piece of journalism that describes my paper, and the results that I find are stated using this causal language that X causes Y causes X.
Unfortunately, the correlational analysis of this paper does not allow us to make such strong statements, but it's a first pass at it. And this is meant to motivate further research. Hopefully, it will establish some causal mechanisms at work. So my goal was to compile as much information as possible and detect some correlational patterns. And I'm happy to expand on what I find and what the data look like.
Josh Hutchinson: And you used surveys from the Pew Research Center, correct?
Boris Gershman: That's right. So I rely on the surveys from the Pew Research Center, so that's a research center that is based right here in Washington, D.C. I've been working with their data now for almost 10 years. [00:13:00] And so with every new wave of surveys that they conduct, I'm keeping fingers crossed and hoping that they will include the witchcraft questions once again, so that I have something to work with.
And so at some point a couple of years ago, I realized that by now with the six waves of surveys that they conducted, I have enough information to build a really comprehensive, large scale database. And so in this paper, I use information from six survey waves conducted between 2008 and 2017. They were conducted by large geographic regions. So one survey wave was focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, another was focused on Western Europe, another one on Central and Eastern Europe, and so on. And the good thing for me is that each of those survey waves included the witchcraft question that I described earlier.
So I was able to merge all of these data together [00:14:00] to produce a consistent measure of witchcraft beliefs based on identical question asked in each of those surveys, right? Because we want witchcraft beliefs to be measured consistently. We don't want to be basing our measure on different questions, right? Because that's not right, that's not comparable. But thanks to the design of those surveys, that witchcraft question was available. And so after merging together all the data, I get a sample of about 140,000 people from 95 different countries and territories. And altogether, my back of the envelope calculation shows that they represent about half of the global adult population.
So there are certainly gaps in the data. So some populous countries are not covered. For example, China and India are not part of this database. But covering about half of the global adult population is not bad, I think. And so that's why I call it a global data [00:15:00] set, even though, technically it's not covering every, single nation in the world. And so another good thing about those surveys was that they were designed to be nationally representative. So what that means is that when I calculate a fraction of witchcraft believers in a given country based on a certain sample from that country, we can be fairly confident that this is pretty accurate, that this is really representative of population-wide prevalence of witchcraft beliefs and not just noise. So we have national representative numbers on the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs for these 95 countries and territories.
And the first kind of observation that I make in my paper is that first, the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs is high overall. So it's about 40% of the people in the entire sample that claim to believe in [00:16:00] witchcraft, as already defined earlier. So that's 4 out of 10. That's a lot. And so to some people who have not done research on the subject, that was a surprise, I think particularly for people in, let's call it the West, for lack of a better word, who perceive this as an outdated relic of the past, something that is irrelevant that we think about on Halloween or when we read Harry Potter books. There are a lot of people who think that this is not something that is relevant today. And so this first kind of headline number of 4 out of 10, that's a lot.
But the second observation that I make, and to me that's probably more important as a research subject, is that we see how uneven these beliefs are spread around the world. So in some countries, we see that the prevalence of these beliefs is very low. For example, in [00:17:00] Scandinavia, in a country like Sweden, only about 9% population claim to believe in witchcraft, whereas in a country like Tunisia and many countries in the Middle East and some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, you have up to 90% people claiming to believe in the witchcraft.
So the distribution of these beliefs, the geographic distribution of their prevalence is highly uneven. And it's not just about world regions. So it's not about, say, Europe versus Latin America. If you look within Europe, you still see a lot of variation, right? So we have Sweden with 9%, but we also have countries like Portugal with almost 50%.
And so that's intriguing, right? Because you think, okay, Europe is all the same. It's many people think of Europe as just this homogeneous territory. But it's not the case economically, it's not the case culturally, politically and so on. And so from the research perspective, the fact that we have this unevenness [00:18:00] or we have variation in the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs around the world, that's an opportunity, because we can explore different correlates and see whether there are factors that go hand in hand with witchcraft beliefs, and we can look at the direction of the correlation and so on. And that's what I do in the paper.
Sarah Jack: One of the things that I wanted to make sure the listeners understood was when something has a positive or negative correlation, what that means so that they don't misunderstand if you say positive and then something else. If it was, they would misunderstand.
Boris Gershman: Let me give you couple of examples. I'm sure we'll talk about a few examples. So I do two types of analysis in the paper. First, I look at the individual level witchcraft beliefs. So I'm trying to look at the factors at the individual level, particularly sociodemographic characteristics that are correlated with the personal belief in witchcraft. [00:19:00] That's the first part of the paper. And then most of the paper looks at the same thing, but across countries. So, which features at the country level are associated with witchcraft beliefs? So at the individual level, I look at standard social demographics, for example, things like age, gender, education, religious beliefs, and stuff like that.
And for instance, to give an example of a positive versus negative correlation, I find that there is a negative correlation between the level of education and individual belief in witchcraft. And what that means is that what I find is that people who report having a higher level of education, for example, have completed secondary school or have a higher level of education, and that they tend to be less likely to believe in witchcraft. So that's when we talk about negative correlation, which means higher level of education means on average, lower [00:20:00] likelihood of believing in witchcraft.
On the other hand, I find some positive correlations. For example, I find, and that's an interesting result, that people who report that religion is more important in their lives. So people who are more religious are also more likely to believe in witchcraft. In other words, importance of religion and belief in God are positively correlated with witchcraft beliefs. So in a way, I find that these supernatural beliefs, whether it's belief in God or supernatural entity that is very much part of standard religious tradition, those beliefs go hand in hand with the supernatural beliefs like witchcraft, that is beliefs in the supernatural powers of human beings, which is quite curious.
Some of the absence of correlations that I find are also interesting. [00:21:00] For instance, many people would believe that witchcraft beliefs are isolated to remote rural areas. I would say that would be the prior belief of a lot of people who haven't done research on witchcraft. So that's not what I find. So what I find is that witchcraft beliefs are actually equally prevalent statistically speaking in urban and rural areas today. I also find that there is no statistically significant difference by gender. So men and women are roughly equally likely to believe in witchcraft. I have found a very small correlation with age, where younger people actually are slightly more likely to believe in witchcraft. Again, something that may go against the prior belief of some of your listeners. Again, these are all correlations, and so I'm gonna repeat this mantra [00:22:00] again and again, because that's what they are and that's how they should be interpreted.
Josh Hutchinson: And the survey was limited to Christian and Islamic countries. How did that limit your ability to do an analysis on a global scale?
Boris Gershman: That's true. And so that has to do mostly with the design of the original Pew Research Center surveys. I should mention that these surveys did not really intend to study witchcraft. I was in a way lucky that question was even included. The purpose of those surveys was to study precisely the role of big religions like Christianity and Islam, and so the bulk of those surveys focused on the role of Islam and Christianity, which explains why these countries that are covered are mostly Christian or Muslim.
On the one hand, it is a limitation, [00:23:00] of course. It means that, other religions are not really well represented, so I have nothing to say about that. On the other hand, if we look at my sample, if we look, say at the role of religious denomination and how it correlates with witchcraft beliefs, what I find is that other things equal, actually, whether you're a Christian or a Muslim, doesn't matter. So once again, this may come as a surprise or maybe not, but that does not correlate significantly with the likelihood of believing in witchcraft. And what's much more important is whether you are religious or not to begin with, as I already mentioned. So the lack of any affiliation, which mostly in the surveys mean that you are atheist or agnostic, so that's the part that would predict negatively your likelihood of believing in witchcraft.
But religious denomination, not so much.[00:24:00] I should also mention that, for example, there is a recent Pew Research Center survey in India, which, as you know, so it's partly Muslim but mostly Hindu. So that's a case where we move beyond Christianity or Islam. The reason why that survey did not make it to my global dataset is because the witchcraft question there sounds a bit different. So in that survey, they ask plainly, do you believe in witchcraft? As I explained earlier, I cannot merge together data that are based on distinct questions, right? Because that's not the right research design. I want perfect comparability or close to perfect comparability. Still, if you look at the India survey and at the other witchcraft question, you will see that it's also widespread among Hindus, so certainly witchcraft beliefs cut across [00:25:00] religious denominations as they cut across socio-demographic status, as they cut across gender, location of your residence, and so on. And so one of the takeaways from this initial analysis of socio-demographics is not so much about which factors predict the likelihood of believing in witchcraft, but the fact that no matter how you slice the society, within each stratum, you still have a large number of witchcraft believers.
So even those who have a relatively high level of education or those who report their personal economic situation to be very good, there are still plenty of witchcraft believers. So this cut across social strata is not something that is again particularly new for those who have been studying the phenomenon over the years. But it's one of the first times when we can see it actually in the data.
Sarah Jack: And this global look is [00:26:00] what's revealing this, and so the relationship between religious belief and witchcraft belief is religious belief. It's not necessarily specific religious belief.
Boris Gershman: So that's another takeaway that beliefs in the supernatural tend to go together. And I think one of the important points from what you correctly call the global look is that witchcraft beliefs are not in a way an oddity. I mentioned it earlier, but it's important for me to make this point clearly that it's not something that is in the past. It's not something that is left in behind in the Middle Ages or Early Modern period. It's something that's still very widespread. It's still something that's very much with us and [00:27:00] not contained in certain regions of the world, in those isolated remote communities, and so on. The manifestations of these beliefs are of course very different depending on where we look, but the truth is that when you ask people, when they're free to say, "no, I don't believe," a lot of them still say, "yes, I do believe in this." And that brings another point, which is that the numbers I provide in the paper are likely an understatement. Both because of how the question was phrased and also because, some people may feel sensitive about it and may say no, whereas maybe they're not sure. And so this kind of gray area was not captured in the survey. So these were yes or no answers. A very small percentage of the people volunteered to say, "I'm not sure" or refused to give an answer, but the majority gave a yes or no question.
So [00:28:00] it's a modern phenomenon. It's a widespread phenomenon. It's an important phenomenon. And we can talk about why it is important, cuz that's also something I obviously touch upon in my work and in this latest paper, as well.
Josh Hutchinson: And you found this belief in all of the 95 nations, including the United States, right?
Boris Gershman: That's right. So there are witchcraft believers everywhere, but of course their proportion varies. So in the United States, if I'm not mistaken, the proportion I found is 16%, which is relatively low compared to the global average. Still not a zero. The lowest proportion I found was that number for Sweden of about 9% that I referred to earlier. So that's still almost 1 out of 10, low but present. Like I said, it is probably more important that in a lot of these nations with a low prevalence of witchcraft beliefs, I think[00:29:00] the manifestation of these beliefs is much more hidden. So these beliefs are, is not something that you observe in daily life.
And so I think of this as a latent belief that remains mostly inside of you. Certainly there are much fewer stories about, say, witchcraft accusations or witchcraft persecutions in countries like Sweden or the United States compared to countries like India or South Africa. And so in that sense, I think beliefs find a more salient manifestation in some places in the world versus the other. And that is also something that's reflected perhaps by the low numbers that we observe. So I think maybe below a certain threshold these beliefs really don't manifest themselves so much in social life.
Josh Hutchinson: [00:30:00] In social life, you discuss how social control relates to witchcraft belief. What's the correlation there?
Boris Gershman: Yes. So, In the second part of my paper, we already talked about these individual level correlations so we can move to country level correlations. So I wanted to see which features of societies correlate with witchcraft beliefs. And so instead of just randomly looking at, different country level characteristics, I organized my analysis well based on the existing literature, right?
Because we have more than a century of ethnographic research on witchcraft beliefs and historical research and witchcraft beliefs. And there are many hypothesis that have been suggested about the role of witchcraft beliefs in societies and the consequences of witchcraft beliefs in societies. And so for me, as an economist, the natural labels to attach to those are costs and benefits. Some people may [00:31:00] disagree with these labels, but these are just that, labels. So I think that witchcraft believes may have some social costs, right? So some negative consequences, and they may have some social functions, right?
So there may be a reason why they exist and they persist over time. And so I sort different country level characteristics in these two buckets, so to speak. And I try to see whether there is any evidence consistent with these theories about the role of witchcraft beliefs in societies and their social costs.
And so the point that you raised about the social control is, I think, the main theory regarding the potential social function of witchcraft beliefs that exists in the literature. And so the idea here is that witchcraft beliefs and the fears that they generate essentially enforce cultural conformity or social conformity, [00:32:00] because anyone who transgresses social norms in any ways, anyone who violates the status quo in any way has this perceived likelihood of being bewitched or being accused of witchcraft, both of which are terrifying from the perspective of that person. And so the notion is that witchcraft beliefs serve as this cultural mechanism of maintaining order and social cohesion when alternative ways of maintaining order are absent. And by alternative mechanisms, I'm referring to modern formal institutions, right? All these laws and government institutions of the modern world that organize lives in societies, that organize the rules of the game, that tell us what is and what is not allowed or what punishment will face if we violate the law, the institutions that offer mechanisms for resolving [00:33:00] conflicts, and so on, the system of taxation that guides distribution of wealth, and so on and so forth. These come on the label of institutions, of formal institutions. And so when these institutions are absent, scholars have argued that witchcraft beliefs could serve this role of maintaining social cohesion under the threat of punishment for norm violation.
So this is something that I try to investigate in my cross-country analysis. And so I do it in two ways. First, I want to check whether the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs correlates with other measures of cultural conformity. And so I look at different measures that, again, I take from previous literature. For example, one of the measures is an index of individualism versus collectivism. So that captures the extent to which societies are collectivists. That is, people in those societies view [00:34:00] themselves as part of a group rather than as this atomic individual with their personal will and the personal freedom of actions.
Another measure is, for example, the perceived importance of tradition in societies. So that's based on the question that asks people, "do you think tradition is important?" These are metrics about the importance on the other hand of things like risk taking or the importance of being adventurous or the importance of cultivating traits like creativity and imagination in children and stuff like that.
And so for all these metrics, I find that witchcraft beliefs are associated with higher conformist culture. So for example, more individualistic societies are less likely to have a high prevalence of witchcraft beliefs. More collectivist societies have more widespread witchcraft beliefs, or [00:35:00] societies where witchcraft beliefs are widespread place higher importance on tradition and place less importance on creativity and risk taking. So indeed we find that the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs goes hand in hand with the culture of conformity, which is consistent with this idea that they may actually enforce cultural conformity.
The other way that I show evidence consistent with this idea, and that's one of the strongest patterns that I find, is that in countries with strong government institutions, witchcraft beliefs are much less prevalent. In other words, in countries that have high indices of the rule of law, high indices for the quality of governance, high confidence in local police, high confidence in the court system and other metrics. Those countries with high-quality, modern institutions governing [00:36:00] lives, witchcraft beliefs are much less prevalent, which is exactly consistent with this idea that if you have alternative mechanisms of organizing lives, witchcraft beliefs are not so useful to perform that function, and so they're less likely to persist.
So that's very much consistent with this view of witchcraft beliefs as playing a role of maintaining social cohesion, perhaps not in the best way under the threat of punishment but in societies that just lack an alternative ways of doing so.
And so I like one old study from the sixties by a scholar Gertrude Dole. So she studied small society named Kuikuro in Brazil. So that society essentially lacked any kind of political authority. It lacked any sort of the way we think about them. And they had, on the other hand, witchcraft [00:37:00] beliefs that were highly prevalent. And the way Gertrude Dole interpreted that is, in her words, that these witchcraft beliefs and the fears that they triggered helped maintain, quote, "anarchy without chaos."
In other words, that society could exist in what we would call anarchy in the sense that there was no government, there were no institutions guiding the life in the community, but yet they were not descending into chaos because witchcraft related fears organized behavior in such a way that there was some semblance of order, right? The people behave themselves, because if they didn't, they would face this threat of witchcraft accusation or the threat of a witchcraft attack. So that's the core idea.
Sarah Jack: I really think back through history in the different witch hunts that flared up during transitions [00:38:00] of power or cultural transitions, because it's super cool and awful.
Boris Gershman: Exactly. You are right. You're right. And the witch trials flaring up or witchcraft concerns have been observed to happen in times of structural transformation or a major shock to society and so on. You're right.
Sarah Jack: Oh, I wanted to know if you wouldn't mind, just while we're in this section, touching on the zero sum mindset that relates to the witchcraft belief.
Boris Gershman: Yes. So that's a very interesting observation, and I think it's a bit understudied. And I know there is work in progress by some of my fellow economist colleagues that on the zero sum beliefs and witchcraft as it relates to it. But looking first at the ethnographic or anecdotal evidence we see that oftentimes witchcraft beliefs are related to zero sum [00:39:00] thinking, right?
Which means that someone's gain necessarily means someone else's loss. And the way that this has manifested itself in the context of witchcraft beliefs is, for example, as follows. So oftentimes we see that witchcraft accusations are applied to peoples who somehow stand out or show off, for lack of a better word. This may not be showing off proper, but that maybe, for example, someone who say, decides to go to city to get education, unlike most of other members of the community. Or maybe that's someone who decided to take a risk and adopt a new fertilizer to improve crop yields. And then imagine that person does have increased crops.
And then in the case of this good fortune, that person may face witchcraft accusation. Why? [00:40:00] Because if someone gets richer, according to the zero sum mindset, that can only happen at the expense of other community members. So in a way, you are getting richer, but while doing so, you must be harming the rest of the community.
And so then those people who show up who, who stand out are more likely to face witchcraft, accusation just by the merely trying to improve their wellbeing. So that's important, and that I think is what I show also in the paper is that the zero sum mindset measured in couple of ways correlates positively with the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs. And certainly this is something we observe in anecdotes.
I have another paper that relates to that a little bit, and so maybe that's a, an opportunity for me to just bring it up, at least a little bit. That also by the way relates to your previous point about the role of major [00:41:00] shocks in terms of propagating witchcraft beliefs.
So I have this paper from a couple of years ago on the role of slave trade in propagating or entrenching witchcraft beliefs in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Latin America. And so what I show in that paper is that in Sub-Saharan Africa society is that we're more heavily exposed to the slave trade or history today are more likely to believe in witchcraft.
And on the one hand, of course, like I said, this relates to this whole notion that a big misfortune or a big shock triggers this witchcraft beliefs and witchcraft concerns. And so that goes along with that big observation, because obviously the experience of slave trade was terrible shock and misery for locals in sub-Saharan Africa.
But also it has to do with the zero-sum worldview. What we see in historical [00:42:00] evidence is that during the era of the slave trade the slave traders, the perpetrators, the Europeans and their accomplices in the continent were widely viewed as witches, right? Because they were the source of the huge misfortune. And in that case, that fit extremely well with the zero sum mindset. Because what happened is that those witches, the Europeans and their local accomplices were literally enriching themselves at the expense of the lives of the local Africans, right? They were being captured, enslaved, and transferred across the ocean. They were suffering, and at the expense of that suffering, the witches, the Europeans, the white witches were getting richer. So in that sense, it's actually one of those cases where the zero-sum perception actually fit the [00:43:00] reality, so to speak. So I think it's an interesting point and your question on the zero sum thinking brought that up in mind.
Sarah Jack: Thanks for bringing all of your knowledge into this conversation, cuz that very much supplements understanding this global analysis. Thank you.
Josh Hutchinson: What you've said really explains a lot of the historical situations particularly what's going on right now in Sub-Saharan Africa, where you see a persistence of people acting on witchcraft belief with accusations but also in Salem and New England witch trials, we see something of the zero sum mindset where a person who improves their life is then targeted, or if they stand out in some way through lack of religious conformity. Just anybody who stood out was a likely target.[00:44:00]
Boris Gershman: That's exactly right. And that kind of ties up nicely our discussion of both the zero sum thinking and the way witchcraft beliefs enforce conformity. Whether it's conformity in material wellbeing, let's call it this way, that is, you can't get richer than others, you have to share, let's put it this way, or if it's a religious conformity or if it's any sort of normal behavior that is part of the status quo.
So we see again and again, how in different settings witchcraft beliefs operate to maintain the preexisting status quo and the preexisting social norms. And so I think it's interesting because when we started talking about it, I brought it up as what has been argued to be a social function of witchcraft beliefs.
And indeed, you may think of the circumstances when it's important for the society to be mobilized in this way, to be [00:45:00] cohesive in this way, even if it's under the threat of punishment. But of course, this leads directly to all sorts of things that we may view as negative side effects or social costs. And in fact, it's much easier to list the negatives or the negative consequences of witchcraft beliefs compared to the possible social benefits. And so I dedicate many pages in the paper on these potential side effects, right? So as I already mentioned on the one hand, conformity may be viewed as a good thing under special circumstances, but the flip side of it is that anything like innovation, accumulation, creativity is discouraged.
Because if you are creative, if you are innovative, if you want to accumulate something, if you want to acquire wealth, if you want to acquire education, if you want to advance the wellbeing of your children, let's say, all of that [00:46:00] comes with the risk of being accused of witchcraft or being bewitched.
But of course, all of these things are essential in terms of driving economic growth, in terms of driving the wellbeing of societies. And these side effects from the perspective of the drivers of something like economic growth are really major. And so I show that there are very strong correlations, negative ones between, for example, the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs and the culture of innovation and the actual metrics of innovation.
I show that there is a correlation between the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs and anxiety, right? Something that I actually explore in the paper I'm currently writing that the connection here is pretty obvious, right? The fears of witchcraft and accusations are really terrifying things, and we start seeing it in the data that people [00:47:00] who believe in witchcraft also tend to report higher levels of anxiety and negative emotions and lower levels of life satisfaction. Which by the way, stands in sharp contrast with the positive role of religion with respect to calming anxiety. So that's some work in progress.
But basically I show that there are a number of these negative side effects. One big side effect that I studied also in my earlier paper is the erosion of social relations. That is, the harmful impact of witchcraft related fears on relations within community, on trust, on cooperation, on helping each other out. So there is an obvious corrosive effect of these witchcraft related fears on mutual trust. And I've documented it for Sub-Saharan Africa in the paper published way back in 2016. I document the similar [00:48:00] correlations at the country level in this most recent paper published a few month ago.
And that's also consistent with lots and lots of ethnographic evidence and how basically these beliefs can destroy communities now they just keep people on edge. And of course we haven't touched upon perhaps the most extreme manifestation of the harm potentially caused by witchcraft beliefs, which is when they lead to accusations, persecutions, and sanctions, all the way up to killings.
It's easy to come up with the social costs. It's not so easy to come up with social functions. I try to be objective and do both in the paper and think the patterns that I show are consistent with the presence of lots of things on the cost side and also with this potentially organizing role [00:49:00] in societies that lack better ways of doing so. But I think it's important to look at this phenomenon comprehensively. And try to be open to the idea that in some societies, perhaps even today these beliefs play a certain function. Because if we ignore that, if we just try to, say, eradicate these beliefs, whatever it takes, brute force, I'm very much against this kind of approach because this is likely to backfire as we've seen in history, as well. So we know that various attempts to say outlaw something like witchcraft persecutions or accusations were viewed very negatively typically by local societies, and were perceived as an attempt to side with the witches, to let them loose to oppose the persecution of [00:50:00] what was widely seen as a crime of witchcraft. And so I think a much more soft approach would be constructive in making a cultural change. And so for that to happen, we need to understand the circumstances under which witchcraft beliefs tend to stick around because they fulfill a certain function.
Josh Hutchinson: We've spoken with activists in South Africa and Nigeria, and they point out that there are laws against witchcraft accusations in place that either have no effect or might actually encourage witchcraft accusations by specifying that witchcraft is illegal.
Boris Gershman: Yes, exactly. So that's what I meant by these laws backfiring. Some countries still have these kinds of laws, which are [00:51:00] counterproductive, but these were often established by colonial administrations. And these were copied from their own countries. They were copied without considerations of possible unintended consequences that they may trigger. And you're right, they would often be either ignored and not enforced at all or backfire in such a way that these colonial administrations will be seen as helping the witches out. And so in some cases, these laws were subsequently repealed, and witchcraft beliefs were enshrined as part of a country's culture or. Freedom of religion and call it whatever you want.
But it poses really an interesting question in terms of what can be done from the legal perspective and so on. And it's a tricky balance. I think it's balance that is well reflected in UN resolution. The [00:52:00] general assembly resolution that was passed in summer of 2021. You may be familiar with it, but it's a resolution that condemned in legalese language. They call it harmful practices related to witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks.
And so these legal documents are always very hard to read. But the basic idea is that on the one hand it's a call to eradicate these harmful practices, particularly persecutions, of course, the most obvious violations of human rights that happen in this context. But at the same time, they have as one of their bullet points, if my memory served me well, they emphasize that this should not come at the expense of limiting religious freedom. In other words, we want people to believe in whatever they want, right? It's God or witchcraft or demons or evil spirits, you name it. Everyone should feel free to believe in [00:53:00] whatever they want. But there is a line that should not be crossed in the sense that these cannot turn into persecutions of people and violation of their human rights.
So that resolution was trying to strike this balance, and I think that's the right kind of balance. But at the same time, it's not clear how that's gonna be enforced. And in any case, these types of the resolutions are not really laws, strictly speaking, they're just calls for action that may or may not be reflected in local laws in any way.
So yeah it's a very tricky thing and I think that's reflects this idea. We have to tread really carefully that you can't be too forceful with kind of interfering with people's beliefs and culture. And I think what the right approach is to look at these fundamentals that make witchcraft beliefs stick around.
So in my [00:54:00] opinion, and based on my research, there are two main fundamentals. So one is the one we discussed a lot, which is modern institutions. That is, societies build up those institutions that defined property rights well, that provide a fair court system to resolve disputes, that provide protection, and so on. If we have those institutions to govern societies, then I think witchcraft beliefs will be less relevant as a mechanism to structure lives, and they will likely disappear or diminish in a natural way just because they cause more harm than they do good. It's very unlikely for social institution to persist indefinitely if it's a net negative, right? So if it's just causing social [00:55:00] harm without serving any purpose, it may persist, but it's unlikely to persist indefinitely.
The other factor is the vulnerability of people, and that's something that we haven't touched upon. So maybe it's the right moment, which is that the most superficial role of witchcraft beliefs is to explain, quote unquote, "bad events" or "misfortunes". So you have sickness, you have death, you have crop failure, you have bad marriage, you are losing your job, you name it, a misfortune, you want an explanation for it. That goes back to the deep human need to have a cause for everything. And so witchcraft beliefs serve that purpose superficially by saying, okay, it's witchcraft, right?
So something bad happens. Why did it happen to me? It's witchcraft. Now, of course, this raises a bigger issue of, why would you explain a misfortune through witchcraft? But that's a whole different level of [00:56:00] conversation. But anyway, witchcraft beliefs in societies where they exist, they serve this purpose. They serve to explain misfortune. So the corollary of that is that maybe, if there are fewer misfortunes in societies, maybe that could help. Or maybe if you make societies less vulnerable to things like disease and drought. And if you have an established social safety net, for example, for people who suffer a loss or hardship, then you know they would not be so desperate to find an explanation for whatever fell on them in the evil intentions of their fellow human beings.
And so that could be another factor that could naturally diminish the role of witchcraft beliefs as explainers of misfortunes. It's not a panacea for sure, because in all [00:57:00] societies there are some misfortunes, right? You cannot eliminate all misfortunes from our life. But you can certainly diminish the incidents of those misfortunes, particularly some of those that are crucial for wellbeing.
In countries that rely on agriculture for subsistence, a drought is a terrible calamity. So if you have some sort of insurance mechanism against, that'll help a lot. Or in countries with widespread epidemics, you can deal with that somehow and diminish the incidence of sickness and so on.
So I think developing institutions and decreasing social vulnerability would go a long way in making these beliefs less relevant, let's put it this way, with the hope that that will contribute to their, the decrease in their popularity with the beneficial effect of decreasing all those harmful consequences that we discussed before.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, that's so critically important, what you've [00:58:00] just said. You can't just go in there, rush in and try to take the belief away. You can't rush in and stop the killings without having some other mechanisms in place to replace the social function of witchcraft. And we need to consider that when making UN resolutions. The Human Rights Council will be meeting to discuss further action on the harmful practices, and we're hoping that they will understand that you need this nuanced approach, this balance.
Boris Gershman: I think that's right, and I do think they are aware of it. I know the work of some of the scholars who contributed to the emergence of that resolution, and I know they exercise a lot of care in these issues. They try to [00:59:00] strike these balance, and a lot of them are doing field work in some of the countries where witchcraft accusations are still widespread and witchcraft persecutions are still widespread. And they're well aware that these drastic interventions may backfire and at best be some kind of a temporary relief and certainly long-term solution of any sort would require time and care and more of a deeper transformation in the conditions in which those societies live rather than proclaiming that don't do this kind of stuff, that just or even worse, believing in this is wrong. Like these are the things that just won't work, will backfire, and just are ineffective. I completely agree.
Sarah Jack: I'm just processing, processing, processing.
Josh Hutchinson: This is all so fascinating.
Boris Gershman: Yes, there is certainly lot to talk about. [01:00:00] Yes, I mean, this is a, such a multi-dimensional issue and it's a hard one. There are so many things going on and what I'm hoping for is that my own work, the work of other scholars will raise awareness that with this paper that we spent most of the time on, that it will convey this message that it's not an obscure thing, it's something that's still very much present that it's important to understand, it's important to study.
When I started working on this now almost 10 years ago or so it was hard to sell it, let's put it this way. And, you know, I'm an economist, so it was super hard for me particularly to sell it, because why should an economist do this in the first place? That was weird. And so, you know, I'm happy that I managed to still continue doing this work and attract some attention. And I feel like with over the years, this has been an [01:01:00] understanding increasingly so that it's important for economists and policy makers and of social scientists overall to work on culture. That this is not a laughing matter, that it's not the stuff of Harry Potter or Halloween, that it's a serious matter. And I do feel like there's been a. A change in the perception of these cultural issues. And I hope that the work in this area will continue and that this will also be part of policy making, at least to the extent that before any kind of policy interventions there should be a survey of let's call it local cultural landscape, and the understanding of how that local cultural landscape will interfere with any sorts of policies or development programs and so forth.
They are so widespread in the modern world. [01:02:00] And the understanding that culture is essential for the success or failure of some of these programs or policies, the understanding of that I think is very important. And there should be more work done on witchcraft. There should be more work done on other beliefs.
And as economist, someone who's used to working with data and who's used to working on issues quantitatively, I think gathering more statistics, gathering more hard evidence beyond case studies is particularly important because that kind of evidence, I think would potentially be more convincing for policy makers and other people who make these types of decisions. So I'm calling for more of a quantitative science of witchcraft beliefs and culture more broadly.
Josh Hutchinson: I think that is so important, [01:03:00] and thank you for the work that you've done on that. I think countries like South Africa right now, they're considering repealing the old Witchcraft Suppression Act, but they're law reform committee is also considering replacing it with a law against harmful witchcraft practices. And we're wondering, how do they see that working better than what they have right now? And hopefully some more analysis will help them to make those plans better.
Boris Gershman: Yes. I agree. But with all these laws the repeal and replace I think I'm generally on the side of skepticism in the sense that as we've seen through the years, what's written on paper does not typically turn into enforcement ,and we [01:04:00] don't know to what extent and how these laws can be enforced or will be enforced.
And so that's part of the reason why I think these types of interventions are not very likely to be effective, frankly, in having any impact on beliefs or persecutions. Of course, we should try to do whatever we can to deal at least with these most outrageous manifestations of witchcraft beliefs, which are the killings, right? So I think we should try everything to, at the very least, deal with these egregious violation of human rights in that form. But as I said, beyond this, there are lots of other less visible costs that these practices cost. So even if there is a way of preventing the killings, there would still be a [01:05:00] heavy burden of witchcraft beliefs in other areas, whether it's social relations or psychological wellbeing or innovation and so on.
And so there will still be a question of, what do we do with that? So it's not just a matter of preventing the most cruelest manifestation of witchcraft persecutions, but also what the biggest chunk of the iceberg that is underneath the tip, right? And of course, that is something that is often hidden, right?
So we do observe these cases of witchcraft persecutions and killings, and they show up occasionally in news reports. That's what gets attention. And they absolutely should. But you don't have a news report on something like, oh, because of the fear of witchcraft, that person decided not to go to school. You know [01:06:00] what I mean? That sounds like a boring story, but when you add up all these small stories, that's a lot, right? That's a huge impact. So by all means, I think everything necessary should be done to prevent the killings, but there is much more than that.
And by the way, it was one interesting observation that I noticed. I was recently reading this book on witch hunts with a focus on India. And what struck me there is that in India, particularly in, in the states where these witchcraft accusations are common there are laws against witchcraft persecutions. That doesn't stop them. And in fact what was interesting in the case studies described in that book is that oftentimes, and I wanna say in most of the case studies they described, the person who committed the crime of killing the alleged witch. The person is eventually [01:07:00] caught by the police and put in prison. Okay? So they face their, I don't know if it's justice, but they face the consequences of their crime. And yet the existence of these laws and the reality of people going to jail for committing that crime does not prevent the crime, okay? Of course, we know that laws do not prevent all the crime, but my point is that it's not a silver bullet, right? You can have laws against persecuting witches. It doesn't mean that these persecutions will stop. It doesn't mean that they will end. So we need more fundamental changes that will just contribute to the decline of the beliefs, decline of the necessity to accuse someone of that, or even in the instances when someone is accused, we want that to [01:08:00] gain no traction, right? Because in some cases, accusations are made, but they go nowhere because there's not enough support from the local community. You need some support, some consensus to bring it to the next level, so to speak.
And so if you don't have witchcraft beliefs widespread in society, or if you can change the minds of the people in terms of attributing certain events to witchcraft, then the lack of consensus or the lack of the critical mass of people who are willing to consent to the decision to initiate persecution that may be sufficient to prevent those.
So that's another channel. Yeah. So an accusation, as you know, does not automatically transform into persecution. And persecutions may also come in very different forms, right? Everyone knows about the most egregious one, which ends up with killing. In some [01:09:00] societies it may be a matter of a simple fine, right, monetary payment, or it may be a matter of a simple cleansing ritual, relatively harmless.
Again, other things equal, that's preferable to banishing a person, ostracizing a person, or killing a person. So it would also be important to understand why sanctions differ across societies. And here, of course, we have very little hard data to work with. So we have lots of case studies, and I think it's a very fascinating question of how beliefs transform into accusations, how accusations transform into persecutions, and how the punishment is chosen or decided.
Josh Hutchinson: So you still have the underlying anxiety and fear to address. You can't just [01:10:00] go in and say, "don't murder these people." Because that's not a deterrent against the killing. You have all that anxiety and fear that eventually bubbles over and causes these actions.
Boris Gershman: Exactly.
Sarah Jack: It's so great that you were able to do what you've done with this information. We use the word link. Witchcraft beliefs are linked to innovation, linked to economic development, linked to this crime and fear. It's link is almost too minimal of a word cuz it's one large mechanism with all these components. But the numbers and your analysis show how it fits together.
Boris Gershman: Yes. That was the main goal. To see that, to show that there are systematic patterns that is not just one story and another story, and that case study and this case study that we see some systematic patterns. And of course, we want to [01:11:00] know more. We want to have studies that can tease out the causal impact, which is always very difficult, right? Because you, it's very hard to make experiments with culture. But, hopefully, more work will be done in this area. And so I view my own contributions kind of a motivation for further studies.
Sarah Jack: It's a significant contribution. It's significant.
Josh Hutchinson: The data shows such widespread belief, and even in the countries where it's lower, you pointed out in Sweden and Scandinavia, it's one in 10 people. So everybody knows somebody who has this witchcraft belief and fear. One in six Americans, I think it was around one in eight in the UK. That's your friends, your family, somebody in your circle has this belief in fear.
Boris Gershman: [01:12:00] Absolutely. I know people in my family who believe that, my extended family, so yeah, it's not uncommon. It's not uncommon at all even in societies where you may not expect it, so certainly a big point, certainly important to have in mind. And another signal for the wide community of people who develop policies, who interfere in any way with people's lives, the governments and so on, to take this issue seriously and not rely on a mechanistic, technocratic approach and brushing away people's culture, people's beliefs as something that is irrelevant or weak or that's something that can be ignored or can be changed or shaped [01:13:00] at will.
It's a hard process to change the beliefs. There is a very high degree of persistence, just because we acquire a lot of what we believe from our parents and then our children acquire beliefs from us and so on. So through this process of what we call vertical cultural transmission, there is always some degree in persistence. And we see it in all sorts of religious beliefs. We see it even in things like political beliefs and so on. And so this mechanistic force of cultural learning will continue operating and will continue making it hard for these beliefs to evolve quickly.
Josh Hutchinson: It took time, Europe and North America, we had, our age of Witch Hunts in the early modern period, and it took time to phase out of that, replace that thinking with something new, [01:14:00] and we think it'll take time elsewhere. Hopefully, not too long to address the killings, but as you pointed out, the government intervention, they're going to have to put other mechanisms in place, and that will take time. In places where tradition is especially important, it's going to take time to change those beliefs.
Boris Gershman: Yes, I agree completely, but I think that's exactly the right way to think about it. To me what was happening in the early modern period in Europe, in America, that actually was not that long time ago. You know what I mean? It's not that long time ago. And it's very different now, and I certainly don't see any reason to believe that something like that won't happen throughout the world once these fundamentals that we discussed[01:15:00] change. And so to me that transformation that happened in Europe and America, these are exactly the cases that point to the future where these issues will be less pervasive and witchcraft related fears around the world will not be as salient as they are now, particularly in, in certain communities.
Hopefully, it's not gonna be a matter of a couple of centuries. Hopefully, the transformation will take a shorter amount of time, and as you said, particularly in regard to killings. It will take time though, so we have to be ready for that. And we have to understand that this is just a process that should not be rushed even if we understand urgency of dealing with the most outrageous manifestation of these beliefs.[01:16:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Something you said earlier really got me thinking about how these beliefs and actions have transformed over time. In the early modern period, the nation state was just emerging. You see all the network of kingdoms and duchies and all those minor states being replaced with stronger centralized governments, and in the US you saw the revolution, the federal governments introduced, the state governments are introduced, and the nations where we see a lot of the witchcraft killings today are post-colonial, and those institutions are still emerging, and I think that we have to help those institutions along, and that will help [01:17:00] drive the change.
Boris Gershman: Absolutely. I completely agree with this and this institutional fundamentals I think are essential. It's important that societies have an alternative way to organize their lives. That they have the rules of the game, so to speak, defined by these institutions. And then, I do think that the process of developing these institutions will contribute naturally to the demise of these beliefs, just because they won't serve a useful purpose anymore.
And I think you are exactly right that historically the process of state formation in Europe and US contributed to the decline of these institutions. That's also a theme of another book. There is a book I think it's titled Cursed Britain, about the decline of witchcraft beliefs in Britain. And so one of the interesting points that is made in that book is that of course, with the decline of witch trials, the famous witch [01:18:00] trials, witchcraft beliefs did not disappear in Britain. So it took a while for them to reach this low level that we see in the modern data. And the author makes a case that it is particularly the development of state capacity and the development of institutions like police force and court system and so on, that contributed to this decline perhaps even more than the improvement in the standard of living or the improvement in literacy and things like that.
And so I do tend to agree with the fundamental role of institutions in contributing to the decline of witchcraft beliefs and persecutions.
We have the urgency in the sense that we are talking about people's lives, so people who actually are killed for allegedly being a witch. So that's an urgent matter and we can do whatever it takes to eliminate that. But at the same time, I think that the process of[01:19:00] decreasing the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs and diminishing the other large social costs of those beliefs is something that is going to take time and is something that will require some of the fundamental changes. That was the point.
I don't have any estimates of how long this may take. I have only speculation about some of the factors that may contribute to this process. But yeah, I think we should tread lightly while also trying to address those urgent cases of abuse that we see in relation to witchcraft beliefs.
Josh Hutchinson: Now, here's Sarah with an important update on Connecticut, witch trial exoneration legislation.
Sarah Jack: Here is your Connecticut, witch trial exoneration. Weekly legislation news. On the first day of women's history month, 2023, . The Connecticut legislature's joint committee and judiciary [01:20:00] heard testimony for the joint committee proposed bill 34. Concerning certain witchcraft convictions in colonial Connecticut.
The Connecticut witch trial exoneration project and some others, descendants of colonial connecticut community members gave testimony, expressing the crucial and relevant matter of exonerating those executed for witchcraft in the 17th century Connecticut. I was one of the exoneration advocates that gave testimony today. Giving testimony as to why my ancestor should be acknowledged as an innocent, which trial victim was a continuation of her own plea of innocence. Today.
The women back then. Proclaim their innocence and the men did not listen today I proclaimed their innocence. But did my message find a more receptive audience overall, that appears to be the case. We are encouraged to see more legislators signing on as bill sponsors. You can listen to today's informative testimonies.
The link is in the show description. There's a lot that can be taught from the comments and questions that arose today. We want [01:21:00] to make a few clarifications. After someone who is a witch trial victim has been ostracized, it takes a family three to four generations to recover. And so the generational impact to the witch trial victim families carry on beyond the revolution. The relevance of historic which trials can be seen when you consider the modern alleged, witch attacks and the societal othering we've witnessed. The Connecticut accused witches were accused of signing a compact with the devil.
Their charges had nothing to do with modern paganism. Every trial in Connecticut had its own circumstances leading up to the accusations. Because compacting with the devil is not possible, we know those accused were innocent. Descendants seeking exoneration have come together in collaboration to tell the stories of their accused ancestors, despite coming from different backgrounds, with different belief systems and political leanings.
Granting exoneration does not mean other pressing issues are responded to less. Let's not avoid facing historical wrongs any longer. Correcting the [01:22:00] historical record, like exonerating innocent victims of the witch trials is the right thing to do. The stories of the women in the Connecticut trials are interesting and unique, enriching Connecticut's history telling.
What we want, not a pardon, an exoneration because they were innocent. No reparations. The next steps after this are memorials, educational programs, and the recognition of Connecticut's unique history. The judiciary committee still has to vote on the bill before it can go on to the House and Senate. We must keep communicating. Will you take time today to write to a member of the judiciary committee asking them to recognize the relevance of exonerating Connecticut witch trial victims? You can do this, whether you are a Connecticut resident or anywhere else in the world. You should do it from right where you are. Now's the time and place to stand for acknowledging that women were not and are not capable of harming others with diabolical or maleficent powers.
The victims we wish to exonerate are known to be innocent. The victims of today that [01:23:00] we wish to protect are known to be innocent. You can find the information you need to contact a committee member with a letter in the show links. The Connecticut, witch trial exoneration project strongly urges the General Assembly to hear the voices of the witch trial victims being amplified by the community today. They were not witches. We hope you will pass this legislation without delay.
Our project is offering several ways for exoneration supporters to plug in and participate or learn about the exoneration and history. Links to all these informative opportunities are listed in the episode description. Use your social power to help Alice Young, America's first executed witch finally be acknowledged. Support the descendants by acknowledging and sharing their ancestor stories. Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our project on social media. @ctwitchhunt.
And visit our website at connecticutwitchtrials.org. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is a project [01:24:00] of End Witch Hunts Movement. End Witch Hunts is a nonprofit organization founded to educate about witch trial history and advocate for alleged witches. Please support us with your donations or purchases of educational, witch trial books and merchandise. You can shop our merch at zazzle.com/store/endwitchhunts, zazzle.com/store/thoushaltnotsuffer, and shop our books at bookshop.org /endwitchhunts. We want you as a super listener. You can help keep the Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast in production by super listening with your monthly monetary support. See episode descriptions for links to these support opportunities. We thank you for standing with us and for helping us create a world that is safe from witchcraft accusations.
Thank you, Sarah.
You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us like you always do next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your [01:25:00] podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Visit our website, thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends and family.
Sarah Jack: Thank you for supporting our efforts at End Witch Hunts. If you'd like to donate, please visit our website at endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

March 2, 2023

Representative Jane Garibay on Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Legislation

Connecticut State Representative Jane Garibay

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Show Notes

Connecticut State Representative Jane Garibay of the 60th district, Windsor and Windsor Locks talks about the process for proposing an exoneration bill. We talk about the reasons and relevance behind House Joint Resolution #34: Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. Hear how this state exoneration of witch trial victims would open the door to creating memorial monuments and educational activities for the community and descendants.

Links

Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Accused of Witchcraft in New York by Scott Ferrara

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to another outstanding episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: Today's guest has recently appeared in the New York Times, Associated Press, and basically all the things. We'll be talking to Representative Jane Garibay of Connecticut's 60th district, representing Windsor and Windsor Locks in the Connecticut General Assembly. We'll be discussing a resolution to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut, House Joint Resolution [00:01:00] Number 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut.
Sarah Jack: We've really enjoyed working with Representative Jane Garibay, and we're really anticipating making this episode, and it was great.
Josh Hutchinson: We had a wonderful chat with her, including how she became involved in exoneration legislation, where she learned about the need for exoneration, and what she's learned about the Connecticut Witch Trials.
Sarah Jack: She is a major part of how the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project came together, and this personal and engaging conversation tells a story of how she got involved in the exoneration, why she supports it. We talk about what's next for the resolution, and you can [00:02:00] learn about how you can help.
Josh Hutchinson: And we also talk about what comes after the exoneration, some plans for memorializing the victims of the Connecticut Witch Trials.
Sarah Jack: It's my pleasure to introduce state representative Jane Garibay, who was recently reelected to the 60th district, representing Windsor and Windsor Locks. She's a lifelong resident of Windsor, serving as the executive director of the Windsor Chamber of Commerce from 1999 to 2018, she worked for the Town of Windsor in the recreation department and is now executive director of the First Town Downtown in Windsor.
Jane has been an active volunteer for most of her life. She has an educational background, having taught English as a second language in Mexico and Spanish at St. Gabriel School in Windsor. She's the president and founder of the Windsor Education Foundation and served as the president of the Windsor School Board. Be sure to visit her biography page on her website to see all the important ways she has served the community and been [00:03:00] recognized. This web link will be in the show description.
Jane Garibay: I represent the 60th district, which is Windsor and Windsor Locks. We have Alice Young, who was a Windsor resident when she was accused, convicted, and executed for witchcraft. She was the first. So we do have that long history in Windsor.
Sarah Jack: And how did you get involved in witch trial exoneration legislation?
Jane Garibay: We did do the exoneration here in Windsor for our two that were convicted, and there was a resolution, and I know Beth very well and her connection, and I've read parts of her book. But it was mostly just more, probably started about a year ago, people reaching out to me and me becoming more aware and understanding the generations down and what this meant to their family members and learning more about what really happened way back then. And I think at the time [00:04:00] it was actually Windsor was called Dorchester at the beginning, and it was like 20-something towns were part of this Dorchester, part of Windsor. And then things have changed. And I think that's why there's a lot of mix there.
Josh Hutchinson: Why do you support exoneration?
Jane Garibay: It hit me one day that there is a parallel to what happened in the 1600s with the witchcraft to what is being challenged today in women's rights. I think it's just being aware, I started thinking about what if you are a little bit different? What if you don't dress the norm? What if you're a strong woman, and you're determined and know what you want? Or just different things? And I saw that parallel, and as I learned about how their families have suffered through the generations, it just became very important. To me, it's a small thing to do that can make a lot of people feel better and happier. So [00:05:00] it seems simple.
Sarah Jack: Simple but so powerful. And I know so many of us are appreciative and excited and those reasons that you mentioned, the parallels are, it's so great, because it'll keep some of those conversations going in a positive direction. Are there any other modern issues that relate to it for you?
Jane Garibay: So I think we're always in flux in the way that people are treated. We gain ground in some areas and then, some years later then we're backtracking again with others. And it's really about, the United States has all always been about it, supposedly is live and let live. Respect, if I'm not hurting anyone, I should be able to live the way that I wanna live, whichever way that may be.
And I believe each of us either has a religion, there's many different religions. In my own mind, it's always the same God. It's just different ways of getting there in [00:06:00] some way, shape, or form. And we have to respect each other and not impose what my personal experience is, that we have to respect each other. So I think bringing the past and trying to make it, we can't change what happened, but we can make it right in the books. That goes a big way about saying today, if you're a single woman, you choose not to get married. Or maybe you like to wear a flannel shirt and jeans, whatever that is to someone else. That we have to respect people, because we can fall back into some old patterns.
Josh Hutchinson: The exoneration is about making a statement. What does it take to get a bill passed?
Jane Garibay: A lot. It really does, because that's why you build relationships in the House. To me, most politicians, legislators, senators are very hard workers and well-meaning, and you have to build those [00:07:00] relationships, because you need it to pass in the house. You need to pass in the senate, and then you need the governor to sign it. So all three branches have to be working together. I had a bill last year that made it through the house that died in the senate. It's hard, and you have to be on top of it. As you know, for nine months we've been doing a lot of work. And putting, getting the bill, working on people, and we've gotten tons of support, like with Senator Anwar coming on board and feeling passionate about this topic, too. So it takes a lot of connecting. It takes talking to people, it takes emailing. So our first step it will be is to have judiciary have a hearing. That's our biggest hope. Get the hearing. Once we have the hearing, it's having people testify or show up in a larger group, even if everyone doesn't speak, to show we support this. It takes everyone reaching out to their legislators within the state and saying, "I want you to pass this bill. This is important to me." [00:08:00] So as we've been working on that for nine months now, and I think we're in a good place right now, I am hoping judiciary will give us a hearing, which will be a major step, because over 5,000 bills are proposed, 5,000, and maybe 2 to 500 will be passed. And a lot of them are good bills. There's some, depending on your opinion, you might not think are so important. Just some might not think this one's important, but it's important to someone and just takes fighting for your bill. It's great, because now you have someone both in the house and the Senate that feel passionate about it, so it gives us strength. Sometimes things happen for a reason.
Sarah Jack: Absolutely. And when we were all having that conversation this week, you could really see that, how it was bringing this new spark and there was more ideas and just strengthening the collaboration. So that was exciting.
Jane Garibay: It is exciting.
Josh Hutchinson: I'm also very excited that he's on board, [00:09:00] and you've got a road into the senate. Seems more likely that they'll get on board. We saw that they posted on their social medias about this last week, and that was a great step forward.
Jane Garibay: Absolutely. The House is a little bit easier, I feel, because we're 151. There's 98 on my Dems team. So you can lose a few and still have the majority vote. In the Senate if even though the Dems have the majority or like that. Although, and something like this, I think it's bipartisan. I don't think it's gonna be a partisan vote, but there, you can't lose as many votes, cause there's fewer people.
Sarah Jack: Which is all the more reason for people to be contacting their representatives and senators.
Jane Garibay: And to write, it can be only three lines. It's better not to do a template. Some issues come before that every email, it's exactly the same. And I still answer 'em, [00:10:00] but it's not the same when someone sends me a heartfelt three or four lines about why this is important to them. It engages me more as a legislator, right? In the past two months, I've gotten three very long letters about why this is important to them. One was from Granby, Connecticut. The other two were different parts of the country.
And I'll never look at Halloween the same, by the way. The event in Windsor, I started it like 20 years ago. It's called Nightmare on Broad Street. And the event will, I just won't see it the same. I don't like, like now I think of all the like Hocus Pocus and the witch movies and whatever. Even though these people weren't really witches, just the idea of it, it's just different now for me.
Josh Hutchinson: The associating one with the other is not accurate and demeaning to the people who were not witches.
Jane Garibay: It's about being accused of something they didn't do ,really. Do you know what? But it's, yeah, it is to [00:11:00] separate the two.
Josh Hutchinson: And you've raised a good point that this should not be a partisan issue. This should be just a simple, an injustice was done, justice should be done to fix that kind of a thing.
Jane Garibay: Yes, absolutely. And it doesn't cost money. Usually that's where our divide comes down a lot, more conservative financially, a little bit freer or whatever. This doesn't cost money. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't hurt anyone. It just gives peace to the family. And I know what the Judiciary Committee is looking for, because how do they process this? Because it was the commonwealth at the time. It wasn't the state of Connecticut, so it's finding the way, the tool to do it, and it's basically just saying, "we're sorry this happened." It's recognizing it and it's saying, "these people were innocent." Even if there weren't a way to pardon them, this isn't a pardon because they didn't do anything. They weren't, [00:12:00] they didn't do anything. This is saying, "this never should have happened."
And every day I learn new things. Like I didn't realize, while Governor Winthrop was in England, I understand that James Mason was in charge. And we've had a lot of controversy about that in Windsor, because we have the James Mason statue that we got from Mystic. And we've had an outcry, and they're trying to find it a home, maybe in a museum, but not out on our Palisado Green. And now that I know he was in charge when all this was happening, and just by default, it's his fault, in a way, because he was the leader at the time. He could've stopped it.
Josh Hutchinson: Conflicts with the whole heritage of Alice Young and Lydia Gilbert being Windsorites.
Jane Garibay: And I've come to admire, I still don't know a ton, but Governor Winthrop was a hero in this, [00:13:00] being an alchemist. I understand that once he arrived back from England, no one else was executed. There were people that were convicted, but he was able to stay, and we could have lost a lot more lives. It could have really have kept going.
Sarah Jack: On the judiciary committee, how do they process those proposed bills?
Jane Garibay: So they work with O L M, Office of Legislative Management. Some of the members, the chair, Steve Stafstrom, is a lawyer, and he is really good at what he does. So they have a, it's not like me going in and having no clue how I would write this or do this, and it seems so easy. I wanna just go out and say, "hey, this is wrong." But there has to be statutory language, and so they all work. It takes quite a bit for all our bills to be written up. The legislators, we come up with the idea and a basic thought or concept, but then we work with staff to put that into legal means so that, [00:14:00] afterwards, someone can't say that wasn't really done, or, blah, blah, blah. It's put through in legal verbiage that can stick.
Sarah Jack: Thanks for explaining that.
Jane Garibay: Hey, it's been a learning curve for all. It really is. So much goes into a bill, from first you do a screening, so the bills will go in front that's been put in. It'll go to screening in judiciary, which is made up of senate and house members. And the screening committee is usually the chairs and it might have the ranking members, depending. And so they screen all the bills, and they decide whether something goes forward.
If you move it out, then language starts. We start having the proposed language, what is it gonna look like, et cetera. Then again, it's up to the chairs if there's a hearing. So then there's a hearing, and that's your next step.
And then whether it hits the floor or not, everybody's lobbying and working, even after the hearing to try [00:15:00] to get their bills heard, and the chairs have a lot to say, but not the total say. It depends, again, if this isn't controversial, and it's controversial, there's a lot of, it's a whole different story in the way they negotiate what bills they do. This is pretty bipartisan, I feel, and I don't think it'll have that same difficulty.
Josh Hutchinson: And then if it goes to the floor, then it's open for debate before a vote?
Jane Garibay: It's open to debate for floor. I believe it will come out of the House. I think it'll be Representative Stafstrom, who does have a woman that was executed in Stamford, his town, and he's pretty passionate, and we sent him Beth's books and different things. So he's really been reading up on it and everything, and he is a great person to take it to the floor.
So then if we have, which I expect, a positive [00:16:00] vote, then it gets sent over to the Senate. Then they go through the same thing over there, gets passed there, and then they will send it on the governor to sign.
Sarah Jack: At what point would they be considered exonerated? Would it be once it's passed both sides, or is it when the governor signs?
Jane Garibay: The governor, we would choose, usually you choose, like when we did the PFAS bill in Windsor, we had the PFAS bill from the airport and was the center of bringing the attention to that chemical. And the governor came to Windsor by the Farmington River and signed the bill there. They'll choose a place for a bill signing, whether it's the State House, where people were executed, or maybe it's in Stamford. There's a monument there.
Josh Hutchinson: So with it being a resolution, is it effective basically once the governor signs?
Jane Garibay: Once the governor signs it, I believe, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I believe that's[00:17:00] most bills will say when it takes place, because if it's a new law that is gonna cost money or give revenues, they usually say as of July 1st or something. But I don't think this bill is that, so I think it would be immediate upon his signature.
Josh Hutchinson: That would be a very significant moment then.
Jane Garibay: So we still have a ways to go, right? We still, we have a road, but the road looks plowed, right? It looks a clean road.
Sarah Jack: That's a great analogy. This nine months has been so informative and exciting and a nail biter, too, cuz you just, there's all these little steps in the learning along the way, but it's been such a pleasant experience. And I think that the story getting talked about, the history being discussed and more known, that's already a win there.
Jane Garibay: It's hard, because you've waited all these years, after one failed attempt, and the thoughts, and all the [00:18:00] work you guys have put in over these years. But I guess it's what they say, the patience has paid off.
Josh Hutchinson: Tony's really the long hauler. He's been doing this since 2005, so he's been at it for about 18 years now, and he's really been very patient and stuck with it.
Sarah Jack: And it's been really fun to see his enthusiasm about what's happening right now. He feels like the story's being heard and this excellent effort has been made. It's been so satisfying.
Jane Garibay: And if I understood correctly with Senator Anwar, his constituent that reached out to him is from one of the families that was part of the accusation and how that he felt that pain of what his ancestors have done, which I found really interesting to know, to sit here and discover that your great grandfather was part of this [00:19:00] and to feel that pain. So I thought that was interesting. So not only does the exoneration help those of those that were executed, I know if it were me, I would feel like awful that my family was involved in something. So it'll find peace for everyone.
Josh Hutchinson: That's a very good, important side of the story to be told, how it affects the descendants on the other side. I have ancestors on both sides of Salem Witch Trials, ancestors who were accusers and ancestors who were victims and jury members and everybody else, related to quite a few people involved and in very different ways. So I try to get some perspective on what each of them was thinking at the time and what they were feeling, and the fear of witchcraft was so real to them at the time. It was [00:20:00] the way that we feel about potential for violence. It was very real, but it's challenging to deal with as a descendant, to think about yeah, my ancestor, I have one that accused another ancestor of mine, and it's, I'm related to both of them. I know that what was done was wrong, and I do feel bad about that, but, at the same time that, that was generations ago. So I don't think that anybody living today should feel the blame or shame for that.
Jane Garibay: But doesn't it make you feel better that you've been part of making this happen?
And there's parallels, too. Look how fearful we are of certain nationalities, ethnic backgrounds or how fearful we are of someone who's different. And that's why we have to continue to be [00:21:00] inclusive and understanding and respectful of each other, and that we're all very different, right? We all have different backgrounds.
And again unless someone is hurting someone else, I have to respect their religion, the way they dress, if it's lgbtq, whatever that is, to respect and not judge. Because you can execute with words, too. It's not the same as taking a life, but you can execute. You can hurt someone with the words you've talked to them, the deed you do to them.
We saw that the other day, with the Tennessee. There is a huge parallel, and I truly believe it's important to understand our history to know how we move forward. If we don't look back at how we got to where we are today and some of the strides and builds on those strides, I don't mean to be so philosophical, but, you know, it's really important to understand others and respect them.
Sarah Jack: And understanding as much of the full history that we can is key to that, not just these [00:22:00] selections. And if somebody who feels bad about what their ancestors have done is willing to bring something to light, to correct a wrong, it's a signal to the rest of us, that we can make brave steps like that to get a good look at the stories.
And one of the things that I think about sometimes, these panics came out of, here you had neighbors and community members suffering for different reasons and they weren't able to come together to rise through them without blaming each other, and I think our fears today can cause the same thing if, you know, if you were afraid of our neighbor who is different, or our coworker who is different, that could stop something really important from happening. So we need to get to know people and learn about them and diffuse those fears.
Jane Garibay: And one of the hardest [00:23:00] thing I think is for all of us, even for myself, is standing up for something you believe in or against something that you think is wrong. It's not an easy thing to do it. You know, we all wanna be part of the group. We all want, you know, we're human, and we build community.
And even today, you can see it in just everyday life sometimes, you know, the bully on the playground or adults. And it's standing up to that type of behavior. And again, I believe in a kind way, right? Because if you take the other way, then you're being just as bad. And then there is the generational trauma, which a lot of people laugh at when I use that word. I'm lucky because I have a daughter who works in that type of psychology and instances with students, et cetera.
But it reminds me my great grandfather was a harness maker. And he was at the table with his six kids, and he was drunk at dinnertime, and he was playing [00:24:00] Russian roulette with his pistol. He ended up shooting himself and dying in front of his children. And it's just weird. We didn't talk about a lot, but my grandfather never drank. You never saw him with a drink. My mother never drank. We didn't talk about it. We didn't know why. And I rarely do, I have like on the holiday or whatever. So that had followed my family without talking about it. I'm not saying it's in the genes or not in the genes, but just knowing that history and that example of behavior. So that has gone down through the generations with those that are descendants of those that were executed, right? And whether it's through lore or the storytelling through the family, cause storytelling is history, right? It's what happened.
And to live just with that awfulness about. People need to stop and think. Especially the couple. It was a husband and wife. And if there were children, they were given to neighboring farms. If it was just the woman, [00:25:00] he was left without the person to take care of the kids. Just a woman who had material things, they wanted it. So a lot of times, they were accused of witchcraft so that she didn't have those things. So they were stripped of everything. They were stripped of their property, their dignity. The whole family just suffered, there goes the husband of so-and-so and the children. It left a mark forever.
Josh Hutchinson: Alice Young's daughter, Alice Young Beamon, was accused of witchcraft. She moved away to Springfield, Massachusetts, and it followed her. Somebody slandered her son, saying that he and his mother were witches, and they had to file a suit against that for defamation, because it just followed for three generations, and Sarah has an ancestor, Winifred Benham Sr., who was accused along with her daughter, and her [00:26:00] mother, Mary Hale, had been accused before her, so that was another case of three generations that followed.
Jane Garibay: Yeah. It's crazy, isn't it? It's just like unthinkable. You think how their lives, and at the same time, the people that were accusing really believed what they were thinking. I think some was planned out, some took advantage of using it to get what they wanted. But a lot of them, they really, truly believe that they caused the plague, and it was easy to get them riled up. And I see that in today's world, that sometimes you have a someone that gets people riled up, and they believe something that they want them to believe, and it's not really true, and I'm not talking about the large politics, just around town or whatever, those things happen.
Josh Hutchinson: On the topic of generational trauma, there's also the experience that descendants have when they learn of their ancestors' stories. And all of, you know, the [00:27:00] feelings you have to sort through because just knowing that your innocent ancestor suffered that way.
Jane Garibay: I know. I try not to think about it, because it keeps you up at night. If you think about how, just the whole thing, it was awful. And for their family members to be watching that. It's incomprehensible.
I did watch in Scotland, the prime minister that gave the great speech, and they exonerated 2,000, over 2,000. I was like shocked. But I guess Europe was a lot worse before it made it here, and here it just somehow, it got stopped before it turned into the same situation, right? With so many.
Josh Hutchinson: We were fortunate that we had strong ties with England, where things were a little calmer. Scotland was, I think by population, per capita, they had one of the highest rates of [00:28:00] executions of witches, and it was grizzly.
Jane Garibay: Now did this happen to all countries through Europe? Do you think, did it happen in Spain, for example?
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, it definitely happened in Spain. Last year, Catalonia actually pardoned something around 700 individuals who were persecuted there. And that's just one Spanish state. It happened in most of their states, and France was big. Italy had some. Germany, it was terrible. Germany was like Scotland. They had about 25,000 executions in the Holy Roman Empire. Half of all of the executions happened in Germany.
Jane Garibay: I wish common sense had set in, though, to understand if they really had been, there had been something in witchcraft or whatever, they would've probably been able to zap 'em or do [00:29:00] something to save themselves. They wouldn't have gotten that far. My husband's family's from Spain, Spain and Mexico, and I know on our next trip we're gonna look into the subject of the witchcraft and what happened there. And his family was from the north, San Sebastian. And now they're in Madrid. And he has family in Mexico, too.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I've a lot of family from Germany and Scotland, and it got pretty bad in Scandinavia, too, and I have Scandinavian ancestors. I might find more ancestors that were involved, as I do my research.
Sarah Jack: What kind of education needs to happen around the witch trials?
Jane Garibay: So we touched on it a little bit the other night, when we all met. I just want things to be tastefully done, but it has to be tastefully. In my mind, I can see in Connecticut, a trail, but it's to honor and visit, not to capitalize on, not to make money on. It's to [00:30:00] bring awareness and education. And like Stamford already has a beautiful monument, so doing something like that, and each town and being part of tourism to educate, not tourism to make money, if that makes sense.
Sensationalized, I don't wanna sensationalize it.
Josh Hutchinson: I know there's a fear of becoming another Witch City, and we don't want to see that happen.
Jane Garibay: No, I agree. I just remember going to Salem and the little plays and the different things, and part of it was educational, but part of it was a little bit more sensationalism. Like you didn't know how much was theater and how much was real facts. So I would think that whatever Connecticut did or your group, which would probably be a big part of it, I'll compare it to a wine trail. You go to each one, you learn about the wine, you taste it, and you do, but you don't get into [00:31:00] sensationalism. Do you know what I mean? So this would be going to each site and learning and doing that.
Sarah Jack: It would be so purposeful, meaningful, and it'd be the opposite of that generational trauma ripple. It would be a ripple of understanding that would start spreading through the community and to those who are coming to look. So I love the idea. One of the things that I thought about as a descendant, not in the area, way back nine months ago or even further back, what would I want? And I really wanted to see how are the local neighborhoods and the communities able to talk about their victim who suffered there? And it's already happening in several of the little communities. So I'm really excited to see that develop more across Connecticut, and then to connect them into a trail would really be meaningful.
Jane Garibay: [00:32:00] I know we have in our town hall, and when I was growing up, I didn't know who she was, but we have an Alice Young conference room. It has her name outside it, and it's a small meeting room. But I would say that 99% of the people in our town probably don't know who Alice Young was. And we don't hear of the other one that was from Windsor, also. So I think that's a big part of the education of physical place that people, because these are different from Salem, I understand, cause we don't have the records Salem has. It's hard to piece the history together, and a lot of work has been done to dig and find that. But we do know about their lives a lot. So to talk about Alice Young, who was she and have a monument, a physical place that you can go to. I think also there should be one main one at the State House, where they were executed. That could be the start point almost, if you wanted to get the major and then have the trail to the other one, and we can move it into the bike trail realm, too, seriously.
Josh Hutchinson: [00:33:00] That would be so amazing to see. Just ride from town to town and learn and pay your respects.
Jane Garibay: So in Spain, I went on the Camino de Santiago, which is from actually Paris over the French Alps, but there's the Camino from Portugal, the Spanish way, and the French Way. We only did 150 miles on bike. But that's what I think, because you have some pathways, but then you come out into little towns, and you're on the roads. Everyone's very respectful, cause they're used to it. And they're marked, and you follow that way, and then you get into the woods, and then you're back onto a town or a city. And so to match it with something like that, I think would be incredible. I would love to do it that way myself.
Josh Hutchinson: I'd like to do that. I like to ride a bike and hike, and that would be so fun but so educational, and it's a way that you can honor them and pay your [00:34:00] respects, because we don't know where any of them are buried. So there's no place right now that descendants can go other than Goody Knapp has that plaque. And Alice Young, and I think Mary Sanford have bricks in plazas.
Jane Garibay: We need something more, because that's what memorials are. That's what cemeteries are. I know I go to visit. I know they're not there in our veteran cemetery, my mom and my dad, but there are days that I have to go and just sit there. And it's a place that you can just feel closer to them, I think, and talk. So it would be the same for this. And if you believe in a spiritual world, wouldn't it be nice that Alice Young could see that people were honoring her?
Sarah Jack: That's beautiful.
Jane Garibay: That somehow they would know that and give them peace, too, right, their spirit.
Josh Hutchinson: That would be so [00:35:00] touching and beautiful, and they're great places you can stop and contemplate what actions our other ancestors took against them, really learn what motivated them, what motivates us today, and spend some time thinking about what we need to be doing today to prevent these things from happening.
Jane Garibay: Right. And hopefully people look at that. I know I would look at that and say, "oh my God, that really happened. I am gonna do whatever is in my power to not let that be in my life and to be like that." The more people that learn that, so that we don't have a reoccurrence of any way, shape, or form of what was happening then here, right? We know there's pockets around the world, hate and not accepting people who are different. I also learn every day. My niece, Jenny, lives with us. She's 43 and she has Down [00:36:00] syndrome, and her parents both died of cancer. So she came to live with us. And at first my husband didn't believe me, but when you go places, people stare. And if you know anyone with Down syndrome, they're the sweetest, nicest, not a mean bone in their body. So what we do now, if we find someone staring, I'll just say to Jenny, "see that woman over there. She thinks you're gorgeous." So what does Jenny do? She starts posing. But we have to teach tolerance every one of us in our lives, the little ways that we can do with it and to ourselves to accept others that are different than ourselves.
Sarah Jack: I feel like your trail idea in involving the museums and the libraries, so if they see the camaraderie in that the state or the communities are standing together, and we're all saying, "hey, we're going to elevate this history in a non sensational way," maybe their hesitancy to have a bulkier program [00:37:00] or to talk about it more openly, maybe that'll diminish a little bit. And then if we are talking about it, it then helps fight against the othering mentality. It all does work together.
Jane Garibay: And I believe it will, and I think, what's that type of, and I'll call it leadership, the way that's moved forward, I think people look to be kind, they look for a gentler world. And I think having a venue to be able to be that way, to say, "come on, all of us, let's do this." I think the goodness spreads, right? This will be one way that goodness spreads. It'll be something that came out of a horrific situation, and we can move forward in a kinder, gentler nation, right?
Sarah Jack: That would be so good for all of us.
Jane Garibay: At one of my elementary schools on Friday, she won the Greater Hartford Essay Contest about Martin Luther King, [00:38:00] and she was a third grader. And so I went to it, and she read what she wrote, and what she did was, she talked about what her dreams were moving forward. And I get the chills, and where no child is made fun of, but what her dreams were, and it just meant so much. So I think by doing all the work that all of you have done is going to benefit all of us in a tremendous way. I really do. It's a very positive energy thing. And even when I hear from a constituent, something awful that happened to 'em, I didn't cause it, but I can look at them and say, "I hear you, and I feel bad that you had to go through that. No one should have to go through that." Right? So I think as people, that's what we have to do. Some people say, "well, I wasn't involved in that. I didn't cause it." No, but you can still have empathy for people and be sorry that it happened to them and say it was wrong.
Josh Hutchinson: Sarah and I were talking the other day, and it dawned on [00:39:00] me that The Crucible just turned 70. It's been out for 70 years as this allegory for how we treat others, and I was wondering how have we grown? Have we grown since The Crucible or are we still having these severe problems with us labeling the Other?
Jane Garibay: I ask myself the question sometime, if I were confronted, and I saw something that was wrong, would I be able to stand up to it? I mean, that is a question we should all ask ourselves so that we're aware. It's kind of the nature of humanity to have the two sides, and it's a constant struggle.
I see it in the work I do with chair of aging and nursing homes and how elderly are treated, things that if you had asked me 10 years ago, I was not aware of either about that, cause I wasn't involved in it. But people that have had an [00:40:00] elderly person and some of the choices and what we're trying to do. And Connecticut is a pretty progressive state, so when I see things happen here, I think that there worse somewhere else, right. So I think in some ways we've gotten better. Kindness, goodness can never let its guard down, doing the right thing, all those things that I try to live by, and I think about. You can never let your guard down, because it's human nature, unfortunately, that some people don't believe that same way and can be more hurtful. I don't know if it's genetic. I don't know if they had bad experiences, whatever it was, and sometimes I find when you show kindness to someone like that that has more difficulty, sometimes they respond, right? So I think we have to constantly be fighting for that goodness and kindness. We can't just take it for granted.
Sarah Jack: This has been wonderful, Jane, you've really hit on a lot of things we wanted to chat with you about, and your meaningful [00:41:00] conversation is valued. Thank you.
Jane Garibay: Just being true. You know, I usually talk from the heart.
Josh Hutchinson: It feels that way, very much. And you've made a lot of powerful remarks.
Jane Garibay: It can bring me to tears when I think about all this, you know? I'm sure as you, you know it, and that you have to keep your faith and your kindness and goodness and constantly fight not to be brought down.
Josh Hutchinson: Sarah and I were talking the other day, we were thinking how the overall trend has been positive, and we've made progress in so many areas, but then there's a setback and you've gotta just keep pushing forward and wait for that rebound and the further progress, and I think we'll continue that way.
Jane Garibay: I'm very hopeful that this will do well. I think the atmosphere is different from, what was it, [00:42:00] 2008? When I talked with the senator, put it this way, no one's laughed at me in front of me, where he got a lot of pushback. And so I think it's a different type of climate now. And I've had a lot of legislators say once the bill is out there, once it's done and out there, that they will support it, they will go on and co-sponsor and fate as it is. If we had anyone, Senator Anwar is a very gentle soul, and he's a very kind, good person, you know, a doctor, but he is special. He is specially kind and good in how fate, whatever you wanna call it, has brought him in to be with us.
Josh Hutchinson: Right.
Sarah Jack: There are situations in life where it can be too late to make something right for somebody specific. We can't make this right for Alice. We can't change how it unfolded for her. But especially when you have people [00:43:00] saying, "hey, I want this made right," and there is an avenue to find a way to make things right, that we should all answer, "yes, let's do it." Because then that goodness and the kindness and the diminishing the fear of others can be worked on.
Jane Garibay: And I feel that in my town a lot. We were the first town to declare racism a health emergency, lots of different things. People thinking of all people. Um, A core group that is very thoughtful. And part of it is we're such a diverse community here, and I'm talking older, young, you know, by age, by sex, by nationality, race, a lot of times that brings out a lot of good.
Josh Hutchinson: When people do push back on the bill, what are some of the reasons they're giving?
Jane Garibay: I think people's initial reaction, some people, but it's been few. It really [00:44:00] has not been like it was in 2008. They kind of see it as frivolous. I have another bill that, kind of my rescue dog and in talking to our animal caucus that I put through a bill to name the rescue animal, the state animal, and people were just like, "are you kidding?" They couldn't see the bigger picture of talking about rescue animals. We had 28 Guinea pigs dropped off at our dog pound in the middle of winter in a cage, so it just brings awareness to it. So I think most people are like, "what's important to me may not be important to you, but I can support what you wanna do, even though it doesn't really affect me, and you can support my." We each come from a different place. And I think that's the response I've had from Representative Stafstrom, from leadership, and from most. People are, "oh, I wanna sign on to that." Especially when you [00:45:00] make the comparison today with women's rights. And understanding it. And I could go into another whole couple hours about that, but we won't tonight, another day, another conversation.
Josh Hutchinson: That brings up another question. How significant is it that this resolution was brought forth by a woman?
Jane Garibay: I don't know, I don't think I thought about that. I mean, I didn't think of me as a woman being the one to do it. I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do. I had the connection with Beth and Mary, I think she's the one that reached out and she reached out to a lot of people, but I was the one that answered the call. I think she reached out to quite a few, and from what I understand, I was the only one that answered her. And, but I immediately thought from what I read her letter and talking to Beth and knowing what Beth had gone through in Windsor, I thought, this is the time. It's now. Like, Sometimes you just feel that it's the time that something's right? Now's the time. [00:46:00] 20 years from now, it might not be, and maybe it wasn't ready 20 years ago, you know, people weren't ready for it. But I believe now is the time, and I've had a lot of support from fellow legislators, and we'll see that when they sign on, once the bill is out and registered, co-sponsor it.
Sarah Jack: That's exciting.
Jane Garibay: It is exciting.
Sarah Jack: I think there's significance that you, yourself, a woman could do something like this for a historical wrong against many women, but it's also significant that it can be anybody working together for them now, cuz in the 17th century it couldn't have just been women stopping it, and certainly there wouldn't have been men and women working together to stop it.
Jane Garibay: Well, even 30, 40 years ago, I know one of my predecessors that held my seat years ago said there were a few women in the legislature at that time. And I know that leadership[00:47:00] works hard, and it's excited to have a diverse population in the House, because we women bring on different perspectives, you we have a lot of younger that are probably 30, 35 years old. I'm not gonna say where, how many moons I've been through, but, you know, a little bit older. But we all work together and bring different perspectives. And whether we're of color, we're white, all different, and we come from all different backgrounds. That's what enriches the law making, cuz we all talk together, et cetera. And that's why you campaign for your bills, because that way you get to explain it and talk about it and build that excitement.
Josh Hutchinson: It's significant that we've come at least that far in diversifying and getting over our othering of each other so that people can work together in legislature.
Jane Garibay: And believe it or not, we do work together most of the time. I think they calculated that most bills are [00:48:00] bipartisan, 75 to 80%. And you only hear about those big, the few stances on a couple. But on most things we can work together. I'm excited to be chair of aging, because we work together. It is very bipartisan. You're working to keep our elderly safe and cared for, so since my time, anyways, it was last year and year so far I feel bipartisan support for moving our laws and policies forward, and I believe the same will be with the exoneration bill.
Josh Hutchinson: Okay.
Jane Garibay: And just looking for a few things like I was talking that we need to name the people. It can't just be a general exoneration. We need to name them. So we're keeping our thumb on some of those facts, and we'll see what they come out with finally. And even then, when a bill is heard, an amendment can be made. You know, I don't know what it's gonna look like, but we can all, it can always, if something is missing, you can make an amendment to the bill. And there are bills that sometimes pass with [00:49:00] just a basic bill, and then the next year something's put in to add to it. I'm hoping this bill comes out pretty much what we have envisioned or you have envisioned, because this is your bill, this isn't my bill or Saud Anwar's bill. We're just your vehicle. This is your bill. We're just the tools, vehicle to get it done.
Sarah Jack: When the team worked on the writing of the resolution, there was so much research and conversation about it, so that we were hitting the things that were important.
Jane Garibay: So we'll wait. They have all that material, the judiciary, so we're hoping, and the good thing is because it didn't matter whether it was me or whether it was Senator Anwar. In the end, both the Senate and the House are part of the Judiciary Committee, and it will come out as a Judiciary bill. It won't be my bill or his bill. It'll come out as a Judiciary bill. [00:50:00] And in the end, for anything like this, at least I believe, you know, I can be proud that I had a part in something, but I want the vehicle that's gonna give it most chance for success of passing. That's what we want. And then I'll love to work with you afterwards on the trail, and that can be very, very exciting.
Sarah Jack: That'll be a really fun part.
Jane Garibay: You know, and get representatives from each town and yes, that will be very rewarding to be able to put it out and to do, and we'll have to have opening day all on our bikes on the trail.
Sarah Jack: Oh, that would be so great.
Jane Garibay: I have an electric bike, so I've got it easy. I had never used one until we did the Spain Camino.
Josh Hutchinson: That's a good way to take in the sites.
Jane Garibay: I just wanna go leisurely. And we stop along the way, and we do weekends, or we'll stop at lunch at a restaurant. It is a lot of fun. So I see that when visiting [00:51:00] these historic monuments and taking the time and maybe staying overnight, because if you're doing that whole going down to Stamford, it's gonna be a long ride.
Josh Hutchinson: That could have a positive impact for the communities all along the way, local businesses.
Jane Garibay: Absolutely. I know we're working on ours, cause Hartford comes into Windsor, and now they're trying to bring it down towards the center, where there won't be a trail along the river, but you would come out into the town. I don't think we'll have an exact bike trail, but then you get on Palisado Avenue, the historic district, it's pretty wide. So there could be a designated, which is different than a bike trail, cuz we have the room for that. And then you hit Windsor Locks, and there's the canal trail they have that goes all the way up to Suffield. What are the other towns that had people executed?
Josh Hutchinson: Farmington, Fairfield, [00:52:00] Wethersfield, Stratford, Stamford, Wallingford, of course, had accused.
Jane Garibay: So it's all over the state?
Josh Hutchinson: it was all over the place, all up the Connecticut River and then all along the coast. But the education is a really important piece for us. We see that as really being one way exoneration is significant in itself is to educate people that these things have happened, people have these tendencies, what can we learn, and how do we move forward?
Jane Garibay: And so when I talk about the bike, it's just making it fun so people wanna go and do it.
Sarah Jack: Families look for meaningful activities that can be educational when they're traveling or locally, but so do businesses and corporate teams, great team [00:53:00] building, plus a human rights advocacy component to it. It's pretty great.
Jane Garibay: Well, when we traveled with my three kids when they were younger, we would go down to Pennsylvania, different places. We had a camper at one point, but we in the morning would be each go to the museum or a library or to visit something historic, et cetera. And then in the afternoon, it would be at the hotel, in the pool, and the kind, you know, the fun. So they thought it was great fun to do that. and it is one, you know, it's the best way to get people to get out. And our museums that were free this summer in Connecticut for families, I know our museums, they were subsidized by the state to be able to do that. And they had huge showing. Families used it.
So it was great, because Connecticut tends to have very expensive fees to get into places. It's not like Europe where, you know, it's a couple bucks, and you're in. Here, it's $25 [00:54:00] for an aquarium, or it's very expensive.
Josh Hutchinson: Even if people go out for the recreation and the health parts of it, that's a win. And if they get educated by accident, they're still getting educated by stopping to take a break at the plaque, you know, they see and read about what's happened and they'll learn.
Jane Garibay: The one in Spain, which I just love, and I have the sign downstairs. There's, it's a conch shell is the emblem. So that's where you see on coast that directs you with the little, yellow arrow, which way you have to go, et cetera. and there's a passport. So as you're traveling, you get stamps. There's a bar made out of beer bottles. Believe it or not, everything is a beer bottle. And so you go in there, and you check it out and again, you're being educated on certain things, but it's all made fun.
Josh Hutchinson: [00:55:00] It's part of a experience.
Jane Garibay: Even though the topic isn't execution. But it's fun learning and understanding. At least it's for me.
Josh Hutchinson: The Camino's on my list of things to do one day. I hiked a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail one year, and that was the experience of a lifetime doing that, so well, I'm looking for more once in a lifetime experiences. I want them, you know, four or five times instead.
Jane Garibay: Right? I wanna do it again, the Camino. We wanna make it two times in a lifetime because, and we've traveled pretty, you know, we've been to China and India and, you know, most European countries, just so many places. But the Camino was a special place. I can't explain it. And I had all my friends from Windsor paint rocks and write "from Windsor." So all [00:56:00] along the Camino, I would leave their rock and take a picture and send it to 'em, and they would say, "from Windsor, Connecticut." So those are the experiences that I really enjoy.
Josh Hutchinson: I could talk about trails probably for days, because it's such a powerful experience to do something like that. And you meet people all walks of life.
Jane Garibay: That is a good match for exoneration trail.
Josh Hutchinson: It's such a beautiful idea. We want to see every one of the communities that was involved do something to honor victims and have places where people can go and pay their respects and learn the facts, and that ties it all together so neatly.
Sarah Jack: Jane, is there anything else that you would like to specifically say about this experience or what you're doing or just anything else?
Jane Garibay: [00:57:00] I think I'm fortunate to have become involved in this and meet all of you. It's very emotional and to know what this means to people that in some way I can help to heal. This whole experience reminds me of kindness, hope, acceptance, and so many things that we get so busy in life. I mean, I always try to remember those things, but something like this just really is very powerful, right. And working together for a common goal, to help lots of people, right? Just everyone that's been affected by this. So I feel very fortunate to be involved to work on your bill. I don't wanna forget that it is your bill. I am just the vehicle.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much for working with us. It's a real treat and just watching you do your work. We know that you take this seriously, and that you're very busy behind the scenes doing a lot for [00:58:00] this. So we really appreciate that.
Jane Garibay: Our work isn't finished. We're like in the last lap here, right? We just gotta get that finish line together.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, exactly. But we appreciate you continuing patiently, persistently and just following through all the way to the end.
Jane Garibay: Thank you for letting me be part of this.
Josh Hutchinson: Absolutely. You've been the perfect representative to take this up.
Jane Garibay: And now we have Senator Anwar, so, you know, it all works out well.
Josh Hutchinson: And we appreciate everything that Matthew has done. We know he's done a lot of work back there.
Jane Garibay: Incredibly, because it's above and beyond for him. Do you know what I mean? He's the head of staff for the majority leader, but he's always been helpful. And when I went to him with this idea, he was on board right away, from the beginning, you know, as was the speaker and a ton of people. [00:59:00] So it's gonna be good.
Sarah Jack: Thank you very much, Matthew Brokman and Jane Garibay and Saud Anwar. Just the flexibility to accommodate, to respond to questions, to inform us. When Josh and I talked about how to thank you, we had so many points, so many facets of it. We just appreciate all the details.
Jane Garibay: So we're mutually appreciative.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for taking the time out to speak with us today. It's, I think this will be a very important to understand this issue.
Jane Garibay: Thank you for having me. We're passionate about it, so it was really very easy.
Josh Hutchinson: Your remarks were incredible. You're really very good at expressing your passion.
Jane Garibay: Because it is a passion, right? I think that's the easy part. When it's not, it's different.
Josh Hutchinson: It wasn't forced. It was [01:00:00] very real.
Jane Garibay: Your passion is contagious, seriously, and Beth's passion. It was just very easy to get involved with this and to see the need and the right of the issue.
Sarah Jack: We want you to hear the proposed resolution.
Resolved by this assembly:
Whereas,
The courts in the early colonies of Connecticut and New Haven indicted at least 34 women and men for the alleged crime of witchcraft and convicted 12 of them, executing 11, and it is now accepted by the historical profession and society as a whole that all the accused were innocent of such charges.
And whereas,
Legal procedures differed at the time, and many practices of the court would no longer meet modern standards of proof, so that the miscarriage of justice was facilitated by such procedures.
And whereas,
The status of women was radically different than it is today, and misogyny played a large part in the trials and in denying defendants their rights and dignity. [01:01:00]
Whereas,
Community strife and panic combined with overwhelming fear and superstition led to these accusations of alleged witchcraft and the subsequent suffering of those accused.
Now therefore, be it resolved,
That all of the formally convicted and executed are exonerated of all alleged crimes relating to the charges of witchcraft. The legislature proclaims the innocence of the following convicted and executed people: Alice Young in 1647, Mary Johnson in 1648, Joan Carrington in 1651, John Carrington in 1651, Goodwife Bassett in 1651, Goodwife Knapp in 1653, Lydia Gilbert in 1654, Mary Sanford in 1662, Nathaniel Greensmith in 1663, Rebecca Greensmith in 1663, and Mary Barnes in 1663, and one Elizabeth Seager, convicted and reprieved in 1665.
Be it further resolved,
That those who were indicted, forced to flee, banished, or even [01:02:00] acquitted, continued to live with their reputations destroyed and their family names tarnished will have their reputations restored and no longer have disgrace attached to their names, now being in good standing in Connecticut. The following indicted who were not convicted but still suffered greatly after indictments were: Goodwife Bailey in 1655, Nicholas Bailey in 1655, Elizabeth Godman in 1655, Elizabeth Garlick in 1658, unknown person in Saybrook in 1659, Margaret Jennings 1661, Nicholas Jennings in 1661, Judith Varlet 1662, Andrew Sanford in 1662, William Ayers in 1662, Judith Ayers in 1662, James Wakeley in 1662, Katherine Harrison in 1668 and 1669, William Graves in 1667, Elizabeth Clawson in 1692, Hugh Crosia in 1692, Mercy Disborrough in 1692, [01:03:00] Mary Harvey in 1692, Hannah Harvey in 1692, Mary Staples in 1692, Winifred Benham in 1697, and Winifred Benham Jr. in 1697.
Be it further resolved,
That the state of Connecticut apologizes to the descendants of all those who are indicted, convicted, and executed and for the harm done to the accused person's posterity to the present day and acknowledges the trauma and shame that wrongfully continued to affect the families of the accused.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us as you always do next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell your friends, family, acquaintances, and neighbors about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great [01:04:00] today and a beautiful tomorrow.

February 23, 2023

New York Witch Trials: Accused of Witchcraft in New York with Scott R Ferrara

You’ve heard about the Salem Witch Trials, but what about New York Witch Trials? Anthropologist and Archeologist Scott Ferrara introduces stories and folklore of witchcraft accusations that impacted diverse peoples in the colony of New York in the 17th century. We get to dig into some individual histories and discuss details about early accused witches who faced their community outsiders.

We connect the dark past of witch hunts to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

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Transcript

[00:00:00]

Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we speak with Scott R. Ferrara, author of Accused of Witchcraft in New York, which discusses witchcraft accusations involving the various cultures in what is now the state of New York.
Sarah Jack: We had a great conversation with Scott. We got to talk about some topics that are not often in witch trial discussions, including intersecting cultures in New York, the Native American witchcraft [00:01:00] beliefs and their responses to colonization and colonists who came into their worlds. And we got to talk about some of the ways that the accused witch history and the New York folklore blend together.
Josh Hutchinson: We got to learn about how the native cultures of what is now the state of New York were effected by colonization, how their witchcraft beliefs developed in response to European intrusion. We got to learn some of the key differences in how the Dutch and the English applied witchcraft law, and also, we learned about the similarities in their cultural [00:02:00] witchcraft beliefs.
Sarah Jack: One of the things we put the microscope on is some of the spectral stories that the accusers were telling and the specific occurrence of being hagridden.
Josh Hutchinson: We learned about apotropaic symbols in homes, which were used as protections against witchcraft and malevolent spirits, learned why they stuffed certain things into their walls and how they thought they could prevent a witch from coming in the door.
Sarah Jack: They weren't even sure they could keep warriors and soldiers out of their homes, but they took all this care to get this protection.
Josh Hutchinson: It was just part of their natural world. Scott explained some of that, how it was just part of life, part of their [00:03:00] understanding of how things worked, that witchcraft was a real and present danger. Just like today we have alarms, camera systems, locks on our doors, they carved symbols into walls and hung things over their doors to prevent witches and bad spirits from getting inside. And that was both the Dutch and the English that were doing that.
Sarah Jack: Scott's perspective is really great. I enjoyed hearing how Scott has used witchcraft fear to draw people to the material culture and how it all intersects and tells more of a story.
Josh Hutchinson: And it was fascinating, between the interview and reading Scott's upcoming book, to learn how very different [00:04:00] New York was from the New England colonies when it came to witchcraft accusations and trials. One thing I found interesting about reading Scott's book was following the lives of the Connecticut accused once they crossed colonial lines. It's a very fascinating field of study in itself. Like, what happened to them after they escaped or left after their trial and relocated.
Sarah Jack: And what's so great about it is some of them, we have such limited information about their Connecticut life and trial. We have this extension of their life. We have some of that information.
And here is Josh's history segment.
Josh Hutchinson: In this week's history segment, I'd like to cover some individuals accused of witchcraft in Connecticut [00:05:00] who later became New York residents.
Elizabeth Garlick of East Hampton was accused in 1658. At the time, East Hampton was part of Connecticut. It did become part of New York later on. Elizabeth was tried May 5th, 1658. Fortunately for her magistrate, John Winthrop, Jr. Was on the case in his first witchcraft trial, she was indicted but neither convicted nor acquitted. Instead, her husband was ordered to pay a large bond to assure the court of his wife's good behavior and that she should appear in court periodically. Elizabeth is said to have lived another 42 years after her trial to the age of about 100 years and died in around 1700. [00:06:00] Her resting place is unknown.
Judith Varlet and Goodwife Ayers were both accused in 1662, during the Hartford Witch Panic. Ayers and her husband William escaped to New York. Varlet was saved by the intervention of New York Governor Petrus Stuyvesant and also escaped to that colony, where she married Nicholas Bayard and settled on High Street in Manhattan.
Katherine Harrison was a wealthy widow of Wethersfield, Connecticut. She was accused of witchcraft in April 1668 and acquitted in October, but she was again indicted on May 25th, 1669. At that point, magistrates asked several questions of a group of ministers led by Gershom Bulkeley. A second trial was held October 12th [00:07:00] without word yet from the ministers. Harrison was found guilty and condemned to die. Fortunately for her, the ministers did answer on October 20th and ruled that multiple witnesses were needed to each alleged incident. So the spectral evidence used against her was ruled out and she was reprieved but told to leave Connecticut.
She relocated to Westchester, New York, which is now Westchester Square in the Bronx. A group of people there were unhappy to have an alleged witch in their presence and petitioned the governor to have her removed from town. The governor listened to this petition and issued an order for her to leave. However, she refused. The governor then ordered her to appear before him, where she pled her case. Governor allowed her to [00:08:00] remain in the town, but she could not escape the gossip and ill treatment, so she ultimately left the town and may have moved to Long Island.
Goodwife Miller, whose first name is unknown, was accused of witchcraft in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1692. Upon hearing of the accusations she fled to nearby Bedford, New York and Connecticut authorities were unable to extradite her.
You've heard us talk about Winifred King Benham and her daughter Winifred Benham Jr. before. What you might not know is that Winifred King Benham's mother, Mary King Hale, was accused of witchcraft in Boston before Winifred was accused herself in Connecticut. Winifred King married Joseph Benham of Wallingford, Connecticut and settled there. On November 2nd, 1692, Winifred [00:09:00] was examined on suspicion of witchcraft. At that time, the court dismissed the case, due to insufficient evidence. However, five years later, on August 31st, 1697, Winifred King Benham was accused of witchcraft once again, along with her daughter Winifred, Jr. They were both acquitted October 7th and fled Connecticut, probably living on Staten Island.
Sarah Jack: Thanks for giving us some details on that history, Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome.
Sarah Jack: I'm so happy to introduce Scott R. Ferrara, an archeologist and anthropologist, the author of Accused of Witchcraft in New York.
Scott Ferrara: I've been studying the 17th century in the northeast United States for a while now, particularly in my studies for school, graduate studies in archeology. And I think anyone could really be [00:10:00] drawn into witchcraft. It's interesting. It's cool.
I particularly study past plant use, paleoethnobotany, the study of how people have used plants in the past. And I think there's this perception of witchcraft is particularly in Europe as herbs and potions and things like that. And every now and then I would come across accounts in 17th century New England and the Northeast here pertaining to herbalism and herbal remedies. Only a few circumstances intersect with accounts of witchcraft. And I, I thought that was pretty interesting, and it caught my eye.
And when talking about plants and botany with most people you tend to lose their attention, but when you start talking about things like, you know, um, witchcraft and what we perceive today as the supernatural, people tend to perk up. They tend to get pretty interested in the subject and start listening a little bit more closely. I have found talking about witchcraft, particularly, is a great way to get people interested [00:11:00] in the history of a region, particularly the 17th century and get them to retain information and concepts and understanding of past human behavior and how people understood their world during these really early time periods, at least for European settlers in the Americas. Which is of course not the only worldview that we're talking about when we talk about the 17th century. We also have here in the Americas during the 17th century, it's multiple European empires are here, but also many Native American tribes who are already here and already had their own perceptions of witchcraft, and not really witchcraft, but religions that sometimes attributed bad things to malevolent forces, and then also religions that came here with enslaved African people.
It's all interconnected. It's all entangled. And I just found it very interesting. One strand of study that I particularly study [00:12:00] is colonialism in the northeast United States. And when we're looking at colonialism, we're looking at all of these different demographics and people who are here and how they're entangled. It's not really discussed so much how this relates to witchcraft and spiritual beliefs. So I thought it would be interesting to dive into that and look at not only European settlers but how Native Americans and enslaved African people were all dealing with these type of witchcraft beliefs.
Sarah Jack: What was the witchcraft situation in New York before the arrival of the Europeans?
Scott Ferrara: Before the arrival of Europeans we had within the bordered area of New York as we understand it today, New York state that is, we had the Algonquin language group of Native Americans, consisting of many tribes, particularly in coastal New York, areas like Long Island. And then upstate New York, we had the Haudenosaunee, also sometimes referred to as the Iroquois. And with these different groups, and of course the [00:13:00] tribes that compose them, their religions sometimes attributed malevolent events or harmful events to different supernatural or rather otherworldly deities and spirits. But nothing as specific as the way we understand witchcraft and European contexts. That's not until Europeans arrive in the 17th century or rather when we have these waves of European settlers arriving. That's really when we get to see this rise in what we understand as witchcraft.
I typically subscribe to one researcher, Amanda Porterfield's, categorization of how Native Americans adopted witchcraft beliefs. There's four categories that Amanda Porterfield covers really or how she breaks down different types of reactions to European witchcraft. And we can actually see these in New York state, particularly how witchcraft presents itself among Native American groups in New York. I'll just briefly [00:14:00] go some of this criteria.
First, we have the identification of the Christian God as actually the Devil and Christians as witches. Native Americans seeing these travelers, seeing these settlers coming to their homeland and spreading things like conflict, disease, war and perceiving European settlers as evil forces.
We see this in the early 1640s with French Jesuits, these Jesuit missionaries in upstate New York, coming to spread Christianity to the Mohawk people, right. And what happens is, these missionaries, they inadvertently spread disease, and when they arrive at one village, they spread their Christianity and then leave to the next village. But once they leave, disease ravages the people in that village, and [00:15:00] many people die, and word spreads that the missionaries aren't here to help them, but rather to hurt them. And they are now perceived as evil.
We also have Native Americans who are identifying themselves as witches. This is a strategy, really, to frighten missionaries. With dwindling numbers, population numbers, Native Americans, due to conflict and disease sometimes retaliation by physical violence is not always a potential strategy anymore, so a way to express aggression and resistance is by sometimes scaring European settlers by identifying themselves as witches.
We also have some Native American groups accepting rather Christian ideas that at least some native religious practices were forms of devil worship. This is not really a complete abandonment of pre-contact native views but rather another [00:16:00] way that witchcraft presents itself among Native American groups is this of full acceptance of Christian ideas that at least some native religious practices were forms of devil worship. This represents really a complete abandonment of pre-contact religious practices, complete acceptance of converted Native Americans to Christian worldviews.
And then we also have Native Americans who resisted conversion to Christianity but desired cultural reform. They didn't really believe that their own practices were devil worship, but they wanted some kind of cultural reform. And they could achieve this by accepting Christian worldviews that witches existed and possibly they could enact a cultural reform by accepting Christian worldviews and gaining support by European colonial authorities. This we see also in Long Island, in particular Sachem Poggatacut and Sachem Wyandanch on [00:17:00] the eastern end of Long Island. They're accused of witchcraft in the mid 1600s. And this is largely a tactic by New England tribal leaders who are trying to gain support by New England colonial authorities to help in taking over the political authority of Long Island Native American leadership. So the these Native American tribal leaders in New England were really trying to gain support by their colonial European authority partners to really gain that power over Long Island native groups. That's really how it unfolds with native groups with witchcraft.
Josh Hutchinson: Were there significant differences in witchcraft belief between, say, the Iroquois and the Algonquin peoples?
Scott Ferrara: Not so much. With Algonquin Native American groups or, rather, tribes, there's really not a [00:18:00] ton of evidence for really witchcraft belief among Native American groups on or rather within New York. With Native American groups upstate, like the Haudenosaunee, we do see evidence of witchcraft fear. But it's a difficult question, because in the 17th century witchcraft was really a European invention, a European belief system. So to attribute that to Native American groups, it's a slippery slope. It's a difficult thing to compare. It's not until the 18th century and the 19th century with more and more native Americans converting to Christianity, that we start to see a very clear and familiar belief and fear of witchcraft.
Josh Hutchinson: That's such a great explanation. That reminds me of what we're learning about the European colonization of Africa, that there wasn't really a thing that you would call a witch or witchcraft. There [00:19:00] were various magical practices among the groups there, but Christianity and Islam and other foreign religions really introduced the concept of the witch.
Scott Ferrara: I think that's really interesting, because if we consider pretty much every culture that I know of has some kind of witchcraft belief or rather belief of interaction with an other otherworldly presence, right, maybe fear of supernatural forces or even ways of divining the future.
This is just common kind of cultural behaviors that we see a lot, even for people in the 17th century. If we're talking about European settlers, witchcraft wasn't a something that was a superstition. It was part of the natural world. It was something that was really common that people had to interact with and deal with on a pretty common basis. Witches existed, and they could cause you harm. And it wasn't superstition, [00:20:00] it was part of their life. With other cultures, this not only is applicable, but it actually presents in different ways, even though it's very similar beliefs.
Sarah Jack: One of the things that I've learned over these episodes and all the reading and studying is the distinction between the malevolent forces and the diabolical fear. The religion and culture really informed that for people. It did for myself. I really see the before contact and the after contact and how those views collide and then what we have here today in the world with everything. To me, it's two very big concepts that are similar but very different with the definitions and the understanding and the origins. Why is it important to understand that different cultures had different motivations for accusations?
Scott Ferrara: One [00:21:00] large part about understanding this is that our view of, say the 17th and 18th centuries in in North America, or particularly what I study in New York, is that we tend to think of these time periods as mostly European settlers here creating a society, creating a culture, right, creating the United States. But this isn't the full story. We have Native Americans and enslaved Africans, who are all part of the story, all deeply entangled.
So, seeing belief systems purely through the lens of European communities and or, rather, Euro-American communities, it's, it is problematic. We're focusing on just one demographic of a lot of people who were settling here. And also I should say, too, I'm not a historian. I'm a anthropologist, so I tend to look at things through mostly past human behavior. Of course, the [00:22:00] particularities of history and lived experiences of very specific people and how events unfolded, that all is very important. That all matters, but I tend to examine the past through anthropological patterns and patterns of behavior. So by looking at these different demographics of people living here, all entangled together in these communities, we can not only gain an understanding of what is causing witchcraft accusations but how it informs our understanding of past human behavior.
Josh Hutchinson: We find that field of study very interesting, because learning about what motivated the people in the past, we can get a lens into what motivates us now and why do we still have the same tendencies as them. It's because humans are humans, but learning about why [00:23:00] they made the witchcraft accusations then helps us understand witchcraft accusations and other forms of witch-hunt-type fear that we have now. So I think that's really important to know about.
Scott Ferrara: I think with the way we understand the past, there's still a lot we have yet to fully understand. The approach that I take to do so is through anthropological archeology, because with the historical record, we don't always get a full picture of what's happening. If we're talking about issues like gender with women in the past who are the majority of people accused of witchcraft in European-American communities, we really don't understand a lot of lived experiences just from the historical record. We find more evidence and more data [00:24:00] to understand these lived experiences through things like artifacts and the material culture that we uncover.
If we are discussing New York, in particular, particularly the Dutch communities of early New Netherland, which became New York, we see that the Dutch, for the most part, at least in court records and these colonial documents of the Dutch who are here, these Dutch settlers, they're not really trying each other for witchcraft. There's a ton of historical analyses done on why that is, different philosophical leanings of Dutch magistrates and skepticism. But it doesn't really shine through in the archeological evidence of of the Dutch past.
So we have Dutch settlers here in New York, who if you were to examine the historical record, you see very little evidence of witchcraft beliefs, but if you look [00:25:00] at the archeological record, the archeological past, different artifacts and markings in these 17th century Dutch American homes of New Netherland. These items may be carvings within households, maybe different apotropaic items, these items that are intended to protect the dweller of these homes from any supernatural evils or evil forces that could harm them spiritually and physically.
So we have evidence of these beliefs among Dutch people but not within Dutch colonial records. So there's a distinction. We can see what's happening in the historical record, and we can see where people's minds are but not always where everyone's mind is. We see Dutch and English magistrates, how they're thinking. And sometimes also why people are suing each other and what are the different causes [00:26:00] for different community litigations, but not always the full picture.
Josh Hutchinson: We're very interested in the differences between the Dutch and the English and why it was witchcraft accusations were so prevalent among the English, but not the Dutch.
Scott Ferrara: There are lots of different thoughts on this. There are some historians who have credited this with Dutch Magistrates really subscribing to Erasmian philosophy, this type of skepticism of supernatural forces or really the ability that a person could actually sign a compact with the devil and wreak havoc. We also have a standardization of how legal education is taught to the Dutch judiciary. Also a demand for really strong empirical proof for any criminal case and this resistance of pursuing any [00:27:00] accusations of witchcraft.
It starts in the Dutch fatherland, in the Netherlands, and carries over to to New Netherland, later New York. And we don't really see people being accused of witchcraft here. Even after the English arrest control of new Netherland and change it to New York in the mid 1600s, we still have a very strong Dutch influence in the region. So even then, when Euro-American settlers are accused of witchcraft, it really doesn't lead anywhere. Those cases are acquitted. Those magistrates are now tasked with both appeasing the local community members, who are quite upset about a harmful event that occurred and this accused witch but also having some rationality within the situation and finding common ground where they can, they don't have to actually sentence a person to death for this crime, for witchcraft, but also appease these local community members.
Sarah Jack: And what would've [00:28:00] been similar between English and Dutch witchcraft beliefs? Did anything stick out?
Scott Ferrara: We have a lot of these different apotropaic items, these items that are intended to protect the dwellers of a household from spiritual attacks. And there's a lot of different ways people can do this. We have, for one, leather boots that are found in the walls of historic structures today. These were a form of protection. Horseshoes, everyone knows about horseshoes over the threshold of a door to protect the dweller from spiritual attack. Dried feline corpses, so deceased cats were placed in the walls, mummified naturally, and this presented itself in historic structures that we find today in the archeological record. And it was almost used as a minor sacrifice. You had these cats, which are home protectors from things like rodents and pests. So it was believed that the spirit of that cat would [00:29:00] protect the residents after death from supernatural nuisances. So placing a dried feline corpse in the wall was another form of spiritual protection. Different markings on the beams, exposed beams of structures, known as witches marks, were thought to protect the residents of witch spirits, spectral occurrences. There's a few more different strategies that people could take to really protect themselves.
Josh Hutchinson: That's really intriguing. That's the first time I've heard an explanation for why they had the cats in the walls. I had seen that they'd done that, but I didn't realize it was the cat's spirit protecting against other spiritual forces.
Scott Ferrara: There's quite a number of ways that people could protect themselves, which is pretty interesting, too, because if you look in the historical record, different accounts, whether you have the witch cakes in Salem or there was some [00:30:00] kind of witch jar.
With Winifred King Benham 's mother, different ways to get back at witches, to protect yourself or to identify witches. And it's interesting that those occurrences aren't examined with the same scrutiny as an accused witch. But I think this just goes to show that with different divination practices, they're not always seen as malevolent. They're actually quite accepted, not only in 17th century, your American cultures, but throughout the world, even today.
Josh Hutchinson: It's a fascinating area of study. How was the devil involved in European witchcraft?
Scott Ferrara: There are two forms of witchcraft that we examine in the historical record, right. There's this malevolent form, malefic ium, or rather harmful magic, that witches can exert to harm people. And then also diabolical, which really deals with the nature of how a witch gains this power within this Christian worldview. So within[00:31:00] the legal system of how we actually prosecute witches in the 17th century, you really need to make that connection that the accused witch had some kind of interaction or some kind of deal with the Devil. If that evidence isn't there, it's very hard to convict.
If we look at Goodwife Elizabeth Garlic k in Easthampton, she's accused of the death of the 16 year old daughter of one of the wealthiest landowners, one of the most prominent settlers in that region, Lion Gardiner. Even though she's accused, they have a hard time connecting what happened to a compact with the Christian Devil or Satan, leads to her acquittal. If there's not that clear connection with signing your name in the Devil's book or meeting with the Devil, then most certainly it'll lead to an acquittal, at least in the European or English legal system.
Sarah Jack: And were there sinister entities involved in Native American witchcraft?
Scott Ferrara: [00:32:00] A lot of what qualifies as witchcraft with Native American belief systems draws on public health and epidemiology, right. We have a lot of these Native American causes for believing someone to be spiritually harmful. Boils down to just death from disease, maybe medical condition that has spread. There's this medical reasoning for the accusation from Native American people to accuse someone of witchcraft. This happens not only in the 17th century but also in the 18th century.
We have instances where Native Americans are accusing either Europeans or other Native Americans of witchcraft, because of the spread of disease and death. Now, granted, this use of the term witchcraft is also very tricky because in the historical record, we're not observing Native Americans using this term of witchcraft. We're seeing Euro-American observers translating [00:33:00] what's happening as witchcraft. So, it's a very tricky ground when you're looking at all these different kind of this cross-cultural phenomenon of witchcraft.
Sarah Jack: And I was thinking how you mentioned some of the tribes viewed the Christian God as sinister, because of the disease and the death that was showing up. So that would be sinister.
Scott Ferrara: The first people that are actually accused and executed for what we're translating as witchcraft in New York State are those French Jesuit missionaries in upstate New York. And they are both accused and executed because of this threat, this spread of disease among Mohawk villages that is attributed to them by Mohawk people.
Josh Hutchinson: I found that part very interesting in the book. And I wanna change subjects for a moment if we [00:34:00] can and talk about family history, because I understand you have a connection, and I found a new connection in your book. I'm descended from Captain John Seamans, who was one of the grand jurors for the Halls. And I found that really fascinating, because that particular branch of my family, I hadn't had any connections with witchcraft before. And so that was really interesting to me. And what is your connection to witch trials?
Scott Ferrara: Before I answer that, I want to say with Captain John Seamans, it's a very ubiquitous name on Long Island. We have Seaman's Neck Road. A few different roads and place names named after him. I visited his grave site in, it's in Wantagh a town on Long Island here. We have a lot of different Native American place names. And a few towns over from where I'm located at there's this town of Wantagh, that's where he's buried. But it's a private cemetery. It's hard to get access [00:35:00] to. But you could see his, if you're squinting real hard. You can make out the tombstones. You can try to identify where he is.
But yeah with my own family history, on my father's mother, my grandmother on my father's side, we have a family named the Lyon, L Y O N, the Lyons. Doing my own genealogical research, I traced this back to, I think it was Fairfield, Connecticut. I guess my, I don't know, 9th or 10th back family members were involved in the trials of Goodwife Staples and Goodwife Knapp, I believe it was. And not a really involved relationship there.
My ancestor provided testimony, pretty much, I think it was Goodwife Staples, it was who said the deal was, your soul will be saved if you confess to more witches. And at first, she obviously, she wasn't a witch, and no one was who was accused, so she didn't confess or name other people. [00:36:00] And then before she was about to be executed, she attempted to name more people. And I guess one of my ancestors gave, I'm not really too sure of the details, it's not very well written, but pretty much said that she shouldn't name anyone else, because she's just trying to save herself in this moment and don't throw other people under the bus at this moment. So not really a large part in what was happening, but it was just interesting to see a family connection there to this area of study, which I hadn't found, I hadn't known about this until I started developing my interests in this subject.
Josh Hutchinson: We came into this subject because of our family connections, so we went the other way and found out about the connections and then got deeply interested in the subject.
Sarah Jack: My ancestor, Winifred Benham, discovering her story in what [00:37:00] little bit I could find is what pushed me out of my Salem research and interest and helped me to see, "hey, there's a much bigger picture we get to look at." And I love that your coverage of her family really gives a lot of detail and some really great sources. And it's really great that you have those all together for the descendants. And I love comparing the colonies and how they were different and that family had trial experience in Massachusetts Colony as well as Connecticut. And then they find their safe haven in New York. It crosses through all of those territories and what was going on. So I find that really interesting.
Scott Ferrara: A big part of what with my research and my book project, one thing that mattered a lot to me was providing as many sources, at least, to the primary source documents, right, to the original documents as I [00:38:00] possibly could, just because I think that's what really matters the most. I tried my hardest to really piece together what logically and chronologically made sense for interpreting their stories and interpreting what exactly happened with these events.
But there's not really a lot of details of people's lives back then, particularly women. It was three generations of the Benham family. It was her mother, Winifred King Benham, and then also her daughter. And the only time really we see women in the historical record is when you know they're being sued or some kind of legal issue, and you don't really get the full picture. So by providing all of these primary source documents where I'm getting this from, not only can you see how I'm interpreting the order of events, if you, the reader, want to go look at those, you can do your own research and interpretations of what's happening in the past, right.
I think that's what kind of really matters. But, yeah, they actually have really interesting story, the Benhams. That's the only really location I haven't been able to make it to, where Winifred, Sr. settled down in Staten [00:39:00] Island. That's still on my list of places to visit.
Sarah Jack: I would love to do that one day, too.
Josh Hutchinson: We're hoping to get to a few of these places this year, so hopefully we get out there.
Sarah Jack: I like that what can be known, you talked about, cuz one of the things that when I mean it's going to change because more information is getting talked about and is available, but when I first started looking at Winifred Sr.'s story, first, she's just folklore for Wallingford, but then there's this is she in the, buried in the cemetery there? Is she not? And Tony Griego, one of our advocates with the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, he went and did investigation there to find out, what do we know? And yes, there are Benhams there, but that's all we know. But you were able to pull up records showing children being born in New York or living in New York, getting married in New York. So it added to that story. It pulled some [00:40:00] facts out of the folklore.
Scott Ferrara: And I think that's a really interesting point you brought up, is these people who are accused of witchcraft, where are they today? A lot of the places that I've visited, uh, people that were accused of witchcraft, either in New York or outside of New York, and decamped here or rather fled here and started new life here in New York. Where are all their grave sites? It's very rare that we see them. That's on my agenda for kind of future research, looking more deeply into the heritage of witchcraft and where all of these different grave markers are. Is it something that's too embarrassing for a community, so the grave marker is removed? Or what exactly is happening there? Because it's very rare. One gravestone that I actually did find was in Salem, New York. There was a woman accused of witchcraft, there, a mother, and her gravestone, along with her husband and the rest of her family, they're, it's still there in, in Salem, New York, which I found pretty cool, but actually pretty rare.
Sarah Jack: That would be significant. I [00:41:00] know out of all of the hundreds of accused colonial American colony victims, we surmise where they were. We think they're on family land, but there is not, you can't walk up and say, here's so-and-so resting.
Scott Ferrara: I think Rebecca Nurse, right. I think her grave site is marked.
Sarah Jack: It's presumed. There's a monument.
Josh Hutchinson: People believe that we know where Rebecca Nurse is buried based on the family history of it, and there is that memorial there, and there's still a little cemetery there.
Sarah Jack: I think when I say, "presumed," I'm saying at the death, the burial wasn't marked and preserved until now.
Josh Hutchinson: And the family had to take the body away and bury it on their own land. They never got buried in cemeteries, as far as we know, because that [00:42:00] was just frowned upon.
Scott Ferrara: It's very interesting, exactly what happened. And I that's a large part of what made the project in Salem so important where I think it was what Marilynne K. Roach and I believe Emerson Baker might have been on that project, too, when they identified the the ledge where all those victims were executed. So just identifying both places and names is very important to understanding the past and preserving the past.
Josh Hutchinson: That's so important to understand the past. We want to understand the individual lives and the individual cases, what actually happened with these people and tell the stories of the people, which is interesting in your book, how you broke it down by individual person to give them an opportunity for their story to be told.
Scott Ferrara: That made the most sense to me, to break it down chronologically and like these little biographical narratives of each person in chronological order. To make [00:43:00] sense of how, not only who's being accused and what little we can find of their life story, but also observing how culture and the legal system is changing in New York. And also, by seeing these different individual accounts, we can also maybe draw out different reasons for why people are being accused within these different cultures. It made the most sense to approach it that way, especially for a public audience.
Josh Hutchinson: I'm very interested in the sleep paralysis aspect of the accusations, because I've personally experienced sleep paralysis, and I've been what you described as hagridden, basically. But could you explain for our audience what it means to be hagridden?
Scott Ferrara: Things like sleep paralysis, being hagridden, right. This actually occurs quite often in witchcraft accusations. It relates to [00:44:00] spectral appearances, being paralyzed in the state between being awake and dreaming, where a lot of your biases towards fears in your life can present itself. So for people like Hannah Travally in Southampton, that's just one example. We also see this with Katherine Harrison. There's instances of accusers seeing these accused individuals, these accused witches in their rooms, bothering them at night. With Hannah Travally for example, in Southampton out on Long Island, her accuser sees her tormenting him by sitting on his roof at night and pretty much tormenting him. With Katherine Harrison, several accusers are seeing her at night. There's actually a very fascinating dialogue between her familiar spirit and one of her victims or rather suspected or alleged victims, I should say, which is very interesting in itself too.
A lot of these primary [00:45:00] source documents, once you start reading into them ,particularly with these sleep paralysis demons, these spectral appearances, when you start reading the primary source accounts, they almost read like screenplays, these dialogues between the familiar spirit or the spectral appearance of the accused witch and the victim. Very fascinating, but , I think it's what brings the genre, if we're gonna see the historical record as almost like a genre, it's what makes it into a horror genre. It's where we get really vivid imagery of these familiar spirits and almost demons that are plaguing witchcraft victims.
Sarah Jack: It really sounds like in these instances there's just such a physical component to it, like the weight of the visiting specter. And the one narrative, the alleged victim was identifying the specter by touching the face in the dark. That just really was horrible to me.
Scott Ferrara: With Katherine Harrison, right, her image appears [00:46:00] several times in testimonies against her We have her head on a dog's body that's tormenting her victims. We also see another testimony where a red calf traveling on a cart transforms into her head right at a certain distance, and all these weird kind of transformations. I think that's also interesting in itself too. This idea linking witchcraft to therianthropic instances, where like humans are transmutating into animals. See this time and time again, not only in testimonies against accused witches, but also the folklore. That was a big decision for my research, grouping in the folklore account of Aunty Greenleaf, New York folklore about a witch into the factual people accused, because with Goody Greenleaf story of animal kind of tormenting or being present when bad things occur, when crops fail and people get sick, [00:47:00] and then being chased down and turning back into a human is not only present in New York folklore, but in so many different folklores is in native American groups upstate New York, even in European, ancient Greek mythology. It's a very interesting concept.
Sarah Jack: It's interesting to me how the harm and the damage that can happen in the spectral phase then might have physical evidence, like in the folklore, the bullets, but maybe in a real life accusation case, there's bruising or an ailment they're complaining of.
Scott Ferrara: With that physical evidence, that's what kind of makes me lean more towards medical explanations of witchcraft accusations, because with the Benham, we see one of their victims who had died had red spots, and some testimony say that Winifred and her daughter Winifred Jr. both had these red spots that dissipated. With Goodwife Ayers and Elizabeth Kelly, they shared a [00:48:00] bowl of warm broth and with Elizabeth Kelly, it was the first autopsy in American history, by a physician named Brian Rossiter, who he actually misattributed the natural process of decomposition of a human body towards witchcraft causes. But one interesting fact to pull out of that was he noticed different red spots that Goodwife Ayers also had. There's also Native American examples of this, too, in the 18th century. This physical evidence is pretty interesting towards understanding witchcraft accusations as like this broader human behavior, and you know how to frame it within a pattern of broader human behavior in the past.
Josh Hutchinson: I found in your descriptions, what you pulled from the court records of the symptoms that the people were reporting are very similar in the Connecticut and New York cases. They're very similar to Salem. They're reporting the pinching and the bruising and the choking and the pressure on [00:49:00] the chest. They're all common across so many different witch trials that we've read about.
Scott Ferrara: I think that really speaks to, besides the bruising, the sleep paralysis and things like that really attest to the psychological state of people back then. Things like I know Mary Beth Norton dives a little bit into conflict with indigenous groups, but, that could be one part of it, but just the trauma of everyday life, losing children, losing family members ,spread of disease, changing political environments. A lot of the stress, and I think any witchcraft scholar can tell you that these instances of witchcraft really appear when there are conditions of societal stress and trauma. Seeing these instances of sleep paralysis and night terrors really, I think, give you a, an insight of what it was like to live back then, at least for some people who were experiencing that anxiety, that stress, that trauma that people just had to work through on a daily basis.
Josh Hutchinson: [00:50:00] I find for me the sleep paralysis is especially interesting, because I've been there. I went through a period of a couple years where that was happening to me fairly regularly, and one of the first times, I wake up, and I can't move at all, and I'm still in a dream state, and so I feel the pressure on my chest, like somebody's on me, and my brain just attributes that to a person being there and fills in the gaps, I guess.
Scott Ferrara: It's very difficult to diagnose people in the past with medical conditions that we experience today. You don't wanna attribute something that's not, a medical condition that's not, hasn't been, diagnosed from a physician. But, still, these accounts and these stories and testimonies, they are so familiar to what we experience today that it's [00:51:00] almost, you read these stories and you're like, wow. I. If not yourself and someone else, who's experienced these things.
Sarah Jack: I really enjoyed your intro talking about your grandfather, so I think that was really a special way to open your book. And I also like that you want people to use the documents as a springboard to do more research for themselves and your encouragement to check out historical sites that are available. I think that's really important.
Scott Ferrara: I do this professionally, so it's sometimes pretty sad when you go to historical societies, museums, and it's just ghost towns in there, you know. You have maybe one historian just sitting quietly by themselves, just clocking into work on a, once or twice a week and just spending time in silence and not a lot of people taking advantage of of these resources we have in our communities. We have town historians, village historians, [00:52:00] historical museums, and they're all available to you. You can pop in whenever you want and learn about your own region and your own story. For the most part, it's free.
Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with an important update on witch-hunts happening now.
Sarah Jack: Here's your Connecticut witch trial exoneration weekly legislation news. The history of Connecticut Witch Trials is a story that has been introduced and embraced in different communities throughout the state over the last few decades through research, books, lectures, and remembrance events. Some specific localized efforts to research and memorialize individual victims have been done at the local level in Farmington and Stratford. The current and past director of the Stanley Whitman House has flavored their public history, education, and program offerings with the elements of local history. This includes uncovering witch trial victim stories and other people's and event stories that combined into the unique local recipe formed by their lives on the land and in the colony.
Thank you to all volunteers and staff that have prioritized these [00:53:00] stories. In a few episodes, you will get to hear more of this inspirational, landmark and program from our return guest, Andy Verzosa. We also see the community of Stratford memorializing. Stratford Historical Society has made plans for their community to learn and celebrate the life of their local accused witch victim, Goody Bassett, with a presentation by local historian Richard Ross at Town Hall. There are plans for Stratford Mayor Laura Hoydick to give a ceremonial proclamation of innocence and for the town council to vote on a resolution absolving victims Goody Bassett and Hugh Croatia of the guilt of colonial witchcraft crimes. Sign up for Thou Shalt Not Suffer episode downloads, because we are bringing a feature episode on Goody Bassett shortly.
Many women are listed in colonial court records as Goody. This is not a first name. This is an omission of what would've been her personal identity. Her first name was known, but the first name of a wife was not legally significant in the court in colonial America. She was supposed to be remembered with dignity. Whenever the name of a historical woman comes up as [00:54:00] Goody, think about her. Think about her lost name. When you are doing research and writing, keep your eye peeled and be thoughtful. If you identify a first name, it is significant to include her first name in your record so that the Goody becomes insignificant and she is more known. The first names of these women may not be lost forever, and their story certainly is being preserved by our writing and nvoices.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is an organized collaboration of advocates working for an official state exoneration of the 17th century accused and hanged witches of the Connecticut Colony. We support the Joint Committee on Judiciary's Bill HJ number 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. It is being sponsored by the following Connecticut legislators: state Representative Jane Garibay, Senator Saud Anwar, State Senator Eleni Kavros-DeGraw, State Representative Aimee Berger-Giravalo, and State Representative Mary Welander. Please support this bill by sponsoring it, if you are a [00:55:00] Connecticut state legislator.
Will you take time today to write a member of the judiciary committee asking them to recognize the relevance of exonerating Connecticut witch trial victims? You can do this whether you are a Connecticut resident or anywhere else in the world. You should do it from right where you are. Now is the time and place to stand for acknowledging that women were not and are not capable of harming others with diabolical or maleficent powers. The victims we wish to exonerate are known to be innocent. The victims of today that we wish to protect are known to be innocent. You can find the information you need to contact a committee member with a letter in the show links. To learn more about attacks on alleged witches today, please see our link to Advocacy for Alleged Witches.
This resolution will be an example to others working to recognize and address historic wrongs. Connecticut is taking a stand against injustice. By acknowledging the mistakes of the past, we educate the public that similar actions are not acceptable today. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project strongly urges the general [00:56:00] assembly to hear the voices of the witch trial victims being amplified by the community today. They were not witches. We hope you'll pass this legislation without delay.
Our project is offering several ways for exoneration supporters to plug in and participate or learn about the exoneration and history. Please download our robust lineup of episodes featuring witch trial descendants, education about hanged witch Alice Young and other victims and Connecticut Colony's Governor John Winthrop Jr.'s positive influence against convicting witches. You can go to our project website for an informative and easy to understand fact sheet of the Connecticut Colony witch trial victims, places, and dates. You can follow along by joining our Discord community or Facebook groups. Links to all these informative opportunities are listed in the episode description.
Use your social power to help Alice Young, America's first executed witch finally be acknowledged. Support the descendants by acknowledging and sharing their ancestors' stories. Remember the victims in modern day facing the same unfair and [00:57:00] dangerous situations. Take time to listen to episode 16, "Witchcraft Accusations in Nigeria with Dr. Leo Igwe." Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and stand with them. Would you like to host a stop and Leo Igwe's upcoming US speaking tour? Please contact us today.
The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our project on social media @ctwitchhunt and visit our website at ConnecticutWitchTrials.org. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is a project of End Witch Hunts movement. End Witch Hunts is a nonprofit organization founded to educate about Witch trial history and advocate for alleged witches. Please support us with your donations or purchases of educational Witch trial books and merchandise. You can shop our merch at zazzle.com/store/EndWitchHunts and zazzle.com/store/thoushaltnotsuffer and shop our books at bookshop.org/EndWitchHunts. We want you as a super listener. [00:58:00] You can help keep Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast in production by super listening with your monthly monetary support. See episode description for links to these support opportunities. We thank you for standing with us and helping us create a world that is safe from witchcraft accusations.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that enlightening news segment.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us like you always do next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Visit our website, thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends and family.
Sarah Jack: Thank you for supporting our efforts at End Witch Hunts. If you'd like to donate, please visit our website at endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:59:00]

February 16, 2023

Between God and Satan with Beth Caruso and Katherine Hermes

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Show Notes

Jump into an informative discussion about revealing research of the Connecticut and Massachusetts witch hunt with Beth Caruso and Katherine Hermes, authors of the article “Between God and Satan: Thomas Thornton, Witch-Hunting, and Religious Mission in the English Atlantic World, 1647–1693 which was published in the Fall 2022 issue of Connecticut History Review.

Beth Caruso, a Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast listener favorite, is the author of the books One of Windsor and The Salty Rose, and Cofounder of the CT Witch Memorial and Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project.

Dr. Katherine Hermes, J.D., Ph.D., is professor of history at Central Connecticut State University, co-host of Grating the Nutmeg podcast, and publisher of Connecticut Explored, the premier magazine of Connecticut History. We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

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Between God and Satan Journal Publication

Connecticut Explored Magazine and Podcast

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CT W.I.T.C.H. Memorial

Samuel Wyllys Papers

Windsor Historical Society

University of VA, Salem Witch Trials Documents and Transcriptions

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Transcript

Sarah Jack: Welcome to another episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I’m Sarah Jack.

Josh Hutchinson: And I’m Josh Hutchinson.

Sarah Jack: Today’s guests are Beth Caruso and Katherine Hermes, authors of the article ” Between God and Satan,” which was published in the fall 2022 Issue of Connecticut History Review. It brings the witch trial bystander Thomas Thornton into focus. Although Thomas Thornton could be considered a possible bystander to New England witchcraft trials, he was a neighbor [00:01:00] of Alice Young, the first accused witch of the American colonies executed, in Connecticut Colony in the Backer Row neighborhood in Windsor, Connecticut, where he also lived.

Josh Hutchinson: He was also present at many other Witch trials, in the same place at the same time, including the Salem Witch trials towards the end of his life. So he’s the one person who connects the first witchcraft execution in New England to the last.

Sarah Jack: And this very researched and informative article is available for you to read and to continue research.

Josh Hutchinson: You’ll enjoy the conversation we have today and learn more about [00:02:00] Thomas Thornton later.

We have so much good content coming to you in this 2023.

Sarah Jack: It’s very exciting to be able to bring so many great conversations. It’s really setting the stage for a great year of content.

Josh Hutchinson: We’re having a wonderfully busy and productive year. We’ve got a lot going on with End Witch Hunts and with the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project. Legislation is on the table to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in colonial Connecticut, and we couldn’t be more excited about that.

Sarah Jack: I’m very excited. I’m personally excited as I descend from one of the accused victims of Connecticut, Winifred Benham, Sr. of Wallingford, and not just because of my connection to her, but [00:03:00] having my interest in the American colony witch trials has encompassed Connecticut, and there’s dozens of accused from that colony that are gonna have the opportunity to no longer be looked at as guilty.

Josh Hutchinson: And whether you’re a descendant of one of the accused or you’re just interested in seeing justice for the victims of the witch trials, please join us on our Discord server to learn how you can help get that legislation passed. We’ll have a link in the show notes.

Sarah Jack: If you are even a little bit interested in volunteering or finding a way to participate in this exoneration project, we want you. Anybody who’s interested, there’s room for you to join us.

Josh Hutchinson: We’re coming from across the country to direct our [00:04:00] message at Connecticut that we believe this legislation is important and that they should pass it and clear these names.

Sarah Jack: We believed that a collaboration would be important to fulfill this project, and it is. It’s a huge collaboration. There’s lots of Connecticut residents that want this, but we’re able to support them, and everybody’s doing it for these victims and coming together to correct a historical wrong.

Josh Hutchinson: And we’re looking to send a message about the other witch hunts going on in our world right now. We think that the legislature of Connecticut and the governor can make a powerful statement that we will not tolerate witch hunts.

Sarah Jack: When our country has completely stood against this horrible history, [00:05:00] it is a statement to the rest of the world that it needs to stop, that it was never okay, that it isn’t an acceptable behavior now.

Josh Hutchinson: As we speak, volunteers are mailing letters and sending emails to legislators in Connecticut, and there will be a hearing of the judiciary committee in February or March, we don’t have the date yet, but we’re looking for volunteers to come there and just be part of a show of strength and support for this legislation. If you’re interested in doing either of those things, again, please follow the link in the show description to our Discord server.

Sarah Jack: Thank you for joining us and for making our efforts stronger.

Josh Hutchinson: Yes, thank you. And we want to announce that we have a new [00:06:00] Zazzle store for End Witch Hunts and a Zazzle store for Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. So if you’re interested in showing your support of witch hunt victims from around the world, those in Connecticut, or you want to buy merch from the show, please head on over to our Zazzle stores, follow the links in the show description.

For additional news on what’s going on with the exoneration effort, visit Connecticutwitchtrials.org or join our Discord server.

And now I present to you a summary of the life of Thomas Thornton, the subject of today’s episode.

Thomas Thornton was a tanner who came from near London to Dorchester, Massachusetts, and then settled in Windsor, Connecticut by 1638. In 1647, there was a spate of child deaths and an outbreak [00:07:00] of influenza in Windsor, where Thomas Thornton was still living. Four of his six children died at that time. His neighbor, Alice Young, was hanged as a witch in Hartford in that same year. After that, Thomas relocated his family to Stratford, Connecticut, where Goody Bassett was tried for witchcraft in 1651 and executed. Her trial and execution led in turn to the trial and execution of Goody Knapp of Fairfield, whose trial and execution led to an accusation against Mary Staples of New Haven.

Thomas Thornton later became a minister and preached in Ireland for a time before King Charles II was restored to the throne, and Thornton was ejected as a Non-conformist. He returned to New England and settled in the Plymouth Colony in the town of Yarmouth, where he was the minister for many years. On March 6th, 1677, Thomas Thornton wrote a [00:08:00] letter to Increased Mather, which is significant because that was the same day that Mary Ingram was tried for witchcraft in Plymouth. Katherine Hermes and Beth Caruso believe that Thomas Thornton sent that letter from Plymouth on the date of Mary Ingham’s trial.

Thomas Thornton was connected to many important figures in politics, religion, and witch trials. He communicated with Connecticut Governor John Winthrop, Jr., the Mathers, including Increase and Cotton, the Cottons, John Sr. And John Jr., and witch trial Judge Samuel Sewell.

In 1692, Thomas Thornton moved to Boston, where he became a member of the Mathers’ Church. He was present at Margaret Rule’s bedside while she was dealing with her affliction, possible diabolical possession, as believed by many at the time. Later on, when Thornton was on his deathbed, which trial Judge Samuel Sewell kept [00:09:00] vigil.

Thomas Thornton had many links to Witch trials, from the first witchcraft execution in the colonies, that of Alice Young in 1647, to the last witchcraft execution in the colonies, which was in Salem in 1692. He was connected to key players involved in these trials.

Sarah Jack: Thank you for that summary, Josh.

Josh Hutchinson: You’re welcome.

Sarah Jack: And I’m excited to introduce Beth Caruso and Katherine Hermes, authors of the article “Between God and Satan,” which was published in the fall 2022 issue of Connecticut History Review. Beth Caruso is the author of One of Windsor and The Salty Rose

Dr. Katherine Hermes, JD, PhD, is professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. She’s co-host of Grating The Nutmeg podcast and publisher of Connecticut Explored, the premier magazine of Connecticut history.

Josh Hutchinson: What can you [00:10:00] tell us about the meaning behind the title of your manuscript published in Connecticut History Review called “Between God and Satan?”

Kathy Hermes: So the title really comes from a number of sermons that talked about the fact that New England was part of the battleground between God and Satan. Cotton Mather, in particular, was famous for holding this view, but many other ministers in New England believe that because it was this godly mission that the devil took a special interest in undermining that mission.

Beth Caruso: I think in the article, that title also refers to children as being vulnerable in a space where they are vulnerable to influences by Satan, they are vulnerable to being bewitched or falling to evil. And at that [00:11:00] time, it’s the parents’ duty and responsibility and the church’s responsibility to raise them and instill the proper morals, because they’re not truly grounded in those morals at that point in time.

Sarah Jack: Who was Thomas Thornton before his exposure to witchcraft accusations?

Beth Caruso: Thomas Thornton was a tradesman, basically. He came to New England from an area outside of London, and he first settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts. And after that he settled with many others from Dorchester in Windsor, Connecticut. He had several properties in Windsor. His home lot was on Backer Row. He also had properties which were farm lots and wood lots, and also [00:12:00] probably a place where he did his tannery business, which was in the Palisade on the Farmington. We have to remember tannery can be a little stinky and needs water, but the property record for him as a home lot is on Backer Row. And his wife was Ann Tinker, who was one of several sisters who also landed in Windsor on Backer Row.

Josh Hutchinson: What was Thornton’s first experience with witchcraft?

Beth Caruso: We know in 1647 there was an epidemic that came through Windsor, and at the very same time, Thornton’s neighbor, Alice Young, was hanged for witchcraft. It just so happened that Thornton had six children, [00:13:00] possibly five. His youngest we’re not sure if he was born in Windsor during the epidemic or shortly after. But we found out through research that four of those children, three definitively died. And the fourth, because the records for him stop at the same time Alice Young was hanged. So we don’t know for sure if he had any other exposure to witch trials before that, but that incident on Backer Row was so tragic and so influential in his life that he went from being a tanner to a minister in just a short time.

I just wanna say as far as Thornton, he wasn’t [00:14:00] initially the focus. The focus was Alice Young, and there was so little information about her. There’s only three direct records about her. One was, “one of Windsor hanged as a witch in Hartford.” That was by Winthrop Sr. There was another notation by Winthrop Jr. in a disease about John Young. On the back it said, “his wife was hanged as a witch in Hartford.” And then the very last one was on the inside cover of the Matthew Grant diary, which said, “Alice Young was hanged on May the 26th, 1647.” So this whole investigation into Thomas Thornton really started out as a investigation [00:15:00] into what happened to Alice Young.

And I thought, why not investigate her neighborhood, the people where she lived? And it was in doing that that Thomas Thornton showed up, and the interesting facts about Thornton just really stood out so much. It was still difficult to find information about Alice Young, although through Thomas Thornton, we know much, much more now.

But when I was working on this for information about my book, One of Windsor, and then later to try and write a article about Alice, Kathy was mentoring me and I had tried a couple times to put out an article, but I said, “I want your honest feedback. What do you think?” [00:16:00] And, in discussing this, we realized that Thomas Thornton was really the person that we needed to focus on, because of all his connections from this first witch panic on Backer Row to what we found out later on, information where he was involved, at least on the periphery, in other witch trials, including Salem.

In investigating Thomas Thornton, the things that really jumped off the page right from the get-go were that I saw that he had a daughter, Priscilla, who died in 1647, and Cotton Mather wrote a testament to her piety. He was giving examples of children [00:17:00] who were pious, and I was amazed. I thought, “how in the world does Thomas Thornton, this tanner person, later become a minister? And Cotton Mather writes about his daughter, and his daughter is one of the ones that died in 1647 on Backer Row.” And in this description of Priscilla and her piety, there are also things about brushes with the devil and wanting to do a day of humiliation with fellow children that needed to become more good and righteous.

I thought, “that’s strange.” And then the other thing that stood out too is he’s at the bedside of Margaret Rule, which is someone who’s bewitched during that whole same Salem period in Boston. And finally, you know what really blew my mind was [00:18:00] here’s this guy, he’s dying, he lives a very old age, and Samuel Sewall, a judge during the Salem Witch trials, is at his bedside doing vigil with him. So all these things about Thornton really stood out.

Kathy Hermes: Yeah. Thornton had an extraordinary life, and we didn’t know anything about really his time in Ireland. There are big gaps in the biographical information about Thomas Thornton that I think we finally closed by finding the letter from Reverend Hook in New Haven to Cromwell saying that Thomas Thornton would be coming over to Ireland and was joining the recruits for the ministry. Finding a little documentary evidence of his time in Ireland about where he served at several garrisons, like six Mile Bridge and in Limerick and so on. And then realizing that [00:19:00] his time was coterminous with that of the Mathers themselves, that Samuel, Nathaniel, and Increase Mather were all in Dublin at that time, under the tutelage of a man named Samuel Winter. And, even though my dissertation work was on religion and law in colonial New England in the 17th century, I really hadn’t studied the input of Irish ministers or ministers who were in Ireland. Many of them were actually from England who were in Ireland. And so I hadn’t really heard of Samuel Winter, even though he had connections with the Reverend John Cotton of Boston and then, later on, the Mathers. Winter turned out to be a very fascinating character, who I think was probably greatly influential on all of the ministers who were later ejected from Ireland when the interregnum ended and King Charles II was restored to the throne of England.

Sarah Jack: [00:20:00] What else would you like us to know about Alice Young?

Beth Caruso: Alice Young was in the middle of all these Tinker sisters on Backer Row, so I thought she possibly could be related to them or maybe her husband was related to them. It was not just because of her placement on Backer Row. It was also that after this witch trial in 1647, everyone left Backer Row fairly quickly, except for one woman, Rhodie Tinker, who was then widowed and was waiting to remarry. And those days you certainly didn’t wanna be connected to a witch, a defined witch in your society, because that could come down on you later on that connection.

So I found it [00:21:00] interesting how all these people from the same family, they all left, and we know Thomas Thornton and his wife left, as well after their children died. You find them pretty early on in Stratford, and that’s the same place where John Young ends up going. His daughter ends up staying in Windsor, because we know that Alice Young had one daughter, Alice Jr., and we do know that she stayed in Windsor, because the marriage record we found is that she married Simon Beamon in Windsor before they went to Springfield together. But Backer Row during that time, there were a lot of children living there. And unfortunately, during the epidemic, there were, like I said before, four of the Thornton’s children who died, but [00:22:00] another household right up the way, there was another child who died, Sarah Sension. I thought it was interesting because piecing together the ages of the children, that there were a lot of young girls right around menarche age. Priscilla was 11 years old when she died. Her sibling Ann was nine when she died. These would’ve been the playmates of Alice Young’s daughter right next door. And then Sarah Sension, she was right around that age. Rhodie Tinker Hobbs Taylor, she had two daughters from her first marriage, and we think they probably would’ve been right around that age, too. So what’s interesting when we’re looking at this case and we’re piecing things together, is the amount of young girls. This [00:23:00] element that you see later in Salem, but also this element of illness connected to a witch panic during the Hartford Witch Panic. It all started with a young girl on her deathbed who was sick.

Josh Hutchinson: That’s a very interesting connection. So many witch trials, you have the childhood illness, and a lot of it revolves around young girls. Why do you think that might be the case?

Beth Caruso: The Puritans thought of women as the weaker sex than men. They certainly weren’t the only religion to do that or the only religious sects to do that, but in so many of these witch trials, it’s a young girl right around the age of menarche who’s bewitched. I mentioned Thomas Thornton at the bedside of Margaret Rule. She’s another young girl of that age. So [00:24:00] the young girls, they’re weak, because they’re susceptible to being bewitched.

You don’t really see that with the young boys. At least I can’t recall seeing that. It’s the adult women who tend to be accused of witchcraft. The majority of people accused were female, and they were supposed to be the weaker sex, because they were more susceptible to the devil, as well, not with the outcome of bewitchment, but with the outcome of being actual witches and signing a pact with the devil. So it was interesting to see some of those elements that pop up again and again on Backer Row.

Kathy Hermes: I kinda look at it maybe a little differently. The Puritans believed in a morphology of conversion. They really saw [00:25:00] life in terms of stages. And it’s a little like Eric Erikson’s terrible twos and so on. Where they thought the children were born really in a state of depravity without salvation, they had to be baptized as infants, and that would help as a converting ordinance.

But they would have to go through a stage of preparation, where they learned moral behavior, and these things had kind of age ranges attached to them. They weren’t hard and fast. Normally, in the teenage years people would experience, if they were going to experience it, saving grace, what they call justification. And so that conversion experience that people often expected in the teenage years was a time of great spiritual crisis. And it was often preceded by what was called a period of humiliation.

I think of it as most of us can relate to this, right? That when you’re, like in middle school or [00:26:00] whatever, you just feel like awful about yourself, and through your teenage years you’re struggling, and then you come out of them. And often you have some period of realizing you’re not so bad after all. The same kind of transformation took place with a religious understanding that, and I think that, in particular, first of all, women were more often converts. They were more likely to experience justification.

That period of crisis also is a period where they might realize that they aren’t justified, and they realize they are in fact damned. And it’s really these two things that puritans struggle with. Am I saved, am I damned? We have examples of women, for example, killing their infant children or trying to, because they can’t take the tension of not knowing whether they’re saved or damned. I see that context as well.

Sarah Jack: That’s a really great [00:27:00] layer. And Priscilla was facing this health crisis, as well as the spiritual transformation crisis at the same time, and she made statements about that.

Kathy Hermes: She’s a little bit young for a conversion experience, but sometimes the very pious have them a little earlier, or mature 11 year olds might have them sooner. And she’s on her deathbed, and it’s a critical moment.

Josh Hutchinson: What was the significance of Priscilla’s story on how she faced death and the spiritual statement she made in the story of Thomas Thornton and witchcraft?

Kathy Hermes: So Priscilla died in 1647, as we’ve said, and the story was recorded later on by Cotton Mather around 1698, published in 1700. My assumption is, and this is an inference, is that Thomas Thornton was telling that story, [00:28:00] because there’s so many details that are quite precise. And so I think he’s committing this story to memory and sharing it with people as he goes through life, because it dovetails with this critical moment of the accused witch being executed and being his neighbor. And he’s got this godly child who’s really saved from the snares of the devil, and when he finally recounts this to Cotton Mather, or when Mather writes it down, right in the late 17th century, by then mentioning witchcraft is off the table, right?

And by 1698, no one wants to talk about witchcraft anymore. And I think elements of the story are divorced from that. It’s more about her conversion. But we have another instance where that story is mentioned, or at least we believe it’s [00:29:00] the one referred to by Nathaniel Mather when he writes to his brother Increase and says, why didn’t you tell the story of the girl in Connecticut? And we thought about could this be a different girl? Could this be Mary Johnson, for example, who was executed in Weathersfield? And Johnson was a woman. She already had a child. She was not a girl. And Mather doesn’t mention an execution. “She died for the same crime,” he says, and with a conversion, a genuine conversion. And I think that what Mather’s talking about here is an earlier version of the story, in which the witchcraft was probably mentioned along with the conversion.

We were trying to piece together a kind of oral history of this narrative. So what you find in the Magnalia where Cotton Mather published it, or in the catechism that he published that was written first by a guy named Janeway. There’s no [00:30:00] mention of the witch element, but I think it’s there, I think it’s implicit in the story. She talks very much about wanting to save the other children, as Beth mentioned. And she talks about needing a day of humiliation and prayer.

Beth Caruso: I printed off what he wrote about her. And there are several references to good and evil, brushes with evil, needing to be pious and get, and this is a direct quote, “get power against their sinful natures.” And even on her deathbed, she says she was thanking her superiors and the direct quote is, “twas because they had curbed her and restrained her from sinful vanities.”

And she said, “were I now to choose my company, it should be among the people of God.” [00:31:00] There’s so many interesting polarities within that description. The other reason why, and this isn’t directly said that this is Thornton, but Cotton Mather also writes in “Enchantments Encountered,” a chapter in Wonders of the Invisible World. He mentions this, and Kathy and I believe Cotton Mather, in this, is referring to Thornton. He said, “we have been advised by credible Christians still alive that a malefactor accused of witchcraft as well as murder and executed in this place,” meaning the colonies, “more than 40 years ago, did then give notice of a horrible plot against the country by witchcraft. And the foundation of witchcraft then laid, which if it were not [00:32:00] seasonably discovered, would probably blow up and pull down all the churches in the country.” And again, this also ties into what Kathy was describing as the space between good and evil, between God and Satan.

Sarah Jack: Do you think that Priscilla could have been Alice’s accuser?

Kathy Hermes: I think it’s possible. It’s interesting that Thornton remains close to John Young. Whatever happened there on Backer Row, Thornton didn’t distance himself from John Young in any intentional way. So it’s hard to say if his daughter had been the accuser, there might have been more distance between the men, but it doesn’t appear that John Young came to his wife’s defense. So it’s also possible John Young thought the same thing. I think it’s just too speculative to know, but of course it’s possible.

Sarah Jack: And Thornton was looking out for Young’s health.[00:33:00]

Beth Caruso: We do think that they maintained a relationship, because in one of the references to Alice Young being a witch and connected to John Young that I mentioned in the beginning is a description of John Young’s disease. There is no signature on that as to who the author was, but this would’ve been somebody at the bedside of John Young describing his disease. Kathy had found a letter from Thomas Thornton to Increase Mather. And so we had his handwriting.

Kathy Hermes: Beth and I went to the Massachusetts Historical Society to look at some documents, and in particular John Winthrop Jr’s papers, because that’s where this account of John Young’s disease was. And it was considered an anonymous account. We then, from the Boston Public Library, [00:34:00] got a copy of the letter that Thomas Thornton wrote to Increase Mather. And as I was looking at the two, I thought this handwriting looks the same. And it’s pretty distinctive, because it’s more in the Elizabethan style than in the later style of handwriting that even John Winthrop himself had or someone of Thomas Thornton’s age. It’s a little bit like seeing the cursive of your grandmother, right, rather than the handwriting of, if you wrote like your grandmother, instead of someone now.

And so Beth actually did the close up comparison. She focused in on some letters, and it was pretty clear once we put the letters side by side that this was the same handwriting. And these letters provide important clues for a number of reasons, not only that Thornton wrote about this disease, but that he was in [00:35:00] communication with important people, John Winthrop Jr., Increase Mather. We don’t have many things written in Thomas Thornton’s hand. These are the two things that survive, that we know of.

Beth Caruso: And just the fact that he’s at the bedside, and he’s writing about the disease, and he sends it to Winthrop, Jr., tells us that he still has a relationship with John Young. At the time, John Winthrop Jr., he was physician to most of Connecticut, but obviously he couldn’t always be there in person to cover all that territory. So people would be at the bedside of a sick person. They would write a description of the disease and then send it to Winthrop. So we were extremely excited to make this discovery, because it did fit in with the order of where they both were at the time. It [00:36:00] reflects on their continuing relationship, but it’s also extremely exciting for the possibility of more things showing up later that may give light to more layers and more information about the witch trials in New England. This was a snippet that he had written about John Young, which he hadn’t signed. There are many other documents out there that have no signatures. His signature is very distinctive. We know he’s all over the place, as far as which trials in New England. So we’re hopeful that maybe more documents of his will show up now that there are two good examples of his handwriting.

Kathy Hermes: I’ll also say [00:37:00] about the letter, it goes into graphic detail about Young’s disease. And if Young had this in Windsor, it might have contributed to some of the feelings about Alice Young, because his skin is peeling off, and it’s in striations, and it’s a very gruesome illness. And he seemed to have experienced it while in Stratford where Thornton writes the letter, right?

He is experiencing it in Stratford, where there’s also, at the very same time witchcraft accusations going on, and this is total speculation, that this disease pops up during times of witchcraft. Cuz actually when John Young died in his final illness, we don’t know if he had this disease, but it seems like it, and that too is simultaneous with some witchcraft accusations, I think, in Hartford.

Beth Caruso: It’s Goody Bassett at the time and then Goody Knapp. [00:38:00] So there were the two hangings in the south, and Goody Bassett had been from Windsor. Thomas Thornton and John Young would have known her. She came there probably after both of them, but we just don’t know any details about that case.

But then there’s the Goody Knapp case, which is right nearby in 1653, and it was late 1653 that Thornton joined the ranks in Ireland, but by this time he had gained some clout. He was a deputy in the legislature for Stratford. If we can find some more documents, or if other researchers could really look through some of these documents from that era, from other eras connected to witch trials to see are there testimonies, are there other descriptions that are unsigned with [00:39:00] this unique handwriting, then maybe we can learn a little more. Because, unfortunately, no trial records are left for Alice Young. I don’t know if they’ll ever show up. As for so many others in Connecticut, including Goody Knapp and Goody Bassett in the South, I did just hear that the Winthrop Jr. medical records are going to go online probably this summer, and they haven’t been thus far. Because also of his atrocious handwriting, I think there are probably a lot of incredible little chunks of history that we would wanna know more about in those records, as well.

The other part of John Young’s disease that’s really interesting is that in the probate records, John Young was noted to have a disease for seven [00:40:00] months before he actually died. Yet he did not leave a will, so his property was left unclaimed in Stratford for seven years. Alice Young Junior never claimed it.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you both for such great answers. It’s been wonderful, and I’m excited to hear that Winthrop Jr.’s papers are coming online. That’s really big. And we have a friend going off to read some Winthrop papers right now, and she testified to the quality of the handwriting or lack of quality to the handwriting.

Beth Caruso: She’s the one who told me she had talked to them at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and they expect his works to be online by the summer, hopefully.

Josh Hutchinson: That’s exciting. And It’s [00:41:00] very interesting to me how Thornton shows up in all these places where witchcraft accusations are happening. He’s in Windsor for Alice Young. He’s in Stratford for Bassett and Knapp, and later on, he’s possibly connected to some others as well. Is that correct, with his time in the Plymouth Colony?

Kathy Hermes: I think it’s interesting that he went from Ireland to Plymouth, avoiding the witchcraft trials in Hartford, right? He diverts himself from there and goes to Massachusetts, and Plymouth Colony was the only colony among the orthodox colonies, we’re excluding Rhode Island here, to not have any witchcraft accusations until the one in 1677 that involved Mary Ingham, and we think he was there because of the letter to Increase Mather right at that time, [00:42:00] dated March 1st.

There’s a lacuna, a hole in the manuscript, that leaves some letters blank, and then ends with M O U T H, where it was sent from. And of course, the editors of the Mather papers assumed Yarmouth because that’s where Thomas Thornton lived and ministered from, but we believe it was Plymouth. Now again, no proof of that except that Thornton would almost certainly have had to be at that court day. It’s a court day where three native men were accused of murder and where Mary Ingham’s accused of witchcraft and where money is going to be distributed. A collection was taken up in Ireland to help people who suffered in King Philip’s War in 1676, and so that money’s going to be distributed in Plymouth Colony in the towns where Thornton [00:43:00] lived and near where Thornton lived. And so this is the guy who would clearly meet all three criteria, for taking care of the funds, having witchcraft expertise, and having experience with native men because he ministered to a praying town, Mattakeeset.

Again, speculative. It makes me think about many years ago when I was in graduate school we were all pointed to a book by Robin Winks, The Historian as Detective. And every time we present this article or talk about this, historians always say to us, “it’s really circumstantial evidence.” And yet most criminal cases are made on circumstantial evidence. The number of coincidences just can’t be accounted for any other way. And, of course, sometimes you’re wrong when you do something on circumstantial evidence, but I feel like here we’ve tried to be good detectives. We’ve tried to look at things objectively and see where there might be other possible [00:44:00] answers.

Sometimes there aren’t, but I think here the letter coming from Plymouth makes much more sense, and he also would’ve had a way for that letter to be delivered to Increase Mather, if he was in Plymouth rather than in Yarmouth. That letter’s, I think, critical to placing him at the trial of Mary Ingham.

Beth Caruso: And the other interesting thing about Thornton is he was one of the few ministers who was interested in the Halfway Covenant, which allowed for children to be baptized.

Kathy Hermes: I’ll say a little bit more about the Halfway Covenant. Children were not being baptized, because their parents had not become full members of congregations. Now, in order to become a member of a congregation to be in the church, a person had to be [00:45:00] baptized and had to have the experience of justification, which allowed the person then to take communion, right? And that created a full membership in the church. Full members had their children baptized.

Those children of the second generation wanted to baptize their own children, but many of them had not yet had the conversion experience or the justification experience. And so some churches adopted the Halfway Covenant, something championed by Increase Mather. No other churches in Plymouth Colony adopted the Halfway Covenant, except for Thomas Thornton’s church. So this, too, was a critical thing. He’s got this very close relationship with Increase Mather that I think shaped his theological views in many ways. And he was distinctive in that with respect to the adoption of the [00:46:00] Halfway Covenant.

Josh Hutchinson: And he was very interested, Thornton, in infant baptism, wasn’t he?

Kathy Hermes: Yes. There was a baptism controversy in the 1640s that eventually is resolved with the Cambridge Platform. And the minister in Windsor was away for a time that summer in 1647, in Boston discussing baptism. So this is an issue of critical concern. When he went to Ireland, he was exposed to a number of sermons and debates about infant baptism because in the Cromwellian period, the Anabaptists as they were called, or the Antipedobaptists, believed in adult baptism, not infant baptism.

And Thornton would’ve come into contact with that controversy in Ireland. It was a big thing at the time, during the Cromwellian period. [00:47:00] And then when he got back to Plymouth, they’re faced with this crisis in the 1660s of people not converting. So it would’ve been right on his doorstep. He would’ve been in the midst of that everywhere he went.

Beth Caruso: With his experience with the four tragic deaths of his children during this flu epidemic in Windsor, one could speculate about how it might have been an influence for him to see that children could die early and could die under horrible circumstances, influenced by the devil in some way, and how it would be important for children to have some kind of protection that baptism might afford them.

Sarah Jack: I’m really seeing how you have these network of ministers, these controversial spiritual things. You have the development of these [00:48:00] colonies and law. It’s all really interesting.

Kathy Hermes: The reform congregationalists, the people we call Puritans, they were really trying to dive into a kind of primitive theology, to get back to the earliest days of the Christian Church, and they wanted to be very pure about it. And the reason the Halfway Covenant, something like the Halfway Covenant, was so controversial is that some Congregationalists thought that it was getting away from the pure church, right? That it was a compromise done for social reasons, rather than for sound theological reasons. But for people who were worried about the souls of children, the Halfway Covenant allowed for, as Beth said, some protection for the children. It was considered a saving ordinance. Most Congregationalists also believed in the perseverance of the saints, that [00:49:00] is that salvation would persist in families, right? Not always, but for the most part that godly families produced godly children. And so this was a way to continue the perseverance of the saints. They really had a long-term vision in mind. They thought that they were near the end times and were interested in converting native people. Some of the English people were even what they called philosemites and believed that native people were members of a lost tribe of Israel. And so this was part of the conversion of the Jews that had to take place before the Millennium. So there are many, many complicated ideas that go into these saving ordinances like baptism.

Josh Hutchinson: We’ve talked about a lot of Thornton’s connections to witchcraft. After [00:50:00] Yarmouth, he moved to Boston and joined the Mathers’ church in the year that the Salem Witch Trials were happening. Do you think that Thornton’s views on witchcraft could have influenced the Mathers to any degree?

Beth Caruso: At this point in time, we really don’t know if he was a shadow influencer, because he certainly is in line with the thinking of theirs, coupled with his early experience. What we need is more information about what his actual views were, and that is why we are so excited to put forth this research in hopes that other researchers will get ahold of it, and it will open many more doors and that we can find more documentation about Thornton or more works that he’s written, more sermons, [00:51:00] things like that. I think there’s more to discover before we can fully answer that question.

Kathy Hermes: Yeah, I think that’s true. I do think that the Mathers were quite well educated and Thornton was not, and so he would probably have deferred to them in theological matters, at the same time that his direct experience would have been of interest to them, but how they influenced one another, we can’t say, and I think this is important. Something we came to late in writing the article was to discuss Thornton’s position as a bystander. In Holocaust studies, they talk a lot about bystanders, because bystanders are, by the mere fact that they’re there, influencing what’s going on, right? But often in ways that are intangible. We didn’t write this in the article, but it’s what we both thought of as the Forrest Gump effect, right? What [00:52:00] effect does somebody being there all the time at all these situations have in the history of the way in which these things develop? And Thornton was not a theologian. The Mathers were theologians, but by virtue of his being present at so many things and having so much direct experience, it’s unlikely he stood mute and neutral.

And what I would like to see, if I can make a plug for it to some listener, is a master’s thesis that uses maybe distant reading techniques on the writings of the ejected ministers from Ireland who wind up in the Boston area, James Allen and Bailey and some of these other folks, Thomas Walley, who was in Barnstable near Thomas Thornton. I think if you took that kind of literary approach to their writings, you might be able to find ideas that [00:53:00] connected them all. And you might be able then to determine some of the influence that these collective ideas had on the Mathers, because the Mathers were themselves in Ireland. They weren’t part of the ejected ministers, but they were there at the same time the ejected ministers were. So I think that’s actually a very promising kind of area of scholarship.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much for that plug. We think that’s important for the story to be continued. And for the research done.

We know that the spectral evidence was accepted early on in Connecticut, and then John Winthrop Jr. basically rejected it, but then it turns back up in Salem, and we’re wondering where that influence came from, that spectral evidence. Is there any, are there ideas out there of how spectral evidence came back at Salem?

Kathy Hermes: So there were only two witchcraft cases in [00:54:00] Ireland at the time that Thornton was there. And we don’t know, again, because of the fire, I think they don’t have any records of what went on. But typically Ireland was not a place that accepted the idea of specters. And what’s interesting is that I think some of the ejected ministers question the acceptance of specters in Boston. What Thornton’s view was, we don’t know. It was always a debatable thing about whether you could trust a specter. The idea that specters existed was accepted, but what to do with the presence of a specter and any information one received from the specter was the matter of debate.

Josh Hutchinson: And Cotton in his Wonders of the Invisible World seems to defend spectral evidence, [00:55:00] while Increase in Cases of Conscience says that the Devil can appear as an angel of light. And that was a big turning point in Salem rejecting the spectral evidence. But I find it interesting also that John Winthrop Jr. rejected it and then his son, Waitstill, is one of the judges at Salem. And it’s all kinds of weird connections with the spectral evidence.

Kathy Hermes: With any Puritan debate, they picked these things to death, and they loved argument. And I know that often, particularly when witchcraft trials come up, people tend to think of the Puritans as irrational and unscientific, and really nothing could be further from the truth. Cotton Mather himself was quite interested in Isaac Newton’s discoveries and things like that. They thought of themselves as rational, and they were trying to work through supernatural experiences, which [00:56:00] they believed in rational ways. And sometimes that doesn’t make sense to us in the 21st century, but I think that’s why you have these debates among people who are even very close. And obviously no two people were closer than Increase and Cotton Mather, who shared a congregation and a family linkage.

Sarah Jack: Is there anything else about Thomas Thornton’s connection to Salem?

Kathy Hermes: Beth did talk about Margaret Rule, but maybe a little clearer explanation of that incidence. Margaret Rule suffered from what appeared to be a demonic possession or a diabolical possession, which was a bit different from some other types of possessions. And many people were called to her bedside. Again this is a point where we’re in contradiction to some other historians, but we believe the Thomas Thornton who signed the evidence about Margaret Rule was Reverend Thomas [00:57:00] Thornton.

But Samuel Drake, who was one of the early publishers of documents on this case, suggested that it was a bricklayer named Thomas Thornton. And it doesn’t make sense that the bricklayer would be there . But that incidence of Rule being possessed, she levitated during the viewing and all of these men witnessed it. This was a scene that must have conjured up memories of Priscilla. And it may be again, something that shapes that final story of Priscilla, as it goes through its various oral iterations in this, because Margaret Rule is really the last case in Massachusetts where the supernatural is front and center, as far as I know, and no witchcraft accusation results from it. They’re done with that.

Beth and I debated a lot about whether Thornton [00:58:00] was a believer in witchcraft and how zealous he was in terms of rooting out witchcraft. And I think both of us feel like, and again, this is a feeling, it’s speculation, nothing definitive, that he probably had a somewhat nuanced view of it that might account for the acquittal of Mary Ingham. That there were certain tests that were applied in figuring out who in fact was a witch, according to their own ideas. Had Thornton had a vehement reaction against Mary Ingham’s acquittal, we might have seen some evidence of that, since he did write to Increase Mather on that day.

Beth Caruso: The thing is, Thomas Thornton had a very long life, so he may have started thinking about witchcraft and rooting out witchcraft crimes in one way, and [00:59:00] that may have evolved to be in a different place. Again, it’s very hard for us to know, because he never directly says how he feels about witchcraft. It’s all very circumstantial of him showing up at these different places and the whole trajectory, starting out with this personal tragedy, and then having very strong connections later on to people who were connected to the Salem trials. The biggest clue we can get to Thomas Thornton as a person and his personality is probably in his sermon that Sewall wrote down, and in it the king has taken over again, and he doesn’t seem like a bitter person. He seems [01:00:00] like a kind and loving person. He says, “have nothing but love for the king in your heart.” And of course, the king has just taken over again, and Puritans are probably not liking that so much. They’d rather have Cromwell in there. But he’s taking a charitable approach.

You can often at least tease out a little bit of someone’s personality through their letters and the way they word things. He seems like a fairly humble person. He doesn’t seem aggressive or bitter or anything like that. So combined with his showing up at these different witch trial scenes and eras, it’s difficult to know. I hope a researcher’s out there. I hope you’re listening. This is something that [01:01:00] is an invitation for you to explore.

And I, in my heart of hearts, I do really think that there are more documents that will be discovered of Thomas Thornton, and people may have those documents already, but he just hasn’t been on the radar, because, quite frankly, no one has ever connected the Thomas Thornton who’s in Salem as a minister, hobnobbing with Judge Sewell and the Mathers, with the humble tradesman in Windsor, who tragically loses all these children in 1647. Our article is the bridge between these two Thomas Thorntons, which even, you know, some descendants in the past writing about him never connected. So we hope that now that he’s on the radar with this [01:02:00] article, that there will be more discoveries and they will shed a lot more light on the New England Witch trials and about him and his attitude toward all of this.

Sarah Jack: How do people access the article?

Kathy Hermes: The article will be in the Connecticut History Review, which is published by the University of Illinois Press. So copies can be ordered through the Association for the Study of Connecticut History, A S C H, the ASH organization. And you can subscribe to Connecticut History Review. It’s the only scholarly journal for the history of Connecticut.

Josh Hutchinson: Now here’s Sarah with information on the efforts to exonerate the accused on the efforts to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut.

Sarah Jack: Here is Connecticut witch trial exoneration legislation news. The first [01:03:00] community led remembrance day for all Connecticut Witch trial victims was on an anniversary of Alice Young’s execution, May 26th, 2007. It was held at South Green in Hartford. Tony Griego, police officer and co-founder of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project and other commemorations, memorialized the executed witch trial victims with 12 white roses, one for each of the 11 victims hanged and one for all the children Orphaned. He would like a white rose on a permanent stone memorial in Hartford.

Tony’s exoneration efforts with several descendants followed. Attempts were first launched in 2008 and 2009. These unsuccessful efforts stirred minds and produced important witch trial history, exoneration, and permanent memorial site conversations.

In the beginning of 2016, the Connecticut Witch Memorial Facebook page and effort was formed to reach the masses when Beth Caruso joined up with the education and advocacy endeavors of Tony Griego. The social media and storytelling project allowed for victim stories to be told, [01:04:00] events to be shared, and updates to be given on efforts and calls for action to be amplified. They have connected descendants and others with a common interest in witch trial justice. Next, the CT Witch Memorial team went town to town, looking for local communities to remember and acknowledge the witch trial victims from their history.

Out of this effort, a collaboration with the First Church of Windsor, and Windsor Town Council, a resolution passed nine to zero on February 6th, 2017, recognizing the town’s two victims, Alice Young and Lydia Gilbert. Stay tuned next week to hear about more localized efforts to memorialize individual victims at the local community level.

Today, the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is an organized collaboration of these founding advocates and many other diverse collaborators working for an official state exoneration of the 17th century accused and hanged witches of the Connecticut colony. We are also seeking [01:05:00] out all local communities to continue recognizing their local accused witches. We are all coming together, along with the state representative Jane Garibay and senator Saud Anwar, to support the proposed exoneration legislation, the Joint Committee on Judiciary’s bill, HJ Number 34, Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut. This proposal could bring a public hearing shortly.

This resolution will be an example to others working to recognize and address historic wrongs. Connecticut is taking a stand against injustice. By acknowledging the mistakes of the past, we educate the public that similar actions are not acceptable today. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project strongly urges the General assembly to hear the voices of the witch trial victims being amplified by the community today. They were not witches. We hope you will pass this legislation without delay. Our project is offering several ways for exoneration supporters to plug in and participate or learn about the exoneration [01:06:00] and history. Please download our robust lineup of episodes featuring witch trial descendants, education about hanged witch Alice Young and other victims, and Connecticut Colony’s governor John Winthrop, Jr.’s positive influence against convicting Witches.

You can go to our project website for an informative and easy to understand fact sheet of the Connecticut Colony witch trial victims, places, and dates. You can follow along by joining our Discord community or Facebook groups. Links to all these informative opportunities are listed in the episode description.

Use your social power to help Alice Young, America’s first executed witch, finally be acknowledged. Support the descendants by acknowledging and sharing their ancestor’s stories. Remember the victims in modern day facing the same unfair and dangerous situations. Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and to stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our projects on social media @ctwitchhunts and visit our website at ConnecticutWitchTrials.org. [01:07:00]

The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is a project of End Witch Hunts movement. End Witch Hunts is a nonprofit organization founded to educate about witch trial history and advocate for alleged witches. Please support us with your donations or purchases of educational Witch trial books and merchandise. You can shop our merch at zazzle.com/store/endwitchhunts or zazzle.com/store/thoushaltnotsuffer. And shop our books at bookshop.org/endwitchhunts. We want you as a Super Listener. You can help keep Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast in production by super listening with your monthly monetary support. See episode description for links to these support opportunities. We thank you for standing with us and helping us create a world that is safe from witchcraft accusations.

Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that important update. And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not [01:08:00] Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.

Sarah Jack: Join us next week.

Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com and our Zazzle store.

Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell all your friends and encourage them to listen to the show and buy our merch.

Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch-hunts. If you’d like to learn more or make a donation, visit endwitchhunts.org.

Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

February 9, 2023

How Do We Know What We Know? Salem Witch-Hunt Primary Sources with Margo Burns, Part 2

The Untold Story of Dorothy Good: A Tragic Life After the Salem Witch Trials

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Show Notes

Part 2 of our enjoyable Margo Burns Witch Trial talk series brings more fun and informative conversation. This information-packed two part series, includes background on her research and editing of the book Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt. Be sure to catch both talks! Discover how we know what we know from the study of historical records. We have some laughs and heartfelt conversation about some of her new project discoveries on Chief Magistrate William Stoughton of the Salem Witch Trials. We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

Support our show, buy “Records of the Salem Witch Hunt” through this link.

University of VA, Salem Witch Trials Documents and Transcriptions

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Social Media for State Representative Jane Garibay

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: Today, we feature part two of our interview with Margo Burns, associate editor of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt.
Sarah Jack: In our conversation, you'll hear how Margo is not done researching and investigating. She has an exciting project that she is working on, the biography of William Stoughton. She even traveled across the sea to look at his handwriting.
Josh Hutchinson: She tells some wonderful stories from her research and what [00:01:00] she's been able to uncover, what she still looking for, and what she wishes still existed that unfortunately has been lost. We talked about Robert Calef's More Wonders of the Invisible World and whether or not his records can be trusted and how historians use those documents in Records of the Salem Witch Hunt.
Sarah Jack: And what is it like to do one of these biographies on a main character from the Salem Witch-Hunt. We heard a little bit from Dan Gagnon on what it's like. His project's complete Margo's in the trenches with it right now, and it's very interesting.
Josh Hutchinson: And similar to Rebecca Nurse, William Stoughton didn't leave a lot of documents behind.[00:02:00] Nobody knows where his records are, if they're still in existence at all. Unlike the Mathers, where you have volumes and volumes of their diaries and their correspondence to anyone whoever wrote them a letter, you just don't have the papers there to analyze Stoughton's life. So Margo is having to use a tangential approach, I would say, where she's coming in at it sideways, looking at all of his associates to find out what they ever wrote about Stoughton and looking through other people's correspondence to see what was said about his life at the time. And she's traveled back to [00:03:00] Oxford in England to have a look at where he studied and see if he left anything behind there.
We also talk about Stoughton's other side. We know him as the villain of the Salem Witch Trials, but he did have a philanthropical side, where he did bequeath sums of money to charitable causes. So you get to learn more about that, and you get to hear all of Margo's great stories about chasing down the shadowy figure.
And we talked to her about the records that we know are missing and what could be missing, because Governor Thomas Hutchinson wrote a history of Massachusetts Bay [00:04:00] in the 18th century and included references and transcripts. He said he had the documents, the primary source documents from the Salem Witch Trials and copied them into his history, but those documents are missing, and it's believed that they disappeared in the Stamp Act Riot, when patriots stormed his house and went through all his things and threw everything out into the streets.
But how do you know what's missing? I wanna know how do we know what we don't know? So we ask both questions, how do we know what we know, and how do we know what we don't know?
Sarah Jack: Now, one thing we know is that Dorothy Good's name was not Dorcas.
Josh Hutchinson: And we know that because Margo got on the case [00:05:00] and corrected the transcription of the records about Dorothy Good, not Dorcas. There was a transcription error long ago, and people have been using the same transcription for decades and repeating the name Dorcas, until Margo came along and discovered that her real name was Dorothy.
Sarah Jack: And you'll hear Margo talk about the handwriting analysis, and it's a science, and she applied it.
Josh Hutchinson: We'll have a link in the show notes to a talk given by Salem Witch, museum Education Director Rachel Christ-Doane about Dorothy Good and what we know about her life after the trials.
Sarah Jack: Thank you, Margo.
Thank you, Rachel.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, thank you Margo and Rachel for [00:06:00] setting the record straight on little Dorothy Good, the four year old child who was chained up in the prison.
We talk to Margo again and get some good stories, and it's awesome, and you're gonna love it, and it's fantastic.
Sarah Jack: And now here's some great history from Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: William Stoughton was the chief justice of the Court of Oyer and Terminer that met in Salem to try those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts in 1692. Still, no biography has yet been written about him. What we do know about Stoughton is that he was born in 1631 or 1632, the son of Elizabeth Knight and Israel Stoughton. William's family migrated to Dorchester, Massachusetts shortly after his birth in England. William graduated from Harvard College in 1650 and Oxford University [00:07:00] in 1652. He began his working life as a minister and preached in Oxford until 1660, when King Charles II was restored to the throne.
In 1662, Stoughton returned to Dorchester and began a career as a merchant. He was first elected to the General Court in 1671 and went on to hold many significant posts in the militia, judiciary, legislative, and executive branches of the Bay Colony's government. In May 1692, Stoughton was appointed Lieutenant Governor and named Chief Justice of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. He presided over the trials and executions in 1692 and then served as chief justice of the new Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, signing more death warrants, which fortunately were not carried out, as Governor Phips granted a reprieve. As Deputy Governor, [00:08:00] Stoughton led the colony from the death of Governor Phips in 1695 until his own death in 1701.
Sarah Jack: Thank you for that great history, Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome.
Sarah Jack: Is everybody ready for part two? Here's Margo Burns, historian, associate editor, and project manager of Records of the Salem Witch Hunt.
Josh Hutchinson: Yay. Applause.
Margo Burns: William Stoughton is responsible for just about everything. I will give some of that credit, if it's credit, to Hathorne and Corwin, the two initial magistrates who were interrogating people, because they just accepted every, single accusation, and they kept everybody in jail and just went forward. But when we finally get to the trials, William Stoughton is in charge of everything. He set down the rules. He was making sure everything went correctly, if I put it that way. So when Rebecca Nurse was [00:09:00] found not guilty, he sent the jury back to reconsider, twice. Twice! And even though it turns out that she hadn't heard a question the second time, and she couldn't answer, and that was, of course, if you get asked a question and you don't have a reply, that's tantamount to saying, "you got me."
And that's what ended up happening, but you can imagine the chaos in that courtroom when she was found not guilty. And she didn't hear. Now a lot of people say, "oh, she was deaf." I challenge just about anybody to hear over what ruckus had to have been happening in that room. And later on, we have the account of the grand jury foreman and we have her account that, no, that wasn't what it was. And they appealed. They appealed. But we have a thing in Calef saying that the governor was ready to do it, but then a gentleman of Salem talked him out of it. Stoughton was in charge. He got it exactly. Now he wasn't a gentleman of Salem. We don't know who that was that got the governor's ear [00:10:00] and said, "nah, you shouldn't do that." A lot of us speculate. We try and figure out who it could have been, but we don't know.
Sarah Jack: I've been wondering why Robert Calef's reports are given so much weight.
Margo Burns: He published them. That's the thing. You find out more about people if they left a paper trail. And he also, he and Cotton Mather were at it all the time. They were just public foes writing things about each other. So this just sorta fit right in. And Calef had access to some documents and accounts that nobody else had. We don't have a hard copy of John Alden's description of what happened to him. We only have it through Calef. And we do try and keep track of what Calef says, not just because he hated Cotton Mather, but he does have some accounts from other people. So when we have this document, as put into Calef, that is Rebecca Nurse saying this is what happened, and we have other pieces that he [00:11:00] puts into it. That's not necessarily him, but that's him picking and choosing. The joy of being an editor, you get to pick and choose what pieces you'll put in, but, generally speaking, people have found his sources credible. And also, when you leave paper trail, you're the one that people are interested in.
And there's an explanation why the Salem Village cases are more interesting to people than the Andover cases. Well, not if you're from Andover, they're more important. But part of that is the vivid descriptions from those interrogations that were done by Samuel Parris. We like vivid. We wanna see the paper trail. And when we get to Andover and just have all these things that say, "after several questions purpounded and negative answers given, she confessed." So those start sounding the same, and we're not as interested in those. So that's why the interest in the Salem Village accounts hold people. When you have a paper trail, [00:12:00] that's what you look at.
And, in my research in Stoughton, I tell people a little joke, and it goes like this. There's somebody, one o'clock in the morning, crawling around on the sidewalk underneath the streetlight.
And police car stops by to say, "excuse me, what's going on here?"
And the guy says, " I dropped my wallet. I'm looking for it."
And police officer has a nice big flashlight, looking around and going, "dude, it's not here. If you dropped your wallet here, I'd find it. Are you sure you dropped it here?"
And the guy said, "no, I dropped it in that dark alley back there."
And the officer says, "okay, what are you doing looking for here?"
And the guy said, "the light's better."
And that's what a lot of history ends up being. We have a lot of interest in Samuel Sewall, because he kept a diary. He had letters, he had ledgers, he had all sorts of stuff. He had ancestors. People are really interested in his stuff, and is he necessarily the right person that you want to say, put everything on for being a witch judge?
We also have conversion [00:13:00] narratives. That was a big thing, when you wanna become a covenanted member in a church. And Thomas Shepard wrote them all down in Cambridge, so that we have these incredible records. But was that really emblematic, or was that just, we have this, so we can talk about it? We know about a whole lot of people's lives, and are they necessarily the right people for us to be investigating and extrapolating from?
So when I decided, what can I do? I've read everything. I've read everything, and I'm going, what do I add to this? We've done Records of the Salem Witch Hunt. That's great. People are using it. That's great. But what do I get to do? What am I gonna do? And I looked for, I looked down the dark alley. I said, "what's down the dark alley, and who do we wanna know more about?" Yeah. There's this wonderful play recently on, on Nathaniel Saltonstall, then what his role was in these, but the key person is William Stoughton. He's the one who's in charge of things.
So I said, you know what, [00:14:00] I'm gonna go down that dark alley, and I've had to bring a little flashlight and tweezers to find things. And there's a reason why nobody has written about him before. There isn't a cache of documents. He did not leave a paper trail. So we get little teeny pieces about it, and people make up stuff about him.
Go, "oh, he must have hated women." "He was not married." "Oh, maybe he was gay." All these things to explain why he did what he did to convict and execute all these people. But there's really not much information. There's not much more than what you can find in Sibley's history of Harvard Graduates.
And most times when people talk about 'em, that's all they can cite. They don't have more. I decided I would keep hunting. Now when I say this, there's no cache of papers, that doesn't mean there never was one. There had to have been a cache of papers. Just his library alone, his library, he donated the bulk of it to his niece's husband, John Danforth, who was the minister in Dorchester, and his law books he gave to John [00:15:00] Temple, who was the husband of another one of his nieces.
So there were books. There were books out there. I've only been able to locate seven. Seven books from his library. That just amazes me. And somebody recently said, "oh, I found three more for you. There's a fellow who's written this book. He found them in his attic when he was a kid, and he's written a book about it." I said, "great, that's wonderful." And then I read the book and went, "oh, nope, I already knew about those three. They went up for auction in 2015." So that's a lot of stuff that I can't find.
Somebody said, "oh it'll turn up," and I'm going, "that scale." We don't have letters, we don't have anything personal. We don't have ledgers. He got his money from land. You have to keep track of that stuff. Where is it? He also had a silver ink stand. They called it a standish. And in his will, he gave that to John Danforth as well. And that doesn't exist. I've talked to all the leading colonial silver people, the curators at the Met and Yale, [00:16:00] and a silver ink stand is very rare. So if that survived, we'd know about it. We would know about it. So where did it go? For something like that, you have to have catastrophe. Otherwise it's little pieces missing here and there. But that's a lot of stuff, a lot.
And I've been looking at the family houses, and his particular mansion house in Dorchester went down through his nephew, William Taylor, who also became lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. But it went down through the Taylor family, and I found records of it to 1752, when it was in a probate record, a little map. But by 1831, the maps of Dorchester, which label all the different buildings in it, there's no building there. So maybe something happened there. But then again, he gave his books to a different person. So maybe something happened to one of those houses.
But then I came across this little fact. [00:17:00] In 1764, Harvard's library burned to the ground and nothing was salvageable, nothing. The only books from their library that exist are ones that were already checked out. So I don't have evidence for this yet. I'm looking for it, but I think on the scale of the loss of primary sources and the paper trail, that there's so much missing, a catastrophe that size.
It could have been that the family gave his papers and all of his things to Harvard for safekeeping. I'm looking for anything. I'm looking for other catastrophic events. Did the Danforth house burn down or things like that, because fires happened? But I haven't found anything. That's the only working theory I have, and I have to call it a working theory, because I don't have any primary sources. How do I know this?
This one is one of those times where you have to say, "are these two things connected?" That book that came out recently that had the three books, the fellow, [00:18:00] he made a couple of these leaps. Anytime you have two pieces of things and you, two pieces of evidence, and you're trying to figure out how they're connected, and I'm making a, I'm making a leap saying it could have all burned up in the Harvard fire. He would find things and make leaps, but his tended to be more, I don't wanna say "woo," but they're, "ooh." For instance, these books that he'd found also had John Danforth's name in them. He didn't know that Stoughton had willed these books to John Danforth. And he made a conclusion that Stoughton was a mentor to John Danforth, who was a generation younger. And although true, he didn't, he missed the part where John Danforth is married to his niece. So that explains something. But later on, he said, "in a truly bizarre instance or something, John Danforth is buried in the same tomb as Stoughton." And I'm thinking that's not bizarre. It was the family tomb. So sometimes when you take two [00:19:00] pieces of evidence and try and find what connects them, you can make leaps that sometimes just show you don't know all the details. So in this case, the relationship he had with John Danforth has so many other layers. It isn't just a mentor and a young man.
But for me, my leap is what happened to all those papers, and does it have anything to do with that catastrophic fire at Harvard? Now by 1810, another descendant from the Cooper line gave Harvard the portrait that we have of Stoughton, so I know that the family felt that stuff about him belonged at Harvard. It was a different line, and you're down several generations, but that sense that his stuff belongs at Harvard. He paid to have a building made. It was Stoughton Hall. And when that fell apart, they built another Stoughton Hall. So Harvard feels very strongly about what a benefactor he was. And [00:20:00] Harvard is justifiably proud of having him.
So can I make that connection that his stuff all burned up in the fire? I wish I had some evidence to prove that, but something catastrophic had to have happened. He was well-read. He was known as being a scholar. Very intelligent. Where'd it all, where'd it all go?
And maybe that's just my silver bullet, and I'm trying to find other things that could explain it. But right now that's my working theory. I just wish I had more concrete evidence of it.
I have a great deal of fun doing the research. Recently, I was in Oxford, cuz he spent a decade of his life in England, when he was in his twenties. And I got to do some of my research, literally, in a medieval tower, a stone, medieval tower, because the records from the time he was there are still held in this medieval tower. I think that was the most exciting research [00:21:00] location that I've ever been in. I was so psyched to be in this space, but I was more psyched to look at these records that were held there. So I wasn't really looking around a whole lot. I'm going, "oh my God, look at this."
And just, it wasn't in itself really interesting. It's just so granular. How much was his charge for that particular week in that particular term of that particular year? How much was he charged for his extra food, things like that? Because you got. It came with the commons, but if you wanted more food than that, you would be charged for it if there were any other fees.
So there's these gigantic 17th century spreadsheets, essentially, that I'm picking through, and there's so many details. As I said, I do this research with tweezers, but there I was, in a medieval tower with stone walls three feet thick. You had to go up this stone, circular staircase to get up to this place. The [00:22:00] archivist was very kind, and he said they had talked about taking these records out of this place, because it's a stone, medieval tower. But the argument had been that they had survived intact for all these centuries, so why move them? I'm going, "okay, it's okay by me to go up in, in this muniment tower at New College."
My focus was more on what was actually there, but I came away from it going, "wait a minute, where was I just now?" I was in a room that, that he had spent time in. It was really one of those evocative moments to just find a place, like when I saw Samuel Parris's handwriting, writing down the account of the interrogation of Rebecca Nurse, he was part of her being executed, but going to Oxford and being in this really incredible room that he had spent time in. It was really moving, [00:23:00] but I was concentrating on what I was finding, and yeah, I have a story to tell about him at Oxford.
Josh Hutchinson: And you don't get those opportunities to go in medieval buildings in America.
Margo Burns: England has some really cool stuff. One of my challenges being at Oxford was it's all old, but how old is it? And in looking around New College, there's a big yard they go into, and on two sides, there's three stories of rooms where people would stay. But in his era there was only two stories, so trying to pick apart the things that weren't there when he was there versus the stuff that was there. Which is why, being in the muniment tower, it's going, "he was definitely here. He walked on these stairs, this little spiral staircase made of stone." That was there. It's interesting work. It's interesting work to do.
Josh Hutchinson: It sounds like you've been at it for a little [00:24:00] while.
Margo Burns: Part of it is I just retired in August, and I've been working on Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt. I did that while I was fully employed. I had my summers off, but still I would come home and work on the book. Wasn't popular in my household. "Oh, you're working on the book, okay."
But now that I'm retired, one of the first things I did was decide to take a trip, and one of my locations was to go to Oxford. So I think because I have more time now, and I can have a more constant stream of research from one day to the next, I'm working on Stoughton every day now, which I never could have done while I was working. I'm hoping it goes faster now.
Sarah Jack: But take your time and do it right the way you do it. There's no, there's, yes, time matters, but it's the work that matters.
Margo Burns: And that's the thing about Stoughton. Nobody has done this before. Somebody told me, "oh, you could just write what you know now, and people would buy it." And I go, "yeah, [00:25:00] but there's more." And I haven't been able to plumb all the places that I want to go, found all the things I know I wanna find. I wanna do it right. I definitely do wanna do it right, because nobody has done this before.
And the research is that painstaking. If there's somebody who's writing a dissertation, this is not the topic they're gonna do. If somebody's trying to get out a book regularly on a topic, this is not the topic they would pick, because it's not easy to do and just come up with something, because there isn't a body of work to draw from. So I'm down in the dark alley trying to find all these little things and then make sense of it.
So part of it is, I don't know that I can even start writing it now, because I don't have a sense of everything that I want to know and trying to find all these pieces. But he's a very interesting person. I will say one other thing. It's really weird to be trying to write a biography of a [00:26:00] dead white guy, another dead white guy. Here he is, is not only just a dead white guy. He was one of those Puritans in Massachusetts. Who really wants to read about that? There are lots of people who do wanna read about it, but I also find myself saying, "dead white guy, who's gonna read this? Are my friends gonna read this?"
I have found a whole lot of things about race, class, and gender that play into his story. His investment in the Christianization of the indigenous people alone is worth a great deal of discussion. The fact that he never married and yet had a family full of blood relatives, most of whom were women. He was surrounded by women in his family, and how does that work? How does that work? And then he had slaves, he had African slaves, he owned slaves. Then at one point, performed a marriage between one of his slaves and one of the slaves [00:27:00] in the Danforth family. They're probably all living in one place, but he performed a marriage between two slaves.
Yeah. So there, there are these different things that keep popping up. And then of course, class, he has money and wealth, and anything he wanted to do, he could do because he had class and money and things like that. And how did he deal with people who are not like him? So I'm trying to address some of those things, race, class, and gender, in ways that I hope will be revealing and not just put this down as, you know, dead white guy.
Josh Hutchinson: You said in one of your talks that we've watched that you're having to look at him through other people's lives. You're looking at other people's diaries and correspondence to find out who was the Stoughton character.
Margo Burns: Right? All these parallel narratives, and what are the little points when they touched? Who did he know, and [00:28:00] who do we know for certain he knew that we don't have any other evidence for? So for instance, at Oxford, I look to the list of all the fellows and I know people he had to have known. So I have to look at those parallel lives, the parallel stories, and find those little points when they connect and hope that helps me, because I can find out more in some cases of sending these other parallel lives and just these little sparks along the way.
Josh Hutchinson: I like your analogy about the guy looking for the wallet, because people have been focused on like the Mathers, who are out in the light with their hundreds of books and diaries and letters, but you're looking for that guy who's way back in the alley where barely any light gets.
Margo Burns: And yet, very important to the whole story, there are a lot of different ways that people do history. Sometimes people try and pick somebody who's the every [00:29:00] man or somebody, Martha Ballard, Midwife's Tale. And looking at history through an ordinary human being, to pick one person and see what happened in their lives. That's a particular kind of history to do and it's fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
And I pick a big guy, and that's a fairly standard. You get the biography of some big guy, but I'm really hoping that I can bring some of the qualities of that kind of research into somebody who is not well known. How do you figure out what that person was like, cuz you don't have a whole lot of records about them?
So I'm hoping I can bring that to this story of somebody who is a major figure, even though we don't have a whole lot of information about 'em. I'm having fun. I really have a lot of fun doing this, and I know that the day I sent out the manuscript of records, I had to put it on, burn it to a CD and print out two copies of it to send to Cambridge University Press.
And as that day when it's just like [00:30:00] it's gone. And I was like, "I really liked working on it." That's just it. I really like this work, doing the research and getting to the other end is okay, fly, be free. And that day is far away from me on Stoughton, and I don't wanna rush it, because this is so much fun. This research is a lot of fun and I know nobody else is gonna do it.
Josh Hutchinson: Enjoy it.
Margo Burns: Oh yeah, I will also say one other thing about what I do on my work with Stoughton is that in addition to his life, he has a legacy. I've already mentioned that Harvard has Stoughton Hall, and that's the second Stoughton Hall, that they're very proud of their portrait that they have of him that was donated by the Cooper family.
There's a lot of stuff that has trickled down from his life, and one of the most fascinating ones was recent, and you don't really think about somebody who's died in 1701 having an impact on today. In his will, he [00:31:00] donated money to Dorchester, where he lived, and to the next town over, Milton, which had been part of Dorchester, but had divided in his lifetime. And one of the things he gave was a plot of land to Milton for the support of the poor in the town. And quite often what that would be is if you gave a plot of land, the town or whatever would rent it out to a farmer or something, and the proceeds from those rents would then get used to help support the poor in the town or whatever the thing was, that if he gave something to Harvard and Harvard rented out a pasture, the rents from that would support Harvard.
In this case, it was supposed to be supporting the poor in Milton. And this will from 1701, I guess it was two years ago, at the beginning of the Covid outbreak, a lot of people were having a hard time putting together their budgets and paying their bills. And in Milton, there were more people who appealed to this particular part of Milton [00:32:00] that helped support the poor, and at one point they said, "I wonder if we can get something from that fund." And sure enough, they applied to the select board to see if they could get some of the money from the endowment from that 1701 bequest to help support the people who were struggling financially because of Covid. And sure enough, they issued $85,000 toward that fund to help support people in need in Milton.
Josh Hutchinson: So something good came from Stoughton.
Margo Burns: A lot of things good came from Stoughton, a lot of interesting things, but the whole legacy from him just doesn't correlate with, oh, he was the witchcraft judge. But there's a lot that's come through the years that has been his legacy, and I've got lots of interesting stories about that. It's gonna have to be a whole chapter at the end about these things, because they, in themselves, are interesting. A bequest from his will in 1701 benefited people who were struggling [00:33:00] financially from covid.
Josh Hutchinson: Makes him a really rounded character. Really fascinating person to look at.
Margo Burns: He was a benefactor, and in a way that we can see it today, today, and just, "oh yeah, at Harvard, they built this building and whatever." Now this is real lives, real human beings today. So that part of the book goes beyond his death, but his legacy continues and in a very good way.
Josh Hutchinson: You mentioned what happened with Governor Hutchinson's house, and he was researching his history of Massachusetts. Do we have an idea what Salem-related documents we're missing?
Margo Burns: There are a lot of little things that he's quoting from, and most of them were interrogations. They call 'em examinations. They're interrogations. So they're little, teeny pieces, and some of them were reproduced by an antiquarian named Poole and published in, there were an awful lot of those [00:34:00] really interesting antiquarian groups that published things. So you can find little pieces, and you say well, that came out of a bigger document, and we don't have it. We know it existed, because he quoted from, and I'm, I think it had most, a lot of stuff with the Carrier boys, little, teeny pieces of that, and we really would like to know more of this, but in the Stamp Act Riot, people went through his house and trashed it. There were an awful lot.
He didn't just have Salem stuff. He had other major documents from the founding of Massachusetts, and he brought 'em all home. There's some talk that one of the draft papers, there's actually a footprint on a draft that he had been working on of his history. But things disappear.
There are a lot of things that have just disappeared. For instance, the interrogation of Abigail Hobbs, we don't have that document. We have the text, because in the early part of the 20th century there were a lot of people, libraries and stuff like that, had ways to copy them. They had photostats. People would have an [00:35:00] interesting document. They'd bring it in and say, "hey, do you wanna make a copy of this?" And it would come out with a negative and a positive. So the interrogation of Abigail Hobbs would have the positive photostat of that at the Mass Historical Society.
When we were working on our project, the microfilm for the documents that the Massachusetts State Archives were really bad. Ben had found a grant to digitize everything, but the microfilm for those was one that had been in public use. They couldn't find the master one, so it was already pretty bad.
And also the documents had been silked for preservation, and silking, you take the document and you put a layer of very fine silk on either side, into a hole in a piece of paper. And that way you can see both sides of it when you turn the pages, but it makes it a little murkier. And the microfilm was really pretty bad.
And I'd gone in to the Mass State Archives and got permission, and they brought it out and it was all in one volume as a book, this [00:36:00] big volume, and you turn the pages, and I got permission from them to photograph everything. And I had to have it on a V-shaped support because it wasn't an open flat. And I'd have to angle my camera to take each one. And I took all these pictures, front and back of all these documents. And the silking really is a problem, because it really obscures a lot of detail. But remember, this is a bound thing. Inside the front cover of it, this piece of paper falls out, and it's a negative photo stat.
And I'm going, what is this doing in here? Nobody would've known it was there, except I actually got the book, the bound book of this volume 135 from Mass Archives Collection. And I opened it up and suddenly went, "oh, please let this be something we don't have." And it turned out to be the negative photostat of the photostat that they have at the Mass Historical Society.
So, in the years since then, though, they have taken that bound volume apart and put the individual [00:37:00] pages in archival-quality storage. But having seen this book at one point, it was just like, can't believe this is how it is. But they have since done more to help preserve them. But there was this thing inside the cover.
Josh Hutchinson: Are there certain parts of the trials that we have more documents and parts where we have fewer documents?
Margo Burns: I already mentioned that we have more for the Salem Village stuff than we do from Andover, but we also have several people are executed that we really don't have much information. Margaret Scott, there's very little information about her, and we have two documents in her case that basically have been auctioned off between collectors fairly frequently. It's, "oh, that one just came up for auction again. Okay. It's an indictment." And then there are four documents that were copied and in an 1830, 1840 history of Rowley, where she was from. So there [00:38:00] were some documents in there, maybe four, five, and trying to figure out where those were. And we've got some that were in the collection, the Essex County Court archives, but there were only like a handful of them. And some of them we had to deal with as somebody else had transcribed them.
And we included things like that in Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt. We didn't just take the handwritten things. Sometimes there was one and somebody else had transcribed it, and that's the only evidence we had. That's the case in a lot of the Governor Hutchinson pieces. This is all we have, but we know it came from a primary source. So we knew these other pieces that had come. I think there were a total of nine documents, and we'd known some of them only through this history of Rowley.
Fast forward after Records had been published. Matti Peikola, he was one of the ones that we'd started doing the stuff on the handwriting, and then Peter Grund joined in, and we had done all this work on the handwriting. It took three of us, and we [00:39:00] decided we wanted to see if we could identify some of the others, and Peter got a grant, and we were gonna look at other documents from that period by people doing legal stuff to see if we could figure out who some of these other documents were written by. So they came for two weeks, and we did our archive-hopping.
It was just delightful. We would make agreements ahead of time, and people would be ready for us. We went to town halls. We went to all the major archives, and they were staying down in Boston, in the Back Bay, so they were really near the Boston Public Library. They were near the New England Historical Genealogical Society. It was easy to take public transportation out to the Mass State Archives. It was great. It was really great. Oh, and also they were right around the corner from the Mass Historical Society. So they put themselves in a really great place.
So here we are looking at all these things, and at the Boston Public Library in their manuscripts and rare book section, off the top of my head, I don't remember the year, but they had this big card [00:40:00] catalog, literally a physical card catalog. And what we were doing was trying to look for people in the various towns who were where the accused were from. So Peter pulled open one of the drawers, and he is looking for Rowley, and there's a card that says "four documents in the case of Margaret Scott for witchcraft."
And he showed it to me. He said, "what do you think this is?" I said, "oh my God. More documents. That would be great. In the Margaret Scott Case, we don't, we only have a handful. More documents! Ah, too bad we didn't find this earlier." So we put in a call slip, and they brought them out. And turns out these were several other ones that had been in The History of Rowley.
So The History of Rowley had five, and these were four documents, as I remember. And so we already had the texts. So it wasn't anything new. For us, it was exciting, cuz we could look at the handwriting, because we were recognizing handwriting, and we would've put that into [00:41:00] Records of Salem Witch-Hunt. So there they are. There are things hiding in plain sight.
Now, I will say this about the Boston Public Library. They have since closed for a while to completely redo that collection. I think they were horribly embarrassed when that, was it a Dürer and a Rembrandt went missing? It made the front page of the Boston Globe. People lost their jobs over it, that these very valuable things had been missing. And it turns out they had just misshelved them. And I read about that and went, they misshelved the witchcraft papers. Because when we gave the folder back after looking at these fabulous documents and taking pictures and getting all excited having found them, Peter went back a couple of days later to look at them again, cuz they were staying right around the corner, and they couldn't find them. That took a while to get that resolved, and I found a few people to talk to there, and they had found them again. They were in fact misshelved. And then, another year later, two years later, they can't find this Dürer and Rembrandt, and I'm just laughing cause [00:42:00] I'm going, "they misshelved it."
But to their credit, the Boston Public Library has closed that. I don't know if they're open again. I hope so. But they completely redid that archive, and it's a good thing. It's really a good thing, because I can't imagine, if those documents had gone missing and somebody had taken them. And we were also a little wary about that, because that same week, one of those indictments in Margaret Scott's case that would come up periodically at auction, that one sold that week for, I wanna say $30,000. So we were a little concerned that maybe somebody connected the two, but they were just misshelved.
Josh Hutchinson: What do you believe is the next frontier in witch trials research?
Margo Burns: Oh boy. Next Frontier. We've done a whole lot in getting the primary sources, which is great. And I've also seen a lot of the current work to get the cases resolved and to clear the names of so many people, and I think that's great. [00:43:00] But. What do you do after that? Every generation finds this material, and these circumstances have value or resonance for them. It's been very interesting watching these middle school kids in North Andover working on the Elizabeth Johnson Jr. case. It's fabulous, absolutely fabulous.
And then we also see the people in Scotland working for rep. I don't know if, they're probably not doing reparations, but to go back and make amends, and then the cases in Connecticut. I think that I'll give a lot of credit to those middle schoolers in North Andover.
But there's an effort to come to terms with history, the real lives of people, and to admit things went wrong, and how do we address that? And I think that's also something that's happening just now in general, that our culture is really looking at the past and saying, "we made mistakes. What do we do?"
So that's what's going on now. It's admitting fault [00:44:00] from the past and trying to make some kind of reparations. We also see it for slavery in this country. What do we do? It was wrong. And can you make reparations? If so, how do you do it? And is it definitive?
When they started to try and overturn, they weren't overturning the actual convictions in Salem. It was something that they were overturning attainder, reversing the attainder, which is tainting of the blood, stuff like that. So during the lifetimes of a lot of the people who were involved or who were convicted or their families, there was an effort to say, "yeah, we did the wrong thing."
But not everybody came forward. If your family didn't, you'd been executed and nobody in your family came forward, your attainer was never reversed yet to the 1950s. That's when they started going to the courts at that point and say, "we really need to resolve this." But then they said one person's name and others, okay, for sure you got one person's attainder reversed, and then you [00:45:00] have to go forward and say there were others. They're just called others.
And what was the name of the acting governor? Is it Jane Swift? She. Yeah, so people kept pushing. People from Salem were pushing, and on Halloween that year, she issued a pardon or whatever it was, but I was going, "Halloween, great." But they named the others who had been and others. They gave them their names.
And then most recently, this wonderful class in North Andover said, "we don't see that Elizabeth Johnson Jr was included in that." And she was overlooked, and she was overlooked in a few other things. In her lifetime, she did speak up that she was overlooked and forgotten. Now we think we have everybody officially done, at least for Salem.
But there's this sense of looking backwards, and how do you do that? It's really interesting. And I feel sorry for the next class in middle school, cuz they don't have a project that big. They're not gonna have a project that will make it into a documentary and get that much, it'd be helpful.
But what do we do next? And I don't know, cuz right now, [00:46:00] as a culture, we're looking to figure out what we did wrong in the past and how to move forward from there. And that's our lens, that's our our cultural filter of how we're looking at some of these older things to take.
And you also get a lot of people who are just owning them, "this is my ancestor, this is important." You find the Wiccan community owning this abuse of people in the past who happen to have the same word associated with them. Wiccans now are self-defined witches, but they're not like the people who are accused of witchcraft in Salem, and yet they share a word. And I think that the Wiccan community has really come together to try to help mend things. That hasn't been the case in previous generations. What did it mean to other people and then why they looked at it? And I think this is a really good one. That as we try and come up with our past, you really can't move forward unless you know your past.
So I'm curious to see what the next wave will be. We're not, we're still in this wave of really looking at our [00:47:00] past and coming to terms with it and making amends, but what's next? I don't know. But because Salem is so interesting so many people, there will be something else that comes along.
Part of the reason I think that, oh, the stuff on moldy bread and ergot was so enticing was at the time that the first article positing it came out, it was in the middle of when people were coming to grips with the drug culture of the hippie thing. And since LSD is derived from ergot, that just resonated at the time, and it gave an explanation, because people wanna find meaning.
So if you go into the seventies and you see that, it made perfect sense that people would gravitate toward that as some kind of explanation. But right now, we're trying to figure out how do we come to terms what we did wrong? So I don't know what the next, the next one will be. I'm looking forward to it, but we're not through with this wave because we're still coming to terms and making amends. I don't know.
Have the Connecticut cases been resolved yet? Do you know? [00:48:00]
Josh Hutchinson: No, we're hoping they'll be resolved within a few months.
Margo Burns: Yeah, it's now, and do you know if the Scottish ones have been resolved at this point?
Josh Hutchinson: The pardon hasn't gone through the parliament yet. The first Minister did issue an apology. The Kirk did an apology. But the bill is still with the Parliament.
Margo Burns: And isn't that an amazing thing? And part of the reason that the past things for Salem took their time getting through is that the legislatures have lots of things on their minds. They're trying to get stuff for today done. So when somebody brings them a bill to resolve something that happened centuries ago, that sort of gets to the bottom of the pile. But trying to go back in time, the legislatures and the the people who can actually make that happen, it has to be done on their schedule. And sometimes you can really push that for political reasons and they want to get a little a little bang for your buck. They get a political [00:49:00] push to take care of something, but it has to be on a slow newsday.
Josh Hutchinson: They've gotta see what's in it for them.
Margo Burns: Absolutely. I have to say that the work that Tad Baker and Marilynne Roach and Ben Ray and others did for the public installation to identify the actual site of the hangings. The work they did, they really tried to cover every single possibility. They were looking at the primary sources, they were looking at maps, they were looking at everything they possibly could. They had ground penetrating radar. They had all sorts of stuff. They tried to do everything, because they wanted politicians to know that we all agree.
I already knew that was the place, who am I? Yes. Okay. I'm an historian, but I hadn't done, I hadn't dotted all the i's crossed the t's. Those of us who knew. But the whole idea that it was at the top of Gallows Hill or we're going, "no, not really." They did do [00:50:00] diligence, but part of the reason they had to do that is they were gonna get Salem, who owned that piece of land, to actually do something about it and create this. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful installation.
But if you're gonna get a politician to get on board and do something like that, you know that politician is looking around and goes, "there's not gonna be anybody who says not really." They didn't wanna find that after they've invested all their political power and their, all that stuff, they really wanna make sure that it reflects well on them. And they don't want somebody else to come along and say, "that's just them." That's why that group had to do their due diligence and make sure they'd covered absolutely every possibility. Because a politician was not about to commit to that, if they thought they'd get egg on their face over it.
Josh Hutchinson: And now here I am with an update on the Connecticut Witch trial Exoneration Project.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is a collaborative effort to give voices to those accused of [00:51:00] witchcraft in colonial Connecticut.
Between 1647 and 1697, at least 45 people were accused of witchcraft in the Connecticut and New Haven colonies. 34 people were indicted on formal charges of witchcraft, including 24 women, 6 of their husbands, 3 men charged alone, and 1 unidentified individual. 11 victims are known to have been hanged, 9 women and 2 men. Both men were married to women who were also executed. The accused came from 10 Connecticut towns and 1 Long Island town, which is now part of New York. They came from Fairfield, Farmington, Hartford, New Haven, Saybrook, Stamford, Stratford, Wallingford, Wethersfield, Windsor, and [00:52:00] Easthampton.
The "witches" of the 17th century were not the witches we envision today. They did not wear pointy hats. They did not ride on broomsticks. They did not employ familiars in the forms of animals. They did not covenant with the Devil. In fact, they were not witches at all, by our standards or by the standards of the time.
Those accused of witchcraft were wholly innocent of the charges brought against them. They were ordinary men, women, and children, mostly women of middle age, who were swept up in tides of fear brought on by ordinary human misfortune.
The witchcraft of the early modern period had little in common with the witchcraft of today. It was an entirely malign concept, based on a belief that people could covenant with the devil and gain power to harm others. It was not a peace loving, nature-based form of Paganism. It was entirely malevolent and based [00:53:00] upon the archetype of the anti-woman, the malicious woman whose very soul was set against the virtues of femininity and motherhood commonly expected of women in those times.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project supports the exoneration of those charged with witchcraft in colonial Connecticut, an apology to all accused, memorials to the victims, and education of residents and visitors about the witch trials. The project is a collaboration of people who want to see injustice corrected. It includes dozens of descendants of witch trial victims and other advocates from both in Connecticut and around the nation.
We seek exoneration, because the victims of the witch trials were universally innocent of the impossible crimes with which they were charged. No one covenanted with the Devil. No one manipulated supernatural forces to harm others.
In righting the wrongs of the past, we [00:54:00] recognize our mistakes and enable ourselves to move past them.
Exoneration makes a statement that these actions and actions like them are not acceptable today. Exoneration of Connecticut's witch trial victims will set an example for others on understanding and correcting historic injustices. Exoneration is a stand against the mistreatment of others. Exoneration is a stand against witch hunting in all its forms, including the deadly witchcraft accusations occurring around the world today. Exoneration will resonate in other parts of the world.
The United Nations Human Rights Council will soon assemble in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss the crisis of Harmful Practices Related to Witchcraft Accusations and Ritual Attacks.
In many nations, literal witch hunts continue to plague society with banishments, violence, torture, and death directed at innocent people accused of an [00:55:00] impossible crime. These accusations and extrajudicial punishments are often directed at vulnerable people, notably elderly women, children, the disabled, those with albinism, and indigenous persons.
Each year, thousands of people are targeted. They live in nations around the world on every populated continent. If they are lucky enough to survive, they face an uncertain future. From roaming village to village to being placed in prison or so-called witch camps for their own safety, their lives are never their own.
By exonerating those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut, we send a powerful message that witch-hunting will not be tolerated. By exonerating the accused, we join with other states and nations in confronting the past and righting wrongs. By exonerating the accused, we make a clear statement condemning witch-hunting, which will resonate with leaders in nations affected by witchcraft-accusation-related [00:56:00] violence today.
Let's stand together against witch-hunting. Make that strong statement. Clear the names of those accused of witchcraft in colonial Connecticut and let the world know we oppose witch hunting in the strongest terms. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project strongly urges the General Assembly to pass this exoneration resolution without delay.
Sarah Jack: Thank you for that important news, Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome.
And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: You get to join us again next week.
Josh Hutchinson: So subscribe now, and your download will be ready for you when you wake up next Thursday.
Sarah Jack: For lots of great information and episodes, visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, acquaintances, and neighbors about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: the Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Support our [00:57:00] efforts and donate to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:58:00] [00:59:00]

February 2, 2023

How Do We Know What We Know? Salem Witch-Hunt Primary Sources with Margo Burns, Part 1

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Show Notes

Sit back and enjoy the day with Part 1 of our enjoyable Margo Burns Witch Trial talk. In this information-packed episode, she discusses her research and editing of the book Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt. Discover how we know what we know from the study of historical records. We have some laughs and heartfelt conversation about some of her favorite project discoveries. We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

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University of VA, Salem Witch Trials Documents and Transcriptions

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Transcript

[00:00:00]
Sarah Jack: Welcome to this episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: And I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: Today our guest is Margo Burns, associate editor of Records of the Salem Witch Hunt. She tells us about the project of putting the sources together.
Josh Hutchinson: She does. And you're gonna love this episode so much. She's so entertaining. She's a wonderful storyteller. You're gonna hear stories from her, as well as details about the records, what's in the volume.
Sarah Jack: This was a project that she spent over ten years [00:01:00] in.
Josh Hutchinson: She knows what records still exist and what records we're missing. She knows about the wide variety of records involved and tells us about what can be found in the records.
Sarah Jack: I can't believe we're talking about Margo Burns.
Josh Hutchinson: We're talking about the writer of the Bible for the Salem Witch Trials, the manager who actually physically put it together with her algorithms, and we get to learn about algorithms. We get to learn about her favorite surprise in the records, and that is a really entertaining story. You're gonna really get a kick out of that.
Sarah Jack: Her experiences of going into the archives and evaluating the manuscripts is so fun to hear her talk about that.
Josh Hutchinson: And she'll [00:02:00] tell us all about the massive handwriting analysis project that was associated with identifying who created each of the records.
Sarah Jack: Margo does not hold back on details and experiences from her project years. It was like a firsthand account. There's something special about hearing about the accounts out of the records, about hearing about her accounts, examining the records, because it's Margo Burns, and she was the one right there holding the records, and she does not hold back when she tells us what she read and what she examined.
Josh Hutchinson: She also tells us her Salem Witch trial research origin story and talks about her family connection to the trials.
Sarah Jack: And now enjoy the conversation with Margo Burns, [00:03:00] historian, associate editor, and project manager of Records of the Salem Witch Hunt.
Margo Burns: I have Records of the Salem Witch Hunt, but that came out in 2009, and when it came out, and it's the size of a ream of paper with a hard cover on it, and I confess, I pulled it out of the box. And went, "is that all there is?" It took 12 of us 10 years to produce it, so I had to remind myself it had just been distilled down from all that work we had done, but it still felt small.
Josh Hutchinson: It's not small when you're reading it, though.
Margo Burns: Right? It's condensed. It's just really jam-packed, and, as the project manager, I managed all that stuff that was coming in, so I saw everything. I worked directly with Bernie as we tried to come up with the chronology of how the book was gonna get laid out, how it was gonna get organized. It was a lot of work.
Josh Hutchinson: I imagine. And one thing I picked up on your video in one of your videos that we might [00:04:00] get back to later you said you had four versions of it with, that you made with algorithms and how long did that take to produce them to produce the algorithms and the four versions?
Margo Burns: The algorithms were pretty straightforward, and it was mostly, essentially all the information was in a gigantic database, a relational database. So then I'd have to write something that would say what order things would be in, and I'd set certain variables for everything. So I'd say, okay, let's produce this, and it would make this gigantic net with 970 or whatever many holes in it. And then using features of Microsoft Word, I could take all those individual Word files and then just import them into those holes. So that was easy to just produce a whole version of it. And I printed it out all every one of those times and mailed it to Bernie, so he got to read [00:05:00] through it. I'm really granular and Bernie's very linear, and I think, as a duo, we complimented each other.
Josh Hutchinson: I used do algorithms for work, so that's why I was curious about that.
Margo Burns: Oh, there were all sorts of things, all sorts of weights for things. If you look at a page in there, and you see something that has multiple dates associated with it, the organization chronologically was just, "how do we wanna put these together? If we're gonna do it chronologically, and there are a bunch of things that happen on the same date, and what happens if the second instance from that particular document happens on another date? And how do we organize them according to the names of the people?" There were all these decisions we made all along.
And then those just got kept in the database, and I could write a little thing to say, "okay, let's sort them." And we couldn't really give each one a numeric unique identifier because we were going to put them all in order and they kept changing. So we had [00:06:00] code names for just about every single document based on what archive had them. So the Essex County Court Archives were E C C A, Ecca.
The last iteration of everything, Bernie and I got on Skype, just like a phone call, and it took us two days to go through absolutely every single item in Records to check for all of our dating all the different things that we wanted to do. So on one day, we went from eight in the morning till noon, took an hour for lunch, went one to five, took an hour for dinner, and work six to ten. And the next day, the exact same.
And we went through every single decision that we were making. And if he'd say, "Ooh, I wanna put this in this other place," I'd say, "okay, no, we have to figure out if there's anything else that will be in that kind of category that can get changed." We built ourselves up that we could actually work together that long on Skype.
And it was just [00:07:00] audio. We didn't worry about the video, because we just were talking, and we had the same things on our screens. So that was really, those two days were just, they were a lot of work, but it was just the culmination of everything we had. We finally were organizing the book and that was it.
Josh Hutchinson: I'm so glad you all did that and produced the book that you produced.
Margo Burns: It was really Bernie. Bernie had gotten stung with an incorrect transcription and had written a whole article about it, because apparently there was a date that was wrong, saying that Tituba's grand jury was May whatever in 1692. And he thought, "why would her case be done differently?" And it was a typo, cause hers was done in 1693, the last one in May. And so he'd gotten stung, and he decided that there were enough errors that they should get corrected, and he figured it would be two or three years, and it took us ten.
I keep everything in my head. There are a few of us who know all of those [00:08:00] documents intimately, and also because we were making decisions about them. "What is this document? Who is it about? What's going on?" And so having looked at every single one of those documents that just, it's all inside of me. There are times I forget some things, but I go, "oh yeah, I remember that decision."
For me doing history and doing, especially this subject that has so much popular interest, I always ask, "how do we know what we know?" That's a really important thing for me in this, because there's so many fanciful notions or things that people wanna believe. They wanna believe that the people in Salem were all midwives and there aren't midwives in that group. And they, oh, they had they were nurses and midwives and the men were jealous. It sounds nice, but I always say, "how do we know what we know?" And there's no primary source evidence to that effect.
So that's what history is for me. I was at a, [00:09:00] I'm trying to remember when it was before Records came out, and I was at a a conference, an Omohundro conference, and we were in Quebec City, and it was before the book came out, and Bernie and I were there to talk about how we were working on the book. And Ben Ray and Dick Latner, who's at Tulane, were also on our panel. Bernie and I got up there, and we described what we were doing. I said Thomas Putnam's handwriting was on over 200 of the documents, and the person who was doing comment was John Putnam Demos from Yale, so when he got up, he basically, I felt like I got a little paternalistic pat on the head for telling him something about his ancestor that he didn't know. But then Ben Ray was talking about the geography and the maps, and Dick Latner was talking about the tax rolls, and both of them were challenging what Boyer and Nisenbaum had included in their book and basically saying they got the map wrong. And for the tax rolls, how do you tell [00:10:00] somebody's family's worth is going up or down, if you only use one year? So they basically were taking it apart, and John Demos was very unhappy with them, and he said, "they had a big idea and how dare they criticize Boyer and Nissenbaum."
I'm just new to history, and I'm finding myself going, "if they got the facts wrong, isn't that a big deal?" So I was kind of really into that how do we know what we know, where he was thinking at they made a big change in how history was done. They were looking at the primary sources ,and they were looking at all this stuff, even though they did get some things wrong. For me, it was like, "I'm siding with them."
Josh Hutchinson: We were wondering about that the other day, because Sarah was pointing out in science it's always, "what do we know right now?" Not, "what's the big ideas, and how do we build on those?" It's, "does this change our understanding?"
Margo Burns: And I think John Demos did major things in his heyday, [00:11:00] but it's hard when somebody else comes along and says, "you know what? It's different." But I'm always willing to take more information in, because, as I said, "how do we know what we know?" And I know I probably said I wouldn't talk about this, when it comes to the moldy bread, ergot stuff, that was my operating principle. So many people think it's plausible, means believable, possible, but it's not really possible. And so that's why I made the video that I did that you, you posted, what do we actually know? And I still have people say, "do you believe it?" I said, "it's not about belief it's this is what happened. This is what happened." And nobody has challenged me on any of that, but I think it's a very fun video. I enjoyed making it.
Josh Hutchinson: We enjoyed watching it.
Sarah Jack: You really had me thinking about the science versus the history lens and how, science, we're always looking for the latest discovery, and with history, the latest ideas, and [00:12:00] sometimes discoveries are more challenged, but I guess science that happens, too.
Margo Burns: I think one of the problems comes from the fact that it was a scientist who was doing this, and she was just saying, "are all the pieces there for this to possibly happen?" And if one of them was missing, she would've said, "no." And I can challenge some of those things that she's using as evidence, but she was just saying, "can I rule this out?" And she basically said, "no, we can't rule it out." And then you get the historians, you get the people who really get into this and they go, "ah, she made an argument for this being the case," and she really didn't. So what a scientist will do and what a historian or the public will do with something can be very different.
I really enjoyed talking with her. We emailed back and forth a lot. The interviews I did with her were really eye-opening. So a lot of people who don't approve of the ergot stuff will say, "oh, Linda Caporeal." I had a great time talking to her. And that [00:13:00] she actually said, "I think it's Mary Matossian"
But she gets cited all the time, and then people read it and they feel like, "yes, she's on our side." And it's not about a side, it's about how do we figure out? For me, one is how do we figure out what the causes were? And there are so many of them, but the other part is why does this resonate? And it does.
Josh Hutchinson: I looked at that the latest, the IFL Science article, and I only skimmed it. I didn't read verbatim what they wrote, because it was just a rehashing of this 40-some-year-old argument.
Margo Burns: If you scroll to the bottom of it, I replied. I will sometimes go into the fray, and other times I'll just back right out. But sometimes I poke the bear. I'll poke the bear on the Crucible.
Sarah Jack: It's good to leave those crumbs for the right people who might look at that article.
Margo Burns: It just keeps popping up.
And I'm really glad that the talk has been recorded three times [00:14:00] actually. And if I wanted to do it again in Salem, I know a bunch of people say, "yep, okay, we'll do it." Then when they get into those conversations, they can just go, "okay, I've been here before. Go watch Margo's video."
Josh Hutchinson: Thinking of our questions that we have for you, they're primarily about Records. Could you start with just a bird's eye of what Records is for those people who aren't familiar with it?
Margo Burns: Certainly. Records of the Salem Witch Hunt is a collection of all the primary source records, legal records, primary source legal records of the Salem witchcraft trials. So we won't have Samuel Sewell's diary entries, but it's all the legal records. Most of them are handwritten and they're in 12 different archives. Mostly they're at the Peabody Essex and at the Massachusetts Archive, State Archives.
And we saw just about all of them in person and learned how to read their handwriting. There were over 200 [00:15:00] different handwriting examples throughout all of them. And a lot of documents had multiple people adding to them over a period of days. So we had to start recognizing them so that we could do as accurate transcriptions as possible. And when I say accurate, it isn't just was is this an A or an E?
Couple of things that we corrected were oh, names, dates. Those are really critical when you start doing things in history. You need to get those things correct. Also, there were some words, there was one that historically has been translated as basin, B A S I N and the, like some vision they were offering her this girl a basin. If you think about basin and religion, you start thinking things about baptism. And the thing is that this was, somebody's handwriting, was very kind of crab, wasn't a really polished one. And the more we looked at it, they went, "it's not basin, it's coffin," because you got a B and a K. Which one is it? [00:16:00] You've got an A, so it could be an O and then the middle one if you, it's long. So it could be the long S or an F. And then we ended with the E N. So the first three letters were really challenging and then when we really looked at it, we realized, oh my god, she's being offered a coffin, and you get a completely different sense of what was happening.
When we did these transcriptions, there were a half a dozen linguists, historical linguists from Scandinavia, most of them from Finland. And they have been at the top of their game in historical linguistics, especially with English. They've been doing that for decades and decades. And I had been in a a graduate program at the University of Southern California when we had looked at some of these legal records. And so when I met them on this project, it was like, "oh, I've already read your work before." They're like the top linguists, and they were very precise about getting everything exactly right.
And they really are [00:17:00] good at historical handwriting. And that's just, that's a critical thing when you start reading these because you can make mistakes reading something. And for us, part of our accuracy was to keep track of whose handwriting was on them, because if you've got two or three lines of something, and you find something ambiguous, how do you clarify it?
But if you have a whole page of somebody's handwriting, it's easier to resolve ambiguities. So we started keeping track of handwriting across all these documents. I remember the meeting when Matti Peikola and I looked at each other and said, "is this possible?" And we said, "yes," but it was being done, not necessarily to identify the people, but to increase our accuracy in our transcriptions. So that was part of it. We're really looking at all this handwriting to be able to make those decisions. And by the end, it was just like, we have all this wonderful information. So we decided, we picked about two dozen people whose handwriting appeared a lot, [00:18:00] and we identified them, because one of the things about legal papers is that they keep getting pieces added to them.
So if there's, for instance, on a warrant for somebody's arrest, the magistrates would write it out. It'd be two magistrates. One would write it, usually John Hathorne. And they would give this to the sheriff and say, "tell this person they have to come in, go arrest them and bring them into us." So that's got one date and one person's handwriting, but then at the bottom you find another thing, the return from that officer and in another handwriting saying, "yes, I have apprehended Rebecca Nurse, and I have brought her to you on this day," and it's a different date. So trying to take all these pieces apart and have them be a coherent whole was really a challenge, especially with these smaller things like the officer's return.
Usually there would only be one or two documents with some people's handwriting on it. Another thing that would happen, though, is if we could identify somebody's handwriting, maybe not even them, we could use that as [00:19:00] part of our chronology. When we're trying to figure out when things happened, because that's important, timelines are important. You wanna do history, it's people, it's places, it's dates.
So as we were looking at some of the indictments, we're trying to figure out what day was the grand jury? And if we could find the same handwriting from the foreman of the grand jury on multiple documents that we didn't have any evidence when these other grand jury documents were being done. If we could find the same jury foreman, that gave us a clue as to exactly what the timetable was, because that jury foreman and that jury were hearing specific people's cases.
And that was fantastic when we could figure out that, and we could look at who was in the room. That's really hard to see over history. Some of these documents, you could actually see who was in the room, who was doing the interrogating, who was writing it down. That was really important. And when we look at some of the most important documents, and I'll just say important, because they have so much [00:20:00] content and so much connection for people, the interrogations of the people early on. They're so strong. You hear the voices of people.
One of the other things, too, is when you look at it, you know who wrote it down, because that was Samuel Parris. Now he may not be in the text itself, but he's the guy writing it down. He was in the room. He has an impact on the content of what's in that document, even though you can't see him just reading the text. So these are the kinds of things that we felt were important.
We worked so hard on these things, but the transcriptions themselves, the transcriptions, the number of pairs of eyes that looked at them was phenomenal. Each document was given to a two-person team to do the first rough transcription of, and sometimes they were based on some of the transcriptions that appeared in Boyer and Nissenbaum Salem Witchcraft Papers sometimes, but a [00:21:00] base to go on.
And they would polish it up, and that would be round one, and then it would be round two when those same documents are rearranged. Sometimes trying to put some together that made sense, because the first round we just went after everything scatter. So the second round we organized them a little bit better, and then another two person team would look at the transcription and do a finer job with it.
We thought we'd have two rounds, because we just kept going through and Merja Kytö who is the wrangler of all the, all the linguists over in Finland. She just said, "we have one chance to get it right, so let's do it." And that, that was important.
I'm sure that there's some errors in there. I hope there aren't big ones, but the pairs of eyes that looked at every single thing. So if you look at, two people are looking at the first round, two people are looking at the second round, usually not the same two people. The third round, anybody could have been that. And then also just Bernie and I were working on other [00:22:00] things, so we were looking at these documents again, and it really had to be something radical for us to miss it.
Sarah Jack: I'd love to hear how you jumped on board with this project.
Margo Burns: Oh, good. It's weird. People say, "oh, you have an ancestor." Yes. One of my ancestors is Rebecca nurse, and I think most people when they find I'm interested in this, think that it was because I have an ancestor. I have to say my grandmother who did all the family genealogy, she was interested in the DAR and the Mayflower Society. That's what she was looking for.
And it must have been the early eighties, I knew somebody who was in a performance of The Crucible. He was playing Francis Nurse, and I'd just gotten all this family stuff, and I looked and went, "wait a minute, Francis Nurse, I think that's a real person." And I opened up my grandmother's research, and I'm poking around. I said, "oh, he is." And then it, for the entry on the display, it said, oh, Rebecca Nurse, asterisk. I look at the bottom of the page, asterisk, executed for witchcraft, July [00:23:00] 19th, 1692 in Salem. That was all it was to my grandmother. It was an asterisk. So it was a new thing for me to discover.
Fast forward to the early nineties, and I'd already gotten my master's in linguistics from the University of New Hampshire, and I was pursuing a doctoral degree in linguistics out there. And I was in a seminar on legal language. The professor was very interested in legal language across time, and he had finished all of his research in England and was starting with doing things about legal language in America.
So it was starting, so it was the second half of the 17th century. And so he was handing out at one point just cases for us to look at. And his name's Ed Finnegan, absolutely amazing guy. Here's a murder, here's an infanticide, here's piracy. And said, then I got witchcraft. I got Salem witchcraft trials. And I'm in California, mind you, not here in New England. He said, "I don't know if there's much stuff on this." And I said, "I'll take it. I'll just take that. My great whatever [00:24:00] was executed then." And that's the only real connect that I had toward this path that I went on to join this project. It was just like in the seminar I said, "sure, I'll take that."
Dropped outta my doctoral program and came back to New England. And when I got here I thought, " that was really interesting. Maybe my family would like to have something about that. I should write up." But not one to just go into something lightly, I just read everything I could, everything. And I was reading these things, and I said, " I can't do all of that research. There have to be people out there who have already been interested in their family members."
So this was late 1990s. RootsWeb had LISTSERVs, that tells you exactly how old it is, a LISTSERV. And I made a new one for Salem Witch List, that's all. And I think it, it, at its high point, it had maybe 300 people, and people would put little things out there. Now we have Facebook groups for that. There was [00:25:00] nothing at that time except these LISTSERVs. So I would keep track of who was signing up, and that's when I noticed one day that Bernie Rosenthal had signed up. And I just read his book, and it was like, "oh, this is cool." But, I wrote to him and I said, 'happy to have you here. This is mostly a genealogy thing. I liked your book." And I asked him, " what are you doing now that you've finished this?" And he said he really wanted to correct the errors that he had encountered in the primary sources. That's great.
Fast forward a couple years. I'm finally reading Boyer and Nissenbaum Salem Witchcraft Papers, all of the transcriptions that existed in that three-volume set. And I'm reading along, and at one point, I'm keeping track of things in my head, and I found this document that was testimony against George Burroughs, but it was a month after he'd already been executed. And I'm looking at that and [00:26:00] going, "why would somebody be testifying against him a month after he is already been tried and executed?" So I said, "ah, I wonder if that's one of those errors that Bernie had found." I wrote him an email, and I said, "is this the case? Is this one of the errors that you're gonna be fixing?"
And he wrote back and said, "no. I wrote about that in my book," and I'm thinking, "oh God, now I feel stupid." But it had been a couple of years since I'd read it. And then he said, "there's something else I want to talk to you about, but I feel I don't really like email." He really doesn't, knowing him all these years, he really didn't like email, and would I feel comfortable calling him or him calling me, so he could talk to me about this? And I'm thinking, "what the heck?" So I said, "sure". We got on the phone, and he told me that they'd just gotten this great National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
He and Ben Ray had gotten this together, cuz they both had applied for National Humanities grant. And somebody said, "oh, you guys should get together, cuz you're on the same subject." But they'd gotten it, [00:27:00] and he was about to start into it, and he had a project manager. But his project manager was Joe Flibbert from Salem State, and Joe sadly passed away very suddenly, and he was bereft to lose his friend, but also he was gonna be the project manager. And they'd just gotten this grant, and what do you do? And then out of the blue, I was writing to him about what he was doing and asking a question very specific to what he was doing and why he was doing it. And he decided to invite me to be his project manager. So that took a little bit of doing, because there was grant money and how the grant money was gonna come to me. But before I said yes, I met with him.
And he was at a chess tournament in Vermont, I think it was Stratton Mountain, and he'd driven over from New York. And I drove up there from New Hampshire and met him for the first time. And from the moment he opened a [00:28:00] computer and showed me the digital images of these documents, I was hooked, because I had already had this sense that if you could look at the actual documents, you could identify who was writing them.
And so that sort of carried forward on the whole project, because I thought that was important. Who was writing these things down? Because you put so much more of yourself into these documents than people necessarily know, and just seeing them, it was one of those moments like, I will do anything. I will do anything to be on this project. And so for the first year and a half, I got some of the money, but I didn't do anywhere nearly as much work as I did later on when I was earning nothing.
And Bernie is a fantastic human being. I will have to add that in. He is a professor of English at Binghamton University, head of the English Department. His specialty was Moby Dick and Herman Melville. But he also, more than that, [00:29:00] is really invested in social justice. And that's what caught him to do this, because he was visiting Salem and thinking, "this is really weird. These people were executed wrongly. And yet there's an ice cream stand with a witch on it. There's an image of a witch on the police cars." And so he felt very strongly about that. And so as a literary critic, being somebody interested in texts from English department kind of perspective, he decided to read everything closely.
And that's what his approach to it was. Not a historian, he was a close reader of texts, and my undergraduate degree was in English, so I knew exactly where he was coming from. So even though I didn't major in history or any of that, we had a whole lot in common on how we were approaching the texts.
It was wonderful, because we had Mary Beth Norton being a great supporter. She and Bernie are great friends, and so we had a lot of good historians with us. But I think because our background was in literature and just looking to see [00:30:00] what is in the text without bringing any preconceived notion to it, I think that really benefited everything that we were doing and putting together the book.
It just goes to show you can have all sorts of different people and perspectives and working on the same project, getting them all to integrate and it was a fantastic project to be on. There'll be nothing like that in my lifetime. And it was 10 years. I remember in my household it was just like, "oh, you're working on the book again." Okay. It was all about the book, and it was just like, yep.
One of the things about it is that there are three at the end that were in the Salem Witchcraft Papers by Boyer and Nissenbaum, and we discovered that they had nothing to do with the Salem witchcraft trials. So, we decided we couldn't leave them out, because they were in this other book, and if we left them out, inevitably there was somebody who was going to look very superficially at and compare the two and say, "oh, they forgot these [00:31:00] documents." So we included them with fine transcriptions just to make sure that people didn't think we had missed them. And then we have reasons why we don't think that they were part of the trials.
It was just, it was constant for me. As a matter of fact, we did have more than those entries in our database. We had a lot more things in the database that we had to decide whether they were gonna keep them or not. And I made the case that we needed to include some of the pieces from Deodat Lawson's accounts of the interrogations.
They weren't legal documents, but they were accounts of a legal proceeding. But there were other things that you'll find from Deodat Lawson's text that aren't in the book. And we were making a decision to just deal with the legal aspects of it. So you won't find Parris's sermon, you won't find Deodat Lawson's sermon. You won't find entries by Samuel Sewall in his diary. These were things that we felt were outside of scope of what we were trying to do. We wanted to show how the legal [00:32:00] process worked.
And it's very interesting to me when somebody said, "didn't they do blah, blah?" And I say, "let's go to the documents." And I show people what each little piece means. And it's really interesting, because people still don't quite get how legal proceedings go, and they'll make conclusions about things that really aren't there in the documents.
Here's something. It was not about Salem, but if you watched, Who Do You Think You Are?, there was something this season where one of the celebrities descended from somebody who was accused of witchcraft in Connecticut and in the promos for the show, they zoom in on a document and highlight guilty of the crime of witchcraft, but it turns out that if you thought that she was found guilty and executed and things like that, that's wrong because that's a piece of text from an accusation saying that they thought this woman was guilty of the crime of witchcraft. [00:33:00] She ended up being found not guilty, but you can take text out of context and draw conclusions. So I think that was one of those things for Who Do You Think You Are? where they had a really nice hook, just when you think, ah, she got it and it turns out she was found not guilty.
And Who Do You Think You Are? does great story arcs. And also I give them so much credit. They have the best researchers. They read all the right stuff. They talk to the right people. They ask the right questions. And I've been on the show twice, and I'm really impressed by what they do. And I'm really not impressed by a whole lot of other documentaries.
Watching them work the day before, even the morning before one of the tapings, they said, "if this celebrity asks you a question and it's an unknown, you have to say, 'we don't know,'" because they didn't want anybody making up something. "It could have been this." no. Everything had to be by the primary sources. And yes, there's a story arc for these [00:34:00] things. You get there, but you've been, I've been working with them to figure out what the documents are. They knew what they want the story arc for Scott Foley's ancestor Samuel Wardwell. They knew what the story arc was for Jean Smart and Dorcus Hoar.
And they had come up with a series of primary sources, and I'd worked on them with that. And I had a pile to my left . And I would tell the story based on those primary sources, which was just, that was right up my alley, absolutely right up my alley. And they like to put somebody who really knows what they're talking about to talk to the celebrity, because you don't know what the celebrity's gonna ask, something about their family, you never know. And they needed to make sure they have people who can field those questions and who can also say we don't know confidently. So that was just fabulous, absolutely fabulous.
And, one after another, you show a, a document that's in old handwriting, and they can say, "oh, I can't read that." Immediately we have the transcription to hand out. And I remember watching the one with Melissa Etheridge, she was up [00:35:00] in Quebec, and the records were handwritten in French. So not only could she not read the handwriting, she couldn't even read the French. So they had a translation ready for her. The preparation for that show is just fantastic, and I have nothing but good things to say about how they do it.
And again, it's primary sources. We're gonna tell the story based on the facts. How do we know what we know? When the people go away with something real and concrete, not just some kind of weird story we can tell about their ancestor, we tell them something real.
Sarah Jack: When were the records written?
Margo Burns: The actual handwritten things for the legal process, they were written as the process was going along. So when we get those first accusations in Salem Village, they sat down and started writing these things. The arrest warrants were written as the magistrates were having people arrested. Everything was just written live. So having things [00:36:00] handwritten is just fabulous, because when they did it you know who was there.
And the fact that we have so many, we have so many of the originals is absolutely fantastic. And also it isn't just, "oh, we have the indictments and this record and stuff like that." We actually have records of the bills from the blacksmiths who were making the chains and the handcuffs. That's just an amazing document that we could have that, and I don't know who was responsible for keeping all those together. It may have been that it was organized by Governor Hutchinson. We lost a lot of those documents, probably when his house was ransacked during the Stamp Act Riot, cuz he clearly had access to more documents than have survived.
But the fact that we can have something that small and that, I dunno, I think it's evocative when you can get to that, when it's just, "here's the bill, I made these chains, I fixed this, and here's the bill for it." It takes it to a level that's so much more tangible because [00:37:00] it's easier to think about a chain and an iron handcuff than it is necessarily to understand what an indictment is.
Josh Hutchinson: You mentioned Samuel Parris as one of the writers. Who were some of the others?
Margo Burns: In those first ones, we also have Ezekiel Cheever taking it down. We also have Jonathan Corwin taking things down. But for the interrogations that took place in Salem Village, he was the one who was taking them down. After that, you start getting an assortment of people who would record them.
If you get into the Andover ones, they all sound alike. They all sound alike. They're nothing like the ones that were taken down in Salem Village because Samuel Parris was trying to take things down word for word. The Nurse family kind of challenged him on that later on, but he could do shorthand, and he took these things verbatim as well as he could and then reconstituted it into regular English. So you actually get to hear the [00:38:00] voices of the people professing their innocence. And those are just, those are what get to people and why I think the Salem trials are so evocative and why people get so passionate about them. They see somebody saying, "I am innocent." And we know, we hear that. We read it, and we know that they're gonna die.
When we get to the Andover cases. You, if you read the, what they've done for those, it starts off with, "she was propounded several questions and gave a negative answer." So, sort of like, "are you a Witch?" "No." "And then she confessed to having a thing with the Devil." So it sounds like the whole beginning part when they were saying, making their accusations and they're doing their professions of their innocence, all those things don't matter. So they weren't taken down, and like, "several questions asked, negative answers given, and then she confessed." And that was the important part to the court. So [00:39:00] whoever was doing those, that's the part they were taking down, whereas Samuel Parris was just trying to take down everything.
And if you look at the records of the interrogations in Andover, they all start sounding the same. They're all the same. There may be a little variation in there, but if you look at them compared to the accounts of the interrogations that were done by Samuel Parris in Salem Village, those are all different. Those are really amazing documents, an attempt to capture what people actually said. Whereas in Andover, they were just putting down the stuff that they could use to convict somebody because a confession was basically the gold standard. It is today. A confession is a gold standard, and it's really hard to not convict somebody, if at some point they confess to it.
There's a lot of research that's been done about the roles of false confessions, but clearly the court wanted those confessions cuz then they could convict people more easily. Saul Kassin [00:40:00] at Williams has done a lot of work on false confessions. He just produced a book called Duped, and I was reading some of it, and he said that even in the Salem witchcraft trials, nobody that confessed falsely was executed. So I wrote to him. I said, "oh, I heard you on Hidden Brain the other day, and your book is great, but I gotta tell you, "yes, one of the people who confessed was executed. It was Samuel Wardwell." And he wrote back, said, "that's great to know. I wish I'd known this before." And so he was very gracious about it.
But that's one of the myths that the people who confessed weren't executed, weren't tried. And anytime I bring up Samuel Wardwell, they go, "he recanted his." It doesn't matter if he recanted, because once somebody confesses, that just sticks to you. And he was indicted on that charge, and he was convicted and executed. Those are the kind of details I like.
Sarah Jack: You mentioned the bill of sale from the blacksmith. What other type of records still [00:41:00] exist?
Margo Burns: There are accounts by the jailers saying what the charges were. There's one from John Arnold, one of the jailers. He was in Boston, and it's really interesting because, in addition to the names of the people, he says when they came into his jail and when they left, and then he's charging for their diet, what it costs to feed them. And as a result, we can actually find the individual stories of people. If you're tracing an ancestor or you really wanna know about a particular person, with those documents you can find when they went into jail and when they came out. And you also get who is in the same jail at the same time. Having those different timelines going together. Those documents are really helpful. Who is in the jail at the same time? So those are fabulous.
Josh Hutchinson: Going into this you said earlier that you had already read the Salem Witchcraft Papers. Were you at all surprised by any of the records that you found?
Margo Burns: [00:42:00] Actually, this one that I laughed so hard, I fell off the couch.
Okay. It comes from one of the words in it that I didn't know, and I looked it up, and I fell apart. It's in the case of Elizabeth Howe, and the Cummings family, especially Mary, the wife, really didn't like her. Elizabeth Howe wanted to join the church to become a covenanted member in it, and Mary was just dead set against it. She would invoke something that had happened years before to one of her Perley relatives. There's a family named Perley where somebody accused Elizabeth Howe, and she just never forgot it, even though the accusation went nowhere.
Fast forward. I don't know exactly when it was, but Elizabeth Howe's husband went blind. Before he went blind, so let's say six or seven years before Salem, he went to the neighbors', the Cummings', house and said he wanted to borrow a horse. And neither Mary or her husband, Isaac, he was the deacon, and neither of them were [00:43:00] home, but Isaac Junior was there. And here's this neighbor coming and asking, "can I borrow a horse?"
And as teenagers can be, he said, "we don't have a horse." And you've got Howe saying, "I'm hearing some whinnying in your barn. What do you mean you don't have a horse?" And wise guy that the guy was, he said, "we have a mare. You asked if we had a horse. We have a mare." So he says, "can I borrow your mare?" And the teenager goes, "it's Thursday. Mom and Dad usually take the mare to go visit a relative on Fridays. I'm gonna say, 'no.'" Okay. He goes away.
So on Saturday morning, Mom and Dad have taken the mare on this trip, and Saturday morning they wake up, and the animal is in their yard, not in the pasture, not in the barn, and apparently had very sore gums. It was described as if ridden with a hot bridle. Okay. And they really were trying to figure out what was going on. And it was [00:44:00] Saturday morning, and the deacon had to do something elsewhere. And Mary asked her brother to come over and take a look at the animal, cause apparently he was pretty good with animals.
So he came over, and he's looking and Isaac Sr. said, "I got stuff to do. I leave this with you." And Isaac came back later that night, and his brother-in-law was still there and said, "I've tried everything. I looked to see if maybe it was from bot flies." You know what a bot is? It basically is this, is a little worm, will burrow into the gums and flesh of animals, especially horses and maybe sheep. And it's really gross. And so he said, "I looked to see if the inflamed gums had any evidence of bot flies. And he didn't."
And but then he tells Isaac that, "there's only one thing I can think of. You might not like it." And Isaac said, "what?" He said, "okay, go get a pipe with some tobacco." At this point, Isaac is going, [00:45:00] "I don't know."
Now I have to tell you that this story comes from four accounts. Everything in here is from these sources, one from Isaac Sr., one from Isaac Jr., one from Mary, and one from her brother. He asks him to go and get some tobacco and a pipe. And this point the deacon is going, "I don't like where this is going." And his brother-in-law said, "oh no. This is legal for man or beast." And Isaac is going, "I don't know."
So they bring out the pipe, light the pipe. And then in the records it says, "and they put it under the fundament of the horse." And I'm going, "what the heck's a fundament?" It's the area underneath the tail, for lack of a better word. And they put this lit pipe underneath the tail, in front of the fundament of the horse.
And blue flames shot out of the back of this poor animal and singed the fur. I was just like, "okay." And apparently they did it two or three times. I can't quite tell from the descriptions, but they did it at least twice. [00:46:00] And then Isaac said, "you know what?" It was catching the hay on fire. They were doing it inside. They were doing it inside, and it was catching the hay on fire. Finally, Isaac said, cut" it out. No, no more. I need the barn more than I need this animal. That's enough."
Okay, next morning is Sunday morning, and people are all on their way to the meeting house. And one of the neighbors is passing by and hears this story about this poor animal that was still sick, and he goes in to look at the mare, and they're talking about it, and the neighbor said, " maybe it's bewitched." Therein always lies the tale. He said, "but we can figure it out, if we cut off a piece of the ear and burn it."
Now, this was sympathetic magic that if a witch had somehow bewitched somebody, there would be this invisible effluvia. If you listen to Thomas Brattle's account of it, this invisible effluvia would emanate from their eyes and go into the person or the animal. And if you could [00:47:00] somehow get some of that effluvia, and you could hurt it, you could hurt the witch.
So when we think about the witch cake in Salem, it had the girls' urine. Clearly some of this effluvia could have been in the urine. You also sometimes hear about witch bottles that have hair. It's easier on people to take urine and hair or fingernails, but with animals, they would say, oh, let's cut off the ear. And the idea is if you could hurt it. In this case for the witch cake, the dog biting it, or in this case with an ear, you could set fire to it. It would hurt the witch, and the witch was supposed to come and try and stop this, because they were in pain. That's how it was supposed to work.
So this neighbor is talking to Deacon Cummings about doing this with the ear of the mare, and the deacon, being a deacon, and saying, " it's Sunday, and I don't know about this. This is a little iffy, but if you wanna come back tomorrow, you know you can try it." Right then, the poor animal has been very sick and falls over, [00:48:00] almost on top of them. If they hadn't gotten out the door, this animal would've crushed them. Big horse. Oh, excuse me, mare. And the animal was dead.
Okay, so I'm going okay, "this is interesting." I am still laughing about the fundament stuff, but then I started wondering why was this tale so important that four people, four people would tell the story? And why was this being used as evidence against Elizabeth Howe? Her husband is the only one who appears in it. Why was this being used about against her? And I kept reading 'em and reading 'em, and suddenly I found something in Mary's account. Apparently, when they got to church that day, when they got to the meeting house, word had gotten around and Elizabeth Howe had said something, a really smart remark. She said, "well, of course this happened when you feed an animal brimstone and other combustible things." And I'm thinking, "why would she even say that? Why?" It turns out that to make laxatives, they [00:49:00] were using things like that, oil and brimstone, sulfur, things like that to try and get the stuff going through the animal. It turns out horses can't vomit. That's what colic is. Everything has to go in one direction. So they would try and give the animal a laxative, and it comes out the other end. It's flammable. So she was making this smart remark that of course this happened. What happens when you feed your animal combustibles?
And I think that smart remark and Mary Cummings' existing animosity against Elizabeth Howe combined, so that story of the men in her family being idiots turned into this woman is responsible for what happened. But that particular one about Elizabeth Howe, that sticks with me, Three Stooges meet Joan of Arc, so that's the story that just always gets me.
Josh Hutchinson: That caught my eye, because the Cummings are ancestors of mine and Elizabeth Jackson Howe is [00:50:00] an aunt by marriage. I always thought it was just a really gassy horse and or mare.
Margo Burns: The other part is that in this, the accusations that she had afflicted one of the Perley daughters earlier, it's interesting, because they'd brought in two ministers, Phillips and Payson. And they came over from Rowley to investigate, and they concluded that it was the younger brother egging her on to say, "ooh, Goody Howe is afflicting me."
So they actually got Phillips and Payson to testify on Elizabeth Howe's behalf to say, "no, this really didn't happen. We were there, we made this decision." So to get two really good ministers to show up and testify on her behalf and then that was ignored, that was pretty amazing. And to make it worse, this is something people don't know, Reverend Phillips was at Harvard the same time as William Stoughton, and Reverend Payson was also from Dorchester, where Stoughton [00:51:00] grew up and lived. So they were known people to him. And then they still just ignored it, so that there's a little complication in there.
Josh Hutchinson: For more tales from Margo Burns, tune in to the exciting conclusion next week. Now we go to our own Sarah Jack for another edition of End Witch Hunts News.
Sarah Jack: Here is Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Legislation News. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is an organized effort of diverse collaborators working for a state exoneration of the 17th century accused and hanged witches of the Connecticut Colony. Many advocates have come together, along with State Representative Jane Garibay and Senator Saud Anwar to support proposed exoneration legislation. The 2023 winter session of the Connecticut General Assembly includes the bill [00:52:00] proposals of two exoneration resolutions for innocents accused and tried for witchcraft crimes during the years of 1647 to 1697. Senate Joint Resolution proposed by Senator Saud Anwar, SJ Number 5, "Exonerating the Women and Men Convicted for Witchcraft in Colonial Connecticut" and House Joint Resolution in the General Assembly, proposed by representative Jane Gariaby, HJ Number 21, "Resolution Recognizing the Unfair Treatment of Individuals Accused of Witchcraft During the 17th Century." These proposals could bring a public hearing shortly.
This resolution will be an example to others working to recognize and address historic wrongs. Connecticut is taking a stand against injustice. Connecticut is taking a stand against misogyny. Connecticut is also taking a stand against witch-hunting, which will resonate in parts of the world where witchcraft accusations continue to lead to violence today. By acknowledging the mistakes of the past, we educate the public that similar [00:53:00] actions are not acceptable today. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project strongly urges the General assembly to pass this legislation without delay.
Our project is offering several ways for you to plug in and participate or learn about the exoneration and history. Please download our robust lineup of episodes featuring Witch Trial Descendants, education about hanged witch Alice Young and other victims, and Connecticut Colony's Governor John Winthrop, Jr.'s positive influence against convicting witches. You can go to our project website for an informative and easy to understand fact sheet of the Connecticut Colony witch trial victims, places, and dates.
You can follow along by joining our Discord community or Facebook groups. Please keep your eye on the social media accounts of state Representative Garibay and Senator Anwar for live events and local opportunities to learn more about what's happening and show support for the bills. Links to all these informative opportunities are listed in the episode description.
Use your social power to help Alice Young, America's first executed witch, finally be [00:54:00] acknowledged. Support the descendants by acknowledging and sharing their ancestor's stories. Remember the victims in modern day facing the same unfair and dangerous situations. Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our project on social media @CTwitchhunt and visit our website at ConnecticutWitchTrials.org.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is a project of End Witch Hunts Movement. End Witch Hunts is a nonprofit organization founded to educate about witch trial history and advocate for alleged witches. Please support us with your donations or purchases of educational witch trial books and merchandise. Shop our merch at zazzle.com/store/EndWitchHunts or zazzle.com/store/thoushaltnotsuffer, and shop our books at bookshop.org/EndWitchHunts.
We want you as a super listener. You can support Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast production by super [00:55:00] listening with your monthly monetary support. See episode description for links to these support opportunities. We thank you for standing with us and helping us create a world that is safe from witchcraft accusations.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you Sarah for enlightening us.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe to Thou Shalt Not Suffer wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends and family and boss and coworkers about how wonderful Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast is and how groovy it is to listen.
Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more about our organization.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:56:00]

January 26, 2023

Witchcraft Accusations in Nigeria with Dr. Leo Igwe

Advocacy for Alleged Witches

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Show Notes

Dr. Leo Igwe, activist and advocate of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches, speaks with us about the witch hunt crisis in Nigeria. Leo teaches us the historical, societal, and cultural implications leading us to this modern day situation and calls for specific support. We discuss the urgency of immediate interventions and ways of building up Nigerians to be able to address and implement their own solutions. This episode is a call to action for all people worldwide to take action against witch fear and to create safe communities for the vulnerable citizens in our world communities.
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Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to an eye-opening, profound, life-changing episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: Today we speak with Leo Igwe, an activist in Nigeria, about modern day witchcraft persecution in West Africa.
Content warning. We're talking about real-life events. The things that human beings do to each other. We caution you to listen at your own discretion.
Sarah Jack: All of it's discussed very tastefully. It's just horrific.[00:01:00]
Josh Hutchinson: We're just discussing what are the facts on the ground.
Sarah Jack: After you listen to Leo's stories, you'll understand what's happening there.
Josh Hutchinson: It's a nasty situation, but Leo's here to help change things.
Sarah Jack: We asked him questions that we thought you would want answered.
Josh Hutchinson: Leo gives us a good background on what the situation is, what events are happening, how they're happening, who's involved, who needs to step up to the plate and take action.
Sarah Jack: You will hear the urgency and come to understand the urgency. If you're wondering if this episode is for you, it is.
Josh Hutchinson: There's so much we could say about this, but let's hear it from the man himself, Leo Igwe.
Thank you so much [00:02:00] for joining us. It's an honor.
Leo Igwe: Thank you for giving me this platform. It's not common. A lot of people, we've been longing to be given platforms so that we can bring in our own side of the story.
Josh Hutchinson: We wanna start with some questions about the background of what is actually happening in West Africa with these witchcraft accusations. Is the fear that's driving the allegations coming from the traditional religion or the colonized religions, or is it a mix of both?
Leo Igwe: Well, witchcraft accusation predates colonialism. It predates contact with the West or contact with non-African cultures and religions. What happens is that, of course, I learned from my father, who learned from the grandfather, who were traditional religionists, that people try to [00:03:00] make sense of life, using whatever they can materially, material, spiritual, natural, supernatural, ritualistic, whatever they can do to really provide a solution to their problems, they did, and they were doing this before they got in contact with other cultures and other religions, but of course other religions somehow reinforced aspects of many preexisting practices and conceptions.
For instance, Christianity came as a better religion. They told Africans, "your traditional religion is primitive. Now take a better look at the better religion." That's Christianity. And of course, it's not only because they made a case for better religion. They use violence in terms of colonialism, forceful acquisition of these cultures. They use their school, they use health institutions [00:04:00] to still send a message that Christianity was better. But of course, many people, in the course of embracing this religion, discovered within Christianity, witchcraft narratives, supernatural narratives, faith-healing narratives, which now reinforced preexisting notions and practices.
So this is how what you can call the colonial religions intersected with preexisting notions. And the same thing with Islam. Islam also came as a better religion. And of course, they made Africans to understand that what they were worshiping, were actually spirits, not God, were deities, the divinities. So they made them to embrace what they think is a real God. And of course, in embracing this, it also came with your own supernatural narratives, including narratives of healing, narratives of making sense of misfortune.
And it is within this universe of supernatural solutions and narratives [00:05:00] that witchcraft notions exist. And this is how what we are seeing today is an intersection, is a fusion, is a kind of practices going on, in spite of, or in addition to, or in connection with what you can call the colonial religions.
Sarah Jack: What laws are on the books in Nigeria and other African nations, and how long have they been there? Are they a response to what you just shared about?
Leo Igwe: Yeah, we have of course, we have regulations even before, you know, we got the state formations with laws and constitutions as embedded in Western form of state or political system. And of course, let me go to the traditional laws. Traditional laws, of course, they have their regulations as what do you do if you are convicted?
Theft, acquisition, forceful acquisition of other people's [00:06:00] property, or what do they call, you know, or killing or murder, and other offenses within the community. But, of course, in trying to decide who is guilty or who is innocent, sometimes they involve the traditional priests or traditional diviners who, you know, especially when such incidents is assumed to involve some supernatural.
Now, when the colonialists came with their own laws and state formation systems, they introduced another way of rules of money or how to make sense of offenses. And of course, it was the, you can call them the post-enlightenment Europeans that came here. So they had gone through this issue of witch-hunting, and they had al, they already done with it, and within their law books, they, they criminalized witchcraft accusation. And they now introduced the similar [00:07:00] laws here to checkmate, to regulate, to restrain accusations and attendant abuses.
Now these laws, so in Nigeria for instance, we have provisions in the criminal code against witchcraft accusations. But of course, like every other thing, or many of the things introduced during the colonial era, they were in the statutes book. They were on paper, not in practice, because these laws originated from cultures, non-African cultures, that had their time evolution in terms of its own making, but only superimposed on a culture that has not gone through similar processes, in terms of the witch-hunting, the Renaissance, the reformation of law. Law did not come here as a result of reformation by the people. Laws were introduced as imposition by those who feel that their own idea of state formation is superior to traditional formations. So what we have now in [00:08:00] after independence, when Africans took over this, first of all, they need to satisfy, of course, the former colonialists that, "oh yeah, we are continuing the state formation."
So we are going to, they now just put in play those laws. They just cut and paste all these laws, and they now had independence, but they were still on paper. Even myself growing up, I never knew that witchcraft accusation was a crime. It was only when I started fighting these allegations and I was looking for mechanisms to help me do that, that I just looked at the law. I said, " Leo, look at it there, is even clear in our statutes book." Why? Because one thing goes on in the law or in the on paper of the law, but another thing goes on in practice. So because culture, religion, or, are very often are involved in, when it comes to cases like this.
So we have the laws, but the question is that these laws are not being enforced. These laws are not being [00:09:00] enforced because, first of all, of the fact that these laws sometimes conflict with local, traditional beliefs and then state, the state is weak. So that who, who enforces the law is, is a matter of who is offended. If you are rich and powerful, of course you can enforce the law, but if you, if you are poor, and, uh, and, uh, you cannot, you don't have the wherewithal, you cannot even, you know, enforce the law even when the law is on your side. So what we have is a situation whereby people affected are always elderly women, children, people with disabilities, and people who are not in the position or with the power and the resources to enforce the law in a situation where the, the state is very weak, and the state is ineffective, and state presence is just limited, and state instrument is just a matter of who can afford to use this instrument to protect himself or herself. So this is [00:10:00] why, you know, we have this kind of situation going on today. .
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for that. That really clarified a lot. How common are witchcraft accusations?
Leo Igwe: Well, witchcraft accusation is, I will say we have to take it in layers. Witchcraft suspicion is pervasive, perverse in the sense that when things happen to people, using witchcraft is one of the ways they try to make sense of it. There was an accident, some people could say, "hmm, but is really an accident, you know, couldn't there be something behind this?" A kind of why me or why this person at this time?
So what happens is that witchcraft narrative is just now one of those ways people try to make sense of it, but sometimes they suppress their suspicion, especially when they're afraid that the other party could take them [00:11:00] to court, because the law is on the side of the accused. So when they're afraid that they could be taken to court by the other party or the other party's educated, empowered, exposed, understand his or her right enough, they will suppress the allegation, and they may resort to other subtle and covert means to get back at the person that's suspected.
Now. So what happens there is, is that it is very common, but because of the fear that the accused or the person being suspected might actually take the other person to court and get the person convicted, is only those whom they think they could overpower, they could overwhelm, the poor, the aged, the elderly ones, women. These are usually the people who are now at the extreme end, who are the receiving end of the punishment.
So, witchcraft accusation is pervasive. Why? Also [00:12:00] because religion, Christianity, Islam. All these religions, they accommodate witchcraft, suspicion. They may say they are not, but they reinforce it, either because they also endorse supernatural interpretation of the problems and supernatural solution of the problems. So as long as we have this, it is difficult to separate witchcraft, allegations and suspicion from people's religion. So religion is pervasive. Africa is almost the religious capital of the world, in terms of Islam, in terms of Christianity. So within this religious capitalality locks witchcraft suspicion, witchcraft beliefs.
So it is very common, but what happens is that it is difficult to enforce, it's difficult to take on whom you are suspecting, because of fear that the person could go to court and get this person suspecting, the person accusing to go to prison or to suffer some [00:13:00] penalty.
Sarah Jack: So I'm really hearing you talk about the powerful versus those without power. Is that geographical at all? Do you find accusations happening in rural, more rural or both rural and urban? Does the power part play into that?
Leo Igwe: Yeah. You see urban areas are often where the elite, the educated, those who work with the government, the politicians where they live. So, and urban areas are areas where sometimes people live in a way that they don't actually know their neighbors. They are, they're not connected with their neighbors, so they don't know what is going on in the other apartment or in the other person's life. Okay.
So, but in the rural areas, people will live in a way that they know each other, they understand each other. Sometimes they share [00:14:00] apartments, land, they have a lot of things in common, unlike in rural areas where very often you only deal with the state or you deal with your landlords or the person directly. So, um, the accusations are more in rural areas or people who are living in slums, and slums, these are areas in the cities where people are not actually living a way that, you know, they actually live within apartments. They live in open spaces. They make use of open, uh, either pumps or common, they share things in common, so, so we see that more often happening in rural areas.
Now, another reason why it happens in rural areas is that there's limited presence of the state. Oftentimes, we have a police stations with about three or five police officers in a community of a hundred to 300 people, and sometimes the police stations are kilometers away from some of the communities. [00:15:00] So those communities are managed by traditional rulers, who use customs, more of customs than the laws, and who use local enforcement mechanisms than the police. Is only when a rich member of the society who is affected, the person could not bring in the police to overwhelm the local traditional system.
So it is more of, again, where the weak, the poor, the socially vulnerable, where they live. This is where you have it more, because in the rural areas where you have the politicians and who have the rich and the elite who live in their, you know, very skyscrapers or live in posh houses, luxurious homes with, uh, a lot of security people around them and all that. We don't get a lot of these accusations, but we get it more in rural, squalid neighborhoods, you know, where people are, poor people live and where they cannot [00:16:00] sometimes afford to go to hospital or access medical care, and they only go to prophets, prophetesses. They go to mallams, or they go to clerics when they're sick or when they need their job, and all that. And many of them are not well educated, so they are vulnerable, they live in a lot of uncertainty, and they are not well skilled, and they don't have well skilled jobs. So these are usually where you have more of them, and a lot of people who are well skilled either they live in the city or they migrate to Europe or America for better jobs. So the, the circle of people who are really vulnerable and who are prone to suffering accusations continue to widen, as the elite continue to move to the urban areas or migrate to Europe and America and others. So leaving Africa now with, you know, a growing army of vulnerable people, people who are likely to be accused, attacked, or killed in the name of witchcraft.
Josh Hutchinson: These accusations, [00:17:00] when they're made, are they taken to the traditional leader in the community, or are they handled independently?
Leo Igwe: No, they're usually taken to the traditional ruler. But what happens is that if the family, first of all, if they suspect, if they make their suspicion, sometimes they secretly go to some of the traditional healers or priests or Christian pastors or prophets, you know, prayer houses, spiritual home, because there are all sorts of places they go these days. Sometimes it's a mix of traditional and Christian, traditional and Islam, just a place you can find solution. And we have always people who use all sorts of religious Christian just to make sure that they make sense of people's problems. So they go to these places. And when these places, when the divine are there, the cleric there, the so-called expert [00:18:00] there, or you can call the person the witch doctor, if that is what you know, what is best.
When the person now tells them that, okay, actually this is a case of witchcraft, and somebody in your family is responsible, the person now comes back emboldened with a lot of force and anger and reports the matter now to the chief. And that puts the chief sometimes in a very difficult position, because the chiefs always know that they must have gone to certify who the witch is before coming to them. So sometimes the chief might recommend that they should go to another for another reconfirmation. Sometimes they might refuse, or they want the chief to use the result of their own consultation or confirmation. So sometimes he puts the chief in a difficult position, the chief might yield and go with it, or he might prevail on the accusing party to go to another place.
Or he might [00:19:00] also invite the police. It depends on where the chief is living, how close the next police station is, and how effective, you know, bringing in external party, in terms of the police, into the matter. So chiefs always find themselves in very difficult position, and very often they yield to the mob, because if they don't do that, they themselves could also be killed, or they could be lynched, because they could be seen as a party to the witchcraft.
And they could also, you know, put their, they could put themselves in danger and even their legitimacy, you know, could be taken as having been compromised, because they are seen as, their role is to protect the community, not just protecting them physically, but also protecting them metaphysically. So when somebody feels metaphysically assaulted and the chief seems not to be taking effective measures, the chief is believed to have compromised their positions.
Sarah Jack: And [00:20:00] the person that would be first consulting with a spiritual leader and then going to the chief, is that individual usually a male or a leader within a family or a person with some social power within his circle? Or could just like a teenage daughter go and ask for consultation on it?
Leo Igwe: Now, yes, a very good question. Our society is patriarchal, so male dominates, male rule, male direct, male control. We have male control society, so that is usually the male members, especially the elderly ones or the ones who claim to be in position of power are usually the ones who will go to consult and very often in many parts of, of the region, the person that also going to consult also going to be a male person. There are female diviners, but they're just in the minority. And of course, because they're in [00:21:00] the minority, they also are, they're afraid of also making divinations that could change the power equation in terms of patriarchy, male domination.
So you will still see the female diviners, you know, also making divinations, you know, along that line, which is of course indicting women and elderly women. So it's usually the male that will go out to consult very often male diviners or traditional priests or prophets. Occasionally, of course there are cases of prophetesses, female diviners, or or female traditional priests, but they are usually in the minority, very, very minority.
Josh Hutchinson: And why do they make the witchcraft allegation? Is there something specific that's happening to trigger an accusation of witchcraft?
Leo Igwe: There are many triggers. Very often these triggers are usually [00:22:00] misfortunes. For instance, we have a case in October. A young man in rural, in a rural area was traveling on a motorbike. He had no headlight. Yeah, there was no light. And he was traveling in the night. So he was involved in a crash, and he died. And the family now said, "oh no, this wasn't an ordinary death."
There's always this notion of ordinary and extraordinary death. When it's a young person, when it's just somebody, new couple, when is, when it happens in a way that people think, "yeah, this is not a case of ordinary death." They will now go to diviners, who will now tell them who might be or who could be responsible for, for that. So this is, this is usually the pattern. Whenever some misfortune happens and some people think it's not an ordinary misfortune, [00:23:00] that there must be something extraordinary, they would go there.
So that was what happened in that case. They went to a diviner who now, identified that there were children initiated into the witchcraft world. So they came and took some of these children, and I think they must have tortured them, but eventually they started confessing and started telling them other women in the community who were involved in witchcraft. And that was how they went, mentioned the name of some women. They brought them to the shrine, tortured them, and eventually they killed them in the process and buried them in the forest. So this is how some misfortune considered to be extraordinary, not normal, how it now gets one into that slippery slope that leads to accusation, killing, murder, the suspected Witch.
Sarah Jack: And you mentioned that some of the consequences of [00:24:00] allegations are torture and murder, people naming other people. Are there other consequences that we need to know about from allegations?
Leo Igwe: Well, first of all is that people are dispossessed. Sometimes accusations happens to widows who inherited a lot of property from the late husband. Okay. And sometimes when, let's say somebody in the family, a relative, when he is sick, the person will now assume that, oh yeah, this woman also wants to kill me or something. So they, they could make allegations to dispossess, but dispossess the accused.
They could make allegations that will lead to the banishment of the accused. The accused, in, in the north of Ghana, they have a [00:25:00] whole place, makeshift shelters, they call them witch camps. And these are places that people run to, accused people run to. Either, they actually tell them, "go." They actually, you know, come and force them to leave their community and go to these places. And when they go, they're dispossessed of their house, their land, and their property.
So the consequences are not just only torture, trial by ordeal, mob violence, lynching. It could also be dispossession of their property. They could also be banished and they now have to spend the rest of their life, sometimes as, uh, moving along the streets. There was a case in Nigeria, where the person was living on the streets, and one day the woman decided to come back in the night. They went and abducted her and stoned her to death. So a lot of people will be banished. They don't have a place to [00:26:00] go, and sometimes many of them end up dying on the streets, you know?
So there are so many consequences apart from torture and murder of the accused, all sorts of abuses, you know, are visited on them. Both the ones we can track and the ones we cannot track.
Josh Hutchinson: We've also heard you speak about prisons in certain nations where they keep the accused for their own safety. Can you tell us about that?
Leo Igwe: Yes. What happens is that you see, there's always this attitude by the police or state officials. They'll say, okay, they call it protective custody. So they come up with a name to actually justify what is clearly an abuse, because there's nothing like protective custody, because people who are making accusations are the ones against the law. They're the ones who's supposed to be in custody. They're only supposed to be in prison.
But what [00:27:00] happens here is that we have a situation where police will say they keep some people in custody, because if they don't do that, they could be attacked and killed. So we have that in Chad. We have had cases of protective custody in Chad, even in Nigeria and a few other African countries where the courts or the police will decide to keep these people in detention. We also have it in Malawi, and they are claiming that because if they release them, they could be killed.
Because very often, the accusers, especially when the bewitched is late, in quotes, the alleged "bewitched" person died or is no more, they want to revenge, the accusers want to revenge. So what the police or the court will do is to put the person in what they call protective custody, waiting for maybe a time after the tension had gone down. [00:28:00] But the people they put in custody, sometimes elderly women, and our prison are not the best of places, because they don't care for these people. They starve them till they die. Very often they give them little or no food. So we have cases like that where the state officials will get these people imprisoned for their sake, just to protect them and ensure that they don't go back to the society, where they could be killed.
And this is quite unfortunate, and this is part of the reason why our advocacy campaign exists and will continue to get the state to understand that the people who's supposed to be in custody are the accusers that the people supposed to be in jail, that the people who's supposed to be taken to prison and that people who are the accused are people who supposed to be freed. Their rights should be protected, because the law is on their side. So we have that, we have such cases, you know, in some countries in the region.[00:29:00]
Sarah Jack: Just to like visualize this, how many accused are we talking that could be in a prison?
Leo Igwe: What happens is that like a recent report made it clear we have problem of statistics. In a matter like this, I don't want to underestimate so that it might be reducing or minimizing what is actually a greivous issue. And I want to let you know that some years ago I went to Malawi and I didn't know that about 20, 30, over that number of women, were kept in prison for their sake, I didn't know.
So what happens is that many of these things are going on in a lot of places without information, unless we try to really allow countries to open up and let us know. But what we know I can tell you today is that we have a lot of accused people in protective custodies across the country. We have a challenge, [00:30:00] because very often this information is not released to the public. That is part of the challenge we are facing, because we really need to have this information and put them out there and begin the process of getting the state officials to do what they're supposed to do. Release these people.
It was a campaign, we were at in Malawi that led to the release of many of these women. I went to Malawi, and I saw women in protective custody, and I was shocked on seeing that. And we did a campaign, but we know that there are cases in Chad, even in Congo and all that, but the number of these women is difficult to say. And that is part of the frustration. That is part of what is really hampering our advocacy campaign in many countries. Limited statistics, limited data on how the victims are being treated and maltreated across the region.
Josh Hutchinson: The accusations, [00:31:00] do they usually come from within your own family or are they you accusing a neighbor?
Leo Igwe: Accusations, like I said, because they take place in rural communities where people live as families, kindreds and all that, it usually comes from within the family. Yes, it comes from within the family. We have what they called extended family. It could also come, like yesterday it was reported that somebody murdered the uncle. Yes. What happened? The son of this person informed him that the granduncle initiated him into witchcraft, because that's all this kind of narrative here that somebody is initiated, that the granduncle gave , this boy, allegedly gave this boy a piece of meat, and they said that with this, after eating this meat that he got [00:32:00] initiated and that part of the instruction was that he should kill his father.
So the father now did not wait for the son to kill him. He now went and confronted the uncle who is accused of initiating his son. And in the process he attacked the man, beat him down, beat him with a stick. He fell down, he now dragged the body into the hut or the house and set the house ablaze. This happened some days ago in Bauchi State in northern Nigeria.
So it is too often a family issue is too often a way families sometimes try to resolve cases of misfortune or cases of some suspicion of occult forces being involved in their day-to-day life. So yes, it happens more within families. It happens more among relatives.
Sarah Jack: [00:33:00] I have a question about this. So with like banishment and then you have this inner family accusing and violence, is there still a component where, if there's been witchcraft in your family, it makes things difficult for the rest of the family, or is that not really happening because these families are dividing over witchcraft?
Because I believe in some other countries, once somebody has been killed as a witch in your family, then sometimes that whole family is banished or they have to seek refuge away from where they're known. Is that happening?
Leo Igwe: Yeah, the theory is this, because it happens within families, so you have an accusing section, you have the accused section, and uh, just like, of course, some [00:34:00] anthropologists have noted, accusation witchcraft is a flip side of kinship. So what happens is that the whole sense of family solidarity flips, you know? So very often you'll find the accused alone, or you find the accused being supported by other family members but from a distance. Yes. So it divides the family. So we have some on the side of the accused. We also have some who might not really support the alleged witchcraft, but will be providing support to the accused because the sup, the person is their mother or their sister. They will not want that person to come and live with them, but they may want to provide assistance for the person to be sent elsewhere.
So it is really a very [00:35:00] complex situation and development, especially when people are accused. Now, when the accusation comes from, for instance, outside the family, outside the family here might be extended family, the person might be told, if it is a man or a woman, might be told to go with the family, because the belief is that you can pass, you must have passed it on.
Yes, because there is a belief that you can inherit it, you can contract it. So it depends on the nature of the allegation and it depends on the family's response to it. So if it is intrafamily, it divides the family into two, those for the accused, those against the accused. And sometimes the removal of the accused person reduces the tension, especially when it is not seen as something that has entangled other [00:36:00] family members.
But there are instances, especially when there is open, clear support for the accused and the chief now is in support of the accusers, the chief may order both the accused and the family members to leave the community for the sake of peace. Yes. So it doesn't follow a very strict pattern. It depends on how was the reaction of the family members to the allegation, the nature of the allegation, or what is the reaction of non-family members like the chief to the allegation? There are cases when the whole community rises against the accused. So sometimes they will tell the accused to leave with the family members.
So it doesn't follow a particular pattern. It can, there are a lot of variables that will determine who lives and who doesn't live when accusations happen.
Sarah Jack: [00:37:00] I appreciate what you're teaching us, because it really even shows me what kind of questions I have and how those need to change. So thank you.
Josh Hutchinson: This has been very informative and eye-opening. Now we'd like to know more about your organization. What would you like to tell us about Advocacy for Alleged Witches?
Leo Igwe: Well, Advocacy for Alleged Witches is actually a protest advocacy, let me tell you, protest on so many grounds. First of all, I have been unsatisfied with the work being done by organization and NGOs very often based, connected with Western NGOs doing this work. Because what they do is that they so much dictate and policed the way to advocate against witch persecution. [00:38:00] And I found that unhelpful. I found that ineffective. I found that patronizing. I found that counterproductive. So they're just papering over the problem.
And what happens is that many of the NGOs here cannot actually do what they would've ordinarily want to do. They first of all have to look out and say, "okay, what do they want us to do? Okay, we need to have a conference." They will have a conference. After that, they go to sleep. So there isn't a grounded, solid, robust, home-based organization that responds to this problem as they want, not as they are told to do. So what we have here are NGOs who are just fronting for Western NGOs and doing it as they want. And of course they send them the money, and they do it.
Now, I wanted an advocacy campaign that is rooted on our own feeling and our [00:39:00] own reality and as we see things. So I didn't want to be police. I don't want somebody to be dictating what I do from London or from New York and all that. Many of them are far from the scene. Many of them are not on ground, and they will be there telling you sometimes not to intervene when you supposed to intervene. They will tell you not to issue press releases. Before you issue press releases, they have to read it in New York, and sometimes they're on vacation. Okay? You cannot issue press, by the time you want to issue a press release, the matter is over.
I found this frustrating. So I said, look, this problem is not happening in New York. It's not happening in London. It's happening right here in Nigeria, right here in Malawi. We must be at the forefront of this advocacy. We know the problem, we know the actors, we know what to tell them, and that those who want to support us do it this way should support us.
As I'm speaking to you, I have just finished a meeting with local [00:40:00] stakeholders. Now, ordinarily, before you do this kind of meeting, you write a proposal, and sometimes they will tell you, oh, sorry, there's no budget for your meeting this year. Then you go and sleep till there is a budget, and sometimes if there is never a budget, you are not gonna do anything. So I just ask myself. I said, "no, no, no, no, no." Germans we say, "das geht nicht." "No, no, no. That's not possible. I will not do this." Okay.
So I will have to put in place a mechanism like yesterday the news came that there was an incident of witch killing in Bauchi in northern Nigeria. Right there and then I called the police commissioner. I called them, and I told them what to do, and I told them, "we're gonna work. By Monday, we're gonna put a force together and protect the child who allegedly confessed and all that, put resources to support the child." Now, for many NGOs here, you need to send a proposal to your secretariat, to your office in London or New York and [00:41:00] tell them, "okay, there is a case in, uh, Bauchi, what do we do?" They say, "but sorry, it's not in our budget this year." So what you do, you leave intervening in a situation where you could have made a difference, because it is not in the budget of an organization far away that has nothing to do with the problem going on on ground.
So I started this as a protest, because as it's happening, I want to intervene. I issue press releases in the night, sometimes even when I'm in the bathroom. When I'm in the toilet, I have to call people. I said, "you can't do this." You get it. And I, I don't need to get permission from anybody to do it. So this is one reason why we started the Advocacy for the Alleged Witches.
Again, the narrative of witchcraft in the West and the narrative of witchcraft in Africa is different. Now, the West has gone through the witch hunt, and today we have the pagans who identify as witches. Now, when we say advocacy and we campaign [00:42:00] against witchcraft, pagans are joining us in this debate, and I keep telling them, look guys, we are not talking to you. We are talking to those who claim they could disappear in the night and go and make people ill. Are you among those people? They will say, "no." I say, "look, fine. We are discussing an African-specific narrative and understanding of witchcraft, that is a problematic, that is being used to kill and mame."
We advocate for the right of people to identify themselves as witches or freedom of worship and religion, however they want to make sense of it. But too often, because of the culture, because of the way things happen in the West, they always try to confuse issues. Here, we're not confused. Today, I had a meeting, we had a discussion on this. We know what we are talking about, but when we try to have it sometimes with people from Europe, they try to bring in the Wiccan kind of religion. [00:43:00] Look, we are not, we don't have issues with the Wiccans. No, actually, I want them to understand, they need to support us so that we can go through this phase, just like Europe did and we, and so that people who openly identify as witches or as with the Wiccan religion can practice their religion freely, just like Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Baha'i but too often those who have these kind of, uh, Wiccan belief and all that. They try to join the debate we are doing here by absorbing and misrepresenting it. So that's why I'm saying this is a protest. We are a protest advocacy, and I hope that it can take hold and it can take the continent through this process so that after some time we can now come into, uh, the same field, on the same level with the Americans and all that.
And we've had have people here identify themselves as witches or do practice their Wiccan religion in just like they do in the West. But we are [00:44:00] still in early modern Europe. Yeah, that's where we are. And if, if, uh, other parts of the world could envision this, they would know where we are today, and here in Nigeria, in the region, there is no confusion regarding what we are trying to achieve. There is no confusion at all. But too often confusion comes when those from Europe or America try to bring in some kind of their own experiences in a way that now minimizes what people are going through here, because here, witchcraft problem comes as a result of allegation, not necessarily as a result of self-identification. No, as a result of allegation.
Somebody has a problem. You wake up in the night, you have a dream, you go and knock at somebody's else and said, ah, I saw you in my dream. You are responsible for my problem. The next thing, the person is attacked, then the next, he is killed. So witchcraft here comes as a result of allegation, not as self-identification or as a religion.
So, and we need the help of other people who [00:45:00] understand this as in early modern Europe, and the problem that it cause, in order for us to get rid of this problem and then come to the same level with Europe and America in terms of freedom of religion and belief, which includes freedom for people to practice and identify themselves as witches or as those who belong to the Wiccan religion.
Josh Hutchinson: That was very powerful. How can people outside of Africa help?
Leo Igwe: Yeah. Yeah. This is a very interesting question and the thing is that there are so many ways you can help, and I want to let you know that what you are doing right here now is a form of help. Yes. Because I know that when people talk about help, of course people talk about money, which I want to tell you is very important, okay? But we have also more important things. Provide us the platform. Yes. Provide us the platform. Very often [00:46:00] people don't give us a platform because they want to speak for us. Sometimes, like now, when you read some of the texts by European scholars, they'll be conflating African religion, African traditional religion and witchcraft.
It's not the case. Yes, we understand what African religion is. We understand it. Allow us to speak regarding these problems. Support us. Don't do it for us. Do it with us. Like now we are having a conversation. Yes, you are giving me a platform to explain this. Come behind us. The problem is affecting us. It's affecting our family members, affecting our parents, affecting our relatives, affecting our fellow citizens.
What is going on? They want to speak for us. That's a problem. Yes. They want to tell us, you know, those days, you know, Europe, and Europe and America, they will send people to Africa, "ah. How are those people? Who are they? Can you please tell us about Africans?" That era has gone. [00:47:00] Sarah, that era has gone. Josh, that era has gone .Tell your countrymen and women that the era of sending somebody to come and be speaking for us. I can speak for myself. My English might not be as good as yours, but I can communicate and tell you how we feel. Stop speaking for us. So that is a problem. Immediately, we stop this. The problem is half-solved. Work with us, come behind us, so that we begin to explain this thing from our own perspective, not from your perspective. What happens is that somebody, an American perspective of African witchcraft, I mean, see even the length of that expression is enough to discourage you.
I'm here, I'm, I'm presenting the perspective. Nobody is presenting the perspective of Leo's perspective or come on, you know, so what am I trying to say? We need to begin to allow Africans to tell us about what is going on. Tell us about what they're doing. Support them to do that. Yes. Like [00:48:00] now we need resources.
Yes. When events happen, invite us, because immediately you continue to provide platform for us. You are sending a message back to the community. Yes. Immediately, our voices, they get out there. People are hearing it. Look, today we have social media. When Europeans came here, we didn't have social media. We didn't have this kind of communication. So, so it is not difficult to get me to speak and let the world know what is going on. Yes. So we have to remove all these people who are, who are in between. Who, who, who want to tell you guys, okay, look at what Africans are doing. No, no, no, no, no. They have done enough. They have never done enough damage. They can go, we, we want to retire them. At the Advocacy for Alleged Witches, we want to retire some of these Europeans and Americans who want to tell you guys how we think. No, I will tell you how I think, and I'll tell you how I believe. So if you want to support us, give us the platform, give us the resources.
And [00:49:00] sometimes we may tell you, you know, inviting us overseas. Look at the challenge we have. Sometimes they, they will spend a lot of money to invite you to overseas. Now you don't have the money to go to the next community for an intervention, and it is sometimes a fraction of the money. But they will spend thousands of dollars because they want an Africa face at the UN so that they will tell you, okay, we are doing, yeah, we are in Africa, we are active in Africa. They want an African face.
Now you come back home here, you don't have transport money to go to the next community to support an alleged witch. You don't have transport money to go to Bauchi state like now and provide the support for this child, who is being treated as a child witch. You get it. So, but now they satisfy it, and you guys clap for them. Oh, these are our people, they're on ground. They're telling us what is going on in this native land among these Africans. But here nothing. They are not on ground. They're just doing tokenism. They're just doing PR for you guys, and you guys accept them. So, what am I trying to [00:50:00] say? What you can do for us is bring this campaign into the 21st century. Yes. Now you can reach out to me. I can take you to places I can speak from the scene, things happening. So you don't need all those people in between. That's one.
Two, the resources. Let them go directly to the people on ground. They waste a lot of money on visa, only I don't want to come to America to come and talk about witchcraft. I want to be here. Give me the resources. Let me stay here in Nigeria. Let me go to Malawi. Let me go to South Africa. Let me go to Liberia. Let me go to Zambia and Zimbabwe and sit with the people and begin the process of addressing this problem. Enough of this tokenism. Enough of this PR. Enough of this superficial campaign. Enough of this patronizing approach.
You trying to tell us how Africans should do it. I know what to do. I know the problem. I know the people. I know what to do. Stop making it seem as if I don't, I'm not intelligent enough, [00:51:00] you know how to solve my problem. I know it. I need the means. I need the tools. Support me. Don't do it for me.
Josh Hutchinson: Are there other organizations like yours in other nations?
Leo Igwe: Well, there are organizations working on this. There are organizations trying to address this problem, but I want to let you know our approach is different. Yes. Very often they will call them human rights organization, so you wouldn't even know that they're addressing the problem. And they don't want to send the message that they're also addressing the problem, because, like now, my organization, whenever we have meetings, they'll be coming. They say, "are you what? Who are you? Are you, are you guys witches? Or what are you people really doing?" So there is always that challenge. Many organizations want to kind of play down on it and do it in a very subtle and covert manner. [00:52:00] And by so doing, they won't be achieving clear results. Yes. "Oh, we are addressing the elderly, the rights of the elderly." Then they will now put witchcraft inside, and they will not talk about it a lot. Oh, it's human rights they're addressing.
But that's why I came. Advocacy for Alleged Witches. Take it or leave it. Let's talk about it. Okay. So we have not had a campaign that comes, crisp and clear, precise, running it this way. But there are other organizations, women rights organizations, gender-based violence organizations, human rights organizations, child rights organizations, addressing this problem in a very subtle manner.
And I worked with them and I'm always frustrated. Do you know why? Let me give you an example. I was working with one of them some years ago. We were addressing the problem of, you know, witchcraft, and we were just having some rest, trying to get some food in the village. So one of them asked me, "ah, [00:53:00] look, Leo, are you saying that witches don't exist?" I was like, "okay."
Now, get me right when I say this, I'm not saying that members or Wiccans who answer witches don't exist. I want to get this clear, because, Sarah, Josh, I have to be clear. Whenever I'm discussing with Westerners where this issue comes, I'm not saying that Wiccans don't exist. When we say witches in Africa, we mean people who fly out at night and go and suck blood on the roadside. That's what we mean. And when we say do witches exist, that's what we are addressing.
So for us at our organization, it is a myth. Nobody flies out at night while others are sleeping to go and sock blood on the roadside. Nobody flies out at night to go and poison people and kill them spiritually and all that. Now for you to ask me this question, when we are doing the campaign against witchcraft accusation means that you didn't even understand the campaign we're doing. So when this guy, when this [00:54:00] is a, is actually a lady that asked me this question, I was so demoralized.
Now, number two, there is also another organization, they call them child rights organization. They were doing this campaign. And we appeared before a TV program, and the anchor person asked me, " can they, can children and adults be witches?" I said, "no, children and adults cannot be witches, because they cannot fly out at night and suck blood or turn into birds and all that and all that. They cannot." This is my answer.
Now, a colleague of mine who came from UK, you know, because when you come from UK and America, they give you a lot of respect here, even when you are talking rubbish, they keep respecting, you know? So they prefer to respect American or European who talks rubbish to an African who talks sense. Now let me give you how, let tell you what happened. So they asked this guy, "can children and adults be witches?" He said, "children cannot be witches, but adults could be." So we literally contradicted ourselves at [00:55:00] the TV. So the anchor person now, know, just faced me and said, "okay, look at what your colleague is saying."
So there is this kind of falsification. There's this kind of, neither here nor there, things people are doing. So there are organization doing it, but sometimes they don't have very clear, concise philosophy and positions on these issues. Now, I attended a UNICEF seminar in Nigeria, and now one of the judges who was at that seminar, you know, he said this, that, "look, children cannot be witches, but I believe there are witches and wizard." I told him, I said, "my Lord, this is under contradiction." He said, "oh, you have a, you know is your right. You can object, you can you, is your view and order." So there is always this kind of neither here nor there.
UNICEF has released money. You know, you see UNICEF in New York will release money to address the problem of witchcraft accusation. The people who will attend the seminar will be strong believers in, in this distance, and they will [00:56:00] distribute their money and go home and continue their belief. What a nonsense, what a nonsense. While UNICEF will now tell you guys in their report how they have been addressing the problem of witchcraft accusation in Nigeria and the Africa. And when you read it, you say, "yay, they're doing wonderful work." But those who attend the seminars will come and tell you that they believe strongly in what UNICEF is campaigning against that, you know, and all that.
So what am I trying to say is that there are organizations doing this work, but some of them are neither here nor there. They're doing it because they have been paid, they have released some money for them. They need to justify this money they're giving them, and they'll come and say something, even though they don't believe in it, they don't do it. Shallow, superficial campaign, they're running.
And that is why I said at the beginning, Advocacy for Alleged Witche s is a protest organization, is a protest campaign. And this is what I continue to wage until we get a critical mass of Africans that can help us free this continent from this nonsense [00:57:00] and make sure that this vicious phenomenon, you know, is put in the dustbin, the same dustbin where the European Witch hunt is. Thank you.
Sarah Jack: It is a vicious phenomenon. One of the things that Josh and I were chatting about before we met with you was about are cultures defined by superstitions? Do you find your world friends outside of your continent defining you by their own superstitions, by their, what they perceive as African superstitions? What do you do with the superstition part and culture part and perceptions of that?
Leo Igwe: You see, culture is a whole pack of things. Like now you're saying superstition, religion, myth and all that, all this, but, you know, the real, real challenge when that superstition becomes a reason for an abuse. [00:58:00] Like now some people will tell you that women are weaker because women was created from the rib of Adam and Eve. That's Christians, now they use something for me that was mythical, because if for me, going by little I know, actually man came out of the woman, not the other way around. That's, that's my, that's what I think, you know? Cause that's what goes on. I don't know what went on many millions of years ago, but at least that's what I'm seeing today. You know, I was born of a woman. It's woman that gave birth to me. So what is this counterintuitive thing you're telling me? You know, uh, that, that women came out of a, of a man's rib or something like that. Okay.
Now, when cultural claims or conceptions or narratives are being used to justify abuse, that is when I have issue with it. There are so many things people have, because it's not everything that we can really explain. And we have been, you know, so there are certain things [00:59:00] in cultures that you can say these are mythical or superstitious, cause not all that we know. But when it becomes the basis to justify the abuse of women, the abuse of children, the abuse of homosexuals, or the abuse of anybody at all.
Let me, let me not just be calling that, or Africans. Some people will tell you that, in order to, you know, we are Lot, you know, Africans and from Lot, they just come up with one biblical narrative to explain why we are black, and we know that there are scientific explanations in terms of the sun, in terms of genetics and all that. Now they will leave that. So we are using it to justify the degradation of human being. That's my issue.
So, because culture is a whole pack of things, myth, superstition, religion, name them, science, all these you can bring in into that context. Now. Now let me also say this. The people who came to Africa had their superstitions, they had their religion, but you know what the made us here [01:00:00] to understand their own superstition was better than our own. Okay? And over the years, they drummed this in in their schools, in their health, over the radio, and of course the media, what they show us.
So at the end of the day, a lot of Africans have this sense of inferiority, even when it comes to traditional superstition. But you see, they have that sense of inferiority when you're writing, not in practice. When they have problem, they resort to these superstitions. Cause that's actually what resonates more with them. Okay? So there is this complexity whereby people see that as primitive or barbaric, according to how they have been socialized by the colonial religions and those who adopted it. But in practice, they find a way of mixing it, especially since it sometimes helps them in making sense of their world.
So for me, superstition is universal. You find it across cultures and you, and, but what [01:01:00] happens is this, for me, as a humanist or as a, as a skeptic, as a rationalist, I'm always looking at the intersection between superstition and human rights abuses. And that's where I say it stops. There has to be a limit. Okay? So I bring in limiting factors.
When it's intersects or when it tries to undermine certain basic values like human rights, like dignity of persons and all that, which sometimes, some of these superstitions are being used to justify. So that's exactly my take on it, yes, they're embedded in cultures, but when they try to justify abuses, then that's, for me, where I come with limiting positions and limiting sentiments.
Josh Hutchinson: How do you go about changing a culture to remove those harmful beliefs that lead to the abuses?
Leo Igwe: Yes. Tough one. Even [01:02:00] we discussed it today. Of course, they will always tell me, "ah, but you know, it takes time." I say, "how long does it take?" Sarah and Josh, look, how long did it take Africans to adopt sim card, all these cell phones, laptops? I mean, they announce it in the US, iPad or iPhone. Within weeks or months is here in Nigeria. We have many Nigerians. You manufacture cars, and within months, the cars are here.
Now, stop killing your parents and relatives in the name of witchcraft. They say, "ah, but you know, it takes time." I say, "how long did it take you to adopt the cell phone? How long did it take you to adopt the cars, and how long did it take you to start having virtual conferences, virtual internet websites, and things like that?"
So yes, I hear about this culture thing and changing it, but I also don't [01:03:00] want to hear, because in one sense, people change at a snap. Immediately something comes out there in your country, is right here within the next aircraft coming to Lagos or Abuja, has that very thing in it. Okay, good. Now, in another sense, somebody says, "oh yeah, but we need to, you know, it takes time."
No, it's an excuse. I dunno how they say it in English, it cop out something you are trying to use, in order not to follow the same rhythm you are following in other sectors of life. So what I'm saying is this, no. If we can connect on the internet and nobody says, "okay, please can we wait for another century before we can do this, we can go virtual and connect with people?" No, they don't do that. WhatsApp messages, WhatsApp code, they are doing it. Okay? Then when it comes to other issues, he said, "oh yeah, but you know, our cultures are different."
Somebody was asking me yesterday, [01:04:00] "don't you know about African culture?" I said, "I don't know what you mean by African culture. You need to explain it to me. If African culture means believing in nonsense, I I'm not African, count me out, and if you think it has to be gradual, I'll tell you no, no, no. It will not be gradual. I did not, I did not ask that we take a gradual approach to doing this virtual meeting. Otherwise won't do it today. We may not even do it this year.
Okay, so why should we introduce the gradualism when it comes to other cases? When I want us to move very fast? I want Africans and Nigerians to join Europeans and Americans in post-witch-hunt phase of life. And somebody is telling me it's gradual. Okay? If it is gradual, please take the same approach in adopting the cell phones. After all, we shouldn't actually be using cell phones by now, because it had to be gradual also. So let up, in fact, lemme come with this. You know what, Josh, let make everything gradual. So the, the time we adopt the cell phones, then that's the time we'll also [01:05:00] adopt and stop witch-hunting, because they want to adopt one immediately. Another one, they say, "oh, it has to be gradual." Why? Why does it have to be gradual?
So, what am I trying to say? Cultures change. Cultures are dynamic, but it is important that there should be people who push the boundaries. Yes. And that's what I want to do. Yes. That's what I want to use my doctorate. That's what I want to use my life. That's what I want to use my expertise to do, because people are dying.
A woman, they, they killed a woman, cut open the tummy, put stick inside the vagina, private part, because they accused her of witchcraft, in October in Nigeria. In Malawi, some days ago, they pushed another woman inside the grave trying to bury her with the person, the alleged bewitched.
So how can we be gradual about this, Josh? How can we be gradual about this? I told them, lock these people up. Let that gradual thing, [01:06:00] let them be taking it in prison. It'll be gradual when they're locked up, when they're put in jail, not gradual we allow this people to be walking the streets freely. If somebody has now murdered the uncle just about a few days ago in Bauchi State, how are we going to treat it as gradual? And you ask him, he said, "you initiated my son." How? How do you initiate somebody into witchcraft? It's nonsense. Tell the person it's nonsense, and put the person in jail so the person gradually will live. Please. I agree. Let us go gradually, but let those people be in jail first. Okay.
And let the people making this argument go back to the analog phone. They shouldn't actually use the phone by now, because it's going to be gradual. So that is it. So what am I trying to say? Are we using gradual to keep condoning atrocities? Are we using that argument to still allow witch-hunters to be going on our streets, criminals, murderers, to be given license to continue their murder? No, I disagree with that sense of [01:07:00] cultural gradual growth or development. No. Those people. No, I have moved on. I'm an African, like I tell them, but I have moved on, and I'm ready to adopt what I think is good and dignifying about life, whether it comes from outside or comes from inside, and move on.
I'm not part of the gradual thing that will want witch-hunters, because this is exactly part of the thing. They will tell us, oh yeah, but Africans are not Europe. We are. The same blood flowing in you is the same blood as flowing in me. I have the same sense of shock when people are killed or tortured, the way you do.
So it is sometimes even Africans use this to internalize their own racism, to be racist among themselves. "Oh yeah, but we are not Europeans." And you are what? Are you not a human being, but you fly the same European airlines. Why do you do that? Why not go with the witchcraft planes? I'm sure you people know that Africans, they believe in witchcraft planes, right? Witchcraft planes that are always on the ground. You can't see it [01:08:00] fly an inch above the ground. We don't need gradual approach to that. They should either make it fly, or they should put it in the dustbin of history. That's where it belongs.
Sarah Jack: You said you're ready to adopt what makes life good, and that's why people quickly adopt technology and are ready to take on the things that make their life better and good. So to stop the gradual effort they have, it has to be seen as something that is going to immediately make a personal goodness occur for them. And I was thinking about how you are working to get critical thinking to the students, to the young students of your country. And that's, that's a way.
Leo Igwe: You know what I have done over the years, I've been thinking how do I also put in place a mechanism that will weaken the grip of what you can call superstition, [01:09:00] especially superstition translated into action that harm other citizens. Okay. You can decide. For instance, I went to the U.S. They said they don't have a thirteenth floor. Okay? Yeah. In the U.S., they said they don't have a thirteenth floor. I was like, what? I tried looking for the thirteenth floor. I could not find it. I was like, okay, something is going on here, but it doesn't harm me. Does it? It doesn't. Okay. Yeah. They have it and you laugh about it and things like that. I don't have issues with that.
But it's also important for people to understand that when you don't have a thirteenth, you have twelfth, fourteenth floor, you have to ask a question, what happened to the 13th floor? And you need a reason. You need a reason. And when they tell you something that sounds stupid or nonsensical, you tell the person, okay, yeah, you don't have a 13th floor, but you don't have a good reason for that, period. So what am I trying to say is that I was asking myself, "how do I also begin the process of weakening the grip of this superstition in America?"
[01:10:00] Because the grip is so fierce that people respond in a snap, they have killed somebody, they have murdered somebody, with impunity.
So I said, okay, it is important that I begin the introduction of the subject of critical thinking. Okay, so what did I, what did I do? How actually do you define this becomes a problem.
So now after going through. Do some research online and trying to understand how to approach it. Because here they teach you critical thinking at the university level. And I want to tell you, Sarah and Josh at the university level, people's minds are formed if people want to get certificate and go and get a job or marry and start family. People are so busy with some other things, they're not really interested in learning, per se. Okay. Yeah. So I said, "no, the approach is wrong. Can we begin a process to introduce this subject from primary schools?" Which is my focus at the moment, and I want you to go [01:11:00] hand in hand with the efforts to tackle harmful superstitions, because one of the elements here is this kind of dogmatism.
I was in a car yesterday, somebody was telling me fiercely that they have a charm, anti-bullet charm, that they can use it on my body. I said, "don't use it on my body. Use it on your own. And then you later tell me how it has worked."
He was defending anti-bullet charm and was telling me that, "look, somebody can shoot you with a bullet, and it will not penetrate." I said, "the person did not shoot you, or he didn't shoot you with a bullet, maybe with water cannons or something like that. I don't know." So what am I trying to say? People are so dogmatic in their superstition, so how do you weaken it, their critical thinking, but how do you deliver critical thinking to primary schools in a way that they will also accept, like science in schools? So that was how I operationalized it. I came up with the idea of rewarded for [01:12:00] generating questions from in all areas of human endeavor. So there isn't something like a right question, wrong question, no. They are rewarded for generating questions based on what they see, what they thought, what they feel, what they taste, and all that. So we started with it, and it's going on pretty well.
The critical thinking is an effort to respond in a popular way to this wave of superstition, dogmatism, authoritarianism. So that if people, if from primary schools, pupils are encouraged to question ideas, they're rewarded for questioning ideas, it will predispose them to not blindly accept what people say or what they are taught.
So that is what I'm doing in the area of critical thinking. It's still challenging, because we still need to translate that [01:13:00] into resources. We still lack the resources, because very often, when they're supporting you from the West, they want to dictate to the minute details what you do. I tell them, "no, give me some liberty to innovate. Give me some liberty to adapt program to suit the environment. Don't dictate as if I don't have a brain." Okay. That's exactly the challenge. So we are discussing ways that we can have that critical thinking to be adapted to suit the needs of Nigerians and Africans. Then non-Africans could draw from it insights, which they could also adapt to enrich their own critical thinking programs.
So this is part and parcel of what I'm doing. Apart from campaigning against witch persecution, we are also trying to put in place critical thinking programs, training teachers on critical thinking, and also having pilot schools where we do these programs, hoping that at the end of the day, a more critical thinking society [01:14:00] will be less disposed to persecute people in the name of witchcraft. They'll be less disposed to make accusations, and of course they'll be less disposed to take extreme actions like killing and maming of relatives in the name of witchcraft.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you to Leo for speaking to the issues occurring in his country and other countries right now. Thank you for coming on our podcast. We hope that we're able to give you some kind of a platform to the best of our ability, and we hope that you find more platforms to get your message out there while you're still where you are needed and doing what you are doing.
We came out of our conversation with Leo changed, and one of those ways that I changed [01:15:00] is that I have more hope and believe that change can happen quickly, more quickly than I thought was possible.
Sarah Jack: And he's, I'm telling you there's a need. Listen to me say that. Listen to me say there's a need and I have the plan. Support me. I heard him, that's what changed. I heard him say that.
Josh Hutchinson: It's about hearing Leo and others and it's about getting behind them with the support that they ask for, because Leo knows what he needs. Other leaders in the area know what they need. They don't need people coming in telling them, do this and do that. They just need backing. They need some change to happen in the power structure in their countries to understand the urgency of the situation and to act [01:16:00] as befits that.
What I got from Leo was just, be bold. Be bold. Change can happen now. You don't have to wait for a culture to change for harmful practices to end.
Leo needs a voice. Give him your platform if you have one. If you don't, use your social media, use your power of conversation.
Do like Sarah's been calling us all to act. For four months, she's been calling us to use our social media to share these messages, to amplify these voices, to get out the word that needs to get out. And one of these days, that message will get to the people that need to hear it. And we're hoping that your voices will be part of that.
Sarah Jack: And if you're doing that, we will see it and it'll get shared further, because every day we [01:17:00] are messaging and tweeting and putting posts out there. We want them shared and we wanna share what we find, and we look to see what's being said.
Josh Hutchinson: And follow Leo Igwe on Twitter and Facebook, you can find the Advocacy for Alleged Witches social media, and on Twitter follow @LeoIgwe, @LEOIGWE, as Sarah's been encouraging us all to do.
The people in the affected regions should be the primary voices on this. Don't just listen to us, listen to Leo, listen to others like Leo.
Sarah Jack: Help us amplify what they're saying. The more we amplify his message, the more time he can spend in person advocating.
Josh Hutchinson: Help [01:18:00] us to give him a platform. If you have a platform that can expose Leo's voice and message to more listeners or viewers, we want you to reach out to him and his advocacy and give him a voice in the world.
Sarah Jack: When you do that, you're giving a little bit of power back to the children and to the women that are being harmed.
Josh Hutchinson: We want to challenge all of you listening to just do what you can. Listen to what Leo has to say and then get him on your television show. Get him in your documentary. Get him on your radio station. Get him on your podcast, in your newspaper. Speak with him directly. Let him speak for himself. He's been directly [01:19:00] involved in trying to resolve these cases of violence against alleged witches, and he needs to continue to be involved and gathering other people like himself. More action can be taken directly in the locations where action is needed. Just elevate his voice.
Remember to tell your friends, colleagues, and everyone you meet about what you heard from Leo today.
Sarah Jack: Support Leo's efforts and the efforts for the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.
Josh Hutchinson: Take action today and have a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:20:00] [01:21:00]

January 19, 2023

Introducing The Last Night, a Connecticut Witch Trials Play

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Show Notes

We present an interview with writers and actors Debra Walsh and Virginia Wolf about their newly commissioned play The Last Night, which tells the compelling story of the witch panics and trials of 17th-century Connecticut Colony through the portrayal of accused women Mary Barnes and Rebecca Greensmith. We also speak with event host, Andy Verzosa, Executive Director of Farmington Connecticut’s Historic Landmark & Museum, The Stanley Whitman House. Performance is Saturday January 21, 2023, 7:00 PM.
Links:
Tickets for the Last Night staged reading and registration for the video premiere
Mary Barnes Society
Stanley Whitman House
Our theme song is “Epic Inspiration” by Jamendo
thoushaltnotsuffer.com
Twitter @thoupodcast
Facebook
Instagram @thoushaltnotsuffer
Discord

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to a free bonus episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. We'll speak with Virginia Wolf, Debra Walsh and Andy Verzosa about the upcoming play The Last Night. The Last Night was written by and stars Debra Walsh and Virginia Wolf. Debra portrays Rebecca Greensmith and Virginia portrays Mary Barnes, two women executed for witchcraft on January 25th, 1663, at the end of the Hartford Witch Panic. Andy Verzosa is executive director of Stanley-Whitman House a living [00:01:00] history center and museum of colonial life in Connecticut.
A stage reading will be performed at Stanley-Whitman House in Farmington, Connecticut on Saturday, January 21st. 2023 at 7:00 PM. Doors open at six 30. Tickets can be purchased at s-wh.org/Mary-Barnes-Day. The link is in the show description. A free online video showing will be presented on Wednesday, January 25th at 7:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Information and registration is also available at s-wh.org/Mary-Barnes-Day. And now here are Virginia Wolf, Debra Walsh, and Andy Verzosa.
Virginia Wolf: I'm Virginia Wolf, and I have been working with the Stanley-Whitman House, who's hosting this event, for [00:02:00] years, and actually it was a Stanley-Whitman House that initially introduced me to the history of witchcraft here in Connecticut. I was born in Salem, Massachusetts, so I knew all about that. I had no idea till I came here. And long ago I portrayed Mary Barnes, who I'm portraying for this project, for the Stanley-Whitman House in a play, and that peaked my interest to start looking at all the other stories of the women, and men, but mostly women, who are accused of witchcraft and working with Andy and again Debra, who found her way a differentway, but we've been able to collaborate writing and now performing this short but incredibly compelling play.
Debra Walsh: I'm Debra Walsh. So a few years ago I did an event called the West Hartford Hauntings through the Noah Webster House. It was going through a graveyard, and the main character was Ann Cole. And one night when we were leaving, Rebecca Greensmith's trial was mentioned in this tour. So my friend said, "these people are [00:03:00] real. They really existed." And so that I was, "wow, there's this whole history in my neighborhood and Connecticut history of people who were hanged and executed for witchcraft and were innocent."
When that was over in October, I started to look, research, Rebecca Greensmith, and I got really inspired, and the first person I got in touch with was Ginny. I knew that she'd been doing this work for a while and had seen some of her work online, and I got a grant and did a reading. I wrote a play, we did a reading of The Hanging of Rebecca Greensmith, and I just wanted to keep going. So we met with Andy, and I said, "what about The Last Night? Cause they were in prison together. What did these two women talk about? What was that night like?"
You don't know what you don't know until you [00:04:00] start figuring out what you need to know for this. I think the stories need to be told. I think, especially considering how women have usually ignored historically. And I know there were two men accused, but one of them, Rebecca just gave up, because she, we believe, Ginny and I believe, Rebecca didn't want her daughters at the mercy of him.
So it's getting exciting now.
Virginia Wolf: Many people don't know that Connecticut has a history of witchcraft, witch panics in the 17th century and, in fact, the first person to be hanged for witchcraft, I know you all know, was Alice Young.
And Arthur Miller, God bless him, has made the Salem witchcraft panics the standard by which everything is considered, and people don't even realize that the history, and it's not necessarily a history to be proud of, but it is something that it happened. It was an outcome of the religious beliefs at the time, the patriarchal society of the time, and in [00:05:00] Connecticut, 1663, January 25th was the last, that was the last execution. Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith and Mary Barnes. And remembering that, and this is 30 years before the Salem Witch Trials ever happened, and how Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith were executed, along with Mary Barnes, on January 25th, 1663, 360 years ago. And acknowledging that date is so important so that people are aware that this did happen and that we have, there's a lot of really cool efforts going on in Connecticut in various pockets to reveal this part of history, but the culmination of these panics and the executions. It is a celebration they ended here 30 years before Salem had their famous panic.
Debra Walsh: I think it's, um, significant from an educational point of view, like Covid and learning through Zoom. How do museums get people in to their buildings? [00:06:00] What are the stories we can tell that happened right outside the door of the museum? How do we appeal to younger people? And I think theater can do that by having the education or the story is done theatrically and thoughtfully.
And it, I think it, for me, relates to any time someone is considered the Other. You know, when I think of the immigration crisis, and so maybe it will get us thinking about how do we treat the Other, what do we think about, oh, especially innocent people executed for for these crimes. A hanging, like where is our humanity? And those questions are very important to me as an educator, as a theater educator, and also to stretch out the bonds of theater. What else can theater artists be doing? And like I'm obsessed with Rebecca, you know, her courage and her [00:07:00] loving to make stout and her dancing.
Virginia Wolf: It's been a really wonderful thing to be writing this, because there aren't a lot of records of what happened at the time. There are more records based on Rebecca Greensmith in her trial and what she said. There's really virtually nothing on Mary Barnes. So we work from primary sources to write this, to make as factual as we can but then weaving in informed conjecture, what could have happened, since we don't know what happened. And then the dramatic arc, which we've done the writing, but Andy and our director have really helped with that, so that the story is alive and it's vibrant, but it is based on history, and we are not saying anything false, but we are taking the facts and elaborating them to make them an interesting story.
Debra Walsh: It's really a pleasure for me to be working with a former student of mine. He was my student when he was in high school, who his name is Brian [00:08:00] Swormstedt. He's a writer, filmmaker, a good director, and you need a director. You need this outside ear to help us, because like I got, when you're obsessed with someone, I want everyone to know every little detail that I know, and it's not important to this story. Plus, when you work with such a talented actress as Ginny Wolf, the give and take and going back and forth. I'm an actress. I love it.
Virginia Wolf: Yes. We're, uh, having fun. And it's now that Brian and Andy have both added so much to the script, and I think I put this in an email to them, Debra and I working on this script and knowing these women, have tunnel vision and having an objective vision, which Andy and Brian both, there's too many words in it. It was like, you know what? You're absolutely right. We love every word we put here, but it, so many of 'em are unnecessary. And it's now we're at the point where it's locked in until we decide to make another change. But and we can really focus on our character development [00:09:00] and our relationships.
Debra Walsh: I hounded Andy until he met with me. He came to see The Hanging of Rebecca and said, "maybe we should work together." And yeah, I just kept pounding him because I then learned of the Mary Barnes Society through the Whitman house. And another former student of mine, who's also working on this production said, " why doesn't Connecticut have the attraction like Salem does?" "Why," and I thought, "why can't the Whitman House be the place to go, to learn about the trials, the history, the Puritans?" So I just, I kept hounding him until we met.
Virginia Wolf: I know that the the future of the Whitman house is for another story, but as far as the collaboration, so since Mary Barnes has lived in my soul for 15 years, Debra and I, and we've known each other, but we've never worked together, all of a sudden are writing a script together and have a Google document that we are [00:10:00] writing and editing and sharing ideas and it might not have worked, and it has worked beautifully. I really feel fortunate that I got to work with her, and the writing was the first step, and now the acting is the next step, the really fun step. So it's been a beautiful collaboration.
Andy Verzosa: So it's been exciting. Museums are a place where people can gather and history can be interpreted and presented. And what's exciting about Ginny and Debra is that they are presenting their interpretation of Rebecca Greensmith and Mary Barnes and what their last night would be. So there's so many different ways that you can go about this, and through their informed conjecture, through really it's a a great opportunity to interpret what that might be through our eyes in a contemporary sense with what we know. And then really tackle it and work through it.
So it's been a great opportunity for me, as the director of the museum, to invite two artists to work together. Commissioning a play is a new thing for Stanley-Whitman House. We do living history, but [00:11:00] we've not gone the artistic route and commissioned a play. And then to be able to work with two people who have really owned this internally as actors is really exciting. So they're playwrights, actors. They're doing this project. There's, like I said, a host of ways that you could approach this, and it's exciting to watch it unfold. It's still very much a cake in the oven. It has not been baked and set out on the counter to cool and to be finished off.
Anxious to see what happens on the 21st, of course, because that's where the magic happens. You present the art to an audience, and hopefully it, you have a vessel, in that room, in the Whitman Tavern at Stanley-Whitman House. Something happens and switches on ,and people leave an experience, and it should be transformative.
So I think museums are important for that to happen and to do these types of things. And I do a lot of differentthings where we try to make history come alive and engage people. [00:12:00] And again, I can't say how lucky I feel to work with Ginny and Debra to be able to do this.
So exciting for me to know that there are all these different things that are running right now, cuz this is a, I think, a seminal time, in a way, for reckoning on many different levels for many different things. And I think that's important, and we come to these processes, and we go through them, and then we come together as community. And again, I think museums are a great place for that to happen.
Virginia Wolf: I was first introduced to this 15 years ago, probably, at the Stanley-Whitman House, where Lisa Johnson, the director at the time, was working with the humanities association and Walt Woodward, the state historian, to compile at least a resource book where all of the different information is. The Wyllys papers are at the historic society. Different museums and libraries have pieces. There are books that have been written.
From there, I knew where to go to try to get the information. Once we'd embarked on this, there was about [00:13:00] four months where my dining room table was just covered with all of the books, all of the things I, because I had written a one woman show about the entire witchcraft panic. So I had all the different resource for all the different stories and all of that.
So it is available, but not so much for Mary Barnes. Mary Barnes, there really wasn't, we know she existed. We know she was hanged. There's not much about her trial. We don't know why she was accused. We don't know a lot about her, which is frustrating, freeing as well.
Rebecca Greensmith, she's a huge personality back then, because we do have from those records that one of the magistrates called her a lewd and ignorant woman and aged, although we think she was about, what, 40?
Debra Walsh: It was her former reverend who said that before she came to the colonies.
Virginia Wolf: There are some verbatim records that were taken straight from the trials. And there's a lot of guesswork that goes on, and you have to be very careful as you're reading these books and you're speaking to people that what they're putting forward [00:14:00] as fact actually is fact. And I, for my own family, we have descendants from some of these people who were hanged, and there's family legend that actually is not at all what really happened, but this is what's come down through the years in their family. It was always a struggle to, and it still is to make sure this is not a history lesson based on fact, it's engaging, and it's exciting, but that it does not mislead anyone as to what really happened. Luckily, there were enough records for us to be able to write it, but then leeway for us to, with our informed conjecture, to really make the story compelling.
Andy Verzosa: If I might, at Stanley Women House, we do a lot of living history, and so we're looking at a lot of different people in history and trying to tell their story in a engaging way. For example, we have a Connecticut Open House Day, or a Connecticut Historic Gardens Day, and we might portray people who've lived in the house and who they were and what they did. And we need to do this in a, [00:15:00] not in a wooden way, not in a boring, didactic way. So we really work hard at trying to bring those characters alive.
And oftentimes, even when we've done our books, like we've looked at different people who are buried in our cemetery, and published a book this past year. And Memento Mori Cemetery, and what we've done is oftentimes there's not information about a person directly. We've had to look around that person, the relationships they've had, the places where they lived, the time that they were living, et cetera. Without getting too deep into that it's a word called prosopography. So we're looking all around so that we can get a sense of the whole, so that we can, can inform a lot about that person. So there, there's some conjecture there, right? But it's based on reasonableness and some facts.
And so this is of what I think that Ginny and Debra have certainly done with the Witch panics and trials. There's been a lot of people who've written books. I've done [00:16:00] work. Recently, I've been on a tear reading John Demos, um, a Yale professor, and looking at what he's done, and he really looks at the family in colonial times. So sometimes, as well as the witchcraft panics In Colonial America. So there are a number of ways to do it. It's a whole field of study, so you could just, it's ongoing, right? And that's what I love about my job is that, we try to get people engaged at any level. Certainly Debra and Ginny are coming at it at a much deeper level and as actors and portray portraying these particular characters.
History is important, but there's also that element of humanity that's important. So if think about the humanities and the studies of the humanities and the liberal arts, you're really coming at it very objectively, as much as you can.
Debra Walsh: Thank you for that. I was able to spend time with Beth Caruso and another person who wrote about the history, Richard Ross, and I met someone once, this is an [00:17:00] anecdote. This couple that lives out in Texas had done a lot of, they went to every place where they think somebody might have been hanged around the country and where their bodies were dumped. And anyway, long story short, I heard from someone who said that Rebecca was hanged one mile north of where the Old State House is now. Her back was facing the mansions, and there were mansions, and I thought that was really interesting. So I'm driving, and I get a call from Beth Caruso, who wrote One of Windsor, and she she did the same thing. It's based on Alice Young and using informed conjecture, but she said, "oh my God, they just released this in this journal." A historian found a photographer, who found some ancient papers, and there was a gallow, and it was the exact same words of this woman, one mile directly north of where the Old State House [00:18:00] in Hartford is now, and their backs would've been to the mansions that were there. So I went there. It's now a playground at the Y on Albany Avenue.
So that interested me and other people's takes, like people that I was able to meet and interview. So a lot of the historic, two of them, Richard and Beth said was interesting. It's interesting to see these people brought to life as human beings, like a body telling the story instead of this historical document.
Virginia Wolf: It is important. So many stories, and I think I, I came into this as an actress really, and saying, when I learned about this, there are so many stories. These stories need to be told. And it's really satisfying to be doing it. And I find that I'll take my one woman show to, in which I portray five of the women hanged, and to museums and historical societies and schools where people don't have a clue that this ever happened. [00:19:00] And oh my gosh, what a wonderful feeling to to bring this knowledge out to, to bring out the awareness.
It's terrific.
Debra Walsh: I sat in the audience of Ginny's last show, and the people were just, " this really happened?" Some people who are direct descendants have one, a couple people who were in that audience as well and wanted more information, but just watching the audience taking this in, something that you're not aware of in your state, in your city, in your neighborhood.
Andy Verzosa: I was familiar with the Salem Witch trials, of course, but not about what was happening in Connecticut. And when I started at Stanley-Whitman House, I was aware that there's some activity and that my predecessor, Lisa Johnson, had done a lot of work, but I really hadn't seen anything.
I hadn't seen the play ,or we have a video of the play, and really didn't know until [00:20:00] I got a phone call, early on,, I'd probably been in the job like three months, from Bridgeport, and they were doing a dedication memorial for goodie nap and they said, geez, we know that your predecessor's no longer the director, but could you, as the director of Stanley-Whitman House, come down and offer some words? I obviously reached out to my predecessor, and we connected on that, and I did go down and offered words, not knowing a lot, but being thrown into it. And this is back in, I think 2018 and what I felt when I was there, because it was quite a quite a celebration and a an event, and there were descendants that were there. There were different dignitaries, and of course I met Beth Caruso there and others, and the people who organized it. And I just realized like how important it was, and that gave me a whole new perspective on what I might be able to do through the [00:21:00] museum.
Fast forward to 2023, here we are. And I'm more comfortable in this role now working with Ginny and with Debra, of course. And I'm excited for the play to happen. I'm anxious. I can't wait for it to happen. And I feel like it's really good for the museum to be doing this kind of work going forward and to continue.
We're really looking forward to people doing the online program. We can have hundreds of people on that, where we can only have 40 people at the museum for the live staged reading.
Virginia Wolf: And we'll do a live talk back after each. So Debra and I will be at the museum after the movie, for lack of a better word, and then people will be able to come on, and we'll do a talk back as well, which will be very interesting.
The stage reading will be at the Stanley-Whitman House on Saturday, January 21st. Starts at 7:00, doors open at 6:30, and you can access tickets on the Stanley-Whitman House website. It's limited, very limited seating. It's a small space for the reading, so if you are [00:22:00] interested in attending, and we'll have a live talk back afterwards or the reception. But we are very excited, this is gonna be totally new for me, that we are also filming it and I think the way it's working because of Bryan and Patrick being so well they know how to do this.
The film, I think is gonna be different from the reading, but that will be presented on the anniversary of the hangings on Wednesday, the 25th of January via Zoom. People can sign on for the webinar register, and then I think it'll be up on a YouTube channel for the Stanley-Whitman house in perpetuity.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. Tickets for The Last Night can be purchased at S-WH.org/mary-barnes-day. The link is in the show description.
Have a great today. And a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:23:00] [00:24:00]

January 16, 2023

The Andover Witch Hunt with Richard Hite

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Show Notes

We have the honor of discussing the book In the Shadow of Salem with author and archivist Richard Hite. This episode focuses our witch trial investigation on a distinct element of the Salem Witch-Hunt community story. We check out the neighboring town of Andover to discover what is eyebrow raising about its accusers and accused persons. Hear about large family involvements, shocking confessions and colorful accusations full of spectral claims. We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: Today we speak with author and archivist Richard Hite, who's written In the Shadow of Salem: the Andover Witch Hunt of 1692.
Sarah Jack: In the Shadow of Salem takes a focused look at one community that had the most accusations.
Josh Hutchinson: More accusations than Salem and Salem Village combined. And [00:01:00] a ton of confessions.
Sarah Jack: Confessions and wild accusations, full of spectral evidence.
Josh Hutchinson: The confessions featured satanic baptisms, the queen in hell, and one woman said there were 305 witches in the country, so they were looking for them everywhere. Andover wasn't a big town. But they discovered and accused at least 45 people of witchcraft. Most of the accused there confessed to witchcraft.
Sarah Jack: One of the reasons that I think descendants have really gravitated towards this book and they talk about it on social media is because so many names are talked about and placed into the story, and you see where these different [00:02:00] families fit in to what was happening. Richard does a really great job of talking about the area, the territory, where they were living.
Josh Hutchinson: In spite of the scale of the Andover phase of the Salem Witch Hunt, there hasn't been a lot written about it until Richard Hite came along and wrote In the Shadow of Salem, and it really, for the first time, shines the spotlight on this particular village in Essex County, Massachusetts.
He looks at the conclusions other historians have drawn or come to about the Andover phase and evaluates those critically and makes his own determinations based on his research. [00:03:00] And it's very enlightening and enriching and there's so many interesting things about Andover that it's really deserves its own limelight deserves its own book or even. , more can be written about it because there's just so much there and we get to learn quite a lot from our conversation.
Sarah Jack: I was surprised at how many people in these families were involved that, when you're looking at some of the other history of the Salem Witch, yes, Rebecca Nurse and her sisters are in the story. But when you're looking at the Andover phase, you've got mothers and daughters and grandchildren and sons and cousins, and [00:04:00] they're all saying something or accusing or confessing, and it's just there's a lot of voices saying a lot of things.
And if you've read the book, you're just gonna really enjoy the conversation and details that Richard shares with us when we're asking questions than discussing what we read. If you haven't read the book, you're gonna order it right away, cuz you're gonna wanna read what he has to say about these stories that we talk about in the episode.
Josh Hutchinson: We're gonna learn about the Ingalls family and how many of them were accused. Like Sarah said, it wasn't just the immediate family, it was like every branch. There were in-laws that got caught up in it. There were children, grandchildren, so many people involved from the Ingalls family. The [00:05:00] Tyler family was another of the big ones involved. We're gonna learn about those from our conversation with Richard Hite.
Sarah Jack: One of the other things that really jumped out to me is how long it involves some of the conflicts that were between families or neighbors or community members. Anthills became molehills in a lot of situations over the years. When you look at the interactions the Andover community members had with each other, there was years of disagreements or not seeing eye to eye, and it affected how the accusations played out later.
Josh Hutchinson: We're also going to take a look at the proposed conflict between supporters of Minister Francis Dane and supporters of Thomas [00:06:00] Barnard and discuss whether there was a North-South clash in Andover at the time.
We're gonna talk about Francis Dane's granddaughter Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who was just exonerated this past summer by the state of Massachusetts. We'll learn how middle school classes got involved in exonerating Elizabeth Johnson Jr. and really helped push it through. So we'll discuss what middle school was involved, who their teacher was, how Richard was put in contact with that teacher, and how it all unfolded.
We're also going to learn about how Andover got caught up in this whirlwind of accusations, how afflicted girls from Salem Village were invited to Andover, what they did there, and how that really got [00:07:00] the ball rolling on accusation after accusation.
Sarah Jack: All of that information enables you to visualize how much like us they were and sense the whole struggle they were in and just the fear and it's very it just brings it that history to life when you're reading that.
Josh Hutchinson: The book and learning about the different people helps you to realize that they're basically us and we're them, and we have the same fears and desires and everything.
Sarah Jack: And then it also, that dimensional piece that I'm thinking of, it helps you understand some of the Salem Village narrative more ,too, because you had the stuff coming in from Andover impacting. [00:08:00] It broadens the understanding of the scope of the community at large. We get the Salem and Salem Village pieces in our mind, but there was actually all these other communities that were close but larger.
Josh Hutchinson: It shows you the real scale and scope of the witch-hunt.
Sarah Jack: Here's Josh with some history.
Josh Hutchinson: Martha Carrier was born in Andover to Andrew Allen and Faith Ingalls in about 1650. Later on, she moved to Billerica, where she met Thomas Carrier, a.k.a. Thomas Morgan. The two were married in 1674. They returned to Andover and were blamed for a smallpox outbreak in 1690 and warned out of town.[00:09:00] Given the testimony against her, it's possible that she did not have the friendliest demeanor.
A warrant was issued for Martha carrier's arrest on May 28th, 1692.
Under examination, Mary Lacey, Jr. claimed that Martha carrier was the queen in Hell and that she initiated others into her coven, and she participated in Satanic Baptisms. Sometimes these occurred in her own well. Other times they occurred in places. She was reported to have participated in several broom flights.
Martha was tried, convicted, and condemned, and four of her children were also accused. Those were Andrew Carrier, Richard [00:10:00] Carrier, Sarah Carrier, and Thomas Carrier Jr. Martha Was hanged on August 19th, 1692.
Sarah Jack: Thank you for sharing that history with us, Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome. And now, before we go to Richard Hite, we'll hear a word from Virginia Wolf and Debra Walsh about their play, The Last Night.
Virginia Wolf: Many people don't know that Connecticut has a history of witchcraft witch panics in the 17th century. In fact the first person to be hanged for witchcraft was Alice Young. Arthur Miller, God bless him, has made the Salem witchcraft panics the standard by which everything is considered and people don't even realize that the history, and it's not necessarily a history to be proud of, but it is something that it happened. It was an outcome of the religious beliefs at the time, the patriarchal society of the [00:11:00] time, and in Connecticut, 1663, January 25th was the last execution, Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith and Mary Barnes. And this is 30 years before the Salem Witch trials ever happened and how. And acknowledging that date is so important so that people are aware that this did happen.
Debra Walsh: How do museums get people in to their buildings? What are the stories we can tell that happened right outside the door of the museum? How do we appeal to younger people? And I think theater can do that by having the education or the story is done theatrically and thoughtfully.
I think it for me relates to any time someone is considered the Other. When I think of the immigration crisis, and so maybe it will get us thinking about how do we treat the Other, what do we, what do we [00:12:00] think about, oh, especially innocent people executed for these crimes. A hanging? Like where is our humanity? And those questions are very important to me as an educator, as a theater educator, and also to stretch out the bonds of theater. What else can theater artists be doing?
Virginia Wolf: It's been a really wonderful thing to be writing this because aren't a lot of records of what happened at the time. There are more records based on Rebecca Greensmith in her trial and what she said. There's really virtually nothing on Mary Barnes. So we work from primary sources to write this, to make, as factual as we can, but then weaving in informed conjecture what could have happened, since we don't know what happened. And then the dramatic arc, which we've done the writing, but Andy and our director have really helped with that, so that the story is alive and it's vibrant, but it is based on history, and we are not saying [00:13:00] anything false, but we are taking the facts and elaborating them to make them an interesting story.
Josh Hutchinson: A stage reading of The Last Night will be performed at the Stanley-Whitman House at 37 High Street in Farmington, Connecticut on January 21st at 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM. Tickets are $20 for members, $25 for non-members and can be purchased at s-wh.org. The video premiere is January 25th at 7:00 PM online for free. You can register at the Stanley-Whitman House website. Again, that's s-wh.org, and we will include the link in the show description. Thank you.
Sarah Jack: I'm excited to introduce Richard Hite, state records [00:14:00] coordinator at Rhode Island State Archive and author of In The Shadow of Salem: the Andover Witch Hunt of 1692.
Josh Hutchinson: I wondered if you might take just a minute or two to summarize the Andover phase of the Salem Witch Hunt.
Richard Hite: It starts in the middle of July of 1692. Now one person from Andover had already been arrested by that point. That was Martha Carrier. She had somehow caught the attention of the uh, afflicted people in Salem Village, probably because uh, her own and her family's reputation was not the greatest. They'd been blamed for starting a smallpox epidemic in Andover a couple of years earlier.
But in mid-July, accusations had actually ground to a halt for about six weeks, because the court of Oyer and Terminer had been put in place and was [00:15:00] trying the people who had already been arrested. There were a little over 60 at that point.
But there was a woman in Andover who was gravely ill, Elizabeth Phelps Ballard. Her husband took the unprecedented step of inviting two of the afflicted girls from Salem Village to Andover to determine whether or not she was bewitched. Apparently, it wasn't his own idea. Some others had put the idea in his head, but of course, once they came, obviously they concluded that she was, in fact, bewitched. The person they initially named was a widow named Ann Foster, who was quite frail and who had experienced several tragedies in recent years, worst of which was the murder of her daughter by the daughter's husband three years earlier.
Ann Foster was arrested and questioned over a period of four days. For two days, she resisted [00:16:00] admitting guilt, but finally on the third day, her will cracked and she confessed. But as I said, there were a little over 60 people who had been arrested at that point. In her confession, she indicated that there were 305 witches throughout the region, so that throws a scare into everybody.
They go from thinking, yeah, it was very possible at that point that there could have been no more accusations. They may have just gone ahead and tried the ones who had already been arrested, but then all of a sudden you've got people thinking that only 20% of the people who were witches had been arrested. So that starts a whole new round of arrests.
As had been the case in Salem Village but became even more pronounced in Andover, once one family member was arrested, more others were vulnerable. The next two to be arrested were um, both Ann Foster's own daughter and granddaughter, both of [00:17:00] whom were named Mary Lacey. Both of them also confessed under pressure, but the younger Mary Lacey added a new wrinkle and um, implicated Martha Carrier, and she designated Martha Carrier as the future queen in hell, so to speak.
Martha Carrier has not only been accused of witchcraft, she's expected to be the queen of hell. Well, she's likely a recruiter of new witches based on that. Who's she gonna recruit? Her neighbors in Andover. Before the whole thing was over in Andover, 45 people from that one town were accused. Now I should stress what was then Andover included at that time what's today North Andover, at least part of Lawrence, and part of the town of Middleton.
But then also in Martha Carrier's own extended family, one of her sisters was accused, four of her five children, two nieces, and then it extended even further to [00:18:00] cousins and the cousins of children. Ultimately, 17 members of Martha Carrier's extended family were accused of witchcraft, which was more than any other family throughout the region. The 45 from Andover, who were accused, that was more than any other town, including Salem Village, where it all started.
Salem Village, which is today Danvers, had only 26 accused, the town of Salem 12. So that's those two places combined at fewer than Andover. A distinct feature in Andover was that very early on, people began confessing, and that was apparently because a rumor had spread in Andover that if one confessed, one would ultimately be exonerated or their life would be spared, at the very least. That is the way it turned out. It was never the intention of the court. People who confessed were being [00:19:00] kept alive longer, in order to provide evidence against others.
Now, initially, the ones primarily testifying against suspects from Andover were some of the same afflicted people, mostly teenage girls from Salem Village. But after the first month, the core of afflicted girls started forming in Andover, and some of them were coming out and testifying against suspects. A real turning point, I think, came on the 10th of September, when suddenly they began bringing confessors to trial. There were so many confessors by that time, they didn't need them all anymore to provide evidence.
A few were brought to trial and convicted and sentenced to death just like the others. The last round of hangings, there were eight people hanged on September 22nd. Those who had confessed were not hanged at that time. It was not unusual for someone who confessed to a capital crime to be given [00:20:00] additional time to prepare their souls, so to speak, for the afterlife.
And before any of the confessors got around to being executed, they got around to introducing any of the confessors, executing them, Governor Phipps suspended all further legal actions, which gave them a reprieve. But the fact that confessors were being sentenced to death scared the life outta any, any number of people in Andover who had actually encouraged loved ones to confess, believing their lives would be spared. So a series of petitions began circulating in Andover, which were ultimately signed by 72 people in town. A large number of them were family members of those who had been accused, but not entirely.
And then um, of course, Thomas Brattle, a Boston merchant, wrote a letter criticizing the trials, Increase Mather, a minister in [00:21:00] Boston, wrote a detailed critique of the process, and then a new court was constituted that had much stricter standards for conviction. It started trying people in January of 1693. Of the 52 came before the court, all but three were either acquitted or had the charges dropped. Three more were convicted, sentenced to death, all either from Andover or had ties to Andover. They and the previous confessors were slated for execution on February 1st, of 1693, but Governor Phipps intervened again, not pardoning them, but reprieving them, and because the prosecutor had said there was really no more evidence against those people than there were against the ones who had been acquitted. And while they were not at that time pardoned, they began trying more people. No one else was convicted, and, essentially, people [00:22:00] were just eventually let out, and they could pay their expenses and no one else was executed. .
Sarah Jack: I was curious about your research and archiving and what started your journey into that and what that's like for you or anything that would be important for us to know about it.
Richard Hite: I've been in the archives profession since the late 1980s and have been working for the Rhode Island State Archive since 2003. I had not lived in this region of the country prior to that, but I've had a very long-time interest in the witchcraft trials. I did two term papers on them when I was at graduate school, and then of course, moving to this region gave me easier access to material on the witch-hunt than I'd ever had.
And reading nearly all the major publications on the whole event, I came to realize that very little had been written about Andover, despite the fact that [00:23:00] it obviously had a major role in the whole thing, but previous authors seemed to just treat it as just a practically meaningless extension of what had happened in Salem Village and the town of Salem. But I thought with 45 people having accused there, that it seemed that there was a separate story to be told about it. And the more I researched it, the more I realized that there definitely was. The research into the transcribed documents of the witch-hunt, which were compiled in 2010 by a team of editors led by Bernard Rosenthal, and I should add, Margo Burns played a major role in it, was really a major source for me. But one of the things I should point out, though, that it's very much worthwhile to mention, mention that the path I expected to follow, what I thought happened in Andover turned out not [00:24:00] to really be the case at all.
There's a very well-known work on the Witch Hunt in Salem Village from the mid 1970s by historians Paul Boyer and Steven Nisenbaum. They talk about a factionalism that formed in Salem Village over the uh, minister in town with a significant faction supporting him and a significant faction opposing him. And they stress how it tended to break down on regional lines, with people more in the east end of the village, who were near the Salem town, tending to oppose it, further west in the more rural isolated area, tending to support him. I already knew that Andover had been semi-formally divided into north and south ends by that time, not not into separate towns, although the border is fairly close to what now separates North Andover from Andover. There were two ministers in what was then Andover, Francis Dane and Thomas [00:25:00] Barnard. I was expecting to find some kind of a north-south divide in Andover between accusers and accused.
And it's well known that Francis Dane was an opponent of the witch-hunt from the beginning. And some writers had hinted that Thomas Barnard, who was actually the younger of the two, had offered his support to the process. But I didn't find anything like that. In terms of the north and south ends, of the 45 accused, there were 24 from the north end and 21 from the south end, so practically an even split. And people involved in accusations in one way or another, 12 from the north end, 11 from the south end. Again, a practically an even split.
And although Thomas Barnard's attitude toward the witch-hunt was not as vocal as Francis Dane's, he signed the petitions just like Francis Dane and everyone else defending the suspects. So he didn't [00:26:00] support it anymore than Francis Dane did. I think in part, it may have been because the minister in Salem Village, Samuel Parris, played such a major role there, had just made historians may have just generally thought for it to take off in Andover like it did, at least one of the ministers had to be leading the charge, so to speak. That wasn't the case at all. I did research the lives of people involved in the witch hunt afterward, and there were people who strongly supported Barnard in the first decade of the next century, who had close family members accused of witchcraft, and two of 'em were even the sons of Samuel Wardwell, who had been hanged for witchcraft. And I just can't believe that those people would've supported Reverend Barnard if he had been a major booster of the witch-hunt. It just doesn't make sense.
Josh Hutchinson: Certainly different in Salem Village with Parris.
Richard Hite: [00:27:00] Definitely. And it just seemed more in Andover to break down along family lines, particularly among the accused. I already mentioned Martha Carrier's extended family. Her maternal grandparents were Edmund and Anne Ingalls of Lynn, Massachusetts. Of course, they were long dead by the time of the witch-hunt. But altogether they had 17 descendants accused. No other family was that heavily persecuted.
The Tyler family, in and around Andover, they had 10 members accused. Now, unlike the extended Ingalls clan, they also had some accusers, as well, within the family. But those in the family who were accusers were not accusing their own family members, with the exception of a stepdaughter of Moses Tyler named Martha Sprague. It seems to me that her accusations against some of his family may have been a reflection of a negative attitude she held [00:28:00] toward him, and there was just a way of lashing out at his family.
And I should clarify something I said. There were 45 accused from Andover, and that's correct. There were an additional 18 from surrounding communities who people from Andover played a role in accusing. So based on that, I would actually say that the Andover phase resulted in 63 accusations, and 27 out of 63 came from those two extended family groups. So not quite half, but nonetheless a significant portion.
But there were other families who had several members accused, the Barker family, for instance, they had four who were accused. You add those four in, that's 31. And then there were a few others who had at least multiple members accused as well.
Sarah Jack: And was there anything else contributing to that number of accusations other than [00:29:00] thinking, oh, confession is going to save me? What else would've contributed to that many accusations?
I
Richard Hite: think it was just that once things took off there and got some of the locals believing in, and of course again, the accusation of Martha Carrier as Queen of Hell, giving the idea that she's one of the ring leaders of the whole episode, shifted a focus to Andover in that way. Now the people who were confessing, I should point out, were not generally accusing new people. They were just offering evidence against others who had already been accused. It was just something like in Salem Village. Once it got started, it just got out of control in Andover, as well.
And yes, the fact that people were confessing was giving added credence to it in the minds of the accusers. William Barker, for example, [00:30:00] gave probably one of the more detailed confessions of the whole thing. He described how the Devil was involved. The Devil and his followers had a conspiracy to bring down the Church and the region. He went on to say that the witches were much vexed, as he put it, at the judges and the afflicted, because they were interfering with their plans. And he specifically said, to his knowledge, not a single innocent person had been accused. That was exactly what the judges and the accusers wanted to hear. And he probably said that thinking it would get him off the hook. As it worked out, it did. But again, that was just a coincidence of timing. Had governor Phipps not suspended legal actions when he did in October, some of those who had confessed but then subsequently been convicted would probably have been executed before the month was over.
I think it's worth pointing it out that [00:31:00] earlier in New England witch trials, people who confessed were in fact executed.
Josh Hutchinson: So the thing then about having their lives spared if they confessed, that was just a baseless rumor?
Richard Hite: Early on, those who were confessed, there were only a handful of those prior to Andover, but they were not being brought to trial. And so that probably just contributed to the rumor, because those who were being brought to trial were not confessing and had not confessed previously. But confessions throughout really helped spread the whole thing.
At the very beginning of the whole event, there were three accused, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and the Reverend Parris's slave, Tituba, from Salem Village. Previous witch trials throughout the region, it usually would be only one or two, maybe three people accused. Those people might be convicted, might not, [00:32:00] but Tituba not only confessed, she claimed to have put her mark in a book that listed nine other names. So that gave a hint to the prosecutors. We don't have everybody.
And then by the time they had arrested about seven, six or seven more, this teenage girl from Topsfield, Abigail Hobbs, also confesses. Now she doesn't provide numbers. But yeah, Tituba said she had only signed the book a few weeks before. Abigail Hobbs said that she had given her soul to the devil three or four years earlier. So now that's telling them that this has been going on a while.
It's one of the most frustrating things about reading the whole episode is realizing how many times it reached a point where it could have died down, and then something else, usually another accusation followed by a [00:33:00] confession, suddenly starts at getting out of control again.
Sarah Jack: Why would've she and some of the other confessors said that they had been working with the devil for so many years?
Richard Hite: In the case of Tituba, is really hard to fathom why she confessed. There's a legend that her master, the Minister Samuel Parris, whipped it out of her, but I don't buy that, and I'll tell you why I don't. Because she was questioned in court over a period of two days. The first day she refused to confess, and then she spent the next night in jail. Parris wouldn't have had a chance to whip her then.
The way Judge John Hathorne phrased his questions, he was always presuming guilt. In the case of Sarah Good, for example, he did not ask her, "Sarah Good, do you have familiarity with any evil spirits?" He asked, "Sarah Good, what evil spirit have you familiarity [00:34:00] with?" In reading this examination of Tituba, it seems that he tricked her into confessing, cause he would not relent in questioning her about that. And then finally, I think she said something she thought might get her out of trouble, because she did at one point finally admit she had harmed these children through occult means but had recanted and would do so no more. But then that just caused Hathorne to press even further, twisting her words.
Of course, she was in the courtroom with these shrieking afflicted girls. I think she just cracked under the pressure. Now Abigail Hobbs, she's written about heavily, and Mary Beth Norton's book titled In the Devil's Snare, Mary Beth Norton stresses the importance of Abigail Hobbs' confession. Abigail Hobbs, she was only in her mid teens, apparently quite disturbed. She and her [00:35:00] family had been on the Maine frontier when the wars with the Native Americans broke out. They were essentially back in the Topsfield area as refugees. But Abigail Hobbs had some strange habits. Apparently, she was talked about how she would sleep in the woods at night, would publicly talk about having sold herself body and soul to the Old Boy, which was a way of describing the Devil. My suspicion is that whatever eccentricity she had, she was probably ridiculed to a degree by her peers and maybe had cultivated the reputation of a Witch in a hope of scaring them into leaving her alone. And so again, I can't be sure about that, but that seems as logical a reason as any. I think there were only three more who confessed until the confessions took off in Andover.
Josh Hutchinson: You mentioned earlier that a lot of what happened in Andover took off because of what the [00:36:00] Ballards did. Can you tell us a little more about that?
Richard Hite: Sure. Actually, in a way, it almost starts, I think, with Samuel Wardwell, who ended up being hanged, but see, Samuel Wardwell was well known among the young people in Andover as a fortune teller. And he was well liked by them because of that. My suspicion is, some of Ward well's, things that he told were surprisingly accurate. What I suspect about him is that he had a very keen sense of being able to read people's thoughts by mannerisms, the way they phrased certain things, or by facial expressions.
For instance, he had told one young man named James Bridges that he knew that he was in love with a certain girl in the area. And James Bridges admitted it. Yes he was. And then other things that people believe in 'em strongly enough that can [00:37:00] become self-fulfilling. Well, Samuel Wardwell's wife was Sarah Hooper Wardwell. Her sister Rebecca was married to John Ballard. Now, John Ballard was not the husband of the woman who was sick. John Ballard was the constable of the south end of Andover, and he had already arrested Martha Carrier and taken her to jail in Salem.
Wardwell was getting worried when he heard that Elizabeth Ballard was sick. He thought people were getting suspicious of his being a fortune teller. And so he was afraid he'd be accused of witchcraft. He expressed this to his brother John, he was afraid that John's brother, Joseph, might be blaming him for Elizabeth Ballard's illness. John Ballard then went and said this to Joseph, and that was what put the idea in Joseph Ballard's head that maybe my wife is bewitched. So he sent for these girls from Salem Village,[00:38:00] and of course, they obviously said, yes she was, and Wardwell was not accused immediately, but he was about a month later. And in a sense, expressing his own concerns probably led to him ultimately being accused and executed.
A few days after people began being accused and arrested in Andover, Elizabeth Ballard died. And see, that was a first. None of the afflicted people in Salem Village had died, regardless of what might have been wrong with them or anybody else. But here, for the first time, a supposedly afflicted person had actually died. That was another hint that there were more people at large, and now there was obvious evidence these witches could actually kill.
Sarah Jack: Bringing the afflicted girls in to try to detect some supposed witches was a big deal. It really affected the next[00:39:00] circumstances?
Richard Hite: Yeah. So that was the first place where that had been, where that was done. Gloucester didn't even get involved until very late in the game. Gloucester did have nine people accused. After Andover, Salem Village, and the town of Salem, they were number four, but none of the accusations there really ended up going much of anywhere ,because it started so late in the process.
Josh Hutchinson: You talked about Anne Foster's confession, 305 witches?
Richard Hite: Where she got that number, I have no idea. The only one of the things I find myself thinking about the whole process, both in terms of confessors and accusers, is I really wondered to what extent nightmares played a role in whatever caused this. Because we have to remember that, and even 19th century writers had trouble accepting this, I think because, so many have tried to point to some kind of conspiracy [00:40:00] in this whole thing. We have to remember these people genuinely believed in it. Believing in witchcraft and that witches could bring harm to people that, that era, it was every bit as normal as believing in God is today.
But I think even 19th century writers had a hard time accepting that in some of their writings about it, because you'll run into all kinds of accounts, and I think it's based partly on fiction, that one of the reasons people were accused was because the accusers wanted the land of the people they were accusing. And that's not the case at all, because they wouldn't, it wasn't going to get them any land because it's, again, and I think this was made popular by Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The House of the Seven Gables, because that's the reason that the judge there accuses the victim of witchcraft, is because he wants his land, and he ends up getting it. But in reality, even if someone is hanged for witchcraft in that era, their heirs are still going [00:41:00] to inherit their land. Two of the people who were executed, John Proctor and George Jacobs, neither from Andover, but yeah, they wrote their will while they were in jail awaiting execution, and the terms of their wills were honored.
Sarah Jack: So there, there were nightmares in the surviving testimony. At what point in the Andover phase was that, was it throughout? Did several confessor or accusers talk about nightmares?
Richard Hite: They didn't describe it as such. I can't help but believe that's where some of the testimony came from, was people had dreamed something and dreams and reality became blurred, because they so strongly believed what was happening.
Sarah Jack: So even outside a trial scenario, those individuals would've been considering dreams real experiences?
Richard Hite: It's possible. But some would have. Yes. [00:42:00] Yes. Through much of human history, dreams have often been seen as portents of some sort. And in reality, too, some of the confessors and Ann Foster comes to mind with this, because she had experienced so much tragedy in recent years. She could have come to actually believe she had, without realizing it, become a witch and was being punished for it.
It's just as people who are devoutly religious today might have doubts about, okay, whether their souls have been saved, so to speak, or not. When one so devoutly believes in something such as witchcraft, they may actually come to believe themselves to have become witches.
Josh Hutchinson: Sarah and I were talking about the nightmares and dreams thing the other night, and I went through a phase in my life where I had sleep paralysis several times, and it very much resembled to me some of the accuser testimony, especially, [00:43:00] of people coming into your room at night, because you wake up, but you're still in a dream state, so everything feels very real.
Richard Hite: I occasionally had dreams as a child of, and occasionally as an adult, of falling off of something and waking up as I was falling, and it felt as though I landed on my bed. And then other symptoms can manifest themselves, too. If you believe very strongly in witchcraft, and if you think that someone has a poppet that they are using a poppet that they're identifying as you and sticking pins at it, you're probably going to experience some symptoms.
A personal experience, when I've led tours, I have sometimes cited, I grew up in a religious tradition, in which 12 was considered the age of accountability for one's sins, so that, anything you did prior to age 12 was not going to be held against you, [00:44:00] so to speak. But once you're 12, you're responsible for everything. Three weeks after my 12th birthday, I broke out in a severe case of hives. My mother took me to the doctor, and they were assuming I had some sort of allergy. The doctor concluded, I think, because I had probably recently started taking adult aspirin instead of baby aspirin when I needed it, that I was allergic to aspirin. For over three decades, I believed that I was allergic to aspirin. But then, learning some of the potential medical benefits of it, I decided to go to an allergist and undergo what's called a drug challenge. I'm not allergic to aspirin, probably never was. I firmly believe that breaking out in hives was probably a nervous reaction over the idea that I was suddenly responsible for my own sins.
Josh Hutchinson: That's a great example. You talked in the book, this is about the [00:45:00] psychosomatic symptoms that people feel?
Richard Hite: Yes, absolutely. I think that was a major factor. Now, I can't help but think that some of the performances by the afflicted in the courtroom, those probably were to some degree staged, because it wouldn't be the sort of thing that someone could just easily turn on and off. But even if the ones in the courtroom were staged, what happened at home, probably psychosomatic, and by testifying as they did in the courtroom, I'm sure that many of them thought that they were bringing criminals to justice, even if they did exaggerate what was actually happening at that moment.
Sarah Jack: When you talked about Abigail Hobbs and like a perceived purification process, they were maybe exaggerating to help accomplish getting rid of the evil.
Richard Hite: Yes. I, that's what I, but that, that doesn't mean that some of [00:46:00] what they experienced was not real. But again, for psychosomatic reasons.
Josh Hutchinson: I I also wonder when they got into the courtroom and they were facing the people who they believed were witches, could they have had stress reactions then as well?
Richard Hite: That's absolutely a possibility, very much a possibility, because they were deathly afraid of these people, even though, you know, they did not have to be in that person's presence for the person to afflict them according to their belief, to actually be in their presence would be, would've been a frightening experience.
Josh Hutchinson: I wanted to talk some more about Martha Carrier, because she seems to play a very prominent role in the Andover situation. What more can you tell us about her as a person?
Richard Hite: She was she had been born in Andover and grown up there. Then, as a young adult, she, or possibly [00:47:00] even in her late teens, she went to the neighboring town of Billerica and lived with her older sister, who was married to a man from there, and she found her husband there, Thomas Carrier, and they were married. But they were not too secure financially, and in the late 1680s, they were warned out of town. It's not clear why. Now warning someone out of town did not automatically mean you had to leave, but if you were warned out of town, it meant if you fell into difficult financial circumstances, the town had no obligation to help support you.
Martha seems to have been of a bit of a turbulent spirit. She got into a quarrel with a neighbor of hers named Benjamin Abbott, and this was once they moved back to Andover over a property line. And it was after Benjamin Abbott later testified against her, saying that after this quarrel, he had become seriously ill and developed [00:48:00] some type of soar on his foot, which upon being lanced, oozed, as he described it, gallons of corruption. Most bizarrely, he also claimed to have gotten some boils on his manhood, which only left after she was arrested.
Now whether or not she really was as quarrelsome as she's been portrayed or just was very quick to defend her family, who knows? There were things that made people frightened of her. And there was a smallpox epidemic that started Andover shortly after they moved there in 1690, which led to 13 people dying in Andover, and that was apparently known in the region, because one of the young girls who testified against her, who was not from Andover but Salem Village, described an encounter with 13 ghosts, who blamed their deaths on Martha Carrier. [00:49:00] No coincidence, the exact number of people who died in the smallpox epidemic.
Now there are legends about Martha Carrier's husband, which I seriously do not believe are true. The one aspect of it that apparently is true is that he apparently changed his last name for some reason. Their marriage record even describes him as Thomas Morgan alias Carrier. The legend about him is that he had ended up fleeing England, because he was the executioner of King Charles I in 1649. But for one thing, by the time he died in 1735, he would've had to have been well over a hundred years old. His death record actually does say he was 109, but death records at that time with exaggerated ages like that are, weren't unusual in New England, particularly for people who had been born in England and come over.
I have an ancestor myself who's own grave [00:50:00] indicates he died in 1694 at age 97, which would place his birth in 1597, but his baptism in England gives his year of birth as 1611, so he was actually only 83. But even regardless of whether that story about her husband is true or not, if people around thought that it was, that wouldn't have helped the family's reputation.
Sarah Jack: Was that legend, when did it develop? Did it develop during their lifetime or did we hear about it after?
Richard Hite: To my knowledge, it only appears in print in the 1880s with a published history of Andover. Whether it was told verbally during his lifetime or not, no. A couple of historical novels have been written about it as if it was an absolute fact. One of the bad things about historical novels is that so many people are inclined to believe that they are actually [00:51:00] factual, and you know that, but you can take a historical novel and write anything.
He's also said to have been stood well over seven feet tall, for instance. And combination of that and living to be over a hundred years old, even today, extraordinarily tall people have lower life expectancies than the average person, because being that extraordinarily tall is a strain on one's circulatory system. The fact that Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, who died earlier this year at age 88, the fact that he lived that long is nothing short of miraculous. And Thomas Carrier was said to have lived 20 years longer than he did. So it's just a combination of things that are just really not believable.
Now, I know I've strayed away from Martha herself and talked about her family. Whether she was genuinely just a disagreeable [00:52:00] person, which there's evidence to suggest that she was, her children ended up being accused along with her, and they ended up confessing and implicated their mother in the confessions.
But I'm quite certain if there was a rumor of your life being spared if they did confess, she might very well have told them to implicate her, to save them and probably was willing to die herself, as long as they could be spared.
Josh Hutchinson: Now she had an interesting brother-in-law, Roger Toothaker, right? And he talked about using folk magic to actually kill a witch.
Richard Hite: That's true. He said he had taught his daughter how to do it, and his daughter Martha, who was married to a man named Emerson, ended up being arrested as well. But the way that was supposedly done was, and I don't know how they did this, was to procure the urine of a witchcraft [00:53:00] suspect and boiling it, which would supposedly kill the witch. Now, I don't count Roger Toothaker as among the ones who was as part of the Andover Witch Hunt for the simple reason that he had been arrested, and he died in jail before anybody other than Martha was accused from Andover.
But that's true. Her connection to him probably didn't help her case at all. Ultimately, I think the rest of the family being accused was because of her. But her own dubious reputation and her family's dubious reputation. It wasn't helped by the connection to him by any means.
Josh Hutchinson: Samuel Wardwell and Roger Toothaker both seemed to be comfortable openly talking about magic. And why would they have felt comfortable talking about that openly before the Witch hunt?
Richard Hite: There was certainly folk magic of various types was often practiced, and generally it didn't [00:54:00] really always aros suspicion. And I think, now Roger Toothaker probably thought that, okay, if he used counter magic to kill a witch, that was maybe a positive thing. Obviously he calculated wrong.
But Samuel Wardwell had apparently done this for years without suspicion. And, in times like this, when suddenly all these accusations start happening, people who are known for things like that suddenly fall under suspicion, whereas maybe they didn't before. I think that was why he started becoming nervous that he would fall under suspicion, but by voicing his suspicions to his brother-in-law, John Ballard, it ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way.
Sarah Jack: And so likewise, Martha Carrier would've been fine being a little bit turbulent, because the accusations hadn't become such a problem. [00:55:00] Cause I was thinking she has this reputation, possibly she wasn't hesitant to be rude.
Richard Hite: She didn't hesitate to speak her mind, but she wasn't worried about witch trial, not until this all came about. I mean there were previous cases, of course, when only one or two people in an area would be accused, and, in fact, there were people who ultimately were accused in Salem who had fallen under suspicion previously. That was not true of Martha Carrier, but there were certainly others, but some previous examinations, not only did the accused person get off the hook, that person could then sue the accuser and in some cases even won the suit.
Susanna Martin of Amesbury was hanging in 1692, but in 1669 in her home community of Amesbury, she had been accused. Not only did the accusation [00:56:00] not go anywhere, but her husband sued the man who accused her and won the suit. But Susanna Martin was another one who didn't hesitate to speak her mind, but not everybody was accused was like that.
Sarah Jack: When she later was accused, her husband was gone, and it was men accusing her. Am I right?
Richard Hite: Men would file the formal complaints, but one mistaken idea about the whole thing, though, is that in general, the widows were more vulnerable in Salem. That was not the case. In fact, of the 19 who were hanged, see it was 14 women and 5 men. 10 of those women had living husbands, only 4 were widows. There were 45 who were accused in Andover, of which 34 were women . Of those 34, only 4 were widows.
[00:57:00] Then of course, I should also point out one thing that was different about Andover was you had a lot of younger people being accused, because among the other, and I should say females, because some of them were girls, of the 30 others, 12 of them had living husbands, and eight of the other 18 were women and girls under the age of 30 who were not yet married. A lot of them, most of them had living fathers. So it's the idea that women who did not have a man to protect them were more vulnerable than others. The statistics don't bear that out.
Josh Hutchinson: It doesn't seem like the men were able to do much to protect them when they did have the men.
Richard Hite: Not in Salem in 1692. And I should say all of Essex County. There really seems to have been very little that they could do. And in fact there were some, a few men who attempted to, who ended up [00:58:00] being accused themselves. John Proctor in Salem Village, along with Giles Corey, both their wives were accused. They ended up being accused themselves.
Andover had a unique situation in that Samuel Wardwell was accused. And then in the wake of that, his wife, one of his daughters, and a stepdaughter were all accused as well. But in that particular case, the accusation started with a male member of the family. And that was that was not the norm. It would usually be a woman who would be accused first. Really the men really could do little protective. Plenty of the men who signed the petitions in Andover starting in October of 1692 were men who had wives or daughters that had been arrested. And you know that by then it did start to have some effect.
In talking about Thomas Carrier's reputation, I've always found it very interesting that he didn't [00:59:00] sign the petitions, and I can't help but wonder if he was not, if he was shrewd enough to know that maybe his signing a petition, because if he had a bad reputation, might have done more harm than good. Now, granted, his wife Martha, had already been executed. But 4 of his children were still in jail under suspicion. It's a little surprising he was not accused himself. Why he wasn't, I don't know.
Josh Hutchinson: You talked about the confession of Abigail Hobbs and how significant that was. And in the book you mentioned that she said that she gave the devil her permission to afflict. Why was that important?
Richard Hite: That was related to spectral evidence. See, one of the real controversies of the whole thing was the use of spectral evidence. The idea that if someone's specter attacked a person, [01:00:00] whether that was acceptable as evidence of guilt or not. And the reason that was controversial was there were those who believed that the devil could not take one's shape to attack a person without that person's consent, but there were others who thought that the devil could take anyone's shape with or without permission. The court initially ultimately decided that it could only be done with the person's consent, so therefore, spectral evidence was considered acceptable.
Now, when the original court was disbanded in October and a new court was created, that new court did not allow that type of evidence. Increase Mather wrote that it was impossible to know that the devil could not take the shape of an innocent person, and also said it was better for 10 witches to go free than for one innocent person to be put to death, so in the following January, when the new court [01:01:00] began trying people, of the 52 people they brought to the court, only three were convicted. And all those three, two of them actually lived in Andover, and the other one had family ties to Andover. But there were unique things about all three of them that made it more likely that they would be convicted.
I can elaborate on that, if you like. One of 'em was, in fact, Samuel Wardwell's widow, Sarah. Her husband had been hanged soon before that. Most of the confessors describe squeezing puppets or cloth or even their own hands and imagining the people they wish to harm. Sarah Wardwell claimed a very shocking thing. She had a child, who was not quite a year old yet at the time. One of the people she was accused of afflicting was Martha Sprague, who was the Tyler's stepdaughter I spoke of earlier. In her confession, she actually described picking up her own child in an attempt to hurt Martha Sprague and [01:02:00] squeezing her own child, effectively using her own child as a weapon of witchcraft, so to speak. That was quite a shocking thing to say.
The other two, Elizabeth Johnson and Mary Post, they were both apparently mentally challenged in some way. Robert Calef, who wrote about the trials three years later, and, of course, people were much less diplomatic then in describing people who were mentally challenged, he described Elizabeth Johnson and Mary Post as two of the most senseless and ignorant creatures who could be found.
Now Elizabeth Johnson was one of the extended Ingalls clan. She was the granddaughter, in fact, of the town minister, Francis Dane, whose late wife had been an Ingalls. Francis Dane, in writing his letter condemning the trials and describing his granddaughter, Elizabeth Johnson, who was in her early twenties, stated that she is but simplish at the best. And it's [01:03:00] noteworthy that Elizabeth Johnson and Mary Post, both of whom went on to live long lives, neither of them ever married, which was obviously unusual in that era. It's evident from the other younger people who were accused that being accused of witchcraft in 1692, that there's no evidence that it really hurt anybody's marriage prospects later. If anything, it probably hurt the marriage prospects of the accusers more. Elizabeth Johnson, being one of the ones who was convicted, she was the one whose conviction actually remained on the books until just this past July, when she was finally exonerated by an action of the Massachusetts General Assembly.
Sarah Jack: We'd love to hear about your noticing that in your research, and you did note it in your book. Tell us about that, and did you expect her to be exonerated already?
Richard Hite: There were so many things I learned in this course of researching the [01:04:00] book. With the exception of Elizabeth Proctor, who was only ended up surviving because she was pregnant, I didn't know that there were people who had actually been convicted but not executed. But one of the things I wanted to research and with Andover was the aftermath of the witch hunt for people involved, both accusers and accused.
And in reading about it, I learned, of course, that there were people who were convicted, but not hanged. And that even as soon as eight years after started petitioning for exoneration. And those who had been convicted and survived, all except Elizabeth Johnson were ultimately exonerated in one way or another by 1711. Elizabeth Johnson did submit a petition for it, but somehow, some way it just never happened. Now, the fact that she was unmarried, apparently mentally challenged in some way, and probably lived out her life in the care of various relatives. Maybe it just wasn't considered as [01:05:00] pressing for her.
But then of course there were some, there were also, because of the efforts of family members, some of those hanged in 1692 were exonerated at that time. Those hanged who had not been exonerated then, one was exonerated in 1957, the rest in 2001. Elizabeth Johnson was probably missed at that time, because she wasn't hanged.
When I realized, okay, this one person has never been exonerated, all the rest have, and I thought maybe the Massachusetts General Assembly should actually address this. But I'm not a resident of Massachusetts. I live in Rhode Island now. Had I been a resident of Massachusetts, I probably would've just reached out to my own senator or representative. So I started asking around at the North Andover Historical Society about it. One of their boards of trustees thought getting this person exonerated would probably be a good eighth grade civics project.
There [01:06:00] was a retired teacher there named Greg Pasco, and he put me in touch with Carrie LaPierre, who teaches at North Andover Middle School. She was certainly willing to get her class interested in undertaking this project just a week before everything shut down in 2020 because of the pandemic. I went up there one day and addressed her class. And of course it ended up taking, I think two, if not three years worth of her classes to finally get it done. But they took the process from there through their own state Senator Diane DiZoglio.
The initial bill was committed to further study, so to speak, early in 2022. But then these two people from California began working on a documentary on it, which got some more attention, although the documentary has not been released in final form yet. And so they ended up just adding it to the budget bill, which was approved by both chambers of the assembly and was signed by the governor [01:07:00] on July 28th this year. Elizabeth Johnson, after nearly 330 years has finally been exonerated, and media, not only all over the country, but it was reported in news media throughout the world. So all kinds of references to it in other languages, countries all over the world.
Sarah Jack: Thanks so much for doing this for her.
Richard Hite: I'm so glad this class undertook it. I give credit where credit is due. I, yes, I discovered that it hadn't been done. I thought it should be. Once I called their attention to, the teacher's attention to it, and her students, and she did the same, they really took it from there. At least two, maybe three years worth of classes worked toward it by collecting signatures, writing their own letters to members of the committee. I wrote letters to the committees myself, how much do they care what a Rhode Island resident has to say about something? It's not like I can vote for or [01:08:00] against any of 'em, but I'm just so glad that a away was found to get around the fact that I don't live in Massachusetts and to get that many people involved, and I'm just so happy for these students. It's going to be something that they'll remember their involvement in. This is gonna be something they'll remember for the rest of their lives, and if it spurs some of them own to take up other worthy causes in the future, so much the better.
Josh Hutchinson: We're actually working on a project to exonerate the accused in the state of Connecticut, and we're hoping to follow suit. There's a middle school class that's interested in doing the same thing.
Richard Hite: Yes, I've been reading about that, and I very much hope that happens. Although of course now everybody associated with the Salem Witch Hunt has been exonerated, but yet there were witchcraft trials earlier in Massachusetts, and with some people convicted and hanged, I don't know if [01:09:00] those people have ever been exonerated or not.
Josh Hutchinson: We've looked at it, and there's no indication that they ever were, those other five individuals from Massachusetts.
Richard Hite: And I don't recall all, I don't recall all their names. I know Alice Jones was the first one was hanged on Boston Common in 1648. The last one was Goody Glover, whose first name, as far as I know, is lost to history in 1688. There was one named Elizabeth Morse in Newbury, who like Elizabeth Johnson was convicted but for some reason never hanged. I also know that a few others were hanged in Massachusetts prior to 1692, but I don't recall their names at the top of my head. The source I know of I can refer to for that is John Demos's work from the early 1970s called Entertaining Satan, because that work is totally focused on the [01:10:00] New England witch trials, apart from the events in Salem.
Josh Hutchinson: That's what we've used primarily to gather the names of the New England accused. And there were a total of five in Massachusetts before Salem and 11 hanged in Connecticut.
Now here's Sarah with an important update.
Sarah Jack: Here is Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration News. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, an organized effort for the state exoneration of the 17th century accused and hanged witches of the Connecticut colony has been led by retired police officer Tony Grego, author Beth Caruso, descendant and advocate Sarah Jack, and advocates Mary Bingham and Joshua Hutchinson.
After years of educating Connecticut residents locally and online, Tony and Beth of the CT Witch Memorial joined up with fellow advocates Sarah, Mary, and Joshua, together with state representative Jane Garibay. The exoneration project now includes [01:11:00] many witch trial victim descendants and other advocates, both in the state of Connecticut and countrywide. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project now brings an exoneration bill to the Judiciary Committee for the 2023 winter session of Connecticut's General Assembly.
Did you know this podcast was born from this exoneration effort? It was initially created as a social and educational tool to amplify and project an overlooked history. This obscure history needed to be offered in a package that educated the state, country, and the world about the known individuals that were executed by a court of law in New England's Connecticut Colony for witchcraft crimes. This colony hanged the first accused witch in the American colonies in 1647. Her name is Alice Young. She had one daughter. Her one daughter, Alice Young Beamon had eight children. She has many, many descendants, but no family association for her descendants. Her story is relatively unknown by even Connecticut residents.
We are now at the [01:12:00] winter session of 2023, getting ready to testify for an exoneration bill, asking for the exoneration of Alice Young, america's first executed witch, along with the other known accused witches of Connecticut colony. Dozens of individuals were accused, outcast from their lives, family and community, or killed by the courts. Those convicted of witchcraft crimes found themselves proven guilty by spectral evidence. It was acceptable to take their lives based on unseen or unexplained misfortune, sickness, and unexplained or sudden deaths of family and neighbors. Now you are aware of the history.
Have you been tuned into our robust lineup of episodes teaching about Alice Young and the other victims, as well as Connecticut Colony's governor, John Winthrop, Jr.'s, influence on the trials? If you haven't, when you download those episodes now, you'll learn so much and be able to share more about the Connecticut witch trial history.
The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project is asking the judiciary committee to vote yes on this exoneration bill. The [01:13:00] Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration project is asking you to take action with us by writing letters to the legislature. You can find out more by going to our Discord community through the link in the show notes.
Use your social power to help Alice Young, America's first executed witch, to finally be acknowledged. Support the descendants by acknowledging and sharing their ancestor's stories. Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our project on social media @ctwitchhunt, and visit our website at ConnecticutWitchTrials.org. The Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration project is a project of End Witch Hunts movement.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah for educating us on real world events occurring as we speak.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe to Thou Shalt [01:14:00] Not Suffer wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell all your friends and family and colleagues and everybody who you see about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: the Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Continue to support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

January 12, 2023

Witch-Hunting in Modern South Africa with Damon Leff

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Show Notes

Learn with us! Damon Leff of the South African Pagan Rights Alliance Advocacy Against Witch Hunts shares about South Africa’s alleged witch situation. We learn about South Africa’s belief in the occult, magic, witchcraft and muti. This interview considers the common denominators and differences between past and present witchcraft hunts. We discuss how interventions must recognize regional and cultural nuances and the discriminative risks of law reform. “In South Africa, in almost all cases of accusation of witchcraft, the accused will:
a. not be offered access to legal defense against the accusations,
b. not be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,
c. be driven from their communities,
d. lose their homes as a result of arson,
e. be forcibly separated from their families, loved ones and friends,
f. be placed in custody by the South African Police Services, ostensibly for their own safety, spending at least one night in a prison cell to avoid being attacked by members of their own community,
g. may never return to their homes and communities of birth, and
h. be forced into unwilling exile in unofficial and unacknowledged refugee camps.”
Links
Advocacy Against Witch Hunts, South Africa
Project 135: Review of the Witchcraft Suppression Act 3 of 1957
Witchcraft Suppression Act 3 of 1957
Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut
Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project
End Witch Hunts Movement
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Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: This is Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. Happy New Year, and welcome to our first episode of 2023. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: Today's guest is Damon Leff of the South African Pagan Rights Alliance. We're going to be speaking with him about their project Advocacy Against Witch Hunts.
Sarah Jack: Because you like the show and our guests, please share with your friends, family, and followers.
Josh Hutchinson: I hope you're all enjoying a nice 2023 and had festive holiday [00:01:00] season and aren't too cold.
Sarah Jack: We're barely into the year, and I've already had a birthday, Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: Wow. Happy birthday, Sarah.
Sarah Jack: Thank you.
Josh Hutchinson: Sarah's our very own New Year's baby.
In this new year, we're bringing to you a new subject. You've heard Sarah speak in her news reports about the crisis in South Africa and other nations around the world, and today we focus on modern-day witchcraft accusations and violence in South Africa.
Sarah Jack: We're able to start talking about this with you. Damon reached out to us after the launch of our podcast. After hearing our interest in sharing world witch-hunt news, he introduced himself to us and started sharing his [00:02:00] background and some powerful things that have been happening over there, and we are just so glad that we heard from him. Damon is helping us look through a new lens at his country.
Josh Hutchinson: Our conversations with Damon have been instrumental in the formation of our nonprofit, End Witch Hunts, which aims, through education of witch-hunts, both historical and modern-day, to curb the current crisis of accusations and violence against those alleged to have committed witchcraft. We hope through our group that we can amplify voices like Damon's, like Leo Igwe's, these other activists in the countries most affected by the witchcraft accusations.
Sarah Jack: Our [00:03:00] conversation with Damon is always an open door. At any time I have a question, he is willing to give me information and support. So this is the type of collaboration that is going to power the currents that are making the changes. Each of these countries have their own specific struggles around stopping Witch Hunts or improving their response for alleged witches who have been through horrible circumstances, but talking and sharing and teaching builds creative solutions. It brings experiences from different communities. End Witch Hunts wants to hear voices like Leo [00:04:00] and Damon, who are actively experiencing the witch accusation atmosphere of their country and looking for solutions.
Josh Hutchinson: Conversations like the one we have with Damon today are so critical in helping those of us who are not in the countries affected by witchcraft accusations to understand what the situation is and what needs to be done. It's important for us to echo their voices and amplify their message and support them in whatever way they need us to or want us to ask us to. We want to, stand with them against this activity, but it's important to let those [00:05:00] in the affected nations do what they need to do without getting in their way and trying to tell them what to do from the outside. They're on the ground. They've got the experience. They know the cultures, they know the language, they know the situation, they know the people involved, and they know how to get things done. So we want to just give them a platform for their voice to be heard and just stand behind them as they do this important work.
Sarah Jack: In this episode, you're going to hear from Damon the action that he and his alliance have been taking to make progress and get important things done for their community.
Josh Hutchinson: You're going to learn some of the history of the [00:06:00] Witchcraft Suppression Act that's on the books right now. You're going to learn the background and some details about how the accusations are made, why they're made, who makes them, what the result is when the accusations are made, and you're also going to learn the hopeful side of things from Damon, that voices are being heard speaking out against witchcraft accusations and change is likely. He has told us that witchcraft accusations are declining in South Africa.
Sarah Jack: When you're hearing about some of the situations, the common denominators really pop out. Listen to those, think about how what you're hearing may be reminiscent of [00:07:00] historical witch-hunts in New England and what does that mean for what we need to do for the communities and countries that aren't able to move forward right now against witchcraft violence.
Josh Hutchinson: Many in these nations are motivated by fear the same way that those involved in historic witchcraft accusations were motivated by fear. Knowing the modern-day situation gives you insight into the past, and knowing the past gives you insight into the present. And that's why we believe strongly in witch trial education. We believe it's important to understand what's happened before and what's happening now, so that we can eliminate these harmful practices related to witchcraft accusations [00:08:00] and prevent similar injustice from occurring in our own countries and elsewhere in the world.
Sarah Jack: And now Josh is going to share background information on this episode's topic.
Josh Hutchinson: Before we talk to Damon, I wanna give you a little background on a couple of the things that we'll be talking about. First, I'll describe the history of the Witchcraft Suppression Act, and then I'm going to tell you about the Occult Related Crimes Unit of the South African Police Service.
The history of the Witchcraft Suppression Act goes back to the British Witchcraft Act of 1735, which prohibited witch-hunts and executions, but also outlawed pretending, in the words of the law, to use supernatural or occult powers. [00:09:00] Between 1604, when a previous witchcraft act was passed which encouraged witch-hunting and 1735, sentiments towards witch-hunting had changed enough that the authorities believed that more harm was caused by fraudulent magical practitioners preying upon the poor and selling them a false bill of goods. And so they got rid of the killing of alleged witches and decided to focus on fraud .
That law, the Witchcraft Act of 1735, took effect in parts of southern Africa when the British occupied the Cape of Good Hope in 1795, and that law applied during subsequent British occupations [00:10:00] and remained in place following the 1814 ceding of the Cape of Good Hope from Netherlands to Britain. In 1886, the law was succeeded by the Native Territories' Penal Code, which prohibited witchcraft accusations, witch-finding, employing so-called "witch doctors," using harmful magic, and using medicines with the intent to injure.
The 1886 law was then replaced by the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1895, which was much the same, but also deemed all payment for witchcraft services to have been the result of fraud. In 1957, the Union of South Africa passed a new Witchcraft Suppression Act, which maintained prohibitions on witchcraft accusations, witch-finding, and harmful [00:11:00] witchcraft practices, while adding provisions outlawing identifying as a witch or taking money to pretend, in the language of the law, to use supernatural or occult powers.
That law has been irregularly enforced over time, with the police sometimes being able to act on witchcraft accusations and witch finding, but other times being behind the ball. And that act, through its provision to outlaw identifying as a witch, does not permit persons practicing Wicca or other pagan faiths to identify as witches.
In 1992, the South African Police Service established an Occult Related Crimes Unit. This outfit was [00:12:00] initially led by Dr. Kobus Jonker and was created in reaction to South Africa's Satanic Panic, being empowered to investigate crimes with supposed connections to occult or satanic activity. When Jonker retired, he was officially replaced by Attie Lamprecht but has apparently continued to serve. In 2006, Lamprecht announced that the unit was disbanded. However, later investigations revealed that the unit was merely reorganized and renamed the Harmful Religious Practices Unit and made up of officers trained in occult crime investigations by Jonker.
We'll hear from Damon about how they're fighting the Witchcraft Suppression Act, trying to get it repealed. However, the South African Law Reform Commission is recommending that the current law be repealed but be [00:13:00] replaced with a new Prohibition of Harmful Practices and Unlawful Accusations of Harmful Witchcraft Practices Act, which would prohibit witchcraft accusations, witch-finding, crimes associated with harmful witchcraft, and muti killings, which are murders performed to make medicine from human body parts.
The changes would be to eliminate the provisions outlawing self-identification as a witch and claims to possess supernatural powers or occult skills or knowledge, and to add the provision dealing with muti murder. As we'll hear from Damon, muti murder is a problem but can be dealt with in other ways than a new, basically a new Witchcraft Suppression Act. It's murder [00:14:00] for the sake of murder, and we'll talk to Damon about that. And it should be against the law against murder and against the law against trafficking human tissues, and Damon argues those laws that are currently on the books should be enough to deal with muti murder and other harmful actions committed peripherally to witchcraft. It's good that they'll still prohibit witchcraft accusations and witch-finding. They just need to enforce those elements of the law.
Sarah Jack: Josh, thank you for introducing important details that will be discussed in this episode.
Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome. I hope it's of some value to the listeners to clarify [00:15:00] the situation before we get into the details with Damon.
Sarah Jack: I'm so happy to welcome Damon Leff of South African Pagan Rights Alliance and Advocacy Against Witch Hunts.
It's been extremely enriching for us to start to grasp the context of what's going on there. My mind has really started doing a lot of things, so I know this conversation's gonna be really important to my knowledge.
Josh Hutchinson: And to our audience.
Damon Leff: Hopefully, they can begin to piece connections between past events and current events and see similarities. I can already see similarities. The question that keeps being asked is what drives people to make accusations of witchcraft, and that's different for each context. Each place has its own unique variables that cause people to make accusations of witchcraft, but they are common denominators, [00:16:00] beginning to piece those together, which is why your podcasts have really helped do that.
Sarah Jack: That's what we want. And consulting with so many different researchers and such a variety of individuals is so critical now. So we're really glad we started stepping down the path the way we did.
Damon Leff: Good.
Josh Hutchinson: What is the South African Pagan Rights Alliance?
Damon Leff: The South African Pagan Rights Alliance is, at the moment, a paralegal advocacy organization. We started out as an informal gathering of like-minded individuals who realized that we needed some kind of organization that could help individual pagans challenge incidents of discrimination. And essentially we started out as an activist organization.
Very few of us had actual any experience, nevermind running an organization, but dealing with issues of [00:17:00] prejudice and discrimination. So we learned what we needed as we went along. And of course, our real focus was learning how to use the voice, the activist's voice, to promote change. And the first way we did that was to challenge media bias against paganism, against witchcraft, as well in the media.
To give you historical context before our interim constitution in 1994, which guaranteed the right to freedom of religion, and before the final constitution in 1996, there was no law on our statute book which protected the right to religious freedom. And although the Apartheid government did not exhibit any overt prejudice against non-Christian faiths, it was clearly a white Christian nationalist party that governed the country. And so their interests were very much focused on Christianity. [00:18:00] And unfortunately, it wasn't a friendly kind of Christianity. It wasn't an inviting Christianity. It was one that definitely had barriers between those who were in and those who were out.
And so if you were not Christian, you were on the out camp. And so people who practiced non-normative religions, occultism, people who were involved in magical practices, witches, specifically, were definitely on the outside. And society didn't really cater for them in any way, but this gave an opportunity to people with prejudice within institutions, with instructional institutions in government to begin to promote things like the Satanic Panic, which of course America experienced before we did. But our Satanic panic really hit us in the seventies and the eighties. It became the reason for the Occult Crime Unit's establishment under Colonel Kobus Jonker, and he led faux [00:19:00] investigations into what he alleged were occult crimes. But in the process he and members of his unit, now you must remember that this unit was firmly entrenched within the South African Police Services, so it had the full authority and backing of government. And although there wasn't any law against the practice of non-normative faiths, and again, there was no protection for non-normative faiths, there, there wasn't any real legislative requirement for the South African police service to persecute, harass, discriminate against non-normative faiths.
But they did that under the Occult Crime Unit, and the prejudice led to the publishing of a series of articles by members of the unit on alternate faiths, specifically on witchcraft, on the practice of occultism, the practice of magic. The content of these articles were not based on reality or fact. It wasn't as if they interviewed members of those faiths to find out what they believe or what they [00:20:00] practice. The approach was "Jesus is a salvation for all people who are not Christian. And these people are clearly worshiping the devil. They are satanists, and, therefore, they need to be saved." That was the philosophical motivation for the funding of the Occult Crime Unit.
So much of our first years, first 10 years of our existence we spent a lot of time browsing through media, published media and online media, and we began to challenge the ideology of the unit itself. We were partly safe because of the interim constitution. The 1994 Constitution gave us some kind of protection from persecution, direct persecution. So that's how we began the Alliance by challenging media prejudice. Eventually, we got to know a couple of the journalists, we got to know the editors of newspapers, and they began to see what we were saying about prejudice narrative. And they began to reject the prejudicial narratives, [00:21:00] because they were clearly not based in any kind of reality. This eventually led us to realize that we needed to get more involved in actual cases of discrimination.
So I studied law in my late fifties. I started studying law and became a paralegal. And currently what we are doing is we are training members of the Pagan community in South Africa to become community paralegals. So giving them the tools and the skills that they need to actually directly challenge the incidents of discrimination within their communities. This way, it's far easier to respond to incidents of discrimination. We simply need to pick up a phone and say the person is having this problem with employer, family, police, and they can intervene. That's our goal. We would like to work toward that. We spent most of our existence challenging discrimination against, religious discrimination from Christians, and then we [00:22:00] focused our attention in 2007 on the repeal of the Witchcraft Suppression Act.
Josh Hutchinson: It was the first time I heard of the Occult Crimes Unit, and I find that detail fascinating.
Damon Leff: I think they lost their reason to exist once the 1996 Constitution was enacted, because the Constitution expressly protects the right to religious freedom, belief, and opinion, and so they couldn't hold a partisan Christian position any longer. They certainly couldn't base any of their police activities on that partisan religious position. They needed to start looking at issues like equality, the right to dignity. So that certainly helped us, and eventually it took the steam out of the crime unit itself, because they no longer had any reason to exist.
Sarah Jack: What can you tell us about the current crisis?
Damon Leff: I'm happy [00:23:00] to say that in 2022 we haven't had one reported incident of a witch-hunt in our country, which is probably the first time since before two thousands, we started keeping records of incidents of witchcraft accusations that led to violent Witch Hunts in 2000 and every year we watched the numbers increase, decrease. It was sporadic.
Accusations of witchcraft in our country are sporadic, unlike in America where there were focused, targeted in specific areas, where law enforcement got involved, where there were actual trials. In South Africa, accusations of witchcraft are sporadic. They happen within communities across the country. And very often the accused is summarily killed, executed, whether stoned to death, killed with a machete, set on fire in a house, often with family members, long before the police even get involved. So the reports very often are post [00:24:00] event.
We've kept track of horrific incidents of accusations of witchcraft against mostly women. There have been exceptions of men. Thankfully, I can only recall one accusation against a child, unlike a Nigeria, where many accusations of child witchcraft occur. In South Africa, that doesn't seem to be a feature of accusations of witchcraft.
Listening to your podcast over the last couple of months has raised for me the issue of context and how certain witchcraft accusations happen in certain places around the world at certain times. Certainly we can see common denominators. In South Africa, it's difficult to find a common denominator between individual incidents other than people exhibiting emotional angst, moral panic because of unexplained illnesses, unexplained deaths.
[00:25:00] Sometimes these belief systems are culturally-based. For example, there are a number of incidences where, accusations of witchcraft were made against goats or crows. Odd animals. Animals that didn't necessarily belong in the village, that suddenly appeared randomly. One could say that those accusations were motivated by a cultural belief system, a folklore. In the most horrific cases, there were sudden deaths in a village, and an old woman who may not have been liked by that particular family was accused.
Now, most accusations are instantaneous. One family will accuse another family, and, of course, if one person in their family is accused, the entire family is implicated in the accusation, because in African traditional culture, there is a belief that witchcraft runs through the breast, which means that if the mother is a witch, her children will be a witch because of breastfeeding. [00:26:00] So the family doesn't escape the consequence of that accusation.
And in one particular incident, an old lady was accused of a major accident, in which the son of a neighboring woman was killed, and she was accused of having cast a spell on the road in which that accident occurred. And at the time of the accusation, the entire village surrounded her house. She was inside, her older daughter was inside, her older daughter's two children were inside. They were all killed. They were all murdered, one with machete, one was set alight. The two children were trapped in the house when the house was set alight. Horrific.
These are the incidents that nobody can intervene immediately to prevent, because they occur in communities in which nobody will question the narrative that one, their misfortune was caused by witchcraft, that therefore there must be a witch, a local, [00:27:00] somebody with whom you've possibly had an argument in the past, somebody with whom you've possibly not really gotten on. Perhaps that person came from a village outside recently and moved into your area. So it's a complicated phenomena. I wouldn't say that those same motivations occur in every instance of accusation, but that seems to be a common thread. They're random, sporadic moments of panic that lead to the death of someone.
Thankfully, our police do intervene. In rare cases where, they are very rare, where a woman has been accused, she may in time or her family members may in time contact the local police, and the local police will then intervene. Unfortunately, the local police haven't really been trained ever to deal with these kinds of incidences, and so the only alternative for the police, the only action they can take is [00:28:00] to take that person outside of the village and put them in a prison cell for the evening for their own safety, which is horrific. To think that the accused must sit in a prison cell for her own safety for the evening. Almost all of those cases do end up in criminal courts. Thankfully, our criminal courts have looked very badly on accusations of witchcraft. Sentences haven't been as strong as they could have been.
And more recently there was an incident in a case in court, in which the accused claimed as mitigation in sentencing, that he only did what he did because he believed that this woman was a Witch. He believed in witchcraft as a bad thing, and this was a cultural belief that he held, and the magistrate gave him a lesser sentence because of his mitigating circumstances, which of course we've criticized because we don't think that's [00:29:00] appropriate. If you want to discourage accusations of witchcraft, you need to increase sentencing, not take a belief in witchcraft as a mitigating factor.
Josh Hutchinson: How do the local communities find the witch suspect? How do they determine who was the alleged?
Damon Leff: In South Africa, we call it witch-finding. And the legislators have been using that term in the Witchcraft Suppression Act. So that entails, if for example, you've made an accusation against the neighbor, but you are uncertain and you want some clarity, you will go to the local diviner. The local diviner is either called an insangoma. Sometimes the nyanga, the herbalist, will also act as a diviner, but usually it's a very specialist field. In traditional African religion the use of herbs to make medicine for healing and the aspect of divination are very often separated, but not always. So in this case, the family [00:30:00] would seek out the local diviner. The local diviner would then throw bones, speak to the ancestors and ask the ancestors to confirm or deny the suspicion. Ultimately, unfortunately, always there's a confirmation, and that will then automatically lead to an attack a concerted attack against the accused person.
Customary history is a really tricky subject for anyone to pronounce factually about, because customary history is memory. It's a verbal and oral history. It hasn't really been written down. So experts in the field have been saying that prior to the arrival of European colonialists, African traditional belief systems dealt with accusations of witchcraft in a concerted way. When there was a suspicion, the diviner was called in to confirm the suspicion, a local tribal court would then be set up, the accused would be taken to the local [00:31:00] tribal court. The accused was not entitled to any kind of defense, so he or she had to defend themselves. An older family member may have assisted, but that would've been very dangerous, especially if the old family member would've insisted that person was innocent. They could very well have been implicated in the accusation as well. And then tribal courts would then mete out justice. I do know that, for example, if a husband accused his wife of witchcraft, the tribal court would then divorce them, separate them, and she would then be banished from the village. But in many cases, of course, she might equally have been killed.
Now because these cultural rules were not uniform across South Africa, remember we have a vast array of different tribes, Zulu, Xhosa, Sepedi, each different group would've had their own variations on these cultural rules. They all believed in the general malevolence of witchcraft, so an accusation of witchcraft may have arisen [00:32:00] in any one of these places.
With the arrival of colonialism, of course, we have a hybrid legal system. First the Dutch arrived, and they imposed Roman Dutch law. Now, amongst magistrates in Cape Town who imposed Roman Dutch law, and of course it was company law that was being imposed, essentially, accusations of witchcraft were not tolerated, so they were never heard, and they were summarily dismissed.
When the English arrived and took over the Cape Colony, English law acknowledged that accusations of witchcraft existed, because they had dealt with their own history of accusations of witchcraft. And they had heard cases of accusations of witchcraft, but they took a very dim view of the accusers. They did not in any way give credence to the notion that real witches existed or that such persons had power to affect the world through non-natural or supernatural means. [00:33:00] So the accuser, the maker of the accusation, was generally convicted and sentenced.
In 1957, we had just become a union, I think, and the 1957 Witchcraft Suppression Act was established. It was basically a copy of British witchcraft legislation, which on the one hand denied that one could be a witch or that witches had power. So therefore, making an accusation of witchcraft became a punishable offense. But at the same time, it made confessing to being a witch also a punishable offense. Under current law, Magistrate's Courts still often refer to the Witchcraft Suppression Act when dealing with accusations of witchcraft, and they apply the sentencing given in the Witchcraft Suppression Act for incidents.
Sarah Jack: What effects do witch attacks have on the surviving [00:34:00] families?
Damon Leff: As I mentioned, the notion that witchcraft comes through the breast. When an individual in a family is accused, the entire family is suspect. Everybody in that immediate family is endangered. The potential accusation of witchcraft could be leveled against any one of them. So there is a hesitancy to defend the person who is accused, which is horrific. This immediately creates tension between members within a family. If a member of that family is accused and murdered, the entire family needs to leave. It's impossible for that family to continue to live in the same area. They will always be suspected of harboring this dark power of witchcraft. And so they need to leave the village that they live in. Very often, they would travel to a neighboring village, hopefully reaching that village [00:35:00] before news of the incident reaches that village. Because if the news of that incident reaches the village before they do, they would be denied entry to that village.
I remember, I think it was about 20 years ago, there was a documentary, Carte Blanche, a famous documentary. A film in SABC showed a couple, an old woman, an old lady, and her husband who had for a year been wandering from village to village, looking for a place where they could reestablish, because every time they arrived at a new place, there were family members of the previous village from which they had come. And so they couldn't stay there.
And that's the horrific part of it, the shame. And it isn't. We call it shame, because that's how these people feel, but it isn't really a shameful thing to be a victim of an accusation. The accuser should be shamed, but the shame, they carry that shame with them, [00:36:00] and probably they would carry that shame with them through generations, because we are never dealing with just husband and a wife. We're dealing with a husband and a wife who has, African families always live together, except in cities where there is some separation. In traditional communities, families live together. Grandmother, grandfather, daughter, husband, children, grandchildren, all live in the same place. So it's a literal move of an entire family, generations of a family.
But it doesn't just affect the family that's accused. It affects everybody in that village. The chaos unleashed by an accusation affects the youngest members of that entire village. That's traumatic. It has to be traumatic for young children to see this kind of violence and aggression, not completely to understand what's happening. And it will forever form a scar on that particular [00:37:00] group. I don't think that 10 years down the line, they could look back at what they did and feel okay with it. It's difficult for me to conceive that.
Josh Hutchinson: In traditional African practices, are there actually people for whom it's appropriate to use the label "witch?"
Damon Leff: A very good question, and it's one that we have discussed with traditional healers who joined us in our discussions on the repeal of the Witchcraft Suppression Act. In 2007, on behalf of the South African Pagan Rights Alliance, I initiated a review of the Witchcraft Suppression Act with the South African Law Reform Commission, and traditional healers were invited to join the discussion, pre-discussion, on whether or not that act should be repealed. And overall, the traditional healers felt that they agreed with us that the act should be repealed, but for very different reasons.
And in our first initial discussions, we were trying to find [00:38:00] common ground, and we did find a lot of common ground. As pagan witches and traditional healers and traditional African religion, we share an enormous amount of common belief systems. We could call them folk belief systems, but the differences were also as stark. Phephisile Maseko, who was at the time the national coordinator for the Traditional Healers Organisation, the THO's one of the largest organizations representing traditional healers in South Africa. She explained that, within her organization, they had specialists who dealt specifically with issues of witchcraft, who dealt specifically with defining around issues of witchcraft and then creating charms to counter witchcraft.
So for us, that would be, it reminds us of folk beliefs, folk magic used to counter negative witchcraft. And I asked, do you identify those people as [00:39:00] practitioners of magic, witchcraft? Definitely not, she said. Witchcraft is a negative word. Witchcraft means you harm someone using supernatural means. It never, ever means a positive. Nobody ever identifies as a witch, because it means you are admitting to harming other people.
Now, there is a huge problem here in that we are speaking English and they speak Zulu and Suju and Xhosa, and they have their own terms for that specific practice. And perhaps in their mind it does actually accord with the idea of a folk magic practitioner who uses white magic to counter dark magic. But that didn't come through in our conversation, certainly not in our English conversation.
So that's a question that still needs to be explored. [00:40:00] But as a rule, if you're a black African, you don't identify as a witch. What I've seen in a forum on Facebook for witches is that there are more and more younger black South Africans who are looking at paganism, European paganism. It's for them not unfamiliar because they see commonality between the traditional African religion, which their grandparents and mothers were raised. And they see a lot of commonalities, a lot of similarities, but they're more and more attracted to the archetype of the witch and witchcraft, the practice of witchcraft. And they're very open about it on the forum, but of course, we are mindful that they all live in very conservative families and that they actually are in danger. I don't think any of them admit to their parents that they have decided to become a witch, that they want to practice witchcraft.
So there still is definitely that fear around the word. And avoidance of [00:41:00] identifying the term with the term, using the term. In our review of the Witchcraft Suppression Act, for example, at one stage we made a point of reminding the commission that when dealing with accusations of witchcraft, they need to remember that we are self-identified witches. So we should be accorded the right to define what witchcraft means for us and our identification.
Our definition of what witchcraft is or means for us should actually carry more weight than the definition of accusations or the definition of witchcraft that is, are used in accusations. I'll give you a simple example. X might accuse Y of summoning a Tokaloshe to steal the milk from her car. Now a Tokoloshe is a local variant of a gnome or an elf, [00:42:00] a nature spirit that is attached to a magic worker and that serves the magic worker as a slave. And the magic work can send the slave out cause harm or mischief. We see those stories in European folklore. We see it in American folklore. The question is, is the belief in a Tokoloshe less valid than the European belief in elves and fairies? But is the belief that all women who are witches evil less valid than the acknowledgement that people are not evil because of what they are, but because of what they do?
We've been trying to encourage them not to stereotype people simply because we've named them witches. And this is where traditional healerism and actual witches have found conflict, sources of conflict, because they don't want to give up their prejudicial [00:43:00] definition of what a witch is. For them it's a cultural belief system, and it's as important for them as our religious ideology and identity is for us. So there is source of conflict there.
Sarah Jack: Why is the targeted group mostly vulnerable people, especially women and elderly women in particular?
Damon Leff: I wish I could answer that question. I think their vulnerability makes them easy targets. I think their vulnerability means they don't have any influence over their community. They don't have any power. The power relationship is, they are useless, not important, negligible. I think essentially it comes down to that. In South Africa, we have an extremely epidemic level of gender-based violence against women, specifically by their male partners. And I think that is an aspect of it.
Why older women [00:44:00] are often the targets of witchcraft accusation, and of course, it's not exclusively older women, but older women generally become, are more, more likely to become targets of witchcraft accusation, because of that power dynamic. Government has attempted to deal with gender-based violence by appealing to the conscience of men, and I'm not sure that's going to work. I don't see the same man who is behaving violently toward a woman waking up the following morning and thinking, "oh wow, I think I should become a better person." So I don't know how we reestablish the power balance between men and older women in traditional societies. Older, traditional African societies are patriarchal. They're governed by men, not by a woman. It's very rare that an older woman would have authority over the men in a village. So that is an important factor to consider.
Josh Hutchinson: So is it [00:45:00] usually men who are making the accusations?
Damon Leff: No. Both men and women make accusations of witchcraft. The incident I told you about, the old woman who was accused of casting a spell on the road that caused the accident, that accusation was made by the mother of the guy who was killed in the truck. No, the accusations can come from anybody. I haven't seen any accusations originating from children, but yeah, definitely men and women can make accusations of witchcraft.
We've also seen accusations of witchcraft being labeled at traditional healers, far fewer than one would think is the norm. But sometimes traditional healers will make accusations of witchcraft against other traditional healers, and that tells us that perhaps there is more economics at play. They're vying for the same commerce.
There was also an incident where a local priest who ran a small church in an urban area, there was a rumor going around that he [00:46:00] kept snakes in his church and that he used the snakes as charms against his petitioners, and his church was attacked, and they wanted to kill him, because he was now a witch. The association between snakes and witches is very common in Africa. In much of central and northern Africa, the snake is the power animal that gives the witch her or his power. Yeah, accusations of witchcraft are largely irrational in that they can come from anyone and affect anyone.
Sarah Jack: What non legislative interventions are necessary to deal with harmful witchcraft practices?
Damon Leff: I've always held that if we don't challenge the narratives that lead to accusations, we don't have any hope in any kinds of legislation preventing violence. It's the same with gender-based violence. If we don't teach men to honor the dignity of women,[00:47:00] no matter how many laws we pass to punish men for committing violence against women, I doubt very much if that violence is going to stop.
Men need to begin to look at women in a different way. And likewise, people who make accusations of witchcraft need to begin to look at the subject in a different way. It's arrogant of me to suggest that we should impose a scientific way of thinking about the world on to African people who are still bound to their cultural beliefs about witchcraft, but I'm afraid that's the only way to do it. We need to challenge the narratives around witchcraft. The idea that a person can be born evil from birth, because there they're witches, whether they're male or female. That idea is contrary [00:48:00] to the notion of from the moment of birth, we have a right to dignity, that our birth doesn't determine who we become. It doesn't determine what we end up doing. We are not just because we've been accused of being a witch from birth automatically evil. We may be very good people. We may end up doing wonderful things for a lot of people. So we need to begin to challenge those narratives, and that can only be done on a very local level, on a grassroots level. That means that people who have trust, who have the power dynamic in those communities need to be the ones to have those conversations. Priests, traditional leaders, traditional healers themselves, need to begin to have those conversations.
Can we look, for example, at the cultural narrative that we've inherited from our ancestors about witchcraft? And can we [00:49:00] challenge it? Is it true? Is everything that our ancestors told us about witches true? Tricky because all of these communities are built on veneration of ancestors. The ancestors are perfect. What they did cannot be challenged, cannot be questioned. So that narrative needs to be challenged and questioned.
That's the only way I see any kind of real change. I think by offering an alternative narrative on the subject generally does help, and it certainly has helped in attracting a younger audience to the study of magic and witchcraft generally. I don't know if that alternative narrative is going to actually get through to older generations, hopefully sufficiently so to make them stop and think, "my, my son has just died suddenly. Is it really witchcraft, or was there an underlying physiological cause for his illness?" [00:50:00] And that's gonna have to be a multifaceted approach to the subject. It's certainly not something that European witches can dictate. That would just be rude.
Josh Hutchinson: I think that's important what you said, that the traditional leaders in the communities need to inspire that change. And you've also talked about the legal side of it and how you got involved with the Law Reform Commission to review the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957. What can you tell us about the Witchcraft Suppression Act and the review that's going on?
Damon Leff: The review, the initial request was in February 2007. In January 2016, the commission concluded that the Act's prohibition of identifying as a witch and practicing divinations were unconstitutional. Okay. And, essentially the commission has confirmed [00:51:00] that they are in favor of a repeal of the Witchcraft Suppression Act.
Most of the organizations and individuals who submitted comment to the review process has supported a repeal of the act, most except for traditional healers. Traditional healers want the act to be repealed, but they want the act to be replaced with an act that will essentially give them the right to take accusations of witchcraft within their communities to a traditional court, which rings alarm bells in my ears, because it reminds me instantly of Salem. It reminds me instantly of cases of witchcraft being heard in a court, not by a court who's going to apply a skeptical approach to the subject, but by a court who is going to appeal to cultural authority, to ancestral authority to hear those cases. [00:52:00] So this is something that we felt we needed to object to, which we did. We did send you a copy of our draft objection. And we challenged the draft bull that the traditional healers presented and the commission published for comment by pointing out that the definition of the bold was called a Prohibition of Harmful Practices and Unlawful Accusations of Harmful Witchcraft practices bull.
Now, the bull defines harmful witchcraft practice as invoking a claim to the ability to use non-natural or supernatural means, whether that involves the use of physical elements or not, to threaten or to cause death or injury or disease or disability or destruction or loss of damage to property of any kind or severe psychological distress or terror. On the face of it, the definition is a mouthful, but when you break it down, [00:53:00] essentially it is based on two terms, non-natural or supernatural means, and we've challenged those two as being irrational. Our courts need to present admissible evidence that is rational, that can be proven, and our opinion, we've never seen a court be able to prove non-natural or supernatural needs. There is no way to prove supernatural agency. So essentially, the definition of harmful witchcraft practice comes down to making a claim to have supernatural power or threatening someone with a claim that one has supernatural power and one can hurt, and neither of those claims can be supported, in essence, they're beliefs.
Now the Constitution gives everybody the right to believe freely. It doesn't matter how irrational it is. Our constitutional court [00:54:00] has clearly stipulated that it doesn't matter if we think the belief is entirely irrational. People have the right to believe it, but it doesn't mean that a court should hear it as factual. All the court can prove, at the most, is that somebody believes this. A court cannot prove that somebody who believes in God is, ipso facto proof that God exists. There's a difference between proving that someone believes in a God and proving that the God exists. Allowing someone to bring an accusation of witchcraft to a court of law is ridiculous, because there is no way that anybody can prove the agency of witchcraft involved. We can prove that someone has made an accusation, but we can't prove there is any supernatural agency.
The second part of that, of course, is that making a threat, threatening someone by saying that, "oh, I have supernatural power. I'm gonna curse you and your family," [00:55:00] essentially, is an act of intimidation. It's an ordinary act of intimidation. Since we can't prove any supernatural element or agency, we must simply assume that the person is attempting to intimidate the other person. Anybody can intimidate. One doesn't need to be a, a witch to be intimidating. Is there any difference, for example, if a pastor gets up on the pulpit on a Sunday and screams hell and hellfire and threatens people with hell if they don't do the right thing? Is that not intimidating? So our position is anybody can make an intimidation against anyone else. That doesn't necessarily mean that there is any supernatural agency. And if the commission really wants to deal with accusations of witchcraft as intimidation, then it needs to be dealt with in another way. There are common law remedies to intimidation common law remedies to intimidation should be used.
We, for example, have criminal defamation, which could easily be used to open a criminal defamation [00:56:00] charge against someone who's made an accusation of witchcraft against you. You just need to go to a police station and say, "so-and-so has made an accusation of witchcraft. I want to open a criminal innuere charge." Court takes it further for you.
Sarah Jack: What is that shift that's gonna kick that into gear? Does that have to be legislated, push the witchcraft issues under the other laws?
Damon Leff: I think once we've gotten rid of the Witchcraft Suppression Act, a question I've often been asked is since we've got the Witchcraft Suppression Act, but actual witches are not being arrested by the police for claiming to have knowledge of witchcraft, which according to the act is illegal. So why do we need to even bother about the act? Clearly it's not targeted at us, but psychologically it is targeted at us, because it tells people generally whether they're consciously aware of it or not, that witchcraft is a taboo subject. Look, there's a law [00:57:00] against it. So therefore people who identify as witches are treated differently.
Subconsciously, we are treated differently because there is a law against witchcraft. If we take that away, we remove the underpinnings of legitimacy that an accusation of witchcraft could have, for example, where the law supported it. If the law had said, look, we can't deal with these issues, because you have the right to believe whatever you choose to, then suddenly that suspicion disappears. Now, witches are ordinary members of society that can be treated like ordinary members of society. There isn't an unconscious bias already against them for being witches. That would be one step.
The question is, how then do we deal with future incidences of accusations of witchcraft? Do we need special legislation to deal with that? And I honestly don't believe that we do, because if we do, we'll end up just reinforcing the biases that we've been carrying with us all along. What we need to do is find [00:58:00] a different way to deal with accusations of witchcraft.
Firstly, it's a multi-pronged approach. We need the police to be more proactive. Police need to be trained to deal with incidences of civil violence like this, where one person has been accused unjustly or falsely accused. The police in the past may even have suspected that the accusation was valid and so didn't want to get involved. So police need to be sensitized towards the issues at stake.
They need to be open to the accused when they come into a police station and to tell them that an accusation of which God has been made against them. They need to be sensitive to that person, not treat that person with suspicion. They need to provide that person with comfort and safety and security.
There should be a counselor, at least, that person can sit down and talk to, to deal with their anxiety and the experiences that they've just gone through. They should be a social worker to [00:59:00] deal with the crisis that is unfolding within that immediate family. What is going to happen? Are they going to be able to live in the same house tomorrow? And if not, is there alternative accommodation until they can find alternative accommodation?
And then the process at the moment is for the accuser to be arrested, arraigned, and charged with offenses under the Witchcraft Suppression Act. In future, I foresee the accused bringing charges against the accuser directly through a common law process, an accusation of criminal innuere. Once the accusation has been made, the police and the court take over, and there is no requirement, there will not be any requirement on the accused person to get an attorney and launch a private action suit. So the state will still take care of it, just in a different way, without the intervention of the Witchcraft Suppression Act.
Let the common law deal with it. A criminal innuere charge is quite a serious charge. The [01:00:00] penalty could also include imprisonment. I think that's a good way to start with it. Keep promoting wholesome integrative narratives in the media about the subject. Keep encouraging traditional healers and traditional leaders to engage with their communities in a positive way, to offer them alternative narratives, to question the motives of accusations, to find alternative ways to settle disputes within communities. So a process, certainly not an overnight one.
Sarah Jack: Legislating a new law isn't a bandaid either.
Damon Leff: No, it's never going to be. We've had the 1957 act for how many years, 50 years plus, and it hasn't prevented accusations of witchcraft. One authority, an academic, who submitted a paper when the review [01:01:00] process first began, suggested that the existence of the act itself motivates the accusations, which I touched on briefly. Having an act that says being a witch is illegal or making accusations is illegal kind of encourages people to make accusations. I don't think legislation will ever bring an end to crime. The best thing that legislation can ever hope to do is deal with the after effects of the criminal act, is to provide justice, social justice, a restorative justice to the victims. But it could never prevent those crimes from happening.
Sarah Jack: The supports you were talking about for the victims when they go in, having a counselor, having solutions, that sounds like the supports that have come to be important for victims of sexual assault. Do you guys have those in place for those types of crimes now? And then that can be a model for [01:02:00] supporting accused witches, because it's the same. It's that whole thing. It's that shameful stigma that is there, the trauma that's occurred to the innocent individual, and then the future. They're walking into the future now with these wounds.
Damon Leff: You're absolutely right. And yes, we do have a model that we can follow. Recently the Minister of Justice instituted child courts and courts that deal specifically with gender-based violence. Those courts are staffed, hopefully, with social workers, with somebody who can approach the victim on a real level, offer support, comfort.
The victim doesn't simply want justice. They're suffering from psychological trauma. And there is no difference, as you say, in practice between a victim of rape and a victim of accusation of witchcraft, especially not after they've been beaten and threshed and maybe [01:03:00] lost a family member.
The anxiety, the fear, the trauma, I don't think we sh we can compare the trauma, but I think the trauma is equal, so yes, hopefully that could become a model, or hopefully crimes targeted specifically at women, accusations of witchcraft crimes targeted a women could be dealt with in exactly the same way that victims of gender-based violence are dealt with.
Josh Hutchinson: When you were talking about how the commission wants to replace the existing Witchcraft Suppression Act with a new bill against witchcraft and you were talking about how ineffective the Witchcraft Suppression Act has been at dealing with the violence, reading the Commission's report, it seemed like they admitted that the existing law's been ineffective, but then they're still saying, we need a new law that's basically the same thing. So why do you think that is [01:04:00] that they're speaking out of both sides of their mouth?
Damon Leff: I think the commission is attempting to appease clearly two camps. There is the camp which includes us who agree that the Witchcraft Suppression Act should be repealed, who don't think that we need any other legislation to deal with issues that we are currently dealing with.
Almost all of those people have also said, look, let the common law deal with it. We have common law remedies. They're quicker, they're more efficient, let them deal with it. But then there is definitely the other camp, the traditional healers, the Family Policy Institute, there were a couple of other smaller organizations.
The gender commission insisted on including muti crimes under this new witchcraft bull. Now, muti crimes, I have to explain. These are violent incidences in which a traditional healer most often employs the use of thugs or criminals to kidnap, [01:05:00] mutilate and kill, in that order, kidnap, mutilate and kill persons, humans for body parts for later use in magic, let's say muti, which means medicine, but essentially it's negative folk magic. And the process has generally dealt with our courts as a crime, simple common law crime, murder and the illegal possession of human body parts. So there is no real need for additional legislation to deal with those crimes. They are heard in our criminal courts. Those responsible are convicted and sentenced to prison.
The gender commission felt that, I think they were motivated more by the increasing violence against women in our society, and this muti murders is one particular way in which women in our society are brutalized, especially young girls because it's generally children who are targeted [01:06:00] for some reason. So they felt that it, perhaps it would be the opportune moment to get some kind of legislation against muti murders, because we've never had specific legislation against this kind of crime. As I said, because the common law deals with it already.
And so they included muti murders as a a harmful witchcraft practice, which is just laughable. And I'll explain why. I've looked at cases in our criminal courts involving muti murders and nowhere, not in any cases stretching back over 20 years, has any accused person in those cases identified as a witch. Nowhere has any person identified as being a practitioner of witchcraft. So why make murders a harmful witchcraft practice?
Is the commission using the term harmful witchcraft practice as a convenient catch-all to deal [01:07:00] with all the other crimes that haven't actually been legislated against yet? Because that's our approach, that's our opinion. We clearly explain to the commission that witches are not responsible for muti murders. That witchcraft itself, the practice of witchcraft, is not involved in muti murders. Traditional healers, the traditional healers who were the initiators of these crimes or who were responsible, found guilty of purchasing human body parts for use later on, did not identify as witches. They certainly didn't identify what they were doing as witchcraft.
So hopefully the commission will realize that this is not, this has nothing to do with witchcraft or witches. But to get back to your original question, I think the commission is attempting to appease both parties, not wanting to appear to be favoring witches against traditional healers, [01:08:00] especially in our society that is still really divided between white and black.
So that may be one of the reasons why the commission agreed to include it as an option. But it does beg the question whether the commissioners who decided to include it realized in including it that it was an impossible piece of law, because it was based on a false premise. This idea of there being supernatural powers or that they could be proven in a court of law. I dunno, that's one of the mysteries. I think that we've, we will have successfully convinced the commission not to adopt the recommended bill. I think they only included it to appease the other, other side.
Sarah Jack: The definition of terms and the categorizing of behaviors is [01:09:00] been such a murky situation for decades and decades. And this new bill would still have the harmful witchcraft practices not clarified.
Damon Leff: But it possibly would help to identify what witchcraft is. And as you saw in the papers, the commission was hesitant to allow itself to define once and for all what witchcraft is, because witches define it in one way and traditional healers define it in exactly the opposite way. And again, it would require the commission to take side. And so it was convenient to just skip over that and not define it at all. But that creates a problem, because it allows the other side to continue to promote that narrative that witches are automatically evil and need to be killed before they harm your family.
It would be helpful if the commission accepted, and we have a very broad definition of witchcraft. It's not a narrow religious view that [01:10:00] will exclude people who identify as witchcraft in other cultures, as witches in other cultures. We have a very broad definition of witchcraft, which we would like the commission to consider and it was actually included in the paper at some point, very briefly mentioned by them that we had submitted this definition, but then they glossed over it. I think, again, not wanting to offend traditional healers.
Sarah Jack: Do you wanna give us that definition?
Damon Leff: The sympathetic practice of magic, herbalism, and divination, either within a religious context or within a folk magic practice context. And that's a very broad definition that would include all kinds, all forms of witchcraft, whether it was because in Hinduism there is a particular branch of Hinduism, which involves a practice of magic. So you have in India, you have actual witches, Hindu witches, who identify [01:11:00] themselves as witches, because their religion does afford them that kind of practice, that kind of belief system. And that wouldn't exclude them, because they practice a sympathetic form of magic within a religious context and they practice divination.
Josh Hutchinson: That's very interesting. Wonder what legal challenges would also come up by them not defining the crime accurately. If they don't define witchcraft, how do you prosecute witchcraft?
Damon Leff: Precisely, exactly, the principle of legality, if you cannot clearly define a crime, there cannot be a crime. That has been the weakness of the Witchcraft Suppression Act since 1957. The act doesn't define witchcraft, and yet it criminalizes it. So it was convenient then for the word witchcraft to come to mean a whole lot of things, depending on who was dealing with it at the time, and that is the problem [01:12:00] we had historically with the word witchcraft. It means a vast array of different things to different people in different times.
Sarah Jack: Why did the commission feel that the European definitions of evil and witch and witchcraft didn't translate well ,because it, when our conversation first started, it sounded like malevolence and evil was a part of fears going way back in traditions.
Damon Leff: I think the commission doesn't want to offend traditionalists within the African culture, who are attempting to promote African cultural belief systems, including those around witchcraft. Unless though the convention challenges them on the basis of evidence, on rationality, I don't think the commission will, I don't think the commission feels its place to challenge what a person believes. It, it has been very open toward [01:13:00] our approach. It has been very open and accommodating of us expressing who we are as pagan witches. So I think it is trying to show the same kind of dignity to traditional African beliefs that believe in things that aren't necessarily conducive to the rule of law.
I think the job of challenging those indigenous belief systems belong to the tribal elders and the leaders within those communities. They need to re-look at what they believe in the context of witchcraft.
Josh Hutchinson: The commission's report, they repeatedly used the word scourge to describe a scourge of harmful witchcraft practices. How do you think they determined that there is a scourge?
Damon Leff: The commission doesn't really list harmful witchcraft practices without of course [01:14:00] listing muti murders, which have nothing to do with witchcraft practices. I think that when the commission refers to the scourge of harmful witchcraft practices, they're actually referring to accusations of witchcraft, because they form the most obvious crimes that occur in the context of witchcraft in our country. Of course these are not harmful witchcraft crimes. These are harmful crimes perpetrated against persons falsely suspected of being witches. The commission is still stuck in that contextual frame, harmful witchcraft crimes, which implies that witches or people practicing witchcraft are responsible for those crimes. But perhaps they will shift their narrative once they receive our submission and look at it.
Sarah Jack: What would the impact be if they continue to regulate witchcraft?
Damon Leff: I think it's highly unlikely given the constitution's protection of the right to belief. I think it's [01:15:00] very unlikely that the commission or parliament for that matter, would recommend that we need legislation against the belief in witchcraft or against witchcraft practice or against witches. I don't think that's ever going to happen.
The question is whether Parliament is going to accept that the Witchcraft Suppression Act should be repealed and that common law can replace the mechanism of current legislation to deal with accusations of witchcraft. 10 years ago, I would've said I'm doubtful, because of the high number of accusations of witchcraft we were reporting. Today I'm more hopeful, because we see less and less accusations. Part of that process of reducing the number of accusations is the communal effort by traditional leaders and traditional elders to try and minimize moments of conflict, tension [01:16:00] within families or communities where accusations of witchcraft arise.
And that only came about as a result of the CRL Commission's intervention. That's the Commission for the Promotion of Cultural, Religious, and Linguistic Communities. We approached them to assist us in dealing with the issue of accusations of witchcraft. It was impossible for us to go directly to informal or traditional communities and engage with traditional healers and leaders and say, "look, you have to stop these accusations because we identify as witches."
We don't have any credibility. We don't, we're not outsiders, we're not unbiased participants. The commission did that on our behalf. It organized a nationally inviso gathering, advised a traditional healers and leaders. Members of Parliament where there. It invited [01:17:00] local government leaders as well. And the commission raised the issue of witchcraft accusations, raised the issue of the harm, the real harms that witchcraft accusations cause, harm to the right to equality, harm to the right to dignity, harm to the right to belief and opinion. All of those issues were discussed over a couple of days. So I think that process began a shift. It began to shift narratives, and it's taken a while for that shift to begin to settle. That doesn't mean that accusations of witchcraft won't happen again. There's always an option. But hopefully that narrative has begun to shift.
Josh Hutchinson: That would be great. In the Law Reform Commission's report, they seem to admit that the Witchcraft Act hasn't worked and that it's nearly impossible to enforce. So how would a new law be any different? How would it suddenly be enforceable?
Damon Leff: I agree with you. [01:18:00] I don't think it would. For a start, you would have to get communities, local communities to become aware of a new law, which would prevent accusations of witchcraft, but it wouldn't really be a new law, because all along making accusations of witchcraft has been illegal. So I don't think any new law would have any effect whatsoever. No.
And as I said earlier, law doesn't prevent crime. The legislation won't prevent the crimes from occurring. The legislation is there to ensure that those who have been affected by crime can find redress.
Sarah Jack: I'm very amazed. Not in a positive way, about the complexity of accusing witches. So you have the victims and their families and the community, how it's what they go through, but then how it ripples into the religious community, affecting your faith. In the United States, we talk about [01:19:00] "other" all the time, how our vulnerable "others" are treated like witches. There is this lining here where identifying people as evil has just extensive ramifications across the people. I was thinking about that.
Damon Leff: It removes their automatic right to dignity. When we "other" people, we say that those people are "other," they don't have any dignity, they don't need to be treated like us., They don't need to be given the same respect or the same consideration. And it's easy then to scapegoat them for the things that we wanna blame someone for. It's very easy not to take responsibility for our own actions, if we can scapegoat the "other." We are suffering misfortune, not because we are poor and the government is not giving us an opportunity to become wealthy or employed, we are poor because that woman [01:20:00] over there put a spell on us and that's keeping us poor. And we can make that accusation, because that woman isn't a woman, that woman is not part of us, she's not a human, she doesn't deserve the same kind of consideration. We don't even need to ask her. We can just make the accusation.
So that's what "othering" tends to do. It demonizes and dehumanizes the "other." We can see the same thing happening in conflict between men and women and families where men automatically become abusive to their wives. There is a lack of consideration for the wive's feeling, her right to security, her right to dignity. It's the same pattern. .
Josh Hutchinson: We've covered a lot of ground, and it's been a very rich and important discussion. What is the status currently of the new bill? Has that gone before the parliament?
Damon Leff: [01:21:00] So the bill was not drafted by Parliament. So traditionally for a bill to become legislation, it is drafted by a parliamentary portfolio committee. It is then discussed by the portfolio committee, and if they're happy with it, they will send it to the National Assembly.
The National Assembly on the first reading is happy with it, it'll then get published in the government gazette for public comment and then will go through its process there. This bill was not, it's not a national assembly bill. It was not drafted by a parliamentary portfolio committee. It was drafted by, I think, traditional healers and given to the law reform commission, or it was drafted through the guidance of traditional healers by commissioners in the Law Reform Commission.
So it wasn't published in the government gazette. It's not an official piece of legislation. It was simply a proposal. The Law Reform Commission's saying, "look, these people think that we need to replace this act with this bill. Here's an example of what [01:22:00] they mean." I think that's what it comes down to. So it isn't, doesn't have any weight.
And even if, for example, the commission. Eventually says to parliament, "look, we think that you should repeal the act, the Witchcraft Suppression Act, and we think that you should replace it with this bull." Then that would begin from scratch. The parliamentary portfolio committee would take the suggestion and begin to look at motivation for drafting a new bull.
But I don't think that's ever gonna happen at the moment. Parliament is overwhelmed by the amount of work it has, and I don't think they're going to want to include another bull dealing with something like witchcraft onto their plate. But we'll have to see. The commission is determined to resolve their investigation this year, hopefully by next year at the latest. We'll see how it goes.
Josh Hutchinson: Is the commission still accepting feedback?
Damon Leff: No, the date [01:23:00] for comment closed the end of October. Okay. I think they probably would accept feedback if they received it, but no, the official date for comment on that bill is closed. And depending on the number of submissions that they receive, if, for example, they feel that they need to have yet another public participation process, they may open an opportunity for comment again, but they seem to be determined to want to finish this investigation. It started in 2007.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, 15 years already and not finished. But it sounds like there would be another opportunity for you and others to offer comment if it were taken up by parliament.
Damon Leff: Once the commission recommends to parliament that the act be repealed ,the Parliamentary Investigation Committee of the Justice Department would have a look at that, have a look at the work that the commission has done, have a look at the motivation for why they want [01:24:00] the, or suggest that the act should be repealed. And if they agree with the commission's decision, then it's a simple process of making a recommendation to the president and the National Commission commit, that and the national House of Parliament to have the Act repealed. That should be a straightforward process.
Sarah Jack: What is the future of witch hunts and advocacy?
Damon Leff: Let's hope that it includes an end to legal prejudice against the subject of witchcraft entirely. Let's also hope that it ends accusations of witchcraft on a grassroots level. Is there a need perhaps for the states to acknowledge that there has been this historical human rights abuse as committed as a result of a belief in witchcraft as something evil? I don't know. And it's easy to talk about a monument for the victims [01:25:00] of accusations when the state was involved in the trials. I'm not sure that our parliament would see a reason for a national monument for the victims of witchcraft accusation. It could be something to consider down the line that those who have lost their lives as a result of accusations of witchcraft need somehow to be acknowledged, that the members of their family need to be acknowledged. Their pain, their suffering, their loss needs to be acknowledged, hopefully, possibly, by the members of the community that committed the atrocities. The need for restorative justice essentially. I don't think that's something that the South African Pagan Rights Alliance could lead. We could certainly encourage it, but that coming to terms with the atrocities of one's [01:26:00] past needs to happen between and by the people involved in those atrocities.
Yeah, and I think the appropriate forum to manage those discussions, negotiations would be something like the Human Rights Commission or the CRL Commission. Yeah, as far as the Pagan Rights Alliance is concerned, once the act has been repealed, hopefully by then we'll have trained enough paralegals who would be able to assist local communities irrespective of who they are, where they are, who are still dealing with accusations of witchcraft.
It might be very helpful to be able to get paralegals to form working partnerships with police in local communities where accusations are common, so that they can [01:27:00] intercede and assist police, ensure that social workers are there, that the victims are cared for in a humane way. Their might be a role for us there, but not something that, that we have any concrete on now, but it could be a role for us in the future.
Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah Jack, president of End Witch Hunts, director of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project, host of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast, bringing you an important End Witch Hunts Advocacy News report. Listen to what she says. It's very important, and we need to heed her call to action.
Sarah Jack: End Witch Hunt's World Advocacy Report. This episode offered a snapshot of the phase of witch-hunt behaviors that South Africa now navigates. The South African Pagan Rights [01:28:00] Alliance Advocacy Against Witch Hunts has worked to promote protections and breakdown barriers around modern witchcraft violence, prejudices, and allegations in South Africa.
This organization advocates for legal protection against religious witchcraft discrimination. South Africa has seen a decline in witch attacks. South Africa moved in a positive direction towards inclusive religious tolerance for South Africans with diverse religious practices by activism and strategic efforts.
Advocates like Damon Leff are taking effective action in educating the world to accept religious diversity. They're demanding civil accountability against witch allegation crimes and human rights protections from witchcraft discrimination. Without this purposeful work, witch-hunting and hurtful religious discrimination will continue to grow its interlocked deep roots into the foundations of our communities. These harmful roots of fear and hate can be cut out and ended, but we must do the work.
As Damon Leff has demonstrated, the prejudiced and assumptive message of the media and witchcraft [01:29:00] legislation can be challenged and changed. The South African Pagan Rights Alliance Advocacy Against Witch Hunts effectively informed and impacted the message of media writers and reporters around witchcraft ideology. The Alliance took effective action to support the repeal of the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957. They have facilitated responses across complex groups like officials of the government and religious organizations.
Likewise, Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast amplifies the message that nations and communities across the world have continued to be shrouded in witch-hunt injustices. These communities have advocate networks offering solutions and education to their community leaders. They're asking the world for acknowledgement and witch-hunts are an extensive and widespread past and present violent social phenomenon. Witch-hunting has operated within official law and courts and outside the law. Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast peels back the onion layers of witch-hunt components to evaluate the connections and similarities between [01:30:00] past and present witch-hunting. Witchcraft hunts have reached every continent and continue unjust suffering into new generations.
Each community is in a unique situation for the enabling of witch-hunts. But throughout time and humanity, the worldwide perception of witchcraft has been cloaked in fear, false allegations, and violence across all times. In South Africa, advocate and media conversations, as well as legal initiatives have begun to change the course of action around modern witch fear.
Scotland and the United States are an example of nations advocating for victims in a different witch-hunt phase. These advocates are building conversations across collaborative cooperatives, calling for legislated national pardons and state exonerations to clear names of the wrongfully accused and executed men and women in their community histories.
From trials of the past to attacks in our modern time, witch-hunt chapters are wide open in our world witch-hunt story. Generations of individuals still take a casual interest in the cause and relevance of witch-hunts past and present. Witchphobia is generally [01:31:00] tolerated in most societies across the globe, and harm from witchcraft allegations is clear. People must learn and pay attention. You are intentional bystanders if you are not taking action.
We are End Witch Hunts. End Witch Hunts is the nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks around the globe. The world must stop hunting witches. The world must stop hurting women and children out of fear. Please follow our End Witch Hunts movement on Twitter @_endwitchh unts and visit our website at endwitchhunts.org.
End Witch Hunts Movement and Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast support the worldwide movement to recognize and address historical wrongs.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that insightful and critical update on the real world, modern-day situation that many countries are faced with.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: [01:32:00] And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe wherever you get your podcast, and never miss a moment.
Sarah Jack: Visit us often at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends.
Sarah Jack: It's really good.
Josh Hutchinson: Exciting, tantalizing, scintillating.
Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more about our nonprofit.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:33:00]

January 5, 2023

Rebecca Nurse of Salem with Dan Gagnon

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Show Notes

This is the Rebecca Towne Nurse podcast episode that we have all been waiting for. We discuss the monumental story of her life and the Salem witch trials with historian and Danvers native Dan Gagnon. Learn about the unique layers of this infamous witch hunt from the author of Rebecca’s biography, A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse. We address the importance of victim memorials and exonerations of innocent accused witches. This discussion communicates End Witch Hunts’ message: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links

Dan Gagnon Website

The Salem Witch Trials: A Day By Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach

University of VA, Salem Witch Trials Documents and Transcriptions

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project

Leo Igwe, AfAW

Advocacy Against Witch Hunts, South Africa

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Support the show

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to the latest episode of Thou Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we talk to Dan Gagnon, author of A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse, who happens to be my 10th great-grandaunt.
Sarah Jack: And she is my ninth great-grandmother, a history that I've known since the nineties when I was a high schooler, and this episode was very meaningful to me. Getting to read Dan's [00:01:00] biography on her, and then the conversation that we have about the details of her story is really great.
Josh Hutchinson: I learned about my connections to the Salem Witch trials on my first ever visit to the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, which is one of the places where Dan spends his time as a tour guide, something he first did when he himself was in high school. I was on a high school trip with my family and went to the Rebecca Nurse Homestead and to the replica meeting house. Saw the Rebecca Nurse Memorial and the memorial to those people who signed the petition in defense of her and saw the cemetery where her body's believed to rest and learned that my Hutchinson family was involved in the witch [00:02:00] trials. Later on, I learned that Rebecca Nurse was my grandaunt through her sister, Mary, who also suffered from the Salem Witch Trials and is another of Sarah's grandmothers.
Sarah Jack: She is. She is my ninth great grandmother also. I learned of that connection more recently, in the last five years. Their grandchildren married.
Josh Hutchinson: Ah, also in recent years, I've learned that my ancestor, Joseph Hutchinson, was a friend of the Nurse family, a neighbor to them. He went around with them when they were fighting with the minister after the witch-hunt, because the minister insisted that they still go to his church, though he had done them wrong. My ancestor, Joseph, [00:03:00] accompanied them as a witness to the meetings between Nurse's family and Minister Parris.
One of the things that we learn in Dan's book is just how supportive Rebecca's family was. Her children, her sons and daughters-in-law, they all had her back. Even years after the witch-hunt, they never wavered. They never backed down. They knew she was innocent, and they supported her forever.
Sarah Jack: Dan's biography gives so much details on what life was like for them prior to the witch trials, what roles Francis had in the community, how hardworking they were, what it took for those families in that community to build Salem Village.
Josh Hutchinson: [00:04:00] One of the things Dan does well in the book is to clear up a lot of the misconceptions about why Rebecca was accused. So you'll enjoy reading about that and getting a fuller picture of Rebecca's life, from her baptism in Great Yarmouth, England, right up through the trials and her unfortunate execution. Learn about the support of her descendants and how they've been able to keep her memory alive, as well.
Sarah Jack: What has been done for her, as far as her story being known, is remarkable. What Dan has done for her and her descendants, I greatly appreciate it, and I know many people do. One of the things that Rebecca is recorded as saying is that she would like the world [00:05:00] to know of her innocency, and I see that we do, and I think that is a big deal.
Josh Hutchinson: The memory of her innocency has reached so many people. She's one of the best known of the accused. Rebecca's memory is cherished. She's a beloved figure. She's a hero to many. She stood her ground, never confessed to something that she didn't do, that she couldn't have done.
She was an older woman at the time, and she truly wondered what she had done to bring the accusations upon her herself, what sin there was in her life. That's what kind of person she was. She didn't blame the accusers. She looked inward to try and resolve the issue within [00:06:00] herself but couldn't find what transgression she had done to deserve any of that, and she hadn't. Truth is she hadn't done a single thing to merit any of what was brought upon her.
Sarah Jack: It's quite terrible to read what she went through, starting with the accusations, through the examination and the trial. The biography really gives you an idea of how harmful spectral evidence was to these victims. And with Rebecca's story, it's unbelievable how wild it got, how harmful and evil they portrayed her to be, and she stood there and listened to all of that.
Josh Hutchinson: She stood up for herself. Her family stood up for her. What happened to her was[00:07:00] grievous, was a terrible miscarriage of justice, but she stood her ground and maintained her innocency and wanted future generations, the world, to know that innocent people were being killed at Salem.
And you learn a lot about her life before the trials from Dan's book, she wasn't perfect, but she was pretty great. In the trials themselves, in many of the cases, there were multiple witnesses coming forward saying that they had had arguments with the accused over this and that. But with Rebecca, you get one single instance, and it's a stretch, that she was angry that somebody's pigs had broken into her yard and damaged her [00:08:00] garden, her crops, and that was apparently the one time that she ever got angry that is recorded.
She was a church member for many years. You'll learn about that from Dan. And she truly was astonished when she was accused. And I know her family's minds must have just been blown. Their whole world must have come collapsing around them. Everything that they thought they knew was suddenly flipped on its head, but they never wavered in their loyalty to her. They never questioned her innocence. They always brought forward in many petitions and letters and through their prolonged struggle with the minister after the trials. Reverend Samuel Parris really wanted her family to come to his church even after he had done them such a terrible wrong[00:09:00] by being one of the leaders of the accusers, in general, in starting the Salem Witch Trials. But that's where I learned that my ancestor had got involved and come along with the Nurse family to witness their encounters with the minister post-witch-hunt.
We really enjoyed our conversation with Dan, and we know you will, too.
Sarah Jack: You will probably listen to it at least twice.
Josh Hutchinson: Maybe three times.
Sarah Jack: Maybe.
I'd like to introduce Dan Gagnon, the author of A Salem Witch: the Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse.
Josh Hutchinson: What can you tell us about the Towne family?
Dan Gagnon: The Towne family is one of these first families here that settled the North Shore of Massachusetts, are are significant in the witch-hunt and significant in really the settling of Massachusetts as a whole. [00:10:00] And currently they have a big organization of descendants, so they're very, a very proud family.
But originally our one who came from England, and we think around 1635, roughly, we don't have the paperwork that we wish that we had to narrow it down further. And they leave England fleeing persecution, strife, and a lot of disputes having to do with their Puritan religion that they do not see eye-to-eye with the established Church of England, which, on the one hand is a religious issue, but after the Reformation, when the King of England separated from the Catholic Church, he put himself in charge of the Church of England. So if you disagree with them, it's also a political issue, which really leads to this persecution.
Sarah Jack: And what do we need to know about the sisters?
Dan Gagnon: So in terms of the witch-hunt in [00:11:00] 1692, there's three women from the Towne family who play key roles. The first is Rebecca Towne, Rebecca Nurse. We have Mary Towne, Mary Easty, and Sarah Towne, who becomes Sarah Cloyce, who has married more than once. So we've Edmunds in there, as well.
And with the three of them, they will settle with their parents and their other siblings in the Northfields of Salem. And really what's interesting, I find, is they seem to have reasonably ordinary lives for these first settlers. There's nothing that leaps out as being bizarre, strange, highly unusual, and I think they're interesting cases, therefore. They seem like three regular people, regular settlers here.
But when the witch-hunt breaks out, Rebecca Nurse is going to be accused and later executed. Mary Easty will be accused and later executed, and Sarah Cloyce will be accused. And really the witch-hunt ends, or at least the court stops [00:12:00] sitting before her time comes. But we have one family that has a lot of suffering in these three women. And of course the suffering affects their families too.
Josh Hutchinson: What can you tell us about the notion that their mother was an accused witch?
Dan Gagnon: That is an interesting point. So in many things that I've read over the years, there's been this reference to their mother, Joanna Blessing, Joanna Towne, being previously accused of witchcraft, as a way to try to explain then the three sisters being accused of witchcraft.
There is no record that has been found from the time she was allegedly accused a couple decades before the witch-hunt saying that she actually was accused a couple decades before the witch-hunt. Where this comes up is in testimony in 1692. It's mentioned by the [00:13:00] accusers, including Ann Putnam and family, that this is somehow an explanation for their accusation.
One of Ann Putnam's family members tells the court that he had repeated a rumor he had heard about the three Towne sisters' mother, and afterwards his young child begins to be unwell, seriously ill, and he thinks this retribution from these three Towne sisters for spreading this, what he claims is information, but I would think is misinformation. But in his record, he never says what the rumor was. He just says he said something that he knew of their mother, and it's Ann Putnam who, in a different document, says he was referencing the fact that their mother was accused of witchcraft. So she's the one who's, to us, putting together, whether or not we believe her, as to what he probably said. [00:14:00] Both no documentation from the time and knowing the wild and crazy things that Ann Putnam Sr will say throughout the witch-hunt, I would not give that more credibility than any of these other wild accusations, and especially because no one else specifically says that accusation happened. It's a one-off, and it's from someone who we would not consider a very reliable source as to the truth.
Sarah Jack: I'm really excited that you covered a lot, all of this stuff in your book, and I feel like we're in a time right now where all of these pieces that have traveled through the decades, the misconceptions, we're starting to sort through them and be more familiar with who said what in the records. And I feel like your book was so timely, and I'm really glad that we get to talk about the stuff with you today.
I'm gonna move to Reverend Parris. I was wondering why did he feel besieged [00:15:00] by Judases and devils before the hunt, and why did it influence his preaching so much?
Dan Gagnon: Reverend Parris is such a key, interesting figure here, and I would also consider him to be one that's been, I don't know if misunderstood is the term, or that many people have understood him differently. When you see programs on television that might be on the more sensational side. He's the easy person to make the, quote, "bad guy," of this story that people will claim things about him as orchestrating this whole thing from the start, which I do not think there is evidence. Oh, and I think it actually really seems to catch him off guard when his daughter and niece begin to be afflicted and apparently unwell, as it appeared then.
With him feeling besieged, we get this from his collection of sermons, which is a wonderful source that kind of gives us a sense on [00:16:00] what, like in terms of mood, like what the temperature is in the community, what they would've heard each Sunday. He tends to preach darker sermons. This new church has been formally established, and he's trying to get other people to join, to baptize their children. Even if they're attending, they might not be joined as part of the congregation. And I think as other historians have looked at this, there's been this assumption that Reverend Parris was immediately controversial that I don't quite see. I see as time goes on, not everyone is up to date on their ministry taxes to support him and things like that. With prior ministers, that does seem like a sign of discontent. With him, it's not as significant in terms of the numbers of people, and other historians have looked into this, such as like Marilynne Roach, and noting that that's not actually as significant, [00:17:00] given that things like that happened in other communities, people not paying their taxes.
With Reverend Parris, it really appears to be just those last couple months before the witch-hunt when he comes into conflict with the village, really over the ownership of the parsonage is what I saw, reading the documents as the turning point. But prior to that, it does seem as though he's finally brought stability to a congregation that desperately needed some stability after the first few ministers not working out.
And when I mentioned the parsonage, the issue is the ownership, that something's discovered in the village record book that seems to imply the village voted to give the parsonage to Parris after they had signed a contract with him not doing that. And this confusion, this lack of understanding, of how that got in the book as if a town meeting had decided that, but in a New England town meeting, every voter is invited, and of all these [00:18:00] people had never heard of it. You can't have a secret town meeting. So when they get mad and riled up about this in the fall of 1691, it seems righteously so, and that is really the fracture. It it's more of a short term issue, not long term, since he got there in 1689.
Josh Hutchinson: I got the idea from your book that a lot of what we believe about factionalism in Salem Village wasn't really true, particularly about the role of the different village committees. Could you explain what the village committee was and what the other committees were responsible for?
Dan Gagnon: So this theory of factionalism, as put forward around 1970 by Boyer and Nissenbaum, has the village split among, according to the theory, two factions, one in the west, led by the Putnam family, that's more agrarian, more wanting independence for Salem Village, and one in the east, allegedly led by the Porters, who were more tied to [00:19:00] downtown Salem Town at that time. And then there's a claim that this somehow explains the accusations.
The village committee is like the selectmen of a town in New England. It's not a town, so you can't call 'em that. And what they do is they're the executive. In a New England town, the selectmen serve in place of a mayor. You have five people instead of one doing that role.
And their job is to call town meetings in the village. They set the agenda, and they're responsible for making sure that the tax is collected as the executive there. With their role, we've seen in the years before the witch-hunt, different village committees elected, and one will admit from the records, it seems interesting that they don't necessarily all seem to last the same amount of time or have the same length of a term, which I quite [00:20:00] honestly cannot entirely explain. It's not like they're elected every January 1st or something like that. But with the committee, it had been thought previously that right before the witch-hunt, in that fall of 1691, a committee that was, quote, "pro-Parris" was replaced by a committee that was, quote, "anti-Parris" and that was evidence of factionalism.
This doesn't really seem to bear out, in that the evidence used to claim that new committee is anti-Parris comes from after the witch-hunt. They only became anti-Parris because of the witch-hunt. They were not anti-Parris before the witch-hunt. So that is not a good way to characterize them. What we do see is the people chosen are those who are involved in examining the village record book, it [00:21:00] appears those who are the leaders of the group that is suddenly very angry about the parsonage public land being given to a private individual. But, for example, Francis Nurse on the Village Committee had been on one of the committees earlier, a special committee that was assigned to negotiate with Reverend Parris, and that he apparently supports Reverend Parris. Rebecca Nurse's son-in-law, John Tarbell, was on another committee that decides to hire Reverend Parris, and so they seem to be his supporters in 1689. I would not label it as an anti-Parris committee, though afterwards some of them end up being anti-Parris, but they were not at that moment in time.
Sarah Jack: Why wouldn't they give him his pay and his wood so much so that he's preaching about it, disgusted about it, it appears? Why did that happen?
Dan Gagnon: With Parris, once this issue, their dispute about the parsonage land [00:22:00] comes up, we have records in the Village Church record book, and then we have the village, like the village government record book. And the church record book is a better source, in that it's clearly in chronological order, and we understand what develops. But by looking at the two together, as well as a later deposition there, we see Parris being challenged over this alleged vote. Historians have viewed this in different ways, in terms of basically where did it leave off before the witch-hunt started?
I, in my reading of this, by putting documents in the order that logically to me seems to make sense, which is different than how, for example, Boyer and Nissenbaum in about 1970 had looked at this, really shows that [00:23:00] public outcry against Parris leading up to a town meeting in early December 1691. We have a deposition describing this town meeting, and it's signed by all of the people who were on the depositions from years later, but it's signed by the people who are on the Village committee in 1691 except Francis Nurse, because he just had passed away of old age by the time that document was written. So I wouldn't read into that any lack of support. He's simply not there to sign the piece of paper. And what they testified in court years later is that there is this town meeting, Nathaniel Putnam is the moderator, and they're talking about Parris's contract, canceling his contract.
I see that happening that year. It logically fits with the buildup we see at meetings at the church in the Village Church record book, clearly everything escalating and Reverend Parris pointing out he's afraid that the village may be taking a [00:24:00] step like this. We see at that moment, At this town meeting in that early December of 1691, outraged to the point that they invite Reverend Parris to the town meeting. Apparently, he didn't seemingly normally attend town meetings. I He could have, he lived there. But he's not at this town meeting, which is a little interesting. And when this topic of his contract comes up, they send someone to get him, would've been like a couple minutes down the road from the parsonage to the meeting house.
So they get him to come to this town meeting, and with the disputes presented as the moderator of the town meeting, Nathaniel Putnam announces basically that there is no longer a contract between the two, as it had been broken. This is a weird situation to be in, and I've described it before as him being basically like halfway fired.
What it means is his contract's canceled, and he won't get paid. But he still has a job. What [00:25:00] is a job if you're not getting paid? And it's only the core members of the village church that can fire him, and they don't. So he continues as the minister. He continues preaching, but he is outta luck in terms of being compensated that winter.
And here we get in the church book, him writing over and over, "I ask the members for firewood." He's desperate, because in that time, if you suddenly stop getting paid in December, and he doesn't really have a giant farm, he doesn't have a way to support himself, he relied on that salary. That family is in for a pretty horribly tough winter, and without outside help might not have enough food and firewood to make it through. .
Josh Hutchinson: When the witch trials started, his daughter and niece reported that they were afflicted, and then later on other people became afflicted, allegedly. What caused those afflictions?
Dan Gagnon: This here is probably like the million dollar question of [00:26:00] the witch trials, I would say, and it is an important one. It is one that we can answer, at least in part, or mostly. In terms of those who will eventually claim to be afflicted or appear to be afflicted, we're gonna end up with a couple dozen, and each of them is unique as to why they would be doing this.
But to start with the two you mentioned, Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, living in the parsonage with Reverend Parris, Betty's nine, Abigail's eleven, and that winter at the beginning of 1692, they have these fits. They're screaming, yelling, crawling under furniture, walking around on all fours, saying they see these specters, these images, weird shapes, colored animals, very bizarre, and to someone who saw this, presumably really frightening and strange.
With them as the first two, I would think that we have an example of a [00:27:00] psychological cause here, and there's other historians who have written really well on this. I would say that one that I found to be a good, description of this potential would be in Dr. Emerson Baker's book. That to me, I would say, is what I read that got me down this track, as I started to then look into these possibilities, look into these potential instances and disorders that would cause this. That was what first caught my attention. And looking into other examples, cuz there are other examples, even some quite recently, I guess this decade in the 2010s, so almost this decade, within 10 years, we'll say that frightening things like this have happened. And not only have they happened, but they've spread among people, which to me, and I think to most readers, is the part that's scary and confusing. What we see in the Parris household is these two young girls would've seen their parents under a lot of stress, would've [00:28:00] seen the family under stress.
I'm sure that Reverend and Mrs. Parris are constantly talking about," we might not have enough food to last the winter." They're gonna hear this and be worried. And so we could see some sort of manifestation of anxiety that then the two of them in this house in the winter kind of builds and builds. With Abigail Williams being Reverend Parris's, quote "niece," just being some sort of female relative, her background isn't quite as known.
And we will see that with the people who it spreads to next, who live across Salem Village and will be teenage young women, women in their young twenties. Many of them had some sort of traumatic incident in their past that would set them as some prime candidates for post-traumatic stress, which would lead to that maybe next. But Abigail Williams, not really knowing a ton about her background, that could have been the case with her. Why isn't she living with her parents? Why is she living with Reverend Parris? Did something happen to [00:29:00] them? So there's an open-ended possibility, but we don't know. We can't really come to a conclusion there.
With the others, we're gonna see people, some of these young women who had lost parents, had seen them killed, and once they had witnessed, this may have awoken some of that traumatic stress. As it goes on, though, I don't think that explains everything. In part, I said each person is their own case. And I would say as time goes on in Rebecca Nurse's case, as in like the accusations against Nurse, but then especially when we get to that summer, when we get away from the winter into the summer of 1692, there are cases of just fraud, fraud and the way that it's done, it means that somebody has to be lying.
The example I note that I really think is a key moment is with Ann Putnam Jr. After Rebecca Nurse has been arrested, she, according to her uncle, one of the deacons of the church, he [00:30:00] submits records to the court saying that Ann Putnam had chain marks on her, that she had been like whipped by one of these specters, these ghostly images, and he says that she came from the other room, has like marks on her arm, and that he's seen them and there's someone, another adult there as well.
That's not all in your mind then. We have two possibilities. He's lying under oath to the court, I don't think we necessarily have evidence to prove that, or he actually did see rings on her arm and he thinks he's telling the truth, which means that either Ann Putnam Jr or somebody else pressed something to her arm to fool him. But either way it's a lie, and it's fraud. And that's relatively early on.
Sarah Jack: I'm gonna ask about Rebecca getting accused. Can you clear up the misconceptions about why?
Dan Gagnon: I'm happy you phrased it that way, in that she [00:31:00] does not fit the typical mold, and by the typical mold or the attributes that would likely get one accused of a witch. When we describe them, you do have to keep in mind this is the Puritan perspective. This is this is not my categorization.
This is what they viewed at the time would likely get you accused of witchcraft, and many historians have gone through demographics of those accused of witchcraft in colonial New England and I'm sure other witch-hunts as well. But with New England, we have cases that are pretty well documented, really just one century period of time, and so it's really ripe for study and it's wonderful what other previous historians have done. One of the best I think is Carol Karlsen's book, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, describing how this is, of course, primarily a story of women, unfortunately being accused of witchcraft, though with Salem we have both.
Now, Rebecca Nurse is a woman, and that is the only demographic trait about her that would put her in a higher risk [00:32:00] category of being accused of witchcraft. Other things that could do that could be a person who gets into a lot of disputes with their family. We don't have any evidence of this, and out of all the people accused, her family goes the greatest distance to support her. No, that doesn't seem true.
People in general, but especially women who may have had different views and controversies with the local religious authorities, their minister, their congregation. She's a covenant member of the church in Salem. Very few of the people who show up every Sunday attained that status. It's really the highest status a woman could get in the Puritan congregation. And you had to be voted in by the other members who, in the short version, had to believe that you were probably going to heaven. So this is really like the opposite of having controversy or disputes with your church. She is, seems entirely on board and is a high level member.
Other things [00:33:00] could be coming to control land. 17th century New England women couldn't own land, and so how they could come to control land was if their husband died, or especially if their husband died and they didn't have any children. That's not true of Rebecca. Francis nurse is alive. She has eight children, not likely.
Things that Puritans in general look down upon could be those who were less well off, poor. In this point, I really come to Sarah Good, one of the first three women accused, who was not exactly homeless but had lived with various people over the time, had begged for goods and things. She would fall into that category. So we don't really see this fit.
And with the, when I mentioned the coming into land one, there's other things like financial jealousy that could lead one to be accused, whether they were a woman or a man. And we don't see that with the Nurses. Frequently in debt, behind in their taxes, they have what is [00:34:00] really like the world's sweetest deal of a mortgage and still cannot make those small annual payments on time, so they're not a candidate for financial envy.
Josh Hutchinson: Did Topsfield land dispute or her other land dispute about her property have anything to do with her accusation?
Dan Gagnon: The land dispute or land as an issue overall is seemingly one of the oldest theories, one of one of the longest lived. There's different like varieties or iterations of the theory. Some people will ask me, when I do walking tours of sites in Salem Village, "oh, it was all about taking, right? It was all a scheme. The people were accused to steal their farms." And there is no truth to this.
With Nurse specifically, as you ask, there's an instance where the Nurse family gets into a dispute with the Endicott family. These are the descendants of John Endicott, early governor of [00:35:00] Massachusetts. The Endicotts had a large farm, the Orchard Farm, that John Endicott had established. By this point, it's later generations living there, and this dispute actually predates the nurse family. It's the previous owner, Reverend Allen of Boston, who got into this dispute. He gets into this dispute with Zerubbabel Endicott, who's a doctor. We have his journal of recipes for medicine, I guess. It's some weird stuff like cat blood, and it's, there's weird stuff there. But he's a doctor, in theory.
And what happens is Reverend Allen comes to ownership of the Nurse farm right next door to his through a, there's a marriage. Reverend Allen's wife had inherited this land from an Endicott who she'd been married to at first. Then she marries Allen. Tries to transfer the land to them. As I mentioned previously, women couldn't own land, so it couldn't [00:36:00] pass through her hands to another person.
This is complicated. So in the Endicott family, I guess what I mean is they do think they have a strong claim to this. They will try to sue Allen, but then this happens after his wife passed away and it's left to him. But could it be left to him? This is the legal question, and there'll be a lot of disputes there.
Allen will then lease it to another person, Sanford, for a little while, and Sanford basically gives up after a short amount of time, cuz Endicott thinks he owns the whole farm. He comes into an issue with Nathaniel Putnam, who lives to the north of the Nurse family farm. There's a few acres there, and it's a mess.
Next, the Nurse family comes along into what already seems like a complicated situation, and it's safer for them, though, than what happened to Sanford. Allen has given up [00:37:00] on that land, a couple acres of Nathaniel Putnam. He's out of the picture. This is not a problem anymore. And when he will sell this to the Nurse family, a hundred percent mortgaged, but it is a sale, it's not a lease. When he sells it to the Nurse family, he promises in that agreement to defend title of the land. So for Francis Nurse and Rebecca, this is a good deal, really low annual mortgage payments, big farm. They have adult children to help farm this. It's a great opportunity, and if anybody starts complaining about who owns it, that's Allen's problem. It's not their problem.
Now, obviously in a practical matter, it is their problem, but at least not legally. And with these disputes there, there's various iterations that really seem like they're drowning in court cases. There's suits, countersuits. Then somebody wins and the other side doesn't like it, so they [00:38:00] appeal.
One that comes in particular is a trespass suit. The important part is Francis Nurse is sued for trespass in a field that he believes to be his. Okay is he trespassing or not? That depends on who owns the land. And so that's really just a venue to try to reopen this land dispute that had already been settled several times.
It really involves a strip of land with firewood, in particular the border on the Nurse farm and the Endicott farm. But in theory, there's a claim to the whole farm even by the Endicotts. We know that this doesn't lead to the accusation against Nurse, in that Zerubbable, the Endicott who was really getting into this with Allen and Francis Nurse, is not around, that he's died at that point in time. In fact, he had launched an appeal of one of the court cases, and he is too ill to actually make the appeal. And then he had died. So it's a son, Samuel, [00:39:00] who's the Endicott now living next to the nurse family. And when Rebecca Nurse is accused of witchcraft he will defend her. He will sign the petition in support of her. Maybe they weren't best friends, but he believed she was innocent enough that he would look past the fact that maybe their families hadn't been best friends, and he does not accuse her or nobody else. So that, to me, limits that.
It was Nathaniel Putnam. Again, in some strict technical sense, there was still those couple acres at issue that was not Francis's problem, that was Reverend Allen living in Boston. And Nathaniel Putnam also will defend Rebecca Nurse when she's accused of witchcraft. So I can't really see a way that plays in.
Sarah Jack: What effect did the Devil Pact, as a part of the 1604 Witchcraft Act, have on witch-hunting?
Dan Gagnon: Good legal question. I like it. So with the Witchcraft Act of 1604, we get all the way back to England. We get to King James of King James Bible fame, [00:40:00] and oh, as of course, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" is a quote from the King James Bible. I don't even need to say that. I should know my audience well.
So with this act, there's an idea that the definition of witchcraft has changed at that point. Now, this is before Rebecca Nurse is born. She's not born until 1621. So this is already, will be established by this point in time. This is the law that they appear to be going under in, in 1692.
Previously witchcraft was more difficult to prove. I don't really want to use, I mean that in a legal sense, which we're not actually proving witchcraft here, but legally to prove that one had to have used witchcraft, for example, in an earlier iteration of the law, to actually kill somebody, in order for that to be legally witchcraft. And you had to prove. That's a high bar, and we know it's impossible, but from the beliefs in that day and age, highly unlikely to meet that bar.
And [00:41:00] when King James changes it to making a pact with the Devil, you had to look for kind of secondary evidence. You can't call the Devil to the witness stand. You don't actually have the contract to present to the court. And so they would try to find roundabout, peripheral things that could prove that had happened, which is really loose and not hard evidence. And this change will make it easier to prosecute someone for witchcraft.
King James was really fascinated with this stuff. He writes his book Demonology. He really thinks this is fascinating and goes to great lengths in Scotland, before he becomes King of England, when he is King of Scotland, to crack down on what he seems to believe is real. Like he seems to really believe in the witchcraft and will be involved in torturing people to get confessions and really horrible things. But that change really does open the door to what we see in Salem. And had it not happened, legally, really, [00:42:00] I'm racking my brain to think of any of the accusations that could have fit under previous versions of the law.
I can't in this moment, think of one that they would've had to have been immediately been a murder, and somebody would've been in to it through witchcraft. It could not have started the way that it does in Salem. It could not have continued, and it could not have spread to 200 people. It would've had to been one very specific accusation.
No, the Salem Witch-Hunt really couldn't have happened without this change.
Josh Hutchinson: Another thing that seemed to change with the Salem Witch-Hunt, they didn't require the accusers to post a bond when they made their complaints. Why did they waive the bond?
Dan Gagnon: So typically if one files a complaint against somebody for a capital crime, basically the colony of Massachusetts didn't want frivolous accusations of any large [00:43:00] crime, and so they made you put your money where your mouth is and put out a bond that you would follow through on this charge as that person would be arrested and sent through the court process.
It's not really clear, and I have never found a good explanation of why, and those from the first accusations on, people in Salem Village would go to Salem, meet with the two local magistrates, the local judges, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, whose house still exists as The Witch House in Salem, which is a wonderful 17th century home, and they weren't asked for money. They just filed the complaints. I cannot explain this. It is very unusual. It doesn't fit with what the law appears to be and definitely doesn't fit with prior precedence. But we see in effect, if you can make an accusation no strings attached, that'll lead to a lot more accusations [00:44:00] than you can only make an accusation if you lay out a certain number of pounds as a like surety here. So that will definitely lead to this increasing, which Salem being unique from other witch-hunts in a lot of ways, is really unique with just the sheer number of people accused.
Prior witchcraft accusations were just one people, two people. I will say I listened the other day to both of you talking to Malcolm Gaskill there, and in that, the Springfield, Massachusetts case and thought that was fascinating. But to use that as an example, there's not 200 people accused. It's small scale. Other New England witch-hunts were one or just a few people. Salem getting us to about 200 probably is because it was easier to make an accusation.
So spectral evidence is not hard evidence that can be produced in court. As was mentioned with the question about the 1604 act, when it changes to somebody being able to be accused for having a pact with the Devil, lowering the [00:45:00] threshold of an accusation, and what can you submit as evidence? If you claimed you saw somebody's specter, which would be like the ghostly image of somebody hurting you, the belief is one can only make a specter if they had signed that pact with the devil.
So this spectral evidence is meant to tie them to having made a pact with the devil. The problem is pretty straightforward in that, okay, if I say that I see the specter of somebody and nobody else can see it, you just have to take my word for it. Do you believe me or not? And so it just becomes one person's word against another. You can't prove it, which back to the number of people accused, really makes it easier to accuse people.
And it's hard to refute. If somebody says they see their specter, and it seems like people are believing them, how do [00:46:00] you disprove it? You can't. You can say, " I wasn't there. I was at home." Yeah, okay, but the belief is you can send your specter somewhere you aren't. So even if you have an alibi, it doesn't matter. Alibis don't work. With Nurse, for example, she is home sick in bed. She says she's sick in bed for eight or nine days prior to being accused. People said they'd seen her specter. Nurse has an alibi. She's been home sick. Her family can tell you this. Neighbors can tell you this, but it doesn't matter. Because you can't have an alibi with that. And so it's an accusation that can't be disproved or really refuted. Well, from our point of view, because it shouldn't be believed in the first place. But if it is believed you, you can't get out from under it.
Sarah Jack: And I was thinking as you read through Rebecca's experience, that was, she was everywhere causing harm, and so over and over she was hearing them say, yes, she had the Devil pact, and she was causing harm. That's a gut punch. [00:47:00] Every time every new person had spectral evidence against her, it was that.
Josh Hutchinson: On the subject of taking their word for it, a lot of people whose word they were taking were children. Ordinary for them to take the word of children in court?
Dan Gagnon: No. Now, socially, the Puritans had a different view of children than we do. They, for example, I described some of them as being teenagers. That word didn't exist. It doesn't exist until the mid 20th century. It's one of those 1950s words, "those teenagers," and that whole concept of categorizing people didn't really exist.
And so this, I think, is socially hard for us to kind of put ourselves in their shoes or try, because even basic understandings of like stages of human life and social development aren't really at all understood. With children, if one reads things written by like Cotton [00:48:00] Mather and such, there seems to be this belief that children have been, like less corrupted by the world than adults, which would lead one to maybe actually believe they're more likely to speak the truth.
Now, in the 21st century, we would not necessarily think this, that, there might be like, little white lies all the time with kids. I teach teenagers. I understand this well, so our view on that is different. And in terms of their evidence in court, no, you had to be a certain age, you had to be in your late teens or older to be legally admitted as evidence.
And this is not followed in 1692. Just like we noted about requiring posting of a bond in order to make an accusation, we have another irregularity. With the first accusers, we have Betty Parris who's nine, Abigail Williams, who's eleven, Ann Putnam Jr who is just on the cusp of being a preteen and a [00:49:00] teenager, and we'll have other teenagers or people in the early twenties, but they shouldn't have been allowed to really submit and swear to evidence at trial.
And as part of that, what I note as being important in Nurse's case is when not Ann Putnam Jr., who seems to be the first person to have named Rebecca Nurse, but her mother, Ann Putnam Sr., who is, we believe, in her mid thirties, when she joins the accusation, that makes it different, because there's a full-fledged adult now making the same accusations, and legally that's important. That's also why, in terms of paperwork and sources, the complaints with John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin early on against people in Salem Village, it's not written by Betty Parris. It's not written by Abigail Williams. They're all written by adults. An adult [00:50:00] had to make the accusation. Also, they're all written by their male family members, cuz they're the ones more likely to know how to write. So I, there is like a practical aspect of that. But there is an age aspect ,that no, they didn't have children testifying in capital cases regularly.
Sarah Jack: What is, you mentioned Ann Sr, which has me thinking about the fraud again, the possibility of fraud. And did the accused people claim fraud was happening?
Dan Gagnon: Yes, as time goes on. At first with Rebecca Nurse being accused early on, she doesn't openly say that this is a lie. Which is, in a way, is almost probably smart, because it was so believed by the community that probably would've just soured her public hearing against her. She says it's not true, but she doesn't go to the point of saying they're intentionally, [00:51:00] falsely accusing her. Her words as you go through seem to be more along the lines of, "this is a misunderstanding," not, "why are you doing this to me intentionally?"
As time goes on, more and more of the accusers will be called out for intentional acts. Like at Nurse's trial in June, we have an example of Sarah Bibber, a middle-aged woman, a fully-grown adult, again, to differentiate from some of those younger accusers in, and we discussed a moment ago who, at her trial, at Nurse's trial is present, as seemingly all of her accusers are, except maybe Mrs. Ann Putnam, which is interesting, and Sarah Bibber does, is, everyone in the room sees her point at somewhere in the room and say there's Nurse's [00:52:00] specter. Meanwhile, Rebecca Nurse is up front, and everybody could see where she actually is, but point somewhere and see what she claims is her specter, scream, clutch her leg, and pull out a pin. And she's bleeding, and she says, "Nurse's specter just did that. See, here's the pin, here's the blood that I was just attacked by witchcraft." She's gonna be called out. We know that Rebecca Nurse's daughter-in-law is going to write to the court afterwards. It's a document. It's not addressed to one person in particular. We believe it's sent in with the documents to her appeal, saying, "that wasn't true. I was watching Sarah Bibber, and I saw her pull the pin out of her clothing, stab herself, and then point and say there's a specter, and yell, and that, that's obviously fraud."
There's the infamous incident at Sarah Good's trial at about the same time where somebody comes forward with that part of a knife, claiming that they snapped the knife off from a specter stabbing them, and then someone else says, "oh, that's actually mine. [00:53:00] I broke it the other day," and shows the other half. And I mean of calling somebody out for lying, that is really the most public and prime example of this.
With some of Nurse's defense testimony that her family gathers, they do also approach that line of calling out people as having lied in the past and therefore being untrustworthy. We will see, for example, Abigail Williams will have her credibility, I don't even want to say tested, really destroyed, pointing out incidents where she's lied and been unreliable for like basic facts about her day. And if you can't trust her with those, you can't really trust her with an accusation that could lead to the death penalty. And she won't be used as witnesses in court after that. That's why her, really, her credibility is wrecked.
There'll be others as well [00:54:00] who've been pointed out, as Sarah Bibber and such, as having fits in the past in a way that does make them sound fake and convenient and being really dramatic about things that calls into question, which that example with the pin only builds upon it, and the Nurse family does that well.
That idea that they have defense evidence for Nurse defending her, speaking to her having a good character and being a good person, but also the category of evidence attacking the credibility of her accusers. I mean that this is a modern, like, defense strategy. It's like the textbook example. And they're doing that as, frankly, like amateurs. None of them are lawyers. There are no defense lawyers. So it is impressive how they put this together. And Nurse, because of her family, really has the best defense out of anyone at trial.
Josh Hutchinson: Why did the defense evidence carry less weight than [00:55:00] prosecution evidence?
Dan Gagnon: There's two parts to why the defense evidence carries less weight. The first is, there's just that burden of assumed guilt in the background that by this point, people were convinced, seemingly a majority or a grand part of the locals, that witchcraft was actually happening. And after seeing, like Nurse's first hearing, the behavior of the accusers couldn't be explained another way.
So already you're starting out in a hole, trying to dig yourself out. Second, we have a procedural thing with the prosecution's evidence, according to the rules of trial, at that point in time, Ann Putnam, Jr., I'll just pick as an example, had submitted written evidence. She herself did not write this, her father wrote this. She, we don't think, can write. And was brought forward. Evidence is read in front of the court. She swears an oath saying, yes, those are my words. Yes, this is true. I'm paraphrasing, [00:56:00] but that's the gist of the oath.
With the defense evidence, it could not be sworn. It's not the same status then. The prosecution evidence, someone swore under oath it's real. The defense evidence, eh, some guy just wrote it down on a piece of paper. It's not the same category and can't be, and it can't be just, you're not allowed to do that with defense evidence. It's strange. It's not something that will really continue too much past here.
As to reasons why, it's, in one way, it's often by like legal historians phrased as a way that kind of allowed you to do more for your defense. Like you didn't actually have to worry if you're telling the truth to defend yourself, written in a way that like implies this helps somebody on trial in their defense, maybe in some instances. But for a jury that's following the strict rules, yeah, you're not gonna hold that defense evidence to the same weight, cuz it's not sworn under oath. There's no penalty of perjury. [00:57:00] There's no penalty. They could be saying whatever, and there's no consequence. So that is really just a system stacked against you.
Sarah Jack: That's really clarifying, because as I've been on my journey of coming to understand more of this, the Salem Witch-Hunt, I remember how puzzled I was. These petitions were getting signed, and these people were standing up and standing for these accused, and I just thought, why was it taking so much? And it still didn't, they had to keep trying a new, someone else to back them up. Another plea. And that really speaks to why.
Dan Gagnon: Because otherwise you'd look at it, and in my look at this, they have some pretty great defense evidence. It looks like it's a lopsided case in favor of the defense, but no.
Sarah Jack: What drove your project about Rebecca?
Dan Gagnon: My project about Rebecca has really [00:58:00] early starts. My connection to the story of Rebecca Nurse goes back a lot of years. I grew up right down the road. I live in Danvers, there used to be Salem Village. I'm coming to you live from Salem Village, I suppose that could be the the billing, and being around these historic sites and the monuments.
I played soccer for years at the field behind the Salem Village Witch Trials Memorial. Lost more games than I won, but we played in that field all the time. That's where the Danvers youth soccer plays. So I was just always around these places, and in particular, my first summer job as a teenager was at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, as the guy selling tickets and then eventually the person doing tours as a tour guide. And that kind of is really the start, learning from the wonderful volunteers there. Once I started giving tours, I was trying to read all of these books to make sure I was doing it right, and you never wanted a question that would [00:59:00] stump you as the 15 or 16 year old tour guide that was a wary and happened naturally.
So that was when I first started looking into this, talking with people who came through, hearing the questions that people had. Some who would ask questions that you'd think to yourself, never would've thought of that angle. Also hearing the questions about things that were just debunked myths that somehow lived on.
I know that Margo Burns does such a great talk about why Ergotism doesn't make sense, but if I had a dollar for every time somebody asked me about Ergotism, I would not need to be a public school teacher anymore. That how often that comes up, or the land grab theory, and that showed me that despite this being one of the quintessential events in American history, everybody's heard of the Salem Witch trials, many people through high [01:00:00] school with reading The Crucible, I suppose, is many people's first introduction, but despite this event being so well known, a lot of people actually don't know it. That kind of stuck with me. Another thing that was important, as I went around to other historic sites, visiting other museums on vacation and things like that, is I realized it's really weird that there's no full biography of Rebecca Nurse.
The Nurse Homestead was selling this little pamphlet written by a gentleman, Charles Tapley, a local historian in Danvers, who really just wrote it based on Charles Upham's work in the 19th century, and it's really just about her time in 1692. So it's not a biography. There's nearly nothing about the before, nothing about the after. It's just the actual time of the witch trials.
And as I went to other historic sites, I realized that every museum related to a person, they do sell a biography of that person. God, if you go to Mount Vernon, think about how many biographies of George Washington you could buy. And that makes [01:01:00] sense. That's good. That should be the norm.
With my then look at the witch-hunt I went to college, I went to graduate school. I studied contemporary Europe. It's the formation of the European Union. Not really relevant to this. When I returned home after I completed graduate school, I then turned to this project, in about 2017, and I realized that a biography also gives us a better view, I think, into how people are affected.
When I go around to museums, historical societies and give talks about the book, I always start out with, maybe in a good, Puritan way, my defense of this project, like a minister writing his book. You start with your defense of why you'd be so bold as to do something like write a book about this. And I start that way, because inevitably people would ask, there's a ton of great books about the witch trials. Why one more? And it is a good question. There are excellent ones, amazing ones, but there was no, at this point in [01:02:00] time, there was no standalone full scholarly biography of a victim of the witch-hunt on the market. That is a category that should have been filled. A biography allows us to get to what a tragedy this is.
Many of these other books written about the witch-hunt, especially the more academic ones, the way that I saw it, is they tried to cover too much. This event is too big to actually really understand it, if you try to include all 200 people who are accused. You'll never get to know them. You'll never understand them as a person, understand how an accusation affected them, affected their family. You can't, or at least I can't, keep that many people straight in my mind as I'm reading about it. But if you pick one person, you can tell it as a real narrative of a human life where they start out. In the case of Rebecca Nurse, a life being [01:03:00] fairly ordinary, she lives in a somewhat exceptional time, though, being born in England in chaos, coming to the new world, settling that is an exceptional time. But out of those who make that journey, yeah, the Towne family is reasonably average. It's nothing really exceptional.
And then have a life utterly wrecked and destroyed in the witch-hunt. And then you see, because it's a story about one human being, of course, their immediate family is key to this story, both before but especially after. How can the Nurse family try to go back to normal after people in their town are responsible for killing their mother, or wife, in the case of Francis Nurse? And we see this as a tragedy. It really should be seen as a tragedy, cuz it is. And I really think a biography is the one way you can actually, like get that true emotional understanding of how this ruins people's lives.
Sarah Jack: You definitely were able to convey the [01:04:00] lack of respect and the inhumanity that they were receiving, how she had to stand and she wasn't well, all of the ways the experience in the jail was horrible, what they were witnessing, what they were being told, what they were hearing, the conditions. So you definitely that. Thank you for putting that in there.
Josh Hutchinson: You've heard us talk about the case in Springfield, and we really love these intimate portrayals, where you get a close feeling of what happened to a person. Like you said, the big surveys, it's hard to grasp everything that happened, because there's just so much of it, and every subject has to get glossed over, basically, to fit it all in a book. So we really love that you did this book. What do you want people to take away from their reading experience?
Dan Gagnon: I would start with things that I learned along the way compared to me starting out as a teenager [01:05:00] talking to visitors about the witch-hunt and where I got through this research project to my kind of, new understanding, hopefully better understanding, but new understanding of the event is things start small.
This starts in a very tiny way, and this is true in basically all events in history that what we think of as giant historical events start one thing out of the ordinary, and it goes from there. When I talk about this on my walking tours, that's really how I phrase it. When we're standing at the parsonage site, it's one small thing. One day, two children became unwell, and that's where everything starts. We also see an element of just unfortunate things that happen to people that are not in any way their fault. Like with Nurse, there's nothing that she has done to warrant this. There's nothing that really could have [01:06:00] even set her up for this accusation.
It just happens to her and in a way that you can't anticipate. Maybe it's the history teacher in me, but whenever we study historical events, we already know the ending and we work back from there. But we really need to start at the beginning. That's why the biography narrative, I think, is important, because you need to see how it develops. The causes of things are not necessarily how you'd view it if you start at the end.
The last thing again is just the the fact that this story is about real people is really the big takeaway. That is something to be considered. And the fact that it's about real people who never did anything that they were accused of doing. They are not witches. They did nothing like that. And that it really is innocent people.
Josh Hutchinson: How does this story compare to other witchcraft cases?
Dan Gagnon: [01:07:00] So we have other witchcraft cases in New England. We have other witchcraft cases in Old England, in continental Europe. And the Salem Witch-Hunt is unique in a lot of ways. Is it the worst example of a witch-hunt ever? No. There's examples in Germany of more people being accused, more people being executed, things that lasted even longer.
Those places aren't Witch City, even though Salem is witch city, rightfully or wrongfully, but that is the way that it is labeled and billed. With the Salem Witch-Hunt. It's unique because of so many people. Out of the New England witch-hunts, at least, it's the biggest, up to about 200 people accused is wildly different than the previous ones.
The aspect of how geographically far and [01:08:00] wide it is is interesting. It's not just one town. It starts in Salem Village, now Danvers, and Salem Village does really remain the focal point throughout, but the accusations are far and wide, as far north as Maine with Reverend George Borroughs, as far south as Charlestown, today part of Boston, as far west as the towns of Billerica, Woburn or around there, it's a broad area. We will see, for example, some towns it's just one person or a handful accused there from people in Salem Village, other towns that it's people from that town accusing people from that town, like Andover that actually has the highest number of people accused. That's almost a little like microcosm of the witch-hunt in itself. It's its own category. Richard Hite's book In the Shadow of Salem does an amazing job of looking at the Andover category, cuz it really is its own category.
Other [01:09:00] ways that the Salem Witch-Hunt is unique compared to others is the ending. When you only have one or two people accused of witchcraft, you don't usually have a growing public opposition, because it's over swiftly. When you have 200 people accused, it takes a while to put all these people on trial, naturally, and so what we have here is an example of people really opposing and turning against a witch-hunt. You don't see that in every other instance. The opposition comes from families of the accused most naturally, most obviously. We could have guessed that.
One other thing that I had found that I thought was interesting is really the opposition from the high-level ministers. I think that people's understanding of the witch-hunt doesn't really have them as opponents, but they were opponents of, at least, the process. It's not that they doubted the witches were real. To them, witches were real, but they did not think the court was doing the process the right way. And so they are opponents and critics in that [01:10:00] regard.
And lastly, with the witch hunt, as I mentioned, Salem allegedly being Witch City, it really captures the American imagination in a way that others don't today. A lot of that is thanks to The Crucible, but it did even before then. With Nurse as an example, the idea that she's the first person in North America accused of witchcraft to get a memorial in 1885. Clearly there's something special and unique about this compared to other accusations and witch hunts.
Sarah Jack: I was gonna ask you what does your book do to authenticate Rebecca's fame? But you've really captured that with your answers today. And so I wanna, as one of her descendants, I really wanna thank you for that.
Dan Gagnon: I appreciate it, and I'm happy to be talking to a descendant of Rebecca Nurse. I will say that wherever I have gone, [01:11:00] every time that I have talked, anywhere that I've ever talked, whether it's online or in person, there's always people in the room who are descendants of Rebecca Nurse that turn out. And that is an amazing thing, and I think that also shows how it's important for people as yourself, who do have a connection to people involved in the witch-hunt, or as Josh mentioned, a connection to other people in Salem Village. That kind of makes the story closer to the 21st century, and I am always happy when I talk with people who have that connection.
Josh Hutchinson: Sarah and I are both descendants of Rebecca's sister Mary, so we have that cousin connection between us that we probably wouldn't realize if it was any other great grandparent, we wouldn't have made that connection.
Sarah Jack: When you talked about the double marriage, Elizabeth, she married a Russell, and then the grandchildren of Mary and Rebecca married, and [01:12:00] that's why I connect to both of them. It's the same line that a couple other cousins in the Towne Association connect through, too. So there's a little group of us, maybe a big group.
Dan Gagnon: And there's another example of the significance of the Salem Witch-Hunt, is not just I have met descendants one off, but that there are organizations of descendants, clearly, that there's something really meaningful here, if people are forming organizations.
Sarah Jack: When it came to the exonerations in Massachusetts, it was because people petitioned for them. It would've stayed as it was without people standing up whatever time in history. They did that, and Massachusetts responded to that. And it just, it makes me think of the other descendants that are coming forward out of Connecticut and other trials. And one of the questions why is this relevant? Why is it important? But it's important for many of the things that you pointed out about the meaningfulness of the [01:13:00] story, the connection to the ancestor, and if, you know, nobody stands up and asks it, it won't happen. So I was, that resonated with me too when I was reading that in your book, how people came forward and asked.
Dan Gagnon: And with that, I really think of the scene when they dedicate the Rebecca Nurse Monument in the family cemetery, that you have the minister from the Salem Village Church, who comes out and says, "it is right for us to be reevaluating these things. It is right for us to be remembering these people," countering that claim of why does it matter that apparently exists in 1885 too, not just today. And that he really sets out, it's the Reverend Rice, that this is important to do, and it is just to build this monument. To take this day to remember that because it is important and he connects it to, we learn from it and hope to do better in the future.
Josh Hutchinson: How does this [01:14:00] story relate to the present? Do you see any parallels?
Dan Gagnon: I do. There's writers, filmmakers who have made all sorts of connections to the present, whether the present was 1980 or the present is 2022, depending on when they were writing or making their media. And there's some that are timeless. This idea of a community gripped by fear of something they don't understand is, there's millions of ways that could be relevant to basically every community on earth.
There's things about people assuming something they've been told without critically evaluating it. Witchcraft was part of their worldview, and that was something that they very much took for granted. It's not that we actually would've quite found that in 1692, but it's one of those that hopefully we've progressed past.[01:15:00]
And what we also see at the end I think of is even somewhere where there has been some awful incident where people are to blame. And in this case, meaning the accusers that yeah, a community might take a while, it might take a long while, might need some outside help, but they do need to try to go back to normal afterwards, and that I think is really hard to imagine.
We know it's hard to imagine the idea that people believed in witchcraft. Everybody can think, oh, how could they believe that? But how can you imagine them going back to normal afterwards? And I'm sure around the world there are countless examples of horrible tragedies where somebody is at blame that, through whatever circumstance, have to try to put things back together.
And in Salem Village it takes years. It takes years. [01:16:00] Maybe you could say generations, cuz people weren't really open to talking about this for generations. But it happened. There's a memorial to the victims. There was the memorial to Nurse a while back, and then the memorial in Salem Village in 1992, and then one in, in downtown Salem a couple months later in, in 1992. So it, it's eventually dealt with and recognized, but it really, it can't just be the elephant in the room. It has to be that acknowledged, and the people who are wronged should be remembered.
Sarah Jack: And it's not just moving forward, it's, as you said, dealing with it to move forward. And I think that's kind of what we're finding in Connecticut. They pushed forward, but some of the stuff is bubbling up. People have questions, they wanna know more, they wanna remember their ancestors. They want to have names made good again. So it, there's lessons to be learned for sure. And it is very relatable [01:17:00] to, like you said, horrible situations where there is bad happened, because people did bad things.
Josh Hutchinson: And we have some guests coming up that you might find interesting from other nations, where witch-hunts are still happening. And one of the things we want to talk to them about is how does a community move forward after something like that happens?
And that's something that we can learn a little from Salem and other trials.
Sarah Jack: Modernly this happens, and then you see it in some other cases in New England, where a stigma sticks with a family, and then maybe some new accusations on the new generation come up. In Salem it was that they were able to move on without a new thing erupting. Why is that?
Dan Gagnon: So I think that's another way of getting back to the Salem trials as being unique in that no, there really[01:18:00] couldn't have been future accusations in that community after this, because it was done, and it was really recognized by the majority, not every soul, but the majority of having been wrong and misguided right when it ended.
It doesn't really take time for people to realize it was wrong. They discovered it was wrong, and that's why they put pressure to get the court stopped. That realization comes first. With some of these other witchcraft accusations in New England with only one person, they are in some instances, found guilty and executed, and only later do people begin to think back, maybe that wasn't quite right. Whereas with Salem, it's the belief that wasn't quite right comes first, before the end of the event. And it's interesting in that one would think that there would've been much more immediate sort of coming to [01:19:00] terms with the whole event right away.
It doesn't happen it, there are a couple reasons that the government of Massachusetts really didn't want to get into this. I always roll my eyes when I read the act that eventually clears names and they will go on, and they'll eventually compensate, not as reparations, cuz the government doesn't admit doing anything wrong, but a level of compensation. And in these laws, they're very clear to say, you can't sue us, you can't sue the Commonwealth of Massachusetts over this. And I think that kind of stops, in a way, drags out the coming to terms with it, because that's a shifting of guilt. And so that, that lengthens it.
Sarah Jack: I was just gonna ask you, Dan, if you wanted to say anything else or share anything else before we wrap up.
Dan Gagnon: I think that I would. I would say that one thing about the witch-hunt that I also think is important, and not just with [01:20:00] my prior involvement with the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, but is the idea that so many people also come and visit the actual places where this is involved.
The people I know have gone, they go to the memorials in Salem at Proctor's Ledge in Salem, the one in Salem Village, the Salem Village Memorial in Danvers. They go to the parsonage site where Reverend Parris had lived. That's now an archeological dig. They try to go to these places and try to get a connection that way to the history of the event. And people will even do this, going to places where there isn't necessarily a house. There's people who go up to Topsfield, where some of those people who were accused lived, and some of it's still farmland and just kinda walk around to try to get a feel for the place, a connection to the event, try to remember. If there is a family connection, then trying to make a family connection.
But in the sense that these places can be visited, and I think that is a good way to learn about history. It's going to [01:21:00] those places, I'm a big proponent of you can really get a sense of a place just in a like walk around it. I think of people who walk the Freedom Trail in Boston, which has wonderful historic sites. Yeah. When you're walking along skyscrapers, lose the historic sense, though, as you're going through downtown Boston. Whereas some of the Salem Village sites, you can still feel it. The Nurse Homestead 30-acre farm. It feels like a farm. There's an accurate feel. The parsonage site isolated enough you can kind of get a feel of this place. And of course there are the memorials in downtown Salem that are busier. I would encourage people to do that or really do that with any historical event that interests them, not just this one, but by going to places I think you can learn even more than just reading.
Josh Hutchinson: And now here's Sarah with another edition of End Witch Hunts News.
Sarah Jack: Here is End Witch Hunts [01:22:00] World Advocacy News. This week, you listened in on some informative conversation about the memorial projects for Rebecca Towne Nurse and the other executed accused witches of the Salem Witch trials that were organized by their descendants and community. If you have listened through the episode catalog of our podcast, you are now familiar with the enacted exonerations, requested exonerations, memorializations of those accused and executed witches. Descendants, historians, and advocates are telling the stories of the innocent victims from 330 years ago or more. Some victims now have monuments, and all are remembered because we are writing, filming, and talking about what happened. Doesn't it feel like some enduring wrongs are being righted?
The layers of circumstances that created these past witch trial situations are pulling apart under examination. We are pointing out how indoctrination of witch fear and misfortune-blaming were part of the consistent contributors that led to historical [01:23:00] witch-hunts. In many world communities, witch-hunts are past, but as much as this is to be celebrated, we have to stay focused on the witch-hunt dangers many women and children find themselves in today.
This week, Nigerian advocate and activist, Dr. Leo Igwe , wrote an article speaking about the fear and illusion of witchcraft meetings and witchphobia in his community. He's telling us that witchphobia is being perpetuated and disruptive to the end of witch-hunts in Nigeria. This is not a historical reflection.
This thriving fear of harmful witchcraft is the cause of substantial abuse and murder against children and elderly women now. Just like in early modern witch trial history, the educated and powerful are often not intervening, but today, according to the established law, they should intervene to protect the vulnerable alleged witches.
He writes, "like people in western countries, Africans should abandon the illusion that supernatural witchcraft meetings and other occult nocturnal gatherings [01:24:00] take place. They should discard this notion that supposed witches embark on magical flights to a coven where they engage in cannibalism or initiate children and other adults into the witchcraft world. These illusions drive irrational fears and horrific abuses of alleged witches in Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and other African countries."
Does this not sound like an echo of all witch-hunt history? An echo of the Salem Witch trial accusations and charges? Leo states that through socialization or indoctrination, the belief that witches metaphysically convene is pervasive. Remember you just heard in today's episode that alleged witches in Salem were found guilty of magically convening to cause harm.
The witch-hunt mentality is alive, and humanity is still gripped by illusions. Please follow Leo Igwe and read his updates. Hear what he says must be addressed. Stop believing in these illusions. Please reflect and consider his message. Share his message now. [01:25:00] These strongly held fears must be addressed so that they can be stopped immediately.
While we watch and wait, let's support the victims across the world. Use your social power to help them. Support them by acknowledging and sharing their stories. Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our End Witch Hunts movement on Twitter @_endwitchhunts. And visit our website at endwitchhunts.org
End Witch Hunts movement and Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast support the worldwide movement to recognize and address historical wrongs.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that critical information. We need to learn more about what's going on in the world around us with these ongoing tragedies.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shult Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us next week for a very important guest from across the [01:26:00] ocean. Damon Leff of South Africa will be talking to us about his years of advocacy and what it's like for the victims experiencing witch-hunts in his country.
Josh Hutchinson: Like, subscribe, or follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell everybody you know and everybody you meet about the show.
Sarah Jack: Please support our efforts to end witch-hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

[01:27:00]

December 29, 2022

Scottish Witch Trials with Mary W. Craig

Pre-Order New Book: “Agnes Finnie” by Mary W. Craig

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Show Notes

Take a look with us into Scottish witch trial history, as well as a close look at one particular Scottish witch trial. We discuss important historic details with historian and informative author Mary W. Craig. We are so pleased to get to learn about her new book release “Agnes Finnie the Witch of Potterrow Port” available for pre-order now. Mary fills the conversation with meaningful dialog around our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?, while also sharing valuable insight into the current witch trial pardon efforts in Scotland.

Links:

Mary W. Craig Website

Buy “Borders Witch Hunt” by Mary W. Craig

Apology of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon

Apology of Church of Scotland

Peebles Witch Trials

Witches of Scotland Campaign

RAWS Remembering the Accused Witches of Scotland Organization

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project

Leo Igwe, AfAW

Advocacy Against Witch Hunts, South Africa

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we talk to Mary W. Craig about Borders Witch Hunt, Scottish Witch Hunts, and her upcoming book, Agnes Finnie: the Witch of Potterow Port.
Sarah Jack: I do think people should read the Borders book before they read the Finnie book. That's what I think.
Josh Hutchinson: I think that's a good idea to get you some good background on Scottish Witch Hunts to read Borders Witch Hunt and learn about the 17th century [00:01:00] witch-hunt in Scotland, why it happened, what happened, why it was so different from English witch-hunts, what they did differently, which was so much. They were brutal. It was not fun and games in Scotland. It was serious, deadly business involving a lot of violence. It was legal to torture in Scotland.
Sarah Jack: You realized it's really incredible that the accused made it to the execution, and I know we saw accused in Salem perish in the prison, but nobody endured the amount of brutal examination that the victims of Scotland endured.[00:02:00]
Josh Hutchinson: In Scotland, they could torture you, in some cases, even if you were eight years old.
Sarah Jack: And the people that were fulfilling the different steps of the trial were getting paid well to do it.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes. We'll learn about brodders today, a. k. a. witch prickers, and what their role was in examining the suspects. We don't get into too much detail about what they did, but you can read all about it in the book, Borders Witch Hunt. She makes the medicine go down, and her approach to the book overall, it's very readable. It's informative. You learn a lot, but you enjoy the reading process of it.
Sarah Jack: We've been realizing the different nuances [00:03:00] of witch hunt management, mechanics, and behavior across the globe. And this was another one of those realizations, cuz we just aren't used to seeing the victims experience what they did here.
Josh Hutchinson: We like to remind people that in England and New England, they almost always hanged people. In Scotland, they did burn the bodies of the victims.
Sarah Jack: Her research was extensive, and her writing on it just perfectly descriptive and informative. And very visual. I felt like I could see it.
Josh Hutchinson: It is very visceral. She really takes you to Scotland, to these small borders communities in Borders Witch Hunt. And then in Agnes Finnie, she's gonna take us to the city of Edinburgh. We're going to learn about a not so great neighborhood called [00:04:00] Potterrow Port, where everyone is unfortunate and has a low income, and we'll learn how little the king cares about these people.
Sarah Jack: So after reading Borders Witch Hunt, we're getting to pull back another layer of the onion into the Scottish experience of witch hunting.
Josh Hutchinson: Her writing about Agnes Finnie, it's an intimate portrait of an individual. You get to see witch hunts through the eyes of one person. You get details on individual lives and individual case. It's not a global survey of witch hunts. It's not one page for each case. It's a whole book for one person's witchcraft trial.
Watch our [00:05:00] social media. We will be posting about this book, because our discussion coming up with Mary Craig is so enlightening, so eye-opening. It's such a pleasure to talk to her. She's one of those people, you feel like you could just talk to her all day about this topic.
Sarah Jack: We definitely could. The time flew by, but the information in the history that we gleaned from the conversation was incredible.
Josh Hutchinson: You'll want to listen to this episode more than once, I guarantee.
Sarah Jack: Borders Witch Hunt. I learned a ton about that. Like the Scotland, the England thing. I really did. I think that will be helpful to listeners. I am so happy to introduce our guest, author Mary W. Craig. We'll be talking about her book Borders Witch Hunt: 17th Century Witchcraft Trials in the Scottish Borders and her [00:06:00] upcoming project, Agnes Finnie: the Witch of Potterrow Port.
Mary W Craig: We've just recently unveiled a memorial to those who were executed in one particular trial in Peebles. We had 24 people executed in one day and then 3 individuals who were found not proven, cuz we have a not proven verdict in Scotland. They were then executed a week later. They were all part of the one trial, so we've just unveiled that memorial, which was really nice. We managed to get a minister to come along and give a little bit of a blessing, as well. So there's been lots of work. We've had an apology from the Church of Scotland over here, and we're working in the Scottish Parliament to have a pardon for all of those convicted under the witchcraft act. Things are going well over here.
Josh Hutchinson: We were gonna start by talking to you about the Peebles Witch Memorial. We saw that on your Twitter that you were there. Did you speak at that event?
Mary W Craig: I did, yes. We had a piper and then Elisa and Simon, who live in Peebles, unveiled memorial. Then I spoke for maybe [00:07:00] about five minutes, and then we had the minister, Tony, came along. He gave a blessing, and then as he read out 27 names, we had some fiddlers playing. And then we went back up to the youth center who very kindly gave us our premises for nothing. And I gave a sort of impromptu lecture about what happened during the trial. And that was really good because we had quite a few youngsters come along. We had two or three under the age of 12, but we had quite a sort of sprinkling of teenagers, which was really good to have the young people there interested. And it's, we're trying to get youngsters interested in history, can sometimes be a bit an, so it was good that they were there. .
Sarah Jack: There's been a little bit of movement with exoneration and talking about that over here in the states, Massachusetts just did an exoneration on their last witch, and that had a lot of teenagers involved, and that was a very important part. And I saw on Twitter that you had tweeted about some younger generation that was taking care of the history and could, could go forward with the history. And I thought, yeah, that's very important.
Mary W Craig: Especially as a lot of [00:08:00] those who were executed as witches were quite young themselves. The stereotype is of the old lady at the end of the village, and no, there were youngsters in the borders. We had people as young as eight and nine being accused of being witches. It mattered. It was young people of the day that were affected as well as everybody else.
Sarah Jack: When you were writing on the witch trials in Peebles, were you anticipating that you would be at a memorial so soon?
Mary W Craig: No. Now I'm gonna have to tell you how old I am. I first wrote about the Peebles Witch Trial back in 2008, and then I wrote again in 2020. So this has been a long haul. We didn't think we'd get an apology from the Church of Scotland. We were very surprised about that. And we were surprised as to how readily the community and people said, "yes, of course there should be a memorial." So it was great that everybody said, "oh, of course we need to talk about that, and we need to address what we've done in the past." So, surprising and very pleasing.
Josh Hutchinson: And why do you think it's [00:09:00] important to have the memorials?
Mary W Craig: I think because Scotland had a very high number of executions. We prosecuted and executed 10 times the number of people that they did in England per head of population. To give you a sort of idea, the numbers, Scotland at that time had a population of just under 1 million, and we executed 4,000 people that we know of. The figure is probably closer to 8,000, but 4,000 are the ones that we can definitively see in the records. Although some of the records say things like some witches, a few witches, we don't know how many that means. But for every individual that's executed, they were somebody's daughter, somebody's son, somebody's mother, somebody's sister.
So it would be the equivalent today of executing 24,000 people in Scotland today. It's a massive thing. It happened for a long time, and even when people weren't being arrested and executed, the Kirk session became almost like a morality police. [00:10:00] Everybody was terrified of witches or of being accused of being a witch or living next door to witch.
The Highlands and Islands were slightly doing better because of their, they had retained the links to Catholicism and the clan system was different up there. But for Lowland Scotland, it was a period of absolute terror, and it's something we have to recognize we got it very wrong, acknowledge what we got wrong, apologize to those who are affected, and learn from it for the future.
So that's why I think the memorials are important to see. We have memorials. Any village in Scotland has a memorial to the Great War. We should never forget the Great War. Unfortunately we did, and we're going into the Second World War. But the idea is to say, to literally put a marker in the ground to say, "we did this, we got it very wrong, we should never do this again. This level of prejudice, this level of othering people and finger pointing and blaming and shaming." And although we don't do that today, if you look at the way again, going back to young people, [00:11:00] the venom that can be on social media that's piling onto somebody and attacking somebody. That sort of mob rule, we have to stop that and we have to use the witch memorials as an example of how bad it can get.
Sarah Jack: That was so true. I'm learning so much about the Scotland trials. I just went through your book this week. And as far as descendants like over here the descendants tend to find each other, talk about it, "is there a memorial, do we need a memorial?" Do the descendants, are they a part of this? Were there descendants at the Peebles memorial? Do you hear from them?
Mary W Craig: No. What tended to happen was, because the terror was so absolute well into the 18th century, anyone who had been the son or the daughter of a witch is never going to admit it. What tended to happen was the second somebody got arrested, the family would absolutely deny any association. You'll get notes in the records of people saying, "oh no, she wasn't really my sister, she was only my half [00:12:00] sister" or, "no, she wasn't my mother, she was my stepmother." So people were so ashamed of what the person had done, because witchcraft was so evil, but obviously terrified that they themselves would get arrested.
Mary W Craig: And so within two or three generations, granny or great granny that was executed as a witch is airbrushed out of the family history. And because, of course, they weren't given Christian burial, because the church did not note their names, there is really not a way for people to go back and decide that was a relative of theirs. It's very difficult for you to trace back. And as I say, we have so many records that just say things like, "a few witches were burned." Partly fear, partly shame, and partly incomplete records. We have very few who can trace a true descent.
Josh Hutchinson: And what was a witch to the Scots in 17th century?
Mary W Craig: Okay, we could be here for some time. In the 16th century, everybody was Christian. There were a [00:13:00] few Jewish people around, but everybody was Christian. Witches were magical practitioners. They were Christians, but they were also able to do magic. So they could talk to the little people. They could talk to the kelpies or the selkies, or they could talk to the man in the black hat, and he would help you find lost property, or you might say a charm when you were trying to help a child become well. So it would be somebody who was a healer who would help you in that way.
They could also lay a spell on you if you were bad to them, but mostly they were thought of as good, and most communities knew of them. When you move into the 17th century after the Reformation and the Church of Scotland is terrified, it's got itself into siege mentality, it's surrounded by Catholics. It's not quite sure what the king's doing down in London, and we've got famine and pestilence and war going on in Scotland, which seems as if the devil is out there, using his handmaiden witches.
Then the [00:14:00] Church of Scotland takes the word "witch" and sticks it very closely, it cleaves it to the devil, because it is unnatural for women to have power. And women who do have power or claim to have power, it can only come from the devil. "Witch" changes, the meaning of the word "witch" changes from meaning being a herbal healer, wise women into this satanic follower of the devil.
We notice in the early part of the century, a lot of people who, when they're first arrested, they'll say, "yes, I'm a witch." Because they don't understand that this has now become a bad thing. By the end of the century, nobody's admitting to being a witch, unless they are kept awake and tortured. So the meaning shifts and changes and moves within that century because the church is obsessed with the devil.
Because we had a form of Calvinism that was so strict, and we had the predestination that God already knew who was damned and who was saved. And if we were God's elect and we were [00:15:00] all saved, then the devil would attack us, and he would attack us using witches. So the meaning changed, just as the meaning has changed now. There are people in Scotland today who call themselves witches today, who have, just as there are half a dozen different definitions of what to be a Christian is, there are half a dozen definitions of what a witch is today, but certainly in the 17th century, it changed from being good and healing to having that diabolical link.
And strangely enough, the people in Scotland were being told this every Sunday you'd go to the kirk on a Sunday and the minister would tell you It's witches. It's witches. It's the devil. It's the devil. And yet communities still use their witches, because what else can you do? You can't afford a doctor. There's not a doctor in your little village. If your child falls ill, or if your hens stop laying, and you think it's old Aggie at the end of the road who's cast a spell, you'll find another witch to take the spell off, because that's the day-to-day life you're living.
Sarah Jack: That's great. What did they believe the [00:16:00] diabolical witches were capable of?
Mary W Craig: Because the Kirk of Scotland were obsessed with the devil, they thought that the devil was going to bring down the new Protestant church. The Reformation happens in Scotland very quickly. In England, it was gradual. They moved from Catholicism to Anglicanism. In Scotland, we were Catholic, and then John Knox arrives and says, "no, we're now all Protestant, and all Catholics are in league with the devil." so the idea was that the devil was going to attack us all and drag us all to hell. And we had to guide against him. We had to guard against him. We had to be constantly on our watch against the devil.
And so witches were people. They were women, predominantly because women were weak and stupid and lascivious and liars and just awful creatures. And our faith was weak because of that. And so we would be easily seduced by the devil. And then we would do his bidding. We would lure men with our sexual wiles. [00:17:00] We would cast spells to make people die. We would make men impotent. It's an awful lot about sex in it with the Church of Scotland. I'm not quite sure what that says about the ministers, but there's a lot to do with sex. We would shrivel men's members, we would make men barren, we would make cattle and horses barren. We would spoil crop. We would just basically bring the whole world to its knees as servants and handmaidens of the devil. And that was why the Kirk was obsessed.
But because of this nonsense about predestination, it meant that even if you were a kirk minister, even if you were a very senior kirk minister in the General Assembly, the Kirk of Scotland, you couldn't know for absolute certainty that you were saved. So you end up in a circular argument, because if I'm the most godly person, then the devil's going to attack me. So if the devil attacks me, that proves I'm the most godly. So if I'm the most godly local [00:18:00] minister and the witches attack me, that proves I'm the most godly. But that means I want there to be witches in my area.
And so it just becomes a circular argument. You end up bringing in the witch prickers and witch brodders that we had here, and they were paid by how many witches they found, so they found lots of witches. And the ministers stood in the pulpit and screamed that this was diabolical and this was the devil and this was awful. But in a way you're saying, " see, it proves I'm a really good minister, because why else would they attack me? Why else would there be witches in my parish?" And once you're in that mindset, it's really difficult to get out of that mindset. Once you're in that circular argument, there's really no way out.
Josh Hutchinson: We read in Borders Witch Hunt about Auld Nick. Who was he?
Mary W Craig: Auld Nick was the devil. Scotland has lots of names for the Devil. He is Auld Nick. He's Auld Horny. He's Auld Jack. He's Black Clootie. [00:19:00] He's Horny Clootie. We have all these different names, and a lot of the names are from way back, from our Pagan ancestors.
There are also lots of places in Scotland named after the Devil. There's the Devil's Beeftub, which is just a very large river valley, but it's a round river valley, so it's the Devil's Beeftub. There's the Devil's Arse, there's the Devil's Bum, there's the Devil's Loo. There's the Devil's Toothpick. Not quite sure about that one.
So there's lots of, so the Devil in a way, the Devil that the church had in mind, who was Satan, who ruled over hell and fire and damnation. He wasn't quite the devil that, in Pagan times, we had believed in, he was a man that you could have a sort of, you can make a deal with the devil. You played the fiddle, you can play dice with the devil, you can play cards with the devil. There was a familiarity there that sort of lingered in folk superstition, even after the Christian Church was established. So again, when the [00:20:00] Church is railing about the Devil, and locally you say, "ah, it's just Auld Nick," that mismatch could mean the difference between life and death.
Sarah Jack: I'm very curious and I found the overlapping of the old and new beliefs quite a big deal.
Mary W Craig: Yeah, because like in all things, what people believe, ordinary people believe and what society deems as acceptable, there's always a lag of several years. I have a friend who's an elder in the Kirk of Scotland, and he still won't walk under a ladder, and he laughs at himself for that superstition. Even though he is a practicing Christian, he still has that superstitious belief, and he knows it's ridiculous, but that's what he grew up with. So these folk beliefs linger on, and I the original meaning the original Pagan meaning has been lost in time.
But you keep all, you'll say, "knock on wood," or you'll touch wood for good luck, or you won't cross a black cat's path or breaking a mirror. All of these superstitions, we've lost the original meaning, but [00:21:00] they're still there. We still all do it.
We still go out at Halloween, we go out guising, you guys go out trick-or-treating, and that's going way back. That's pre-Christian, that's a pre-Christian festival that we all still now. I mean, it's fun, and the kids get sweeties and candy. These superstitious beliefs hang on in there, and while now we smile at them and they're fine, because the Reformation was so recent for the Kirk of Scotland and because they had developed this siege mentality, they couldn't make any allowances for these old beliefs.
So it didn't make sense. So that 50 years previously your grandmother might have said a Catholic prayer as she was soothing an ill child. That was acceptable. Now, Catholicism had been tarred with the brush of being diabolical. It's very difficult to tell somebody they can't do something they've been doing for 50 years with no apparent harm.
Sarah Jack: The people's beliefs were in a transition, but what was acceptable was like a switch.
Mary W Craig: Yeah. If you think about the modern day [00:22:00] laws on things like homosexuality, society had moved on from homosexuality whilst lawmakers had not. Their thinking was about 30 years behind. And social change, same-sex marriages, things like that, the lawmakers are always behind what is the societal movement of what isn't acceptable within a society.
And what we had kept onto our old pagan traditions in Scotland. We still do it today. You still throw coins in a fountain or down a wishing well. That again, it's an old pagan belief. You take metal, which is precious, you put it into water, and water is a gateway into the world of the gods. Pre-Christian, we all do it when we're on holiday. That's part of the fun. We still, you get some people who will still leave out, my grandmother would still leave out cheese and milk for the fairies that were in the wood at the back of her house, and this would be in about 1930. She was still doing that. Admittedly, most of her neighbors thought she was a bit odd, but that belief was was still with her.
Josh Hutchinson: What were [00:23:00] some factors in the high rate of witch trials and executions in Scotland?
Mary W Craig: One of the highest problems was the king. When Elizabeth I dies in 1601, and James VI of Scotland, goes down to England to become James I of Great Britain, he goes to London, cuz that's where the money's to be made, and he takes most of his court away with him. So the senior nobility all go down to London, and it leaves a power vacuum in Scotland. And that's where the Kirk of Scotland just steps into that power vacuum.
The problem was that James VI wanted a uniform faith across the whole of Britain, and he wanted to have the Episcopal faith, or the Anglican Episcopacy faith, simply because England's 10 times bigger than Scotland. It was easier to go with the majority faith. He was in London. He was in an, gonna go with the majority faith. The problem is that had a hierarchy, which included bishops, and the Church of Scotland took one look at that and [00:24:00] said, "that's Catholicism being shoved back." And so instantly they were at loggerheads.
Now, initially, James VI wasn't too stupid, so he just thought, I'll just leave the Scotch alone. His son, Charles I, comes along, wants to do the same thing, but he didn't have the same political nous as his father. So instead of leaving well alone, he decides he wants to impose this Episcopal faith onto Scotland.
At the same time, Charles has fallen out with his English parliamentarians over taxation, and he's causing bother over in Ireland. So basically you end up with the English Civil War or the War of the Three Kingdoms. So you basically got civil war going on. So because you've got a war going on, the Kirk of Scotland turned around and says, "well see, it's the Devil, it must be, because we are all good Calvinist Scots. Why would God inflict a war on us? It must be the Devil. Why is God inflicting famine on us? He wouldn't. It must be the [00:25:00] Devil." So all the external factors are pushing it to being the devil, because that's, that's your only get outta jail free card.
There is no other explanation. It's like in the 1930s in Germany, everything was a fault of the Jews. It didn't matter what, it was the fault of the Jews, because that's what people were being constantly told. It was the same thing up here, because of course, if you start to admit for one second that it might not be the devil, then maybe you have to take responsibility for yourself.
There's also the fact that in Scotland, we do have rotten weather up here. Let's be honest, it is absolutely pelting rain with me. I can see is it today, and it's supposed to be nice today. So we do have rotten weather. So if you have harvest failure and bad weather and war and famine and death, and then the 30 years religious war kicks off in the continent, and there are Catholics across in Ireland, who are coming across into Scotland and going up and causing bother with the Irish clans. The whole world is in chaos. And halfway through the century we [00:26:00] chop the king's head off. Now that's pretty serious. Your king might be mad, and your king might be bad, and your king might be mad and bad, but you don't chop his head off.
And then Scotland, we ended up, Oliver Cromwell comes up and imposed a republic on Scotland. So there were English soldiers based in Scotland. So the Scottish Covenanters say, "our only king is Jesus Christ." So they end up doing a Holy War. So in all of this chaos and confusion that you cannot control as a church, the only thing you can say for certainty is all of this is caused by the devil. And you have to believe that because if you don't, then there's nothing the church can do about the king, there's nothing the church can do about all Oliver Cromwell, they can't control the weather, they can't control the pestilence, they can't control the war in Europe, they can't control the Irish Catholics coming over. Only thing they can do is stick to their certainty, so they develop that siege mentality, and it lasts for a long time. They keep to this belief in the [00:27:00] devil and witches and witchcraft for well over 150 years because to admit anything else, then their house starts to crumble. So that's why they have fixated on that.
Sarah Jack: That was wonderful. Thanks for that very detailed explanation for that.
Mary W Craig: The 17th century was a bad century across Europe because we had the reformation in the previous century, and what you end up with in the 17th century is the counter-reformation, and you end up with the 30 years religious wars. You've got the German states fighting with each other, you've got France and Spain fighting, so there's wars all over the place.
People are jockeying for position in Europe, which is utterly terrifying. So you've got religious uncertainty and war and soldiers and famine and plague and bad weather. And you as an individual have no control. And then you go to the one person who's going to tell you what's what, and it's the minister, and they're telling you what to do.
And as I say, we had Charles I we chop [00:28:00] his head off, we ended up the protectorate. Then Oliver Cromwell dies. His son comes along, we didn't like him, we got rid of him. Charles II comes back, but oh dear, he's married to a Catholic, so we're not quite sure about him. They don't have any children. And then James VII of Scotland, or James II of Britain. We had a lot of Jameses. He comes back. Oh dear, he's a Catholic, so we don't like him, so we bump him. So we end up with Mary and William of Orange coming over from the Netherlands. So for that entire century, there is very little stable government at the time giving us anything, because it's the government that's causing half the bother. Cuz the government, whichever government, is always arguing with the church. So the only stable thing you have in Scotland is the Kirk of Scotland. Everything else is in flux all the time. And as I say, it lasts for that full century.
Josh Hutchinson: Why were women believed more likely to be witches?
Mary W Craig: Oh, there were two or three books. There was one known as the Malleus Maleficarum, [00:29:00] which was written by a chap who may have been under the name Kramer or may have been under the name Institoris. He may or may not have been a Dominican, and he was kicked about the German states in the 16th century.
There was a Witch trial in Speyer in one of the German states, and he had an argument with the bishop Speyer as to how they should conduct this trial. The bishop said, "no, it's my town. We're doing it my way." And the women there were acquitted of witchcraft. And Kramer then said, "you're an idiot. You're wrong. If you'd have done it my way, would've had them executed."
And he wrote this book called Malleus Maleficarum, Hammer of the Witches, in which he basically outlined what a witch is and what you should do about it. So women are weak, lascivious, lying, deceitful, awful creatures, and therefore, we are ready tools of the devil. A man is steadfast in his faith in the Lord. A man is very seldom going to be tempted, but we are gonna be tempted, because, well, we're [00:30:00] useless and weak and awful.
He writes terrible things, like women's bodies are weak, and you can tell they're weak because they're porous. You think, oh, you're a horrible man. They produce milk, they leak, their bodies leak, therefore their faith will leak. He uses analogies like that, a terrible book. Problem is, it was a bestseller. Everybody thought this book was brilliant. Then you come in to the later 16th century, and you've got John Knox, and John Knox writes his book against the, it's The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. And he was actually talking about people like Mary Tudor, who he thought was a disgraceful person and should never have been queen, cuz of course she's female, and she's a queen, and she's Catholic.
So he says that power is unnatural to women, and women who have power are in league with the devil. So you've got Institoris saying that we're weak, and our faith is weak, and we're terrible and awful. And then you've got John Knox saying, and any woman that's [00:31:00] got power is coming from the devil. And these books are read by all of the learned men right the way across Europe.
And then James I, James VI of Scotland, James I of England, just before he leaves Scotland, he comes back from Denmark with his wife-to-be in a boat, and a great storm is raised outside North Berwick. And somebody says, "oh, that storm was raised by witchcraft." So there's a huge witchcraft trial. James is involved, he's the king. And because Scotland was a little country, James wanted to be one of the big princes in Europe. Scotland's so little and so poor, he can't really do it with money, but he can do it by learning. So he writes a book called Demonology, all about Witches.
So if the king's writing about it, and John Knox is writing about it, and Kramer's writing about it, these three books do the rounds. And they just become the accepted norm that women are, by their nature, weak and silly and stupid [00:32:00] and, therefore, susceptible to the wiles of the devil. We'll just give in, because we're so hopeless. And in Scotland, about 85% of those who were persecuted as witches were women, about 15% were men.
Sarah Jack: And how were warlocks viewed differently?
Mary W Craig: Warlocks were slightly different, because there were men who followed the devil and became warlocks, but because they were men, they had to be in charge of the women. So you would maybe get three or four women, and the warlock would be in charge of them. So although he was awful and had renounced Christ and made a pact with the devil, he was in charge of the women. So that made sense, because men are supposed to be in charge of women. The reason the church was very upset about warlocks is that also tended to be men who were learned, so men who were themselves ex-ministers.
One of the famous ones is Major Weir in Edinburgh, who was this bowhead saint. And he would [00:33:00] give great sermons in the open air in Edinburgh at the Westport of Edinburgh. And then he actually turned out to have been a warlock all along. When he was executed, he threw his staff into the fire, and apparently it turned and made grimaces and uttered curses as the wood burned.
But yes, so they were very frightened of warlocks because that was just all worry. Even the devil was so powerful. He was now ensnaring men, where his women were just what can you expect? They're women. They're going to be easily ensnared.
Josh Hutchinson: Were the warlocks treated differently in the witch trials than the witches?
Mary W Craig: Yes. Now women couldn't speak in court. You weren't allowed to speak in court if you were a woman. But then one of the proofs of being a witch was to be deleted or named by another witch. So if I'm accused of being a witch, and I say, "I am and so is my sister," and then they bring my sister into court, I have to be able to say in court, "yes, I am naming my sister as a witch." So they changed the law so that [00:34:00] women could speak, but only to delate, to talk about another woman as a witch. But men as warlocks were allowed to speak in court.
And so women would be asked things like, "did you have sex with the devil?" Yet again, we're obsessed with sex. "What was he like?" And all these sorts of questions. And, "what did you do? And how did you serve him? And who was all there with you?" When men were accused of being a warlock, they would be asked, "why did you renounce your baptism? Why did you turn away from Christ? Why did you make a pact with the devil?"
It's almost as if women are just emotional. We don't really care about what they've been up to. But with the men, it was almost as if they were reasoning with them and saying, "do you not understand what you've done here? Come back to Christ. Do you not understand that this is wicked and awful?"
And there would be, the trials of warlocks could sometimes last for two or three days. The trials for women often lasted barely two or three hours. So it was quite different, yes, and a lot of men who were accused were [00:35:00] allowed to escape, shall we say? Or they would be held under house arrest, and they would often kill themselves, because your family could inherit your money, if you kill yourself. If you're executed as a witch or a warlock, your money is forfeit to the Kirk.
And a lot of men could actually challenge the accusation in the first place. If I accuse you of being a witch or a warlock, you would just turn around and say, "how dare you? I'm a man of good standing in this community. That, that Mary's outrageous. She's accused me of being a witch." And I could often be arrested for slander. So a man could often talk the accusation down at that very early stage. So that's why, there are a few, and there are a few men who went to trial and were acquitted, because they either talked themselves out of it, or they got a couple of good lawyers in there to say, "for goodness sake, this is a chap of good standing, and why we're listening to the gossip of women? Of course he's not a warlock." So the acquittal rate for men was a lot higher than women.
We also have in Scotland the not proven verdict, and we still have it in Scots law. Now, not proven doesn't mean you're innocent, [00:36:00] and it doesn't mean you're guilty. It just means that the crown has not proved its case against you. And so there are a few cases of not proven verdicts in witchcraft trials, and that tended to be for men. Men would get a not proven verdict, and if you're not proven, you're not sent to prison, you cannot be punished, because the case against you has not been proven. There are constant arguments under Scots law, whenever anybody's found not proven these days, as to whether or not we should abolish it.
Josh Hutchinson: What was the penalty for witchcraft in Scotland?
Mary W Craig: To be worriet, strangled to death, and then your dead body burnt. If you were extremely lucky, you might, in the earliest part of the century, and in the 16th century, you might get away with being branded, fined, and exiled. Oh, there are very few guilty verdicts that did not end up in an execution. And for women it was always execution after the guilty verdict, every time. Yep. And as I say, in the case of the people's [00:37:00] trial, that was 24 people executed on one day.
And of course, everybody had to come out to watch. The minister wanted everybody to see what happened to witches. The devil didn't come down and save them in the end. The devil was a lying master that if you follow the devil, this is what happens to you.
And oftentimes, if it's in some of the smaller towns, there was no public executioner. So it might be somebody like the local blacksmith, because he was a big strong lad, and he might be the one that had to, often they would put a noose around the neck and slip a little bit of wood in, and they would turn the piece of wood to strangle someone. And that's, you're having to do that face to face with somebody. It takes a long time to strangle somebody. And if it's in a small town, the chances are that blacksmith's gonna know the people that he's executing. So it was traumatic, I would think, for them afterwards to think, especially if there had been any doubt, if perhaps somebody just got caught up in it, a name was uttered, or somebody had fallen out with someone, but that was it. [00:38:00] There was no get out. Once that guilty verdict was in, you were executed, usually within a day or two days.
Sarah Jack: In your book, you noted that the people were not just expected to be there. If you weren't there observing, that was really bad for your reputation.
Mary W Craig: Oh yes. The minister would notice. You had to have a very good reason to not be there and have your children there as well. Why aren't you there? Why aren't you seeing? Because executing a witch was God's work. So, "why are you not there to witness it? Why are you hiding in your house? What have you got to hide? Were you a friend of the Witch? Are you a Witch yourself?" Yes, it would be noted if you didn't, if you didn't turn up, you didn't get there. "Why are you not watching what's going on? Why are you not showing your children, your three and four year old children? Why are you not showing them this gruesome scene to say to them, 'this is what happens?'"
Yes, you had to be there, and ministers would take note of it. And these were the sorts of things that could build to a bad reputation. So that, [00:39:00] 10 years down the line, another accusation is made, and your name might be on the list, and the minister thinks, "oh yeah, they didn't turn up that execution the last time. Yeah. They've not been to the kirk a couple of Sundays in a row without a good reason. Yeah, I'm gonna keep an eye on them." So that bad reputation can follow you about. We have situations where there are people caught up in an accusation, don't make it to court, but then 10 years down the line, the fact that they were previously investigated is brought up as part of the evidence against them.
Josh Hutchinson: And why did they burn the bodies?
Mary W Craig: It was so that there was nothing left, absolutely nothing left, because you had denied your faith, and your faith is everything. You denied that. Then you are nothing. And so the body would be burnt, and it takes a long time to burn the body. It's not like today, if you have somebody who's cremated, it's done very clinically and very safely and very respectfully and, you know, in a[00:40:00] proper sort of manner. If you're talking about Scotland this time of the year, it has rained today all day. Body could take three or four days to burn, and it's burning in a public place. It's maybe burning in the marketplace where you go to buy your bread every morning, and there is a body still burning, still burning. And then, eventually, there's nothing left, or if there is anything left, if there are a pile of ashes left, they're usually thrown into water, and the water will take 'em away. Partly because it's cleansing like a baptism, and partly the fact that it physically takes them away.
Sarah Jack: And where did the methods originate of killing and burning the witch?
Mary W Craig: Initially, if you'd done a terrible crime, if you committed a murder, you'd be executed. And usually people were hanged in Scotland. We didn't tend to burn people alive. They did in some of the Catholic countries, but that was because witchcraft to them was mixed in with heresy and burning alive was a particular punishment for heresy. We tended to hang people. Occasionally you got your head [00:41:00] chopped off, but that was slightly different. That tended to happen up in Highlands a little bit more. But anyway, Lowland Scotland tended to hang people. But because you were then gonna burn the body to get rid of the body as well, because you don't want anything of the Witch left, it was a practical thing.
If you have to build a gallows and then hang somebody, and then take a body down and then put it onto a pyre to burn it, that's a lot more work. And so if you just build a pyre and have a stake and tie someone to the stake, strangle them there and then burn them, it was purely a practical method. In some areas, people were burned inside tar barrels to make sure they couldn't escape at the last minute, although the Church of Scotland didn't quite like that, so that was too much like superstition.
But it was a purely practical reason, especially if you're gonna execute 24 people in one day. That's a lot of gallows to have to construct and then take down, because often witches weren't executed in a local place of execution. So you might have a big town, and you would have a place of execution for those who were guilty of [00:42:00] murder or rape or something horrible like that. Witches weren't executed there, because they weren't even supposed to be executed alongside ordinary criminals. Cause ordinary criminals were bad, but they hadn't denied Christ. So they were separate, even in their execution and even in their death, they were separate.
Sarah Jack: And these witches didn't say they denied Christ. They just had, because they were a witch.
Mary W Craig: Yeah. Oh, all of them were Christian. They were absolutely Christian. And you can hear it if you read through, the best thing I always find with the confessions is to actually read them out loud. And you can hear these women, especially the early part of the century, they're genuinely confused as to what it is they're supposed to have done, because they're not doing anything that their mother and their grandmother didn't do before them.
They went out, and they got herbs to, to help heal a child, and they said a little charm. What had this got to do with the devil? They didn't understand, and [00:43:00] occasionally they might say things like, "I met the man in the black hat." They meant a supernatural creature with a black hat. They did not mean the Devil, and they couldn't, you can hear the fact that it's almost as if the ministers and the interrogators are saying one thing, and the woman is saying another. It's like ships that pass in the night, they're just not understanding.
There are some really poignant ones where people say things like, "can I be a witch and not know it?" They were genuinely confused by what was going on. It was only as the trials continued, and by the time you got to about 1649, then a lot of people are absolutely shutting up and they're saying nothing.
They're saying absolutely nothing because they know that it doesn't matter what they say, it's gonna be turned. Now, the interrogators tended to be the minister and tended to be led by the minister. They would ask what today we would say would be leading questions, but what they would say is they wouldn't say to you, "did you meet the devil?" Cuz you're gonna say no to that. What they'll say is, "when you met the devil, who else was there with you?" [00:44:00] You said, "but I didn't meet the devil." "When you met the man in the black hat, was your sister with you? Was your mother with you? Was your daughter with you?" And so they would ask questions in a way to get the women to incriminate themselves, although they didn't really understand, and as I said, but later in this century, people understood and people were saying nothing. And that's when they start to use things like walking and watching and waking. And keeping people awake for days and days on end to get them into that mindset where they're gonna confess to anything.
Josh Hutchinson: You've talked about several methods that they used to test the witches. Were there others?
Mary W Craig: There were the four proofs. The first proof was having a really bad reputation or a reputation of doing bad things. One was to be called a witch by another confessing witch. One was to confess to being a witch, and that was usually done, they would keep you awake for days on end and be badgering you the whole time, "you're a disgrace to your family. You're a disgrace to your friends." And eventually you give in.
They would hold lighted candles to your feet. They would string you up by your thumbs. They would break [00:45:00] your arms, things like that. They would beat you to make you confess.
The other one was the Devil's mark. Cuz it was thought that the devil laid his hands on you and it's a parody of Christ. And because he was unnatural, he would leave a mark on you that was unnatural. And then a witch pricker or a witch brodder would arrive with a pin maybe about five centimeters long, and he would put that into your shoulders or your neck or your head on say, a mole or a freckle. And if you didn't cry out or it didn't bleed, that proved you had the devil's mark. And of course, acupuncture today, there are points in the body you can put a pin in. Often they would just keep on pricking somebody until they found point that didn't bleed.
You could be called a Witch by another Witch. If you had marks on your body, and that goes back to biblical times where you're talking about people being leprous with sin, and so if you were a sinful person, if you'd gone to the devil, there would be marks on you.
But it was mostly by keeping you awake and constantly talking at you the whole time. That was the main method [00:46:00] that was used against you.
Sarah Jack: It just amazes me that they survived everything to even get to the execution. It just seems like it was so harsh.
Mary W Craig: Yeah. I'm surprised at those who didn't confess, I'm genuinely surprised that those that didn't confess at all. And there were some who absolutely to the end said, "no, I'm not gonna confess." There were a lot of people who confessed and then at trial or just before the trial retracted their confession, and they said, "I confessed because of the torture I was put under."
You weren't allowed to be interrogated if you were under the age of 10, but we know that happened. You weren't allowed to be interrogated if you were what was known as addled in your wits, if you're mentally incompetent. But again, we know that happened. There were people who were put on trial who were quite obviously mentally incapable, and yet the local kirk minister said, "no, I want them sent to trial, and if they're mad, it's their own fault. That's what happens if you [00:47:00] hang about the devil, and anyway, they're probably faking it." And it didn't matter if your family said, " granny's been a bit wandered for years" or even if you had a doctor to say, "this person is mentally incompetent." The kirk minister should, by sheer force of personality, just say, "no, I want them brought to trial." And they were brought to trial.
But as I say, some of the confessions are so poignant. They're sort of little things like, "I left out milk for the fairies." That's it, you're witch. Or, "I was taking care of my neighbor's little boy, and I said a little rhyme over him to help him soothe him to, to sleep," which every mother and father has done that. You sing a little nursery rhyme to help your little one, if you've got a fever. That now becomes a diabolical act. It's so poignant when you read what they're actually accused of doing. But underpinning all of that, as far as the kirk was concerned, was this obsession that they had made a pact with the devil.
Josh Hutchinson: What drew you [00:48:00] to write a book about Agnes Finnie?
Mary W Craig: Oh, I wrote the book about Agnes Finnie, because I've been interested in the Witches and witchcraft for ages and ages, and the reason I'm write, I'm writing the book on Agnes Finnie, is because she doesn't fit the stereotype. She's not a nice, cute little old lady living in a cottage. She's not gathering her to take care of her neighbors. She's a nasty so-and-so. She lives in a tenement slum. She's a shopkeeper selling dodgy goods. She's a money-lender.
And it's very easy to be sympathetic to a sweet, gray-haired old granny who's gathering herbs in the countryside and who is persecuted by the church. And we all think that's terrible and awful and shouldn't have happened. It's much more difficult to be sympathetic to somebody who's not a sympathetic character, but Agnes Finnie, for all she was a nasty piece of work and for all she was quite an unpleasant person, was still deserving of justice. The law should not have treated her the way it did.
[00:49:00] And that's why I wrote about her. And also the fact that she was in the city and the book, just what life was like if you were poor. In the city of Edinburgh at that time, Agnes Finnie, is living in a place called Potterrow Port, which is, it's no longer there, but it's one of the high tenements in Edinburgh. So there's no sanitation, there's no running water, it's dark at night, it's freezing cold. Everybody's drinking as if there's no tomorrow, because the lives are so miserable.
At the same time as Agnes is alive, King Charles I has a camel, which he keeps at Corstorphine, which is the west end of Edinburgh. And this camel goes out for a walk every day, except for a Sunday, cuz it's a good Christian camel, it rests on a Sunday. And you can pay sixpence to go and see the camel. Camel has got a groom, and it's got heated stables, and it's got the best of food, and it's being fed, I dunno, sugar lumps and all sorts. And once a month, the keeper of the royal camel writes a report on how the camel's doing and [00:50:00] sends that to Charles I, and he reads this. He's not getting a report on how the poor people are living in the tenement where Agnes is. He doesn't care about them, who are starving and freezing and drinking alcohol that they've made themselves, because there's nothing else they can do to get through the day.
So that's why I wrote about Agnes, partly to say everybody's deserving of justice, nasty or otherwise, but also the fact that the king cares about his camel, but doesn't care about the poor. This is the century in which witches were living or alleged witches were living.
Sarah Jack: And what was like the population, and how many people were living like Agnes?
Mary W Craig: That's difficult to say, because not everybody was registered. You might get a tenement that had eight alleged houses in it, but you might have people who were so poor that when their husband went to work in the morning, they would get a lodger coming in off the night shift to sleep in their husband's bed. You had people sleeping in the back stairs of [00:51:00] tenements, because that was all they had. That was the problem. Nobody quite knew how many people were there.
The conditions were so bad that 50% of all children never made it to their fifth birthday. You go to Edinburgh today and you've got the amazing guides that'll take you down the old town in Edinburgh, and they talk about gardylooing. It's all done as a joke and a laugh, and everybody laughs about it. They were basically throwing excrement out of windows, and that's how people lived. There was no light. There was no heat. There was lice and fleas and cockroaches and rats. This was the life that King Charles I's subjects were living whilst his camel on the west end of the city is being fed sugar lumps.
Josh Hutchinson: So why did you choose to write a book about one particular individual after the borders witches was many trials and many people, so why focus on just one?
Mary W Craig: I wanted to focus in on one person's life to look at the ordinary life of the person in a bit more detail. And I went [00:52:00] through the records with the National Archives and the National Library in Scotland, and I was fortunate enough to find Agnes Finnie's entire trial records. So that allowed me to look at that in some detail, but also the fact that she lived just at the outbreak of the Scottish Civil War and the chaos and what is sort of throughout that because of the rising tension all the time. And we've got the wars going on in Ukraine and Russia at the moment. There's a war over there, but it's far away. We hear about it on the news, but it doesn't affect us on a daily basis.
The war was right there in Edinburgh. Young men were getting called up. You might just be an ordinary person. All of a sudden your son has to go to fight either for the king or against the king. There were roving gangs around the city, armed men in the city. So there's all sorts of things bubbling up, and the fact that I could focus in on this one individual and see what her life was like and how she starts off just as a shopkeeper, maybe doing a little bit of money-lending, all the way up to the time when [00:53:00] she's arrested, where there are 20 accusations of witchcraft being laid against her by her neighbors.
So I was able to look at it in a lot more sort of microscopic detail of one individual and how that came to pass.
Sarah Jack: I was thinking how you probably just saw her coming, like who she was,, coming together before you because of all of your extensive research and your expertise on all of these things you're talking about. And then you find her and all these records. I'm sure she just jumped right out at you.
Mary W Craig: Yeah. And the fact that she wasn't in a little cottage and she wasn't a sweet little old lady, because that would've been a very different book, because from page one, everybody would've gone, "oh, that's a shame. Poor, sweet, little old lady, what's the big bad church gonna do?" Whereas this is, "okay, Agnes, oh I see. You're like that. Are you?" And that's the challenge. The challenge of this is the reality.
I'm not saying that Agnes was a horrible person, because she was horrible. I'm saying that she wasn't a nice person, [00:54:00] but she wasn't living in a nice time. She was trying to cope the best she could. And of course she had all of the, she's a woman on her own, she's a widow, and women are only supposed to do certain things and act in certain ways. So that drew me to her because, she's trying to struggle through and do the best she can, but because she was that slightly more unpleasant character, she was much more fascinating than a sweet, little old lady.
Sarah Jack: Why was she chosen to be an accused?
Mary W Craig: She was accused, she was finally accused by her neighbors. Her neighbors went to the minister and complained about her. And then when the minister started to investigate, he ended up with these 20 accusations going back years and years.
So there were neighbors saying things like, "I had an argument with her and she made me go lame" or, "I had an argument with her and she blinded my husband." And all of these accusations then start to come out, and Agnes ends up arrested and sent to trial. So it's a sort of accumulation of different things that had happened, [00:55:00] because at one point, she's known in the neighborhood as a witch.
They know she's a witch. There's a couple called the Buchanans, and they go to her when they're little boy is unwell. And you think, why else are they going to the witch? I mean, Agnes is known to be a bad tempered so-and-so. Why are they going to this woman to try and help the little boy?
Because there was nowhere else for them to go. They're poor. They can't afford a doctor. There's no doctor going down to the tenements. The minister from the Kirk doesn't even go down to the tenements. They're basically a little world on their own in a little squallid corner of Edinburgh. They're in the capital city, and yet they're living a miserable life, and they have nothing else to do but go to Agnes. You think why would anybody borrow money from her if she's so horrible? Where else can they go? They can't go to a bank. They haven't got anywhere else to go.
The only person they can go to is Agnes, because they're all living life on the edge. One bad day, you fall over and break your leg. You can't work, you can't pay your rent, you're [00:56:00] put out your house. You try living on the streets in a Scottish winter, you're gonna die. Witch she might have been, bad tempered so-and-so she might have been, but there was nobody else for these people to go until finally they've had enough of her temper. And also finally, the fear of the witch tips the balance against the usefulness that she has, because of the rising tension of the war. And so all these things come together, and eventually they've had enough, and they go to the minister.
Josh Hutchinson: And what was the evidence used against her?
Mary W Craig: The evidence against her was what you and I would probably just think of as the accusation. So somebody would say, "I had an argument with her in the street. She yelled at me, "I'll send you halting hame." And I developed a limp. And as far as the court, as far as the minister was concerned, that was proof positive. And if the minister says so, then the court just agrees. So it was actually just the accusation.
I [00:57:00] think in Agnes's case, because there were so many of these accusations, it just piled up and piled and piled up. But interestingly, the jury took a long time to find her guilty. It took a long time. You'd expect with 20 odd accusations that they would've said guilty straight away. Now, they took a good few weeks to think about it and think about whether or not Agnes was guilty, but I think it was just accumulation. As I say, in the vast majority of witchcraft trials, there was no proof, because how can you prove something like a spell? It's very difficult to prove a spell.
You can say, "we asked Agnes to take care of our little boy, and then our little boy died." But how do you prove that Agnes killed the child? You could say, "Agnes yelled at my father, and then he had a stroke." But how do you actually prove that? Yeah, the link between cause and effect was very tenuous then, but it was enough because you had power from the devil. Then that gave you the power to lame someone [00:58:00] or blind someone.
Sarah Jack: Was Agnes executed?
Mary W Craig: She was, yes. If you're ever in Edinburgh, going up just before you hit the castle esplanade on the right hand side, you'll see the Witches' Well. And that's where the witches were executed in Edinburgh. So yes, she was executed.
Sarah Jack: Was she executed alongside other witches that day?
Mary W Craig: No. She was executed on her own, and interestingly, her daughter was not. And yet within the accusations, the 20 accusations, her daughter was named as a witch as well. And yet she was not executed, which is a curious point.
When I looked at the sort of aftermath of her trial, what was interesting was that the minister, who had never gone near the Potterrow in his time as a minister, nothing was ever said against him. Nobody said to him, "why did you not know about this witch?" Nothing was said. And he thereafter never went down to Potterrow. The local bailey, who was like the police officer for the beat, they said to him, "why did you [00:59:00] never see any of this happening?" Nobody said anything to him, and he just continued to be the police officer on the beat. They didn't do anything. No doctor went down to Potterrow. It was a case of, "we've found your witch, we've executed your witch. Now go back to your slum, because we don't care about you." And that's what happened. They were just left to continue living in the slum. That was a Potterrow.
Josh Hutchinson: What do you want people to take away from your book?
Mary W Craig: To understand that everybody deserves justice no matter what personality they have. Sometimes we should look at the way people live. We think of Edinburgh as the capital city of Scotland and oh, it's wonderful and oh, it's fantastic. It's got its poor areas well, and everywhere does. And to look at the trial and think about the difference, look at what is cause and effect, what is just an accusation, and look at the way the law is used and can be [01:00:00] abused by some people.
Sarah Jack: Will the story of Agnes help the cause of pardoning and memorializing the witch trial victims in Scotland? Is that something you support?
Mary W Craig: I think it might help towards the pardon. The pardon is being run by Claire Madison Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi. And Claire is a KC, she's a King's Counsel. In the appellate court, she deals with appeals and miscarriages of justice. And that's why she's interested in this. And I think looking at the way the law is used and abused and looking at the fact that you have to have proof, proper proof to convict somebody of any crime, and that's what was lacking in the witchcraft trials.
I understand the religious belief in the Devil. I understand the theological knot that the Kirk of Scotland got itself tied into with this Calvinist predestination, but to then take that theological [01:01:00] argument and get the secular authorities and get the law to use it, that was what was wrong. And that's why we need the pardon today.
We don't do exonerations in Scotland, but we need to pardon these women and men for what happened to them under the law and to use it as an example of us always keeping an eye on the law and making sure that the law and the justice system is kept out of the hands of people like the Kirk of Scotland and kept out of the hands of politicians. It should stand alone that if you are accused of something, you go to trial, you have a fair trial. That's, what's it? It's nobody else's business. It's not politicians, not the religious people, nobody else. Let the law be the law, and let faith be faith. So I think that's something that's really important.
And as I say, we have had an apology from the Kirk of Scotland. I think the pardon would be a good idea, because it would again strengthen that. And then what we're looking for is a national [01:02:00] memorial, as well as lots of people are putting up small local memorials. But I think a national memorial. And I personally would also like this part of Scottish history to be taught in our schools. We quite rightly teach the children in Scotland about her our involvement in slave trade. This, to me, stands alongside that. It's a very dark part of our past. It's not something we should be proud of, but it's something we should teach and learn from.
Josh Hutchinson: I agree a hundred percent with what you've said. We're working on exonerating the accused in Connecticut and hopefully memorializing and getting some more education about that. Even though there were much fewer in number than Scotland, we still feel that they're important.
Mary W Craig: Oh yes. One is one too many. Absolutely, yes. Especially when you look at the ages of some of them. Some of these, it was right across the age range, and as I say, every one of them had a family, [01:03:00] had friends, had communities ripped apart by this constant fear, so yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Jack: We really see the parallels in the history in what's happening in Scotland with the pardoning, what needs to happen in the state of Connecticut. It's all part of a very big message, educational message. And thanks for talking about this stuff with us. I want all of these, Agnes and others, to be known so that what you're saying of the changes that need to happen can happen based on the injustices that we know and that we see now.
Mary W Craig: One of the other reasons why I think we need to talk about apologies and pardons and memorials is the fact that there are still people today who are killed as witches. It's still happening to this day, and that is something. You can believe anything you want, but you can't [01:04:00] use that belief to persecute another individual. And that's a really strong message that I think we still need to get across because there are still women and men today being executed as witches around the world.
Josh Hutchinson: We've recently spoke with an activist from South Africa, and he explained the situation there, and it's really eye-opening. There's so many people that are still tortured and killed.
Mary W Craig: Was that Leo Igwe?
Josh Hutchinson: This was Damon Leff that we spoke with. We're hoping to speak with Leo pretty soon.
Mary W Craig: Leo's excellent. That's the saddest part is the fact that we, we're 400 years on and it's still happening, so human beings can be so nice and so fantastic and so wonderful to each other. And we can produce amazing things like, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and the Mona Lisa. And yet we can equally be absolutely awful to one another, and we need to recognize that part of our personality and guard [01:05:00] against it whenever we can.
Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything that we could do to stop hunting witches in the present day?
Mary W Craig: That's a difficult one, because the witch hunts that are happening today have different roots. So a lot of the ones in Africa are rooted in evangelical church, so it's coming from Christian belief. But there are witchcraft trials in places like Nepal and Saudi Arabia, countries like that, where it's not coming from a Christian perspective. So I'm not sure what their concept of witchcraft is.
I think it's a case of talking about it, keeping it in a public domain, getting it recognized as what it is, which is terror. And speaking to people like Leo Igwe, speaking to campaigners who are working in these actual countries and finding out what's going on there. I'm currently researching a book about colonial India and the witchcraft [01:06:00] trials that took place there under British rule and the parallels that are still happening in some of the Indian states today.
So it's difficult to pick apart exactly what's meant by witchcraft and Witches in some of these areas, but it's speaking to local campaigners and making sure it's on the internet, it's on social media, it's in the news. I think that's what those of us here can do about it.
Josh Hutchinson: One of the things that we're starting to do, we're trying to speak with Leo and Damon and those kinds of people who are on the ground in those nations and know what's going on and get their voices on our podcast. And we find every day stories of these atrocities happening in so many countries, and we share those on social media and try to get the word out the best that we can, and so far that's the thing that we're able to [01:07:00] do.
Sarah Jack: It feels like there should be more to say about that, because it's such a huge, the scope is so wide, but I don't know. It's also silencing when you think about it.
Mary W Craig: I think the problem is the fact that most people, certainly in Scotland, think, "oh, we did it then, and it's all over." And then you'll say, "and there are witchcraft trials happening today" or, "there are witch executions happening today." And people say, they don't know, quite know what to say, because we think of it in the past, I almost liken it to modern day slavery, because up until, I would say 10 years ago, I would reckon most people in Britain thought that slavery was over and done with, was over and done with over 150 years ago.
And it's taken a long time for people in Britain to understand about modern slavery and what that means. For a long time people thought, "oh no, but we abolished the slave trade. There isn't any slavery anymore." And then you discover that the young lady in the nail salon that you go to [01:08:00] might be a modern day slave or the lad that's washing your car.
And that took a long time for people to get that understanding. And I think it's the same with modern witch persecutions. I think is gonna take a bit of time for people to accept it. And then once they say, "oh yes, that is still happening. And so we need to put a stop to that, we need to stop that."
In a way it's quite tied together. It's persecution of people who can't stand up for themselves, because of poverty and or ignorance or political unrest in their home countries. And they are then very quickly victimized, and they could be victimized as a witch, or you could end up being a slave doing my nails in the local salon or something. All of these things are quite interlinked now. So raising the profile and making people understand that it is still happening. Yeah, it's a big, it's a big thing to do, but it's something I think we all should be doing.
Sarah Jack: I'm really hopeful that these messages that we're starting to pull together are [01:09:00] going to just keep reaching more ears and those people are gonna talk about it, too. But there's a parallel, too, with the family of the victims. When I asked about descendants in Scotland, and they didn't want to be connected to those who had been executed. I think in some of the nations today that are having witch attacks, they have to also find a way to carry on in the aftermath and not also be attacked because their grandmother was or their cousin was.
Josh Hutchinson: It was a real eye-opening discussion and very important discussion, and you spoke eloquently to the problems that are still going on today and why it's important to memorialize and pardon. And I want to thank you for that. And thank you for being our guest.
Sarah Jack: I'm really looking forward to getting to know Agnes Finnie.
Mary W Craig: It will be available as a [01:10:00] paperback, hardback, and also in a Kindle version on Amazon, or you can get it direct from the publishing house, Luath Press.
Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with another update on Witch. Hunts happening in modern times.
Sarah Jack: Here is End Witch Hunts World Advocacy News.
As you just heard from Mary Craig, Scotland is actively attending to the damage the witch trials brought to their ancestors. Activists are seeking justice for the innocent people accused and convicted under the Witchcraft Act of 1563. As you learned, there is much to make amends for, as much as can be done.
Many individuals and groups have collaborated over recent years to build an effective campaign across the country of Scotland. This effort can heal the massive trauma from their alleged witch executions and trials. Today I want to briefly catch you up on their official progress and point you to the sources of information.
The Scottish Parliament established a precedent of pardoning convictions of innocent past [01:11:00] individuals when it passed the Historical Sexual Offences (Pardons and Disregards) Act of 2018. Recognizing this precedent, King's Counsel Claire Mitchell submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament for the pardoning of Scotland Witches. She states, "history still records these people as convicted witches -- justice demands that this is put right. History should properly reflect what these people were -- innocent, vulnerable people, caught up in a time where allegations of witchcraft were widespread and deadly."
This petition has a strong message, and it's being heard. Two official apologies have been declared to Scotland from within its leadership this year. First, on International Women's Day, March 8th, 2022, the Scottish First Minister on behalf of the Scottish Government issued a formal apology stating, "I am choosing to acknowledge that egregious historic injustice and extend a formal posthumous apology to all of those accused, convicted, vilified, or executed under [01:12:00] the Witchcraft Act of 1563." The second apology occurred at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, when a unanimous motion was accepted based on a report by its theological forum to apologize for its role in the murders of thousands of people, mostly women, who were accused of witchcraft between the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.
Following these landmark apology statements by the Scottish government and the Church of Scotland, Member of Scottish Parliament Natalie Don submitted a member's proposal for a bill requesting a formal pardon, stating, "to build the fairer, more equal, and forward thinking Scotland that we all want to see, we must address the historic abuses of our past. Under the Witchcraft Act of 1563, an estimated 3,837 people were accused of witchcraft in Scotland, with approximately 2,500, executed between 1563 and 1736."
As Claire Mitchell so clearly pointed out in her petition, Scotland's victims were caught up in a [01:13:00] time where allegations of witchcraft were widespread and deadly. The world today must admit that thousands of living alleged witches are caught up now in a time where allegations of witchcraft are widespread and deadly. The deadly time is still here. It's called today. Actions must be taken to intervene for alleged witches in Africa and the Asian Pacific that are being attacked, tortured, and killed in this deadly time.
Can you accept that witch hunt thinking has not ended? It has not disappeared, it has not stopped. These strongly-held fears must be addressed and stopped immediately. While we watch and wait, let's support the victims across the world. Use your social power to help them support them by acknowledging and sharing their.
Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our End Witch Hunts movement on Twitter @_endwitchhunts and visit our website at endwitchhunts.org.
End Witch Hunts movement and Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast support the [01:14:00] worldwide movement to recognize and address historical wrongs.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for that informative news segment, Sarah.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Like, subscribe, or follow wherever you get your podcast.
Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell all the people in your life about our show.
Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end modern witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.Org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:15:00]

December 22, 2022

Marion Gibson on The Witches of St. Osyth

List of books authored by Dr. Marion Gibson

Show Notes

Presenting a dynamic witch trial history interview with historian and accomplished author Dr. Marion Gibson. We discuss her new book release “The Witches of St. Osyth” available next Thursday, December 22, 2022. It uncovers the story of a witch trial in Elizabethan England in St. Osyth. Get the preview scoop this week and read it next week! We continue the conversation with a hearty inquiry of our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links:

Order book, Witches of St. Osyth by Dr. Marion Gibson

The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Reginald Scot

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Leo Igwe, AfAW

Advocacy Against Witch Hunts, South Africa

End Witch Hunt Projects

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Transcript

[00:00:00]
Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to an exciting episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we have the privilege of speaking with Marion Gibson about her new book, The Witches of St. Osyth.
Sarah Jack: I'm excited about this one, because it's another close look at a community that went through witch hunts.
Josh Hutchinson: Yes, we talk about the community of St. Osyth. We talk about the approximately 20 people who were accused there.
Sarah Jack: This community was going through a lot of change, and [00:01:00] they also believed in magic.
Josh Hutchinson: They did. We know about these witch trials from a pamphlet written by a mysterious W. W. but based on the accounts of one Brian Darcy, who was the chief prosecutor and interrogator. He was the powerful person in the area. He became the sheriff later. He produced the pamphlet possibly out of his own self-interest to promote himself as the tough on crime figure of the day.
Sarah Jack: Yes, he was very proud of his severe actions towards anyone that could be an enemy of God, these witches.
Josh Hutchinson: So we talk about him. We also talk about the victims, the accused, and we talk about their [00:02:00] accusers.
Sarah Jack: We learn about the good and the bad magic that they had in their culture.
Josh Hutchinson: And we talk about their familiar spirits, these animal-like creatures that could be summoned and kept almost like pets in baskets of wool and used at the witch's discretion to go out and afflict people.
Sarah Jack: And as always, you'll hear us talk about why we should care about these individuals and these stories, and hear us discuss what we can learn from what they went through and why it matters now.
Josh Hutchinson: We learn about not treating people as the Other, not labeling and treating people like they're outsiders within their own community. We learn about how we can be good to people today [00:03:00] and avoid these types of behaviors that lead to witch-hunts of various types.
We learn about these people from the late 16th century, and the thing that we learn is that they're just like us. They have the same emotions, the same motivations, the same fears, and those fears led them astray into a terrible tragedy. And so we discuss how we can avoid making those same errors.
Sarah Jack: Josh, I hear you've got some interesting history for us today.
Josh Hutchinson: During our research, we encountered a book with a fantastic title. We read excerpts from a book by one Reginald Scot written in 1584. He was a skeptic about witch trials and[00:04:00] some of this in response to Brian Darcy's pamphlet and the trials of the Witches at St. Osyth.
But his book is titled The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notablie detected, the knaverie of conjurors, the impietie of inchantors, the follie of soothsaiers, the impudent falsehood of cousenors, the infidelitie of atheists, the prestilent practises of Pythonists, the curiositie of figurecasters, the vanitie of dreamers, the beggarlie art of Alcumystrie, the abomination of idolatrie, the horrible art of poisoning, the vertue and power of naturall magicke, and all the conveiances of legierdemaine and juggling are deciphered: and many other things opened, which have long lien hidden, howbeit verie [00:05:00] necessarie to be known.
That is some wordy title. It's the whole table of contents in a title, and though this was a common practice at the time, this is one of my favorite titles that I've come across from this period of writing. I love the way he lists all the different types of magical practices at the time with their various names and descriptions. I love his pestilent practices of Pythonists. Great alliteration. Great job naming this book, Reginald.
Sarah Jack: It's so fantastic, and it leaves you with more to research just after listening to the title.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. What do these things mean? What are Pythonists? What are figurecasters? What is [00:06:00] cousening? You could find out if you read Marion Gibson's book, Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550 to 1750.
Sarah Jack: Thank you for that great history, Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome.
Sarah Jack: And now it is my pleasure to introduce Marion Gibson, author of Witchcraft in Society in England and America, 1550 to 1750, Witchcraft Myths in American Culture, Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing, and many more books, and next, The Witches of St. Osyth.
Josh Hutchinson: When was witchcraft outlawed in England?
Marion Gibson: That is a good question. And it had clearly been going on a long time before it was outlawed, so I, it's important to say that it's quite a long tradition of people practicing magic there. The first law against it was 1542, so we're looking at the reign of Henry VIII. He's thinking about people [00:07:00] practicing magic, potentially round the peripheries of his court.
You might remember that his queen, Ann Boleyn, was accused of witchcraft as part of her fall from grace and eventual execution. So he's thinking about those kind of things, and a law is brought in, but it doesn't seem to be applied very widely, and it just disappears. So in the 1560s, specifically 1563, his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I brings in an act against witchcraft and the practice of witchcraft, and then it remains illegal until the 1730s.
There's another act in 1604, King James VI of Scotland, I of England, has a witchcraft act, too. I guess for practical purposes, if you wanted to talk about the period where witch trials really start, you'd probably say the 1563 Act is the one to look at.
Sarah Jack: And as the laws progressed, what were the differences between those laws?
Marion Gibson: So the [00:08:00] 1563 one, which is the important one, I think, was an act which did condemn people to death, if they were found to be guilty of witchcraft, but only if they had killed someone. So if it was thought to be a really serious crime, if they were essentially a murderer, they would be executed. They'd be executed by hanging, rather than burning, as was true in some other jurisdictions.
But you could also be imprisoned, if you were found guilty of a lesser offense under that 1563 act. You might be imprisoned for a year, which was a bit more merciful. I mean, the prisons weren't great. You were quite likely to die of jail fever, or, at the very least, have an absolutely horrible time in an Elizabeth in prison and be kept in vile conditions and so on. But it was at least a better punishment than being hanged.
And four times a year, you would be taken outta the prison, and you would be carted around the local market towns and put in the stocks, and you'd have to do penance, essentially, for your crime. And people would come and jeer and throw [00:09:00] stuff at you. You'd get to go out four times a year, but it will be a horrible experience. We do know people survived it. We also know some convicted witches who were sent to prison and died there. So that was the first round of punishments that they devised under that 1563 act.
In 1604, things get worse. So the the third, if you like, witchcraft act of that series prescribed death for more or less anything. So the imprisonment option is much less favored, and James is thinking a lot more about witchcraft as a religious crime, as a crime, which is to do with devil worship and crimes against the state, as well as against neighbors, and so on.
And you also could be executed if you were thought to have fed a familiar spirit or covenanted with the devil, so certain kinds of, if you like, thought crime or crimes of imagination, which were short of actually killing your neighbors. So things get worse under the 1604 act.
Those are really the two [00:10:00] main ones. And then, in 1736, witchcraft is decriminalized. So you can still be, you can still be taken to court for saying that you are a witch, but you'll be judged as somebody who's a fraud or a charlatan. Somebody who's doing it because they want to make money. So you are actually stealing money from people by saying, aha, I can tell your fortune. From that point of view, that is, again, a better outcome. You will not be executed, you'll be essentially convicted of a kind of fraud. And by the 1730s, things have got a great deal better for people who might previously have been accused of witchcraft and executed, therefore.
Sarah Jack: Thank you so much.
Josh Hutchinson: So why did they change the law in 1604?
Marion Gibson: There are a number of explanations that people have come up with. Unfortunately, nobody wrote down exactly why they wanted to do it. It would be lovely, wouldn't it, if it was a nice rationale? There isn't, but one of the things that might have had impact on that is King James's own brush with witchcraft.
He's king of Scotland before he's [00:11:00] king of England and Scotland, and when he's only king of Scotland in the 1590s, he feels that he has been bewitched himself. So he thinks that when he's about to marry his Queen, Princess Anna of Denmark, that somebody who's trying to interfere with that marriage and that they're trying to stop her coming over the sea from Denmark, and that they're trying to stop the marriage being consummated and him producing heirs, therefore, and that they're trying to depose him and replace him with one of his courtiers, his cousins, the Earl of Bothwell.
So his personal experience seems to be quite important in his desire to tighten the laws against witchcraft. There might also be other factors. I The king doesn't bring in laws by himself. He has to work with his parliament. He has to work with counselors. It may be that there's a feeling that, generally, the problem of witchcraft is getting worse, but it does seem to be, at least partly to do with that transition from Elizabeth's reign [00:12:00] to James's reign and his sense that witches have it in for him personally, which is what he thinks.
Sarah Jack: And what were the differences between the Scotish and the English witchcraft acts?
Marion Gibson: Yeah, again, so there are two acts in 1563. The kingdoms are then separate. So the English one is the one I pretty much described to you. The Scotish one is always a lot broader. There's always more of a sense that you can be executed for more or less anything.
And the way that the crime is investigated and witches are questioned, and so on, is very variable in Scotland. It doesn't have quite the same centralized administration system that the English state has at the time. So in Scotland you might be questioned by the church, you might be questioned by your local magistrate, you might be questioned by some Lord, if you like, who has power over the particular geographical area that you live in.
It's a lot more formless, and the outcomes are really quite horrendous. So Scotland ends up prosecuting a lot more people. It ends up executing a lot [00:13:00] more people, and some of them are burned to death. Some of them are hanged, some of them are burned. There's a lot more fluidity in how they understand the crime and what they think they should do about it.
But that law yeah, runs along in parallel until the 1604 act. At which point, I guess James thinks right, let's tidy things up here.
Josh Hutchinson: At the time of those first three acts in England, did pretty much everyone believe in witchcraft?
Marion Gibson: Yeah, I think I would probably say that, in as far as we can tell. Again, people don't tend to write this stuff down, which is such a great pity, but it does seem quite likely.
You can imagine the sort of world they lived in. They lived in this world that was absolutely heaving with the idea of angels and demons and elves and fairies and strange, supernatural manifestations of creatures and omens and signs and all the rest of it. It seems quite logical, then, as part of that, people would generally have [00:14:00] believed that their neighbors could be witches and could harm them.
It's not really clear always exactly how they conceived that that might work. Some of the things they might have thought the people were doing included making a pact with the devil or having a chat with a talking animal that had come to them, who may or may not be the devil, or they might have thought it was some kind of inherent power that their neighbors had.
A lot of the people who were accused were thought also to be able to do good magic. So it was quite common for somebody to be accused if they were a cunning person or a folk magician. You can never quite tell what the accusers thought was going on, but once people have been accused, they get sucked into the legal system, and certain kinds of definitions which the magistrates know about tend to come into play. But yeah, I think it's probably fair enough to say that everybody that we know about seems to have believed in witchcraft.
Sarah Jack: And so when did the skepticism start to emerge?
Marion Gibson: It is there [00:15:00] from the early days in various ways. People seldom go as far as saying that there are no witches. So in the 1580s, there's a chap called Reginald Scot, who's a magistrate in Kent, a county in the south of England, and he starts saying he's not sure that witches should be punished in the way that they're being punished. And he gets very worried about the idea of witches as devil worshipers. He's really quite unconvinced by that.
And he, at least one of the things that he does in researching for his book is speak to somebody who's actually in court being accused of witchcraft. And she says to me, "of course I'm not a witch. What are you talking about? I've been accused by my minister. And he's accused me because he's ill, but he's ill because he's ill, not because I made him ill." And it's that kind of conversation that seems to make Scot think that, at least the idea of witchcraft, as it is conventionally defined, is not one that he wants to believe in, that he thinks is [00:16:00] defensible.
He never goes as far as saying there are no witches, though. He's a religious man, it appears, in the same way that all the people in his community are. Presumably he believes in the devil. He has concerns about exactly how the devil might manifest. He's very interest in the idea of spirits and what a spirit means, and how that interact with people in the real world. He has all these kind of philosophical concerns, but even he seems to believe that there are such things as witches, just not the people who are right in front of him. He feels quite compassionately, I think, that they should be kindly treated and released.
But those sorts of ideas are bubbling away in the background. By the time you get to the 18th century, the idea is strengthened and strengthened, and more and more people have explored different bits of it. They're not thinking quite the old binary ways that they were, you're either on God's side or the devil's side.
And that makes it a lot easier for people to say, " yes, maybe I believe in witches, but not this kind, or not that kind, or I don't believe that they covenant with the devil. I don't believe that they operate in the way that you say they [00:17:00] do. So therefore, why don't we change the law to make it a lot more difficult to prosecute people?"
So by the time you get to 1730s, there are certainly still people they believe in witches, there are some who don't believe in witches, and there are some who probably dunno what they think.
Josh Hutchinson: We read a number of the accounts in Witchcraft and Society, and another question that came to us was, why were the male examiners so obsessed with the sexuality of the accused witches?
Marion Gibson: They were, weren't they? It's a good observation. Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that's going on is to do with the position of women in European society in the time more generally, which of course transfers over to American society, as well, but it's particularly influenced in medieval and early modern Europe by clergy who are sometimes celibate, as part of their commitment to religion. Sometimes they're Catholic clergy, so they don't have wives, they don't have daughters, they don't spend a lot of time thinking about the worlds that women live [00:18:00] in. And they regard women as a sinful creatures, tempting creatures. Bodies are dangerous. Their souls are more open to demonic corruption than men's are.
And that does seem to transfer over into Protestant conceptions of what witches are. So even where societies are a little more open to the idea that women might be religious, you know, they might be literate, they might be engaged in religion, in good ways, there still seems to be always that suspicion that well, look at Eve, the first woman, terribly sinful, open to temptation. Look what happened to her. I think it goes on. And so I think that they're obsessed with female sexuality, because they're told from the earliest times when they're doing Bible readings as children, that women are sinful, because Eve was sinful. They don't know a great deal about the world of women. Women's bodies are mysterious to them.
And it seems that they have a sense that women are this secondary kind of creature and maybe a way that the devil finds [00:19:00] his way into the world. And these are not unfamiliar ideas now, either, are they? We still very often come across this sense that women are a, a secondary creature. Women are not as important. Women's rights are not as important. So I think you can see the kind of context that we're dealing with here. Yes, they're obsessed with female sexuality and it's because they're suspicious of women.
Sarah Jack: When you said, "look at Eve," that's so interesting.
Marion Gibson: It's one of the things they keep coming back to, isn't it? Women are, their bodies are tempting, but their voices are tempting, too. And that goes back to Eve eating the apple, turning to Adam and saying, "aha, the apple, why don't you have some?" So there's always this sense that women are, some clergy refer to them as the devil's gateway. So there's this sense that they've let Satan in, and now they're going to come around to your house. You good Christian gentleman, are they going to corrupt you as well? So it's about temptation. It's about the permeability that women were thought to have to temptation.
Sarah Jack: We're really excited to talk [00:20:00] about your book that's coming out. Can you tell us why you wrote it?
Marion Gibson: Yeah, so this is The Witches of St. Osyth, and I've been wanting to write this book for 25 years, which even now seems to be a very long time.
Many years ago, I was given a photocopy of the news pamphlet about this trial, which happened in 1582 in the eastern English County of Essex. And I was given this photocopy, and I could not put it down. I started reading the stories of these witches, and I just got particularly fascinated by the female witches and what they were saying.
I hadn't read before that kind of account where a woman was talking about her ordinary life. She was talking about baking and making soap, and she was talking about minding children and going to the mill with stuff to grind and coming back with sacks of flour and brewing and all of those kind of things. And at the same time, the women were [00:21:00] confessing quite often to having demonic familiars in the shape of cats and dogs and so on. And I was utterly confused about what was going on but completely enchanted, because I wanted to know about these women's lives, and I wanted to know why I thought they were telling these stories about their lives.
So I began to look at the questioning process and what happened to these people and it just went off from there really. So I wrote the book because of those questions I had all those years ago. And in 2018-19, I had the opportunity to go to St. Osyth itself and to go to the local record repository in Chelmsford, in, in Essex, and actually start to dig out the records of their lives, which remain. So the book has come outta that.
Sarah Jack: Excellent. I love how the questions that pop up lead us on these discoveries. So that's so exciting.
Marion Gibson: Yes. I've had this continual itch wanting to scratch, wanting to answer those questions, and I do feel the book answers them. I've been [00:22:00] really pleased with the outcome. Doesn't tell us everything about those people, but it tells us an awful lot more than what we knew about their individual lives, about their communities, about the kind of landscape that they lived in, about why they might have told those stories about themselves.
Josh Hutchinson: We like those kinds of books that focus on the people, so you get an idea of what these humans were like at that time, and usually it turns out they're pretty much like us.
Marion Gibson: Yeah, that's my feeling. Yeah. This isn't some sort of strange, archaic community of people who are not at all like us. They're not like us in some ways, they're probably more religious generally. They have a much greater sense, as we've said already, that they're surrounded by a spiritual world and that the devil is lurking in that world, as well as all sorts of other spirits. But beyond that, they do seem awfully like us.
And some of the stories are just heart-rending. They come out of family tragedies, they've lost children,[00:23:00] their remaining children are dreaming dreams of their lost brothers and sisters, and these kind of ghost dreams get mistaken for stories about demonic familiars, and so on. I felt really close to them by the time I was done, whilst having that sort of a slight scholarly skepticism.
You can't know, but you can try and guess, and I really felt that we ought to try and guess, we ought to try and ask those questions and give those people back an identity, which was other than that of witch. Who were they before? They were a wife. They were a husband. They were a daughter. They were a spinner, that they spun wool in their village. They dyed cloth. They had other identities. Could we reconstruct some of those?
Josh Hutchinson: And where is St. Osyth located?
Marion Gibson: So it's in Essex, on the southeast coast of England. And if think about where London is, it's just a little bit east of that, basically. So the river Thames goes out into the North Sea, and there are various other rivers [00:24:00] flowing out in eastern England. And on one of those estuaries, St. Osyth sits. It's a flat landscape. It's wild. It's haunted by marsh birds. And there's a big fishing industry. They're a big oyster industry. It's wild marshland, and it's bitterly cold a lot of the time. You go there in winter, and that east wind nearly cuts you in half. It's a very chilly place, but in summer it's very dry because, again, it's got that sort of easterly wind. It's got a connection with the continent both in its weather systems and in its culture. So it's quite close to the European continent.
Sarah Jack: You talked a little bit about the daily lives of the women. Is there anything else about the community that you'd like to share that was happening during those trials?
Marion Gibson: Yeah, I think there were some other things going on that were important. These people were living their lives, but they were living them within this wider historical context.
And one of the things about religious change, so just talked about how they're close to European continent. Essex was a place where ideas came and went and [00:25:00] flowed through, really. Ships came over from Belgium, the Netherlands, Holland, carrying with them pamphlets about religion, particularly Protestant religion. So Essex becomes quite a Protestant place. There's quite a bit of religious conflict there. And also carrying the other kinds of religious ideas, I think demonological ideas. So ideas about the study of witches and demons came over there, too. And I think that's quite important. It's quite a connected place. So there's that.
And there's also the fact that in that it's tiny little village, it's practically nothing there. It was a little bit busier in Elizabethan times. There's hardly anything there now. But one of the things that is there is a massive former Abbey, which is known as the Priory in modern times and was this massive, wealthy religious foundation. But of course in Henry VIII's reign. Along comes Henry and thinks, " I quite like the revenues of the church. Thank you very much. Please let me close it down and take it over and give it to one of my noblemen." Which he does. So he [00:26:00] throws out the abbot and the monks, as he does across all of his lands, the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.
So there's been a massive religious change in the 1530s to 40s. Previously, they had this institution up the road, which was wealthy and charitable, and was plugged into their lives in every way that you could imagine. As tenants, the villages could go up to the abbey, in order to get charity and food and so on.
Many of them would've worked for the abbey, and then it's all gone. So there's been this massive disruption, and the new family who is put in, the noble family that the king and his commissioners give the monastery to, they're called the Darcys. And although they also have all those connections with the local community, they're really facing out of the community rather than towards it, as the church was. They're looking towards London, they're looking towards various kinds of courtly advancement, and it's one of the Darcy families, a minor branch. But one of the Darcy men, who is involved in questioning the witches, he seems really [00:27:00] important in claiming a starring role in this witch trial. And so that religious context is important, but also the new family who comes in and their establishment of power in the village. That seems to be really important too.
Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything else we need to know about Brian Darcy?
Marion Gibson: Yes it is he. Yes. I don't like Brian Darcy, perhaps won't surprise you to know. I'm sure he was also a man like us, and it's important to remember that he's not some kind of appalling villain. And he gets into the situation that he gets into, presumably because he has religious beliefs, because he feels a certain way about his position in his family, and so on. But I find him bullying and negative and abusive towards the people who he is supposed to be caring for. And he does some awful things when he's questioning the suspected witches.
He's a local magistrate. It's his duty to do it. So if somebody brings a [00:28:00] witchcraft suspect to him, yeah, he has to do something about it. From that point of view, that's not his fault. But he goes above and beyond. So he starts lying to them. He starts saying to them, "if you confess, I, of course, I'll treat you very nicely, and you won't be accused of anything, and you'll be fine." And I guess they go along with it, because yeah, he's the big powerful man, isn't he? Why wouldn't they? Of course they confess. And he starts putting pressure on them. He has artifacts brought from their houses to question them about.
He brings in their children, really young children, children who are eight, children who are six. And he questions them about their parents. And of course they come up with all this fantastical stuff from dreams and imaginations and folk beliefs and wherever else they're getting this stuff from.
And I think there's a very, very high probability that what Brian does when he publishes the newspaper account of all of these is he redates everything. So he makes it look like he questioned mum and dad first and the kids afterwards. But when you look at the [00:29:00] confessions, and you look at the way that they're arranged in the pamphlet, and you look at the dates, you can see that what the children are saying is them being put to mom and dad as something that somebody said already. I think Brian and the people who were helping him with this investigation have had a think about this and thought, "under English law, this kind of thing isn't really permitted. We'll just have to make it look like we questioned the parents and then the kids came in and just confirmed all the stuff that had been said."
I don't like him. I think he's a really pernicious influence in the village, and he's really wealthy. He doesn't need to do this, in so many different ways. He has a really nice life, as far as one can tell. He has wife and children of his own. He's got these massive estates. He's raking it in. Why does he need to pick on these poor individuals in this village and try to get them to confess to being witches? And I guess he thinks it's his time. He's gonna make a big splash. He can be important in local [00:30:00] justice. He can find the enemies of God in his community. No doubt, he sincerely believes at least some of this. I don't think he's making it up, but he does a terrible thing. Yeah. That's Brian Darcy.
Sarah Jack: When I started reading his severe attitude towards the enemy, it made me wince. I was like, "oh man, this is really not gonna be enjoyable to read," because he just starts right out saying how what they have coming isn't even awful enough.
Marion Gibson: He does. There's a preface to the newspaper account, the pamphlet about the witches, which I think is written by somebody else. And I think, and I've identified for the first time in the book that I know who this person is, which is just so exciting. And this is a guy who's working with Brian Darcy. So I think you're right. I think they share that position. And what this person says, and Brian signs off on, is, "yeah, hanging isn't enough. We should be burning them." And you just really wonder, don't you, how somebody does come to that [00:31:00] position about the other human beings in their society? Obviously burning was quite a common punishment for people like heretics, and he would've known that across the European continent.
A lot of people were burned for religious crimes, and he conceived witchcraft to be a religious crime, a crime against God. But nevertheless, this was a horrendous thing to say. And Reginald Scot, the guy I was talking about earlier, slaps him down specifically for that in his book. He says, " if it was up to Brian Darcy, there'd be hardly anybody left in the villages," because he's got these crazy ideas.
So he gets criticized even in his own time for being harsh, which is quite surprising, isn't it? Looking back, you get this sense that these were difficult times and a lot of horrible things happened, but Reginald Scot thinks that Brian Darcy has gone above and beyond and has done something even more horrible than he needed to do.
Josh Hutchinson: Really looking forward to reading the book when it comes out and seeing how this all plays out and who that [00:32:00] person you identified was. That's exciting.
Marion Gibson: I think it felt by the time I'd done it that it was writing itself, like books do sometimes, and I think it's such an important story. I think it's really important that people have a look at it, because it does have messages for now. It is about people turning on each other. It's about the vulnerable being picked on by the incredibly wealthy and already successful. It's about scapegoating, it's about minorities, it's about people being singled out for no good reason that we can see.
So I think it's quite an important story from that point of view. And I did love writing it. It was really hard, and the pandemic happened in the middle of it as well, which made everything far worse. So there was quite a long period where I didn't write anything. And of course I couldn't go to archives either because they all closed down so I couldn't get in.
It was a difficult book to write, but it felt like it had to be written. And I really enjoyed doing the research, and I really enjoyed writing about these people and just trying to give them something back. [00:33:00] I really felt quite powerfully, more so than with any of my other books actually, that there was something here that I needed to do. So I do hope people enjoy it. Yes.
Sarah Jack: We would love to hear more about who the witches of St. Osyth were.
Marion Gibson: Yes. So there's a group of people from five different villages, and Osyth is at the heart of it? And it seems to start there because of the Darcy family and because of Brian Darcy, specifically. The first person he questions there is a woman called Ursley Kempe, which Ursley seems to be a version of Ursula. So I think that's what she's called. And she's basically a single mother. We don't quite know what her history is, but we are told that she has this illegitimate child, a boy called Thomas, who he's eight. And she's questioned, and he's questioned, and they come up with this story.
When Brian Darcy starts bullying Ursley, she bursts into tears and submits to him, essentially. And she starts confessing all this stuff about how she has animal familiars and so on and so forth. And it all takes [00:34:00] off from there. And then, unfortunately, she names other people, so she starts turning on other villagers and saying, "this person is a Witch, that person is a Witch." So she accuses quite a lot of other women from her village, and then it spreads out.
So accusations start coming in from other villages and Brian goes on this journey off to the east. So he rides down the coast, and he rides out onto those flat marshlands towards the North Sea, and he visits other villages as well. And there he finds other people to question. So we've got Cysley and Henry Selles, who are a married couple living in the village of Little Clacton. And they have at least four children, and they've also lost some children in their family history, as well. Some of their children have died young, so they have this sort of haunted family life. And Brian starts prying away at this and finds out things from their children, which he then asked Henry and Cysley about.
And I managed to find things like their marriage [00:35:00] record. I found out about that family history, which nobody knew before. So they had this really interesting, complicated history that I've told in the book. And then he goes a bit further. He goes to a village called Thorpe, where he questions some more people, who also confess things.
It's interesting by then people are starting to resist a little bit, though. So there's a woman called Elizabeth Eustis and another one called Margaret Gravel, and they flat out refused to tell him anything, which I really do respect. They were in a very vulnerable position, but they just said to him, "no, I'm not a witch. I'm not telling you anymore." So that was interesting.
And then he goes a bit north, he goes to a village called Little Oakley. And then finally he goes to a coastal village called Walton. But in Little Oakley, he finds a woman who is the woman where I end the book, and she's really fascinating. Her name is Annis Herd.
So women in Essex at this time are often called Annis, which seems to be somewhere between Anne and Agnes. Seems to be quite a specific local name. So Annis Herd is really interesting. She, too, has [00:36:00] this interesting sexual history. She's clearly had a number of lovers by the time Brian comes to her village and she's suspected as being a light woman, which is a thing that she must not be in her time and place. And she's got at least two illegitimate children, one of whom, a little girl, is questioned by Brian. So I found out more about her, and I found out more about her family, and I found she had some land holdings, a small one. She was very poor, and I found out who her mother and father were, and I managed to trace some of her connections in the community.
And she gets accused by her local vicor, a guy called Richard Harrison. And I found out a bit more stuff about Richard and his family, as well, and what happened to him, not only at the time ,of the trial, but also what happens to him afterwards. He gets himself into some sticky trouble himself later on, which, being who I am, I was quite pleased to see, although I thought that was, I do try and be objective, but I was quite pleased to see Richard get a little of what was coming back to him, [00:37:00] if I'm perfectly honest and Annis goes on, Annis has a history that goes on through the trial and afterwards, and I found out a little more about that. And I thought she was a particularly fascinating character, because you always assume that these people are disempowered and are put upon to the extent that they would confess anything and are really not able to resist.
And what they found with Annis was that she did resist, she had her own life. And there were records of that life going back into the 1570s and then going on, and I really got this strong sense of her as an individual, which I hope comes across in the book. She's a survivor. She's somebody who fights back, and I thought she was a fascinating person to write about.
So there's a group of, by the time you had done, you've maybe got 20, 25 individuals who flit across the pages of the book. Some of them I know more about than others. Some of you know there are more records surviving of them than others, but they're basically ordinary villagers caught up in this astounding hurricane of [00:38:00] accusations that's come down on them.
And what I try and do is tell each story individually so that readers can get to know them, too, as well as we're ever going to, at any rate.
Josh Hutchinson: Those 20 to 25, those were the accused?
Marion Gibson: Yes. It's not always clear what happens to them. So even though accusations are made against, some of them are not tried. I think there's quite good evidence that at least two of them ran away and were never heard from again or were heard from later in other guys' maps, with other names. I think one of them does come back into the record later on, although it's hard to tell. But there's just this sort of storm of accusation flying about, and some people are named and not tried, and some people are tried but not convicted, and some people are tried and supposedly acquitted and supposed to be freed from jail, but are not freed from jail. It's very messy.
But yeah, you could say you were dealing with a group of about 20 individuals, say, but there's also a big group of accusers. And I must say I found those just as [00:39:00] fascinating. One of the things that when I read the initial account really prompted me to ask those questions about the stories was the sense of, I didn't understand why the witches were confessing, but I didn't understand why the accusers were accusing either. How could they think this stuff about their lives? And they, too, told me about their children and their domestic processes and what their husband was up to and all this kind of thing. So there's an even broader group of individuals who are accusers, and I've really tried to hunt them down as well. I've tried to find out what I thought their motivation might have been, what their circumstances were like, and so on.
Sarah Jack: In these cases, did some of the accusers become the accused?
Marion Gibson: Yes. So yes they did. One of the problems with Brian's technique of questioning is that once he's got somebody in front of him, he asks the individual to name others, and sometimes the people they name are the accusers, either of them or of somebody else. So people get drawn in. And there's two sisters in [00:40:00] particular, Alice Hunt and Marjorie Barnes. And you can see them struggling between these identities. They have made accusations, or at least Alice has, but then they get accused and they're really not sure what to do.
So there's this sense that it could have been anybody, really. All somebody had to do was say your name, and you moved very quickly from the position of somebody who was stood on the sidelines saying, "oh yeah, I'm sure she is a witch. Yes, I'm sure she did be witch my cow," to somebody who's saying, "no, I'm not a witch. I didn't bewitch your horse or your child." So there, there is this sense of identity is being shifting. Yes.
Josh Hutchinson: Was St. Osyth typical of English witch trials?
Marion Gibson: It's a bit bigger than a lot of the the trials seem to be. But there's always a question about exactly how much we know and exactly how much survives. One of the things I do want to do is hunt down a couple of the others now. Now I've done it with this one, especially in Essex, are there other ones that I can do? And yes, I think there are. I do think [00:41:00] there are other cases I could write about. Five years time, maybe I'll be able to say a bit more about how typical it is.
I think it's a slightly bigger hunt than normal. It's slightly more driven by one individual than most of them seem to be. But those are the ones that tend to get into print, cuz that one individual tends to get quite excited and produce a lot of paperwork, and somebody then thinks, "oh, we could publish this." Makes the money out of it. So in a sense, it's typical of those sorts of trials, the ones that get publicized. It's very difficult to tell, though. The picture is very muddied. There's very good record survival in the Southeast, so near London essentially, the paperwork gets drawn in and kept, but in some of the outlying areas in the North and the West, it's all gone from this period. You can't find anything much in the West and most of the West of England before the 1670s. So we can't really say whether this one is typical of what was going on there, because we just don't know.
Sarah Jack: Yeah. I found it very interesting how the pamphlets [00:42:00] become the story.
Marion Gibson: I love them. Yes. They were where I started my academic career, really, reading these stories. So the St. Osyth one and then branching out to read loads of others. And I loved them. I loved the way that they framed the stories. That was one of the things that really interested me. So it wasn't just that the stories themselves are fascinating, I was really interested in the publication of them, who was writing the prefaces? What for? Was it done for money? Was it kind of hack journalism? Was it, " we need something to publish. Quick, find us a story, go around the courts, ask some questions, pick up some documents, see what we can get up by next Tuesday." Was it that kind of thing? And I think in some cases, yes, maybe it was.
Or was it a single powerful individual saying, " I'm religiously deeply committed, and I want to say something about the devil's work in my community. And I've put together this group of witchcraft accusations. Here's the paperwork. Would you like to publish this, Mr. Publisher?" And it felt really interesting. It felt like there was a really interesting [00:43:00] interface between the legal authorities and, if you like, the popular press, the journalists, the paparazzi of their time. They were getting their stories from these really quite elite people and publishing them to a wider audience.
And sometimes you can see that the pamphlets are really influential in later witch trials. They did the right thing from their own points of view in getting those stories out, because then accusations spread to other communities, and other people started reading the pamphlets. "Oh, that happened in Essex. And here I am in this village in Northamptonshire 40 years on. I think it's happening here too." So I found that really fascinating. The way that stories about witchcraft were monetized, were publicized, and spread.
Josh Hutchinson: And why do you believe Brian Darcy wanted to publish this pamphlet?
Marion Gibson: Yeah, I think he wants power, really. I think it must be quite difficult for him being a member of this junior branch of the family. He's incredibly wealthy and powerful, but he's not as [00:44:00] incredibly wealthy and powerful as his relatives. And I guess that maybe stings a bit. It's hard to say, but that's what you feel from his account.
And he also wants, I think, to assume more of a role in the judiciary in his county. I think he's keen on running for office, and he ends up being sheriff of the county, which is the top legal official. That probably translates really well into the American context, doesn't it?
Nobody knows what it means in England anymore, but yeah, for you guys, that probably makes sense. So he really wants to have more sway in local justice, I think. And he gets that. Annoyingly, he gets what he wanted outta publishing it.
Sarah Jack: So do you think some of these villagers and the community members saw that coming, that their interactions with him on this were going to be impacted by his authority? That it was growing?
Marion Gibson: Yes, I think so. I [00:45:00] think they saw him as somebody to be afraid of and to be wary of and to count out to and answer the questions of and submit to, generally. I think he was very much that kind of figure for some of these people. I would be pretty sure he was, if not their landlord, and he may have been their landlord, at least somebody who owned a lot of property in their community, was seen riding through on his horse and generally looking magnificent, who certainly had the power to do things like fine them or take them to court in various ways. And his family, the Darcy family, are lords of the manor in all of the communities where he questions someone, which I think is really important and haven't really been thought about before. So yeah they do see him coming. He's the big man. They do what the big man says.
Josh Hutchinson: Back to the accused and their accusers, what was going on in their lives that we should know about?
Marion Gibson: They were people under quite a lot of strain, I think. So [00:46:00] economically, St. Osyth wasn't doing as well as it had been. Yeah. We talked about the religious changes, and that was a massive disruption. All of the kind of trading arrangements, every kind of tax collection, every kind of relationship to do with deeds and property and ownership changed hands from the church to the secular lords, the Darcys, who came in. And that has its own knock-on effects, doesn't it? If you break stuff up, if you disrupt stuff, as we learned recently, it does not end well.
And your economy can suffer, and your society can suffer, and people can be set against each other. And I think they're that kind of society. I think we're struggling with that. And economically, they're not as well-off as they were. The wool industry, which a lot of them are involved in, and the Abbey was involved in, isn't prospering quite as much as it was. Trade with the European continent has suffered.
So the wool trade is really [00:47:00] strong, going across to Belgium and Holland, coming back to Britain, and that's got a bit disrupted. They're in somewhat of a difficult situation, really. And if you go to St. Osyth now, there's almost nothing happening there. It's the sort of place where there used to be successful industry but now there isn't. It was never on a very large scale, but it did support that community, and I guess made them feel like they had a strong local identity, and there was money coming in and stuff like that.
It feels like it's a community where people are getting poorer and are struggling with who they are, really. They're no longer built around the abbey in that community like they used to be. What's their relationship with the Darcys? What's their relationship with each other? What about people coming in from the European continent? What about the religious turmoil of the period? I think you probably felt really vulnerable and, obviously, one of the things people do in that situation is lash out at other people, and it feels like the witch hunt might have had something to do with that.
We've covered the religion. [00:48:00] We've talked about the economy a bit. We've talked a bit about gender and the way that women were under pressure in that society. We've talked about how the Darcys are really important and are basically wandering around kicking people. If you look at all those things together, that's what makes the witch hunt happen. It's not one thing, it's circumstances coming together in this toxic mess, and out of that comes this witch hunt. So I guess, that's how I'd summarize it, really. They're all in a very bad situation in different ways, and out of that comes scapegoating, and the community is further torn apart, when it would've been so much better if they had come together.
Sarah Jack: So they're having a lot of desperation. They're feeling things slip away. Would've there been more behaviors that you know, they're trying to good magic to try to resolve some of the misfortune? Were things like that happening, and [00:49:00] would've that been viewed as negative or positive?
Marion Gibson: Yeah, that's a really good question. Yes, there are people practicing what they would've thought of as good magic in these communities. And the first woman to be questioned, Ursley Kempe, seems to have worked as a healer, a midwife or nurse, somebody who minds people's children for money, essentially, and to have wanted to improve her position in that way and have more patients, if you like, more clients going to her.
So one of the things we learn about her is some of the spells that she does to cure people's rheumatism. She uses herbs, and she uses ale, and she uses things like pig's dung, which is probably not a good thing to be putting in any kind of medicine. But for her, that's a powerful, magical ingredient. Yes, I think that one of the things they were trying to do was find magical answers to their difficulties. Yes. Whether that went beyond medicine, I don't know. But I do get this sense that they felt [00:50:00] they lived in this kind of haunted landscape and that there were spirits all around them, which could be used for good as well as for evil.
I think it's probably true that a number of the women, in particular, I think there's quite good evidence from very small things that they say that a number of them were these kind of magical practitioners, that they stood out in their community a little bit more than others, because they were the people that you went to get an ointment, if somebody was sick, or they were the people that you went to get a spell said for you if you thought somebody cursed you, that kind of thing. So yes, I think that's quite an important context, too.
Josh Hutchinson: What sort of bad magic were they accused of?
Marion Gibson: They're thought to have these animal familiars in the form of things like cats and toads and so on, the classic witch's familiar. And through them, they're thought to project this harm onto their neighbors. They would make an arrangement with this demonic cat, which had come to them and said, "I [00:51:00] am Satan, please work with me." And they send them to the neighbors. They've quarreled with the lady down the street, and she's refused to give them something that they've asked for as a gift or as a loan or some work that they wanted. She's gone elsewhere. She's employed someone else. And they send the demonic cat or toad or whatever to her house, and it costs a magical spell of its own. It's like a, it's a transmitter really. That creature is an agent of the witch's power, and the witch is an agent of the devil's power, supposedly. So it goes into the house, and it projects this magic.
In some cases in, not the Saint Osyth ones, but in other cases the witches seem to think that the creatures bite or scratch their victim. But it honestly, in St. Osyth's case, it seems enough that the creature has been there, that somebody's seen it and has caught in it being cursed. So they're sending these creatures around the local community, and they're doing some really quite serious things. They're accused of killing people, children and adults. They're [00:52:00] accused of things like causing back pain.
They're accused of causing certain kinds of other harm, like financial harm. So they are thought to have disrupted people's brewing and baking activities, making their daily lives much harder. They're accused of things like killing horses who are pulling a plow. They're accused of killing livestock. They're disrupting all sorts of activities across the community.
So really the worst thing that they can do is kill someone, but they can also do a whole range of other different kinds of harm as well. So people are really genuinely afraid. And the volume of accusations is fascinating. It really does feel like these are villages where spells are thought to be flying around like signals going through the air from transmitters, if you like, like the air is charged with this magical energy, and a lot of it is really negative.
Yeah. You are very lucky, if you're not walking down towards the mill one day, and a curse lights on you, and then heaven knows what could happen. So it feels very much like it's a [00:53:00] community of people throwing spells at each of the good and bad.
Sarah Jack: I found it interesting how much the spirits are given an identity, a name, they're having conversation, the women are negotiating or deciding. You had said the information that came from the small things the women said, and there really is a lot of information in what they said about their experience.
Marion Gibson: Yeah, the animals do feel like fully rounded characters, don't they? And they often do in these kind of accounts. There really are accounts of cats called Satan in some of the others. This one, they tend to give them nice, familiar pet names, don't they? Jack and Tiffin and things like that. And you get the sense that maybe we're dealing with pets here in some cases.
I can't really imagine people keeping pet toads, although perhaps if you were a lonely, older person and this creature was a companion for you in your garden, maybe you would, I can see myself doing that. I like wild creatures. Maybe I would get this sense that I'd [00:54:00] adopted one, as it were.
But I think sometimes it's maybe just ordinary cats and dogs, and they do seem to have these intense relationships with them. It's one of the things that puzzles historians. What is going on here? Do people genuinely think their pet cat curled up in the corner is a spirit? And then, going beyond that, do they think it's a demonic spirit, or is somebody putting that idea in their head when they're questioned? Why do they think this?
And nobody's really got to the bottom of it, because nobody explained it, and maybe they couldn't have explained it. It's a very nebulous sort of idea, isn't it? Animals have strong personality. Some people attribute magical or totemic energies to them. That does make sense, but actually thinking that your dog is the devil is a big step beyond that. And it's never been entirely clear to me, or I think anyone else really, what's going on here.
They have these familiar spirits, and they also seem to share them. Some of the women talk about ways in which they had a sort of shared group of [00:55:00] familiar spirits, who they could dispatch. You know, Ursley Kempe says that she and her neighbor, Alice Newman, they had these four spirits in common, if you like. So something bad had happened to Alice, Ursley said, at any rate, Alice could just send the spirit to go and smite Father So-and-so who had upset her. What they're sharing pets as a pet-sitting arrangement? What's going on here?
Or are they just imaginary? Are they imaginary animals? Lots of children have imaginary animals. Is this something that carried on in the minds of early modern people, under great strain and in circumstances of poverty and loneliness and so on? Did that inform what they said about the familiar spirits?
And it is still something that puzzles me. I talked about the way the book had given me some answers, and I was really pleased with that. But my goodness, there are still a lot of questions, aren't there? What is it that people are talking about when they tell the stories? What really happened?
Did the people who were accused and confess really think that they had these powers and [00:56:00] that they were witches or that maybe they had magical powers where they could heal people and somehow this had all gone horribly wrong? Is that what they thought? Or? Is it all fantasy on behalf of their accusers?
And I think it come down on the side of thinking that the people in the village have strong magical beliefs. I don't think Brian Darcy could have generated all this stuff by himself. And I'm not sure he would've wanted to. He did genuinely want to know what the devil was up to in his community, I think. But at the same time, the balance between those two viewpoints is really difficult.
Sarah Jack: It makes me wonder, too, what was going on in his home? What were his children and his wife and his servants? What were they saying? Did they have pets? Was he comparing to what he wouldn't wanna share with anyone that's inside his walls?
Marion Gibson: It's a great question. I would like to know that. I know where he did the interrogations and know the house. It still stands, which is really great. I've thought [00:57:00] about what was going on in that house and found it difficult to imagine. There is a few surviving accounts of stuff that was going on, but it's basically at the level of people paying rent, it's documents about who was living there and who was working as his secretary and so on. There's really hardly anything left, and it's quite businesslike what remains.
But it was a moated house. So it had a moat around it. It was built as a defensive structure. And I think that makes me think interestingly about Brian's mindset. If you live in a massive, moated house, maybe you do have a kind of defensive mindset. Maybe you do feel set apart from the community, and there's a sense of threats surrounding your walls, maybe. But his family, yes, I would love to know more about them. He has sons, he has daughters. He sends his sons to Cambridge University and to the inns of court. So they train as lawyers.
One of his sons, the one who will succeed him, ultimately, is married off to the daughter of another important local family. He's [00:58:00] struggling in his local community with religiosity. We don't quite know if he's Catholic or Protestant. I think he's probably Protestant-leaning, but many of his connections are strongly Catholic, still. And that's a difficult thing to be in Elizabethan England. That means you've lost some of your rights. It means people are going to come around and ask you questions about your beliefs, basically. So I think he's under strain from that point of view.
But they're wealthy people, so he wants his children to marry to the big Catholic families, and his big relatives the Darcys are Catholics. Maybe there's a sense of he's struggling with that identity of his locality and of Englishness and his religious identity and so on.
And I wonder how he felt about his sons. Was he proud of what they had done, or was he continually carping at them to do more? What about his two daughters? He leaves them an awful lot of money when he dies. He's very helpful to those two young women. How did he find [00:59:00] an identity for them in a society where he had so often persecuted other women, and he knew what their position was, which was essentially, not good. How did he feel about those girls? They went on to be highly successful, and one of them later on came to be involved in another witch trial, which is something I'm going to be looking at over the next couple of years, as well, because I want to know more about her and her husband and what happens to her. It feels like his family situation must matter, doesn't it? But it's also very difficult to see. He doesn't leave the kind of records that I'd have wanted him to.
Josh Hutchinson: What do you want people to take away from reading your book?
Marion Gibson: I want them to have an increased sense of the individuality of these people and, like you said earlier, to think of them as people like us. I think it's quite easy for historians sometimes to treat people as units of data. There were all these witch trials, it was absolutely terrible, this [01:00:00] many number of hundred people were executed. I want to give the sense that yes, each of these people was an individual. Each of them had a story, beyond the moment when they were accused of witchcraft and they were tried and they were executed or whatever happened to them.
So I want them to feel increased sense of respect for those people and engagement with them, which I think is one of the things that history has to do. It has to make us see people as individuals, and it has to, I think, draw on empathy and feeling to do that. I don't like a dry history of just statistics. I prefer something that gives me a sense of these people's lives.
And I think it ought make them think also about persecution. The projects I'm going on to now, next, are both about persecutions, too, and I think it ought to make us think about why we persecute each other. Why do we hate each other so much? Why is there so much anger in the world?
And I think we live in angry times now. And looking back to the times of the Reformation, when there was this, broad [01:01:00] division between Catholics and Protestants, and we were colonizing the world from Europe and oppressing indigenous peoples everywhere. That was an angry and harsh time, and we seem to live in quite an angry and harsh time too, in different ways.
So I hope people will reflect on that scapegoating and come away from the book. You can't expect that people will suddenly become kinder to each other across the world, or it would be nice if they did, but I do want people to have that sense of empathy, if they can do that when they finish the book.
Sarah Jack: What can we apply from those stories to our modern story?
Marion Gibson: I think there's a couple of things. One of them's about gender. We talked about this a little bit already. I think we still struggle with the idea of powerful women, and I still think we struggle with the idea of female sexuality and women as empowered creatures in their own right. And I think we need to pay a lot more attention to the history of witch trials, because they are the history of oppressing women, making choices [01:02:00] for them, persecuting them. And I think that's all really important in contemporary times.
And then there's that sense of of oppressing the poor, if you like, as well. Picking on people who are seen as outsiders or minorities or people who are too vulnerable to defend themselves. And I'd like people to think a bit more about that because this seems to be part of that long history of doing that. And perhaps if we can understand a bit more about why we did it in the past, we can understand a bit more about why we do it now.
Again, it seems a very noble hope, doesn't it? It would be lovely if that were to happen, but I, that's my 2 cents contribution to trying to make the world better.
Sarah Jack: We're very passionate about using these conversations to remind people and to call out against tolerating that kind of oppression. So we really appreciate your thoughts on that.
Marion Gibson: That's great. I think you are right. Yes. We do have to try and understand the history of this, don't we, so that we can see what's going [01:03:00] on now?
Josh Hutchinson: We feel like we still have a lot of the same witch-hunt mentality and that we do need to find ways that we can stop ourselves from doing that.
Marion Gibson: I think you're absolutely right. The next book of work, there are two things, actually. One of the books is called Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials, and it does try and do exactly that. So it looks across 700 years of history right up to the present and says, "look, witches are still on trial. We are still holding witch trials. Can we not do that?" So that's one of the projects.
And the other one is about Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General in English history. So I'm looking at his activities in the 1640s, and he's sort of Brian Darcy figure in many ways, but he kicks off a witch-hunt, in which at least 200 people are caught up. And there's no proper history of that, really. There's a very good account of origins of that hunt, and various people have written accounts of sections of it. But I'd like to try and [01:04:00] write a history of the whole thing, if I can do. That's the next thing I'm up to. And they basically are both what you said. They are arguments for greater empathy. They are arguments for trying to understand the history of persecution.
Sarah Jack: I just had a question. I was thinking about the magical atmosphere of St. Osyth and the magic in the air, as you were saying. Was there as much fear there? I can't help but compare it to the American colonies and some of the Salem Witch Trials, and there you feel like you could cut the fear that was in the air with a knife, not necessarily the magic.
Marion Gibson: Yeah, I think there's a lot of overlap. Yes. I do think the Witchcraft History in Thirteen Trials has a couple of American cases in it. There's one in Virginia in the 1620s, and then there's a Salem one, which you kind of have to, don't you, in a history of witch trials? And I think there's more sense of fear of the Other in those communities, because they are settlers who've come to [01:05:00] live on the eastern edge of this enormous, unknown continent full of people who they don't understand, in many cases don't want to understand. So I think there's more of a sense of the Other being out there in the woods and the devil owning that continent as people like Cotton Mather said and so on.
I think it's stronger there, if you like, but it is essentially the same impulse. It is the same fearfulness, even though it expresses itself in different ways, in different contexts. I think in Essex they were afraid, too. They were maybe afraid of different things. They were afraid of poverty, they were afraid of malarial insects coming in of the marshes they were afraid of religious change, and so on. I think it is the same.
We are very fearful creatures, aren't we, people? We've lived through a period of immense fear recently, and I do think it leaves its mark, and I do think it encourages us to try and turn on each other in ways that are really unhelpful. Hopefully, it will result in something better, if we can only understand why we are [01:06:00] doing that and try not to do it.
Josh Hutchinson: Now here's Sarah with another important update on real-life witch-hunts happening today.
Sarah Jack: Being accused of harmful witchcraft in a violent and threatening manner is abuse. This is abuse just like the other abuses our modern world recognizes and stands against. We broadly recognize and fight abuses against women and children, but this specific abuse is not being robustly addressed. This intentional harm must also be addressed in a way that uplifts and rescues the abuse victims.
There is a perpetuating aftermath of horror for communities where alleged witch targeting is normalized. These vulnerable women, children, and sometimes men are tortured to death in horrendous and violent confrontations or left abandoned without their intended lives. Because of witchcraft allegations, they lose the grasp they had on their future and safety. They're left uprooted and stranded, living in danger.[01:07:00] Without authentic expectation and supportive counsel, local officials will not have a protocol that supports the recovery and protection of such victims in a collective and effective way.
Josh and I have recently spoken with an advocate in South Africa and an advocate in Nigeria, Damon Leff and Leo Igwe. Please see the show notes for links to their organizations and go and read about the situation. Although these African countries have unique witch attack and witch prejudice contexts, both of these advocates are offering solutions. They both have answers on some things that can be changed. To begin immediate intervention and support, they suggest informed interventions to trigger change.
Stay tuned to our podcast for two very important upcoming episodes that share these situations. You will hear an important message and conversation with Damon Leff, and, in another episode, an important message and conversation with Leo Igwe. These conversations are clarifying and informative. You must listen.
Government and [01:08:00] non-government agencies are engaging in conversations to address this human rights violation. They acknowledge the crimes, and they search out what interventions they can insert to intervene. They request input, sort recommendations, extend alliances, and compose and publish reports. But what action is coming out of all this collaboration? Why is this widespread, vicious practice difficult to address immediately? Why is it so difficult to get going on change? Don't we know what to do with abuse? Other robust campaigns for gender violence and child protection are active and global. Why is addressing witch hunt abuse different within the global human rights violation perspective?
In Nigeria, the Advocacy for Alleged Witches is telling them what they need to begin immediate intervention. Likewise, several NGOs have made recommendations and asked for support in South Africa. Why aren't funded and powerful agencies supporting the work through the advocates already in the trenches?
[01:09:00] There is an immediate change that must take place in the mindset of the, in the mindset of the UN and powerful government teams that show a resemblance of concern but hold back on supporting the essential action. It is the same change that must take place in the mindset of all individuals. What is your mindset on witch-hunting abuses? Witches should not be hunted. It should not be tolerated. We know that assaults are abuse. We know that these victims are helpless. We must concede that enough is not being done that can be done. Denial at all levels of society is delaying action for protecting the vulnerable, targeted by witch accusations.
The world has accused and executed innocent humans for centuries, and we are still allowing it. There are communities that are waiting to be made safe. These are behaviors that have no place in a world that seeks to protect the vulnerable.
When we ask for this, when any advocate asks for this, ears should be listening, minds should be realizing, and bodies should be moving to take [01:10:00] swift action. While we watch and wait, let's support the victims across the world where innocent people are being targeted by superstitious fear. Support them by acknowledging and sharing their stories. Amplify the message of local advocates on the ground in these regions. What are they saying? What assistance are they specifically calling for? Please use all your social power and communication channels to be an intervener and stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches.
Please follow our End Witch Hunts movement on Twitter @_endwitchhunts and visit our website at endwitchhunts.org.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for that wonderfully informative segment, Sarah.
Sarah Jack: You're welcome, Josh.
Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Sufferer: The Witch Trial Podcast. Remember to pick up the book, The Witches of St. Osyth. It's releasing Thursday, December 22nd. You can get a discount currently on the Kindle version. It's going [01:11:00] for $29.99. That's $10 off the regular price.
Sarah Jack: Please join us again next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Like, subscribe, or follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Sarah Jack: Always visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, neighbors, everybody you encounter about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
Sarah Jack: Join us and support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:12:00]

December 15, 2022

Descendants of Connecticut Witch Trial Victims

Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England by John Putnam Demos
Annie Eliot Trumbull, “One Blank of Windsor”, Literary Section, Hartford Courant, December 3, 1904 (requires newspapers.com subscription or free trial)
Detestable and Wicked Arts, Paul B. Moyer
Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut
Join the CT Witch Trial Exoneration Project Discord Server
Mary Lousie Bingham on the Connecticut Accused Witches
CT W.I.T.C.H. Memorial
Salem Witch-Hunt
The Witch Trials Hysteria History of the American Colonies
Samuel Wyllys Papers
Associated Daughters of Early American Witches
Witchcraft Belief by Boris Gershman
Leo Igwe, AfAW
Advocacy Against Witch Hunts, South Africa
End Witch Hunts Projects
Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.
Website
Twitter
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YouTube
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Buzzsprout

Show Notes

Presenting intimate interviews with the descendants of Connecticut witch trial victims. They discuss why the exoneration of Connecticut witch trial victims is important to them and to the accused witches in our modern world. Learn how discovering this ancestry impacted descendant lives and why the stories of their accused witch ancestors must be talked about. Grab a tissue box and get ready to feel the emotions.

Descendents:

Sherri Kuiper

Alse Freeman

Rosemary Lang

Morgan Leigh Kelsey

Sue Bailey

Laura Secord

Caitlin Golden

Sarah Jack

Links:

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:27] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:28] Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we speak with descendants of Connecticut witch trial victims about efforts to exonerate their ancestors.
[00:00:37] Sarah Jack: I am one of those descendants.
[00:00:39] Josh Hutchinson: Im not descended from anyone accused in Connecticut, but I am descended from some of the Salem accused.
[00:00:48] Sarah Jack: I am as well. That's why when I found Winifred Benham in my tree, and it said that she was the Witch of Wallingford, Connecticut, and I looked into it, and she was [00:01:00] actually an accused witch, I was very baffled, cuz I knew nothing about witch trials outside of Salem.
[00:01:06] Josh Hutchinson: Not many people know there were witch trials and Connecticut, but we're hoping to change that.
[00:01:13] Sarah Jack: That is changing.
[00:01:15] Josh Hutchinson: More people are learning every day. There's been a lot of it in the news lately. And, of course, we've done several episodes of the podcast about Connecticut. And people are finding out through social media, as well.
[00:01:29] Sarah Jack: It's a very exciting change for the history, and I'm really hoping that the descendants can start to feel camaraderie and learn about their ancestors from each other. And I'm looking forward to seeing what Connecticut decides to do with this history.
[00:01:50] Josh Hutchinson: Hopefully, they do the right thing with it and exonerate those accused and make this part of everyone's education, so people know the [00:02:00] stories, and we don't make these same mistakes again.
[00:02:03] Sarah Jack: We're gonna find out what these descendants that we've brought together have to say about those things.
[00:02:09] Josh Hutchinson: I'm sure they have some good things to say, perhaps some profound things to say about their feelings, how they felt when they discovered these ancestors, how they feel now, what they think about the ConnecticutWitch Trial Exoneration Project.
[00:02:27] Sarah Jack: Watching this exoneration project come together has been really beautiful.
[00:02:33] Josh Hutchinson: We've come a long way since May.
[00:02:37] Sarah Jack: We have. In May, there was just a few of us trying to talk about it. We were throwing it out there. Who can hear us?
[00:02:45] Josh Hutchinson: And I was just watching you tweet. But then we came together in June and formed the project. And we've had media attention. We've got the podcast going. We've got the social media going. There are eyes on it [00:03:00] now.
[00:03:00] Sarah Jack: There is, we've learned a lot from many of the descendants.
[00:03:05] Josh Hutchinson: The resolution is being discussed by members of the Connecticut General Assembly. We're hoping that they do take it up to vote on it in their next session.
[00:03:17] Sarah Jack: Which is upon us soon.
[00:03:20] Josh Hutchinson: Soon, soon. Starts the beginning of January, in fact. But I know it runs until June. So we'll just keep plugging away while they're working. We'll be trying to get their ears and to get them to focus on this and get it done, hopefully sooner rather than later.
[00:03:43] Sarah Jack: I definitely think they'll have some things to think about after hearing the powerful words of our descendants on this episode.
[00:03:51] Josh, do you have any Connecticut history for us today?
[00:03:54] Josh Hutchinson: For this episode's history segment, I'm going to talk about the witch trial victims who were the [00:04:00] ancestors of the descendants we spoke to. There are five ancestors of these eight individuals.
[00:04:08] Four of the descendants are related to Alice Young of Windsor, who was the first known person to be executed for witchcraft in the American colonies on May 26th, 1647.
[00:04:27] One of our descendants is related to Lydia Gilbert of Windsor, who was hanged in 1654.
[00:04:35] Another is related to Rebecca Greensmith of Hartford, who was hanged in 1662 or 3 with her husband, Nathaniel.
[00:04:46] And we have Mary Barnes of Farmington, who was hanged in 1663.
[00:04:52] And, finally, our Sarah Jack is descended from Winifred Behnam, Sr. of Wallingford, [00:05:00] who was the second of three generations of women to be accused of witchcraft. Her mother, Mary Hale, was hanged for witchcraft in Boston. Winifred Sr. was acquitted of witchcraft twice, and her daughter Winifred Behnam, Jr. was also acquitted of witchcraft. Their last trials were in 1697, and so they were the last two accused of witchcraft to be taken to trial.
[00:05:39] Sarah Jack: Awesome. Josh, thank you for covering all that descendant and ancestor information for us today.
[00:05:45] Josh Hutchinson: It was my pleasure. I'm really looking forward to talking to these descendants now.
[00:05:51] Sarah Jack: And here are my fellow descendants talking about their ancestors and why this project has been important to them.[00:06:00] Sherry Kuiper, descendant of Alice Young, Alse C. Freeman, descendant of Alice Young, Rosemary Lang, descendant of Mary Barnes, Morgan Leigh Kelsey, descendant of Alice Young, Sue Bailey, descendant of Alice Young, Laura Secord, descendant of Lydia Gilbert, Caitlin Golden, descendant of Rebecca Greensmith, and Sarah Jack, descendant of Winifred Benham, Sr.
[00:06:30] Josh Hutchinson: How did you find out about your ancestor who was accused of witchcraft?
[00:06:35] Sherry?
[00:06:37] Sherry Kuiper: My mom's retired, and she's the one who does all the research in our family, and I'm the one who will say, "get in the car, and let's drive to Connecticut and see what we can find." And we like it that way. It works really well. And we call it visits, right? We go visit our ancestors.
[00:06:51] So she has a cousin that they do some research together on the family, and we were all together one day, and he said, [00:07:00] "I think we have an accused witch." And I was like, "no way." I didn't believe it, and then he said, "it's on the internet. Look it up." And I was like, "okay." I mean, Google's great and all, but that's not how genealogy works, right? And my mom was like, "let's just look and see." And so we started looking, and it made some logical sense, so then my mom really started digging into it. All the way up until her daughter, we had a paper trail, and then the Associated Daughters of Early American Witches, which is one of the many lineage societies out there, but this one is dedicated to those accused and hanged of witchcraft. They had that missing link from her daughter to her. So it was really just this conversation. In fact, I was the naysayer. I was like, "there's no way we have somebody who's this fascinating a part of American history. And early American history." But he was absolutely right, and we were able to do the research and prove it.
[00:07:57] Josh Hutchinson: Alse C.?
[00:07:59] Alse Freeman: [00:08:00] My sibling, who had access to the family history library, did extensive genealogical work, and somehow I had missed the bottom line of their research, which all it said was Alse Young, 1600 to 1647, parentheses, "witch." And I don't think I had even gotten to the bottom of that list, but it was in March of 2020 that I went and had a gathering with a lot of my family members on my dad's side, and they were talking about their ancestors with certain fondness.
[00:08:34] And then right after that, the pandemic hit, and I felt, "well, I, I want to go deep into this genealogy myself," and it was a chance I could do a free trial for one month on one of these websites and learn a lot more than I already knew. But my sibling had already done all this great research, so most of what I did was just corroborate, fact checking various other people's [00:09:00] accounts, making sure that there was no errors in what my sibling done. And it's led back to Alse Young, died in 1647.
[00:09:08] Josh Hutchinson: Rosemary?
[00:09:11] Rosemary Lang: This genealogy was presented to my mother when I was a baby, and when I was older, I read about it and found out about Mary Barnes being an accused witch, and in the genealogy it said she was accused of drunkenness and fornication. So I was just appalled, and I started looking into her a little bit, and that was probably 40 years ago, and I found nothing. But there seems to be a whole lot more online, especially, to find out about her. But I'm not ashamed or anything about it, because she was probably just an innocent woman.
[00:09:50] And I remember quite a few years ago there was a presentation at the old State House in Hartford. It was made as a Halloweeny event, [00:10:00] and they had a little play going, and it was about Mary Barns, and I knew that we were descended from her somehow. So I went to this play, and the Old State House was packed, and I think I was the only one that cried. I thought, "oh my God, this is my relative. It's so sad." And for everybody else, it was just a Halloween event.
[00:10:21] Josh Hutchinson: Morgan?
[00:10:23] Morgan Leigh Kelsey: So my dad passed away in 2016, and he had done a lot of genealogy. So Alice is on his father's side, and he had done up to one generation prior to Alice, to Alice's daughter, the other Alice, and when I saw Alice's name, there was some kind of knowing within me that just sparked a curiosity and a need to dig further. And so I ended up just simply googling [00:11:00] "Alice Young," and all of a sudden it brings up that she was the first in the colonies to be executed, and I felt pretty shocked by that, very shocked by that.
[00:11:12] Josh Hutchinson: Sue?
[00:11:13] Sue Bailey: A friend of Beth Caruso's from Windsor is my massage therapist, and her name's Donna, and she told me, "oh yeah, my friend wrote a book about the first accused witch that was executed, and I said, "oh, that's really cool." And I thought, "well, that's really interesting."
[00:11:31] I had my genetics done, and I see this relative that was a second cousin. I'm like, "who is this person?" So you can email someone through 23andme, which I did. He was an elderly gentleman, but his daughter answered me and said, "oh, I've done a lot of research on the family on that side," that would be my mother's father's side, "and we're related to the first person executed as a witch in the colonies." And I said, "oh my God, it must be Alice Young." And it [00:12:00] was, and then I started looking just online through all the genealogies that are available. I'm actually paying a genealogist to do a whole view of all four sides of me now, just because I wanna perhaps show my kids, and they thought it was pretty cool.
[00:12:16] Josh Hutchinson: Laura?
[00:12:18] Laura Secord: My husband is a historian, genealogist, and I think he'd gone in his family all the way back to the beginning of time, and one day he just came and he was looking at my family. I didn't even know he was looking at my family. And he came and said, "well, your great, great, great, great, great was found guilty of witchcraft in Connecticut in 1654."
[00:12:42] Josh Hutchinson: Caitlin?
[00:12:44] Caitlin Golden: So I am an avid ancestry user, like the ancestry.com, and I had found her name, but I didn't look too much into her until I got a hint that was talking about the witch trials, and of course that was eye-catching to me, and so I read about her, and I'm like, "oh my [00:13:00] gosh."
[00:13:00] I never knew about the Connecticut Witch Trials. Of course, I knew about Salem. We talked about it in school, but the Connecticut Witch Trials was never something I knew about. I knew that Salem wasn't the only trials. But then I researched her, and my jaw dropped. It's absolutely insane and horrible what she and all of these other victims went through, and it just hurts knowing like she was a mother, and I can't imagine how her children felt.
[00:13:27] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Caitlin. Finally, we have our very own host, Sarah Jack.
[00:13:34] Sarah Jack: I was working on a family line, and it was one of the first ones that took me into Connecticut, and I started reading through documents, and I saw that this person was an accused witch, and I didn't understand how that could be, because it was not Salem.
[00:13:54] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:13:55] How did you feel when you learned about your ancestor, [00:14:00] who was accused of witchcraft?
[00:14:03] Sherry Kuiper: When I was in college, I took a really amazing class at Edinboro University with a woman named Dr. Jenrette, and she did a class called History of Witchcraft, which was about the Reformation, all the way up through the Salem Witch Trials. And she took us to Salem on Halloween weekend, and it was amazing, right? Probably the coolest class trip in the world.
[00:14:23] I've always been interested in that and always fascinated by it. I don't know if I had any feelings of anything. I thought it was, I hate to say this because people died, but I thought it was really cool, because I thought that these people who did get accused and didn't die from it, they were kind of badasses, if I'm allowed to swear on your podcast. They were people who really kind of bucked the system in a lot of ways, and usually that's what got them to be an outcast, or they were different.
[00:14:53] In that respect, I thought it was really cool that my ancestor was somebody who was causing enough trouble that they felt that [00:15:00] this was the way to deal with her, and then when a lot of my friends found out, you know, a lot of them were like, "we're not surprised that you were descendant from somebody like this." So that's kind of how that initial feeling was. And then of course, you know, it just kept going from there. And then really understanding, too, like yeah, there's that kind of interesting history part of it, but then there's the reality part of it, of what really happened to these people, my ancestor and all the others, and then that kind of manifested more into a little bit of activism that all of us share today.
[00:15:32] Alse Freeman: Once I kind of knew that connection with 95% certainty, I tried to read anything I could to find out more about her, and really there just wasn't very much at all. Just putting myself in her shoes at the time, it really just struck me with extreme sadness. Like I remember getting goosebumps all over my body and just like a chill running through my body and a sinking feeling in my stomach, just [00:16:00] putting myself into her shoes and being, almost being there on the gallows, looking down at my six or seven year old daughter.
[00:16:10] And then putting myself in that daughter's shoes, who's also my ancestor, of looking up at her mother thinking, " what's going on? I don't understand what's happening." And just that moment, whether or not it's actually how things went down. I really was chilled by it, and it really stuck with me, and I wept, and part of the reason I wept, I think, is just this extreme feeling of injustice that was.
[00:16:38] And so much injustice has been done to so many people through our nation's history, but this was like a really visceral feeling for me, where I, I actually felt connected with my ancestor in a way that I hadn't felt very connected to any other ancestor that I had ever heard about.
[00:16:57] I had this connection with Alse and [00:17:00] her daughter, and so it was soon after that that I decided to carry the name Alse, or Alse C. is how I pronounce it, so I could still keep the letter C from my given name. But I felt like it was a way that I could honor my ancestor and keep her memory alive in a way.
[00:17:19] From there, I realized that there were hundreds and thousands of people potentially who were interested in the same thing, who were also descendants. I got connected with Beth Caruso's Connecticut WITCH Memorial Facebook page and started following those updates. And those updates led me to learn about the campaign to have the witch hanging victims exonerated. And so everything's just flowed from there, where I've seen that there's potentially hundreds of thousands of people, who if they knew, they are actually descended from these witch hanging victims. And potentially millions of Americans are connected in some way to this legacy through [00:18:00] their blood.
[00:18:00] Sarah Jack: I was baffled. I was very eager to get more information, and then I was quickly disappointed that there really wasn't much, and Connecticut wasn't offering information about their Witch trials, so I really had to dig around, and I found that extremely disappointing.
[00:18:23] Josh Hutchinson: Do you think your ancestor should be exonerated?
[00:18:28] Alse Freeman: There's no graveyard that I can actually go visit my ancestor. There's just a brick in Hartford in the courthouse square, and it feels not like a true memorial. It just says "witch hanging victim" and doesn't really speak to who she was as a person. We don't have very many details.
[00:18:48] I just wanna be clear that, you know, my ancestor's exoneration is not more important than other wrongfully accused people, and so I'm really grateful that your podcast is [00:19:00] also highlighting modern-day victims of the witch hunts. Another thing I just wanna mention is our country has a huge reckoning to do, in terms of understanding its past and making amends and seeking justice.
[00:19:14] Specifically focusing on the case of Alse, absolutely she needs to be exonerated by the state of Connecticut, because first of all, there's no record of any actual harm she committed upon anyone. There are no records. Secondly, if current laws do not penalize practices which can be considered witchcraft, then those who are punished for them need exoneration under the current laws, is the way I see it. And it's just as simple as the state of Connecticut allowing posthumous pardons.
[00:19:45] This should not be such a big challenge, and it should just be a stepping stone to open the door to all types of people rectifying injustice that have been committed against them and their families.
[00:19:59] Rosemary Lang: [00:20:00] Yes, of course, I think they all, all of them should be, especially because did she really do any harm to anybody? Was it just people's words that accused her? She should be exonerated, and I think they all should be. I don't think whatever she did does she deserved to be hanged for. So I hope they do exonerate them.
[00:20:26] Morgan Leigh Kelsey: I do. I do. I think that it's also complicated. There's a lot of layers there. I think that it is important to exonerate or to restore the good name. One, just to kind of bring some light to that and to bring some awareness to people. Generally, if I'm talking with anybody about that, I feel like there's always some sort of an education that ends up happening, because they're like, " I didn't know," or people just think, "oh, you [00:21:00] know, the witches, they burn the witches. They hung the witches. What are the witches, really?"
[00:21:06] What do we often do to people who might be a little different or might be the people that are the healers, the people that are bringing truth and light to situations, and nobody wants to hear or accept that sometimes. Just the fact that people could have gotten together, tortured people, then killed them, and said that that was okay, and that that was in the name of God is horrific, and I think that people really should be made aware of that.
[00:21:45] Sue Bailey: Yes, I do. And I can't even believe there was, when this was brought up in 2008 in the legislature that they didn't do it. What in the world are they thinking? That, "well, we don't have any proof they weren't [00:22:00] witches." What kinda crazy thing is that? How is it that they couldn't say, "of course we're gonna exonerate them?" Salem did it. Why in the world wouldn't we? It doesn't make sense.
[00:22:09] Laura Secord: I have like a list of reasons witches need to be exonerated, because they're innocent. First of all, the main reason is they were innocent. They were falsely accused. They were almost always women. So there was not entirely, but the bulk were women. They weren't weak. They weren't women that were easily duped by evil. They were the participants who helped to build this country, mothers, wives, helpmates, human beings, healers. Without them, we wouldn't have created what we have in this country now.
[00:22:47] Because their lives and their stories paint a clear picture of what our country's beginning was like. Because as modern persons, you and I have attained levels of knowledge and [00:23:00] education, and we now understand the science of nature behind the colonists' irrational fear. Because women were part of founding this country. Because these persons are our family and we want them remembered, celebrated, and honored, instead of carrying the stain of disgrace based in ignorance and hysteria. And because today forces of false truth, hysteria, and misogyny are rising up again, vilifying and naming women criminals, liars, and manipulators.
[00:23:41] Caitlin Golden: Just like everyone else, she was innocent. She was just trying her best to live. Just live a simple life back then, and this is just a big human rights violation. Simply because people disliked her, and she didn't have a good reputation, they figured, "hey, let's just call [00:24:00] her a witch, and that's all of her we'll see." It's wrong and it's horrible.
[00:24:05] Sarah Jack: Yes. I wanna acknowledge that they should not have been water tested, that they should not have had to flee.
[00:24:13] Josh Hutchinson: Why is it important for your ancestor's name to be cleared?
[00:24:17] Sherry Kuiper: It's not even just her name, right? It's all of their names. It doesn't matter if it was three days ago or 300 years ago, a wrong thing was done. And even though that the state of Connecticut saying, "I'm sorry, Sherry, that we did this to your grandmother" isn't gonna change anything, just that recognition that, "hey, this was a crappy thing that happened and it should have never happened." Sometimes we have to own those mistakes, even though we might have not been the ones who directly made it.
[00:24:45] Do I think anybody alive today had anything to do with this? Absolutely not. But just to, Really remind people because, you can look at some things going on in society today, and there's been references made to modern-day witch-hunts. And while we [00:25:00] might not hang people from trees like that happened to Alice, there are still things going on today, and we just need to remind ourselves how easy we can fall into those traps.
[00:25:10] It's just important for all of those people, all those ancestors. I can prove that this is my grandmother. So to say that nobody around today cares is not fair, and, frankly, I think that it's, while I'm sure there's red tape of bureaucracy, as there always is, I don't think it's as hard as they're making it to just come together and say, "these people are no longer accused, and we exonerate them." And I am glad that there are people finally in the state of Connecticut who are trying to help us move towards that resolution.
[00:25:43] Rosemary Lang: The cider goes bad, and they're accused of being a witch, or all the children in the town get sick but your own, so you must be in league with the devil to protect them. Stupid things like that. It was just so unfair. [00:26:00] Nobody listened to anything they said. I'm sure it was a jury of all men. Magistrates were all men. They were just lowly housewives, so nobody cared what they had to say. So, yes, they should all be exonerated.
[00:26:16] Sarah Jack: It's important, because although we don't know much about them, we do know that they were not witches. I don't want anybody in this country confused anymore about these victims that went through these witch trials. And if the state of Connecticut clears the names of their accused, it's a giant statement towards clarifying that these were innocent people.
[00:26:44] Josh Hutchinson: Why is exoneration relevant today?
[00:26:48] Alse Freeman: I think exoneration is relevant today because this case and these cases of the 11 witch-hanging victims in Connecticut can be a [00:27:00] teachable moment for us that these people were scapegoated in the past, most likely for something they did not do wrong, but some huge upheavals were happening in society at the time.
[00:27:15] There was a flu outbreak that was killing a lot of people, including many children, as Beth Caruso points out in her research. And so you gotta look at what's going on today with how people are being scapegoated for the various ills that are afflicting society.
[00:27:35] What I'm hopeful for is that my ancestor's case can be this way to highlight retrospectively how scapegoating is a part of our culture, how we're constantly looking for someone to blame. These days, often it's very in a very partisan way, but throughout [00:28:00] our nation's history, we have blamed others. We've blamed The Other for a lot of our collective problems that need a collective solution.
[00:28:11] Just to bring up the history of our treatment of the indigenous people of this country. And it's just, it's heartbreaking. To me, it's an even higher level of heartbreaking even than just my ancestors standing on the gallows. I know that other ancestors of mine participated in some of these colonial battles and even enslaved an indigenous child, um, one of my ancestors did. And so that for me is a great reckoning that I need to come to terms with myself. And I think it's very hard for our country to come to terms with that part of the story, so it's a little easier for us to focus on the tragedy in the colony, but the tragedy outside the colony was [00:29:00] just so monumental that, in the course of what we're doing, we need to like remember that that is a part of it, too. That is the context in which this was happening. I think just like acknowledging that the people were there before these, the colonies would be one starting point.
[00:29:20] Sue Bailey: I think the passage of time doesn't negate the wrong. Just because it's a long time ago doesn't mean that it's too late to do some sort of retroactive exoneration to right a wrong. And it would be for all the relatives. Some people might think, "oh, well that was cool that they were accused of. I like to think that they were really a Witch or something."
[00:29:49] I just can't help but think most people, when they find out they had a relative that goes back nine, 10 generations, that's a person just like we are, that [00:30:00] has all the same feelings and fears and loves people. And why would their death be any less meaningful 375 years later? It's still the fact that they were put to death wrongly, undoubtedly wrongly. It's just an injustice that needs to be addressed, even 375 years later.
[00:30:24] Caitlin Golden: While most of us look at witch trials as though that's just in my history book, it's still happening today in other countries around the world. And so if we make a good example, maybe it'll stop worldwide.
[00:30:37] Sarah Jack: I hope that when Connecticut exonerates their accused witches that it'll send a message and a signal to leaders in communities in other parts of the world, where witch-hunts are being tolerated. I want the message to be that we must stand against witch-hunting, that it's [00:31:00] no longer something that is acceptable, that it is murder, that it is destroying families, and it does not need to happen anymore.
[00:31:12] Josh Hutchinson: What would you like to say to the Connecticut General Assembly about why your ancestor should be exonerated?
[00:31:21] Sherry Kuiper: Just do it. Like, seriously, it's really that easy. And I know we can come up with lots of reasons why it's difficult , but just do it. I mean, because people said to me, "well, Sherry, it happened so long ago. Who cares?" I'm like, "well, then just do it. Who cares? Just get up there and say it. Sign the piece of paper and be done with it."
[00:31:40] It's the right thing to do and you just gotta do it. And Massachusetts has done it. Salem has fully embraced what has happened to their people, to almost to do a complete 180 or 360 really of what happened there. So I just tell state of Connecticut, just review it, do what you gotta do, but get it done. It's long overdue, and there's no [00:32:00] reason we should be waiting any longer.
[00:32:01] Alse Freeman: I think the basic requests we have are acknowledge that the injustice happened, recognize officially the innocence of these 11 victims who are executed, and recognize not only their suffering, but also their families and their descendants. Removing the ill fame from their descendants is one part of it. Reversing the charge is the bottom line.
[00:32:29] But I would add one extra thing, which is just we need to educate people on this history, not just a little paragraph on Wikipedia, but people need to be taught in schools about what happened in our country. And it's gonna be a long story to tell, but that is part of the way you can get closer to a country that has justice, which we are supposedly a country of justice and a country of laws. So you can't tell that story and then [00:33:00] hide the story where injustice was committed. And so the basic step forward is we need to move on to an education piece after we've exonerated these people, because their story needs to continue to be told. It's not just close the book and never talk about them again.
[00:33:19] Rosemary Lang: Because Mary Barnes was just a housewife and a mother taking care of her farm and her children. She was accused of something, we don't even really know what, that probably didn't harm anybody, and she should be exonerated. In all fairness, all of them should be.
[00:33:42] Morgan Leigh Kelsey: If that passes, that to me almost feels like it heals something in my DNA and in the DNA of others and in the DNA of future generations. And I think that can be thought in [00:34:00] a larger view. If you take that same principle and apply that to a whole lot of other things, if you apply that to Native Americans and you apply that to people who have been oppressed, and murdered, that's huge. So what I would say to the Connecticut General Assembly is that that is an important motion, an important movement for the future of all the people.
[00:34:32] Sue Bailey: The people that were executed were more than likely innocent, and for what comfort it can bring their souls now or their relatives who are still alive. If it can bring them comfort and some measure of closure, I think it's a small task for them. I mean, it would be a really good gesture on the part of the legislature.[00:35:00]
[00:35:00] The old Connecticut General Assembly or whatever they called themselves back then, I forgot the management of the colony, maybe they're the ones that voted on deciding that she should die. Now here, this current legislature could vote on freeing those people from that stigma of potentially a Witch or be an evil person. They were put to death. I mean, I think it's still really important. The length of time that's elapsed doesn't mute the wrong. And it's still something that's important.
[00:35:39] Caitlin Golden: I think I would again say this was a big human rights violation, and it's not fair that even after death, she and as many other people are still considered criminals, even though they were very clearly innocent. And as a descendant, it would mean the world to me to be able to have her name cleared. [00:36:00] And I'm sure she would've been ecstatic, as well as everyone else, to finally be recognized. "Hey, I didn't do anything wrong. I was just a victim."
[00:36:08] Sarah Jack: I want the exoneration to acknowledge that all the Connecticut accused should not have had their good names defamed.
[00:36:15] Josh Hutchinson: What type of memorial do you want to see?
[00:36:20] Sherry Kuiper: I would like to see a memorial. I do like them, because I do think it serves as a reminder of things that have happened. I love visiting historical places and everything, so I think it would just really be dependent on where it is.
[00:36:33] I think it would need to be Hartford Square there, where a lot of the victims were hanged. Something in a place like that, I think would be ideal, because it's in a place of significance. It's a place where people are gonna see it and actually stop. If you put it in the middle of nowhere, like I love all the small Connecticut towns, my whole family's from up there, if you go back far enough. I think it loses its value. So I think it needs to go in a significant place, where it's actually going to be [00:37:00] seen.
[00:37:00] I love Windsor, Connecticut. It's a beautiful little town. You're not going there unless you're going there for a very specific reason. Harford Square, it's in the center of town, a popular place where people go, so I think it would be great if it's put in a place that's going to actually reach people.
[00:37:16] Just to bear their names and probably with whatever words it is that exonerates them, however the state is going to recognize that, I think would be really important. But definitely to put their names in there, because I'm a big believer that, as long as your name is out there, your legacy will live on. People will be able to look up Alice Young, it's on the internet. They can read about her and know a little bit about her.
[00:37:39] Alse Freeman: I would love to be part of coming up with what that would look like, and I would love to be present when it's initiated. My ancestor, she's dead, and she's not gonna ever be able to feel that vindication of being cleared. At least, I don't think she will. But I really like to believe that her story could be [00:38:00] an example of how we as a society can learn to make peace with the past and also learn from our errors. So I would love to see the memorial kind of speak to that, that we are learning from the past, and we are gonna move forward as a country of justice.
[00:38:17] Rosemary Lang: Well, no brooms or funny hats, for sure. Something beautiful, a little bench for people to sit and contemplate, everybody's name's inscribed. They have something like that in Salem. It's a nice, peaceful area. Something along those lines. Not religious and not halloweeny.
[00:38:41] Sue Bailey: Well, it shouldn't have a pointy hat, I'll tell you that. It was talked about, I think maybe when I was interviewed for that channel 30 thing that, it was a joke when the legislature, when they were addressing this before in 2008 and the legislature, like they didn't take it [00:39:00] seriously. I mean the people that were in the legislature reviewing it. And I think if you put a pointy hat on the statue, much as it's amusing, it doesn't take it seriously enough. Should it be a woman? Yeah. Why not it, it should be a statue of a woman. I mean, men were accused too, though. I mean, maybe you want a woman and a man.
[00:39:22] How about this? Is this too much like the Kennedy grave, like an eternal flame? That meaning you could do something like that. It would be cheaper, too. That or something peaceful but something that symbolizes the continuity of life and the fact that that tiny lapsing is of no significance. It's just as relevant today as it was then. Something to show that the memory of what they went through goes on.
[00:39:54] Caitlin Golden: If there can be like some kind of like plaque or monument maybe, or maybe since she was a mom, maybe it [00:40:00] would be possible to have a little playground. I think that would be nice, so I feel like she would like that, for children to be able to play there, and you can still have remembrance for them.
[00:40:11] Sarah Jack: I want their names on it, but I want, if other people are discovered, their names to be able to be added. I want it to be accessible. I don't want it to be a side. I want it to be a monument that is known, so that the history is known, but I want it to represent that a new page has been turned in that book.
[00:40:35] Josh Hutchinson: What does the exoneration project mean to you?
[00:40:39] Rosemary Lang: It's great that all this information is coming out. Witches aren't evil, I don't think. And I think by presenting all this information that you are will help people to realize that they're just people, and people need [00:41:00] to know that they're just innocent women, really, and men, and it was a tough time.
[00:41:07] Morgan Leigh Kelsey: I guess it's something that I never expected to be a part of that really caught me by a surprise. Just the discovery of the situation and my tie to it. To me, all of it just really feels like it's all about healing. I think whenever you can go and go look back and look at wrongs that were done and try to do something about it. I mean, you can't take it back. But I think when you educate people, when you look forward, when you look at something and say, "this can never happen again." I think that's the most important part of it.
[00:41:51] Caitlin Golden: I think for me, I always love history, and any chance I can get to volunteer or help for a cause [00:42:00] beyond me always makes me very happy. If I can get the word out and better educate myself on this and help better educate other people, I think it's just making a difference in many people's lives.
[00:42:13] Josh Hutchinson: Have you felt more connected to your accused ancestor due to the project?
[00:42:19] Sherry Kuiper: Yeah, when I do research and find these fascinating people in our history, which I believe everybody has fascinating people in their genealogy, we just have to find it and find their stories. So whether it's Alice Young, or whether it's some of the other really neat people in my history, I think it's just important to remember it and to talk about it and to really understand what their life was like. The more I learned about her and the closer I looked at some of the things and being involved in the Associated Daughters of Early American Witches, it just made me realize that more needed to be done for these folks.
[00:42:52] Recently, thanks to, to the great internet and social media and stuff, I've been able to support it in a lot of ways from afar, and I find that really important [00:43:00] because even though it's what, 370 some years since since Alice Young was hanged and the ones who came after her, there's really still been no justice for a lot of them. And so it's important it's important to recognize those wrongs, even if it's 300 years later , we still, it's still important for for us to recognize that as a country, well, I guess pre country, but as colonial Americans, these things happened. They happened in Connecticut, and it would be really nice if they would just take the steps to rectify what had happened.
[00:43:34] Rosemary Lang: Definitely, I do feel connection and I really would like to learn more about her and try to go back.
[00:43:42] Morgan Leigh Kelsey: Yeah, I do feel deeply connected, and I think it's, when you go back that many generations, it seems so far back, and it's almost like having that knowledge. I guess it's more a piece that's in my heart that I [00:44:00] feel, but you feel like you're able to just reach back into the past and pull that to you. And I guess even just thinking of that's your grandmother and thinking of that female lineage and thinking of how incredibly far back that traces her. It just feels like there's this palpable line to the past and this woman that I feel like is now right here that I never knew about.
[00:44:27] Caitlin Golden: I would definitely say I feel a lot more connected, and the more I learn about her, the more, obviously, I want to, help get her exonerated, as well as everyone else. Yeah, I do, I definitely feel a lot more connected to her.
[00:44:41] Sarah Jack: I do, because I'm hearing what the project and the ancestors mean to the other descendants, and it helps me to see that I'm not the only one that feels this way.
[00:44:55] Josh Hutchinson: Do you think any differently about what you've been taught about [00:45:00] history?
[00:45:00] Rosemary Lang: I don't recall ever learning anything in history class about the witches, maybe a little bit of the witch trials. Probably we had to read The Crucible. Other than that, most of my learning has been as an adult, an older adult. I think the history classes are changing in a lot of ways, and that's one way they could present it differently to kids, just like with Columbus and all of those discoverers, supposedly. I think they should change the presentation for witches, as well. Because I think kids still, it's Halloween, it's, you know, pointy black hats and broom and things. So it'd be nice to portray them more as just women that were mistreated.
[00:45:52] Caitlin Golden: I definitely feel like I haven't learned everything that maybe should have been taught to me, [00:46:00] because I would've never known about the Connecticut witch trials, if I had never found Rebecca Greensmith in my family tree. I definitely feel like a lot of it is not discussed, because of how dark it is, or there's just some things that maybe the school systems don't feel is necessary to teach. But in cases like the Connecticut witch trials, any witch trials, I think it's really important to discuss, so that we don't repeat history ,because it's still happening that people are being accused and executed because of it, and it's wrong, so clearly we haven't learned that lesson.
[00:46:32] Josh Hutchinson: Do you feel more hopeful?
[00:46:35] Sherry Kuiper: I feel more hopeful, because I think the big shift was there is somebody in the government in Connecticut who has taken up this case. And so that to me was a big thing of hope, because with any sort of legislation of any kind, you need somebody to pick it up and look at it and say, "you know what? I think this is important enough to move forward with it." So that actually is a huge thing.
[00:46:57] And so that kind of coupled with[00:47:00] some of the press that we've been able to do over the past few months with that person picking up that piece of paper and saying, "you know what? This is worth it and I'm gonna look into this." It does give me hope, and I think we've got a lot of great forward momentum, and I think we need to keep showing this legislator why this is important, and however we need to show up for her to carry that on, I think this is really going to be it. And I think this is probably the best shot we've had ever to get something done. I am just grateful that somebody finally picked it up and said, "you know what? This is important, and we're going to take a look at it."
[00:47:32] Alse Freeman: I'm very excited that thousands of people are working on a collective solution for this one problem, and I hope that we can build off that and develop more collective actions that lift up our country's people, instead of tearing them down.
[00:47:50] Josh Hutchinson: And now here's Sarah Jack with an important update on witch hunts happening in our world right now.
[00:47:58] Sarah Jack: Here is End Witch Hunts [00:48:00] World Advocacy News. You are living in a world with a pervasive belief in harmful witchcraft with a mass occurrence of holding women and children responsible for supernaturally causing death, illness, and misfortune. This deep-seated conclusion is delaying action for protecting alleged witches, promoting witch-hunting behaviors, and blurring the recognition that worldwide historic witch trials executed innocent humans. These are communities that are waiting to be made safe. These are behaviors that have no place in a world that seeks to protect the vulnerable. These historic victims should have their names cleared and their innocence acknowledged by the communities that prosecuted them. When any advocate asks for this, ears should be listening, minds should be realizing, and bodies should be moving to take action.
[00:48:51] I hope you have had a chance to look up Dr. Leo Igwe of the Nigerian organization, the Advocacy for Alleged Witches. Please find the website link [00:49:00] in our show notes. Here's a quote from a recent message from Leo.
[00:49:04] " Part of the objective of Advocacy for Alleged Witches is to tackle the misperceptions of witches and witchcraft, whether alleged or not. Advocacy for Alleged Witches seeks to address associated fears and suspicions. It aims to correct the pervasive misconceptions and fears associated with the term witch or witchcraft, because these misperceptions are at the root of witch persecution. Saving alleged witches cannot be realized until Nigerians disabuse their mind and free themselves from fears and suspicions that the term witches or witchcraft, engenders. So the mission of combating witch persecution and supporting victims starts in the mind. It starts by demystifying the term witchcraft or witches. It starts by clarifying misconceptions and misperceptions that are linked to terminologies such as witches, witchcraft, and supposed occult forces."
[00:49:57] Can you accept this change in thinking? [00:50:00] Consider it a message not just for Nigeria, but also for you and every human. As Leo states, misconceptions linked to the idea of witches, witchcraft, and harmful occult forces must be demystified. It is time to stop obscuring the truth and start diffusing the panic that is ignited by what we fear as malevolent.
[00:50:19] Last week, I brought attention to a situation in Ireland. The Northern Ireland Borough of Larne wants to commemorate eight Witch trial victims from the Islandmagee witch trial that took place on March 31st, 1711. A borough councillor raised questions of whether the eight women and a man who were found guilty of witchcraft were actually innocent. When criticized for his deferral of action, due to what authority he perceives the council holds, he has stated that actually he feels ambivalent about the matter of innocence. Ambivalent?
[00:50:51] He feels the council does not have authority to acknowledge innocence due to obscurity around witches and witchcraft. He is, however, interested in [00:51:00] having tourists play a game of determining guilt of these historical people that are still waiting to have their names cleared. He wants their convictions left alone, but he wants to draw tourists to the historic site by the opportunity to vote for guilt or innocence with tokens.
[00:51:14] This incident on the other side of the world from me matters, because I have asked the Connecticut legislature to exonerate the accused witches of Connecticut colony. I cannot imagine a response where the Connecticut legislature embraces ambivalence and suggests a tourist game at historical sites, instead of exoneration and memorials. Please, hear your community and the descendants of accused witches when they say that recognizing innocence matters, it matters to women and children that are being attacked as witches today. Acknowledging their innocence builds the foundation for dismantling witch-hunt mentalities that are destroying lives in our modern world.
[00:51:54] While we watch and wait, let's support the victims across the world where innocent people are being targeted by [00:52:00] superstitious fear. Support them by acknowledging and sharing their stories. Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our End Witch Hunts movement on Twitter @_endwitchhunts and visit our website at endwitchhunts.org.
[00:52:18] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that update.
[00:52:23] Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
[00:52:24] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: the Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:52:33] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
[00:52:34] Josh Hutchinson: Like, subscribe, or follow wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:52:42] Sarah Jack: Visit at thouschaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:52:44] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell everyone you know about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:52:51] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to End Witch Hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
[00:52:56] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today [00:53:00] and a beautiful tomorrow.

December 8, 2022

Katherine Howe on the Salem Witch-Hunt

KatherineHowe.com
University of VA, Salem Witch Trials Documents and Transcriptions
Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England by John Putnam Demos
In the Devil’s Snare by Mary Beth Norton
Witchcraft Belief by Boris Gershman
Islandmagee Witch Trial News
Leo Igwe, AfAW
Advocacy Against Witch Hunts, South Africa

Show Notes

Presenting New York Times best selling author Katherine Howe. She discusses how we should view the individuals from the Salem, MA witch trial history. Katherine gives us an exciting preview of her current fiction book project on 17th century female pirates:: A True Account of Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself: a novel. We continue the conversation inquiring with our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Links:

End Witch Hunt Projects

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Hutchinson: " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
[00:00:03]
[00:00:24] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to another episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:31] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:33] Josh Hutchinson: Today's guest is the extraordinary author Katherine Howe. We'll speak with her about the causes of the Salem Witch Hunt and about her new book on pirates. I'm excited to talk about Salem Witch Hunt again and really curious what her book is about.
[00:00:56] Sarah Jack: Yeah, it doesn't matter what time of year.
[00:00:59] Josh Hutchinson: [00:01:00] It's always Christmas for pirates.
[00:01:02] Sarah Jack: Just like Katherine's other books, you are going to be delighted by the characters and the adventure. Fun getting to hear about it, and it's gonna be hard to wait for the publishing.
[00:01:17] Josh Hutchinson: She has wild swashbuckling shenanigans. But first, on a more serious note, we talk Salem, Witch Trials, what caused them, what didn't cause them, why Katherine Howe it gets fired up about certain topics.
[00:01:37] Sarah Jack: We get to a lot of layers.
[00:01:40] Josh Hutchinson: Peeling that onion.
[00:01:42] Sarah Jack: We just take Katherine right into the depths of the mechanics.
[00:01:48] Josh Hutchinson: We talk about the different spheres that Malcolm Gaskill spoke about that are nested in each other and how each of those [00:02:00] spheres contributed to the witch-hunt.
[00:02:03] Sarah Jack: We talk about what kind of perspective do we need to be using when we look back at the individuals that were in a different time in history.
[00:02:12] Josh Hutchinson: Oh yes, we do that, don't we? Wow, this is gonna be one hell of an episode!
[00:02:19] Sarah Jack: Aren't they all?
[00:02:20] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, but I have a good feeling about this one. It's gonna be something special.
[00:02:26] Sarah Jack: It's another dynamic conversation with a phenomenal author and researcher, and she does not hold back.
[00:02:36] Josh Hutchinson: She does not. The emotions come out. Be ready.
[00:02:43] I'm going to talk about the before the Salem Witch Trials, what the conditions were in Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem Village and Andover.
[00:02:56] Colonies used to have charters, so they [00:03:00] were officially recognized by the English government to govern themselves without direct supervision from the Crown and Parliament. Massachusetts Bay lost its colonial charter in 1684, when King Charles II revoked it because they had been naughty boys. And when the witch hunt began in early 1692, they still didn't have a charter, so they were in legal limbo.
[00:03:34] In addition, they were fighting King William's War and still recovering from King Philip's War, which was the costliest and bloodiest of the colonial wars, occurring between 1675 and 1678. In fact, the Massachusetts economy did not recover to pre-war levels [00:04:00] until the 1800s, after the Revolution.
[00:04:04] Economic hardship resulting from the wars and the collapse of land speculation were also contributed to by an influx of refugees from the frontier in Maine and New Hampshire, and Essex County, where Salem's located, was especially impacted, due to its proximity to that frontier, being the northernmost county in Massachusetts. Many of the settlers of Salem had moved on to Maine and New Hampshire, only to be forced to return when their villages were burned to the ground.
[00:04:50] Beyond these issues, in Salem, the town had recently gone through a bit of a separation, [00:05:00] where Salem Village was allowed to begin its own church. In 1689, Salem Village hired the fourth in a series of unpopular ministers, and there were disputes over his contract, so there was a lot of tension in the area.
[00:05:23] There was also tension in Andover, which was the hardest hit by the witch trials, with some 45 individuals being accused. There, there was a dispute between two ministers, Francis Dane and Thomas Barnard. Francis Dane was an older gentleman with health issues, who was no longer performing full duties as minister. So they had brought in Thomas Barnard, a younger man to take over some of [00:06:00] his duties, but were still paying both men in 1692, leading to tensions within the community that may have fueled some of the allegations there.
[00:06:13] We'll get into these issues further with Katherine Howe, and specifically we'll be discussing Andover in a few weeks with author Richard Hite and get into more of whether the dispute over the ministers did or did not contribute to witch-hunt fever in that community.
[00:06:35] Sarah Jack: That was good, Josh. Thanks, Josh.
[00:06:39] Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome. It was a fun one to do, and we're going to dig into that stuff some more with our guest.
[00:06:48] Sarah Jack: I am excited to introduce author Katherine Howe, whose works include The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, Conversion, [00:07:00] The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs. She's an editor of The Penguin Book of Witches and co-author of Vanderbilt.
[00:07:09] Josh Hutchinson: We've read that you're actually connected to somebody accused, which is an interesting connection. So can you tell us about who it is that's your ancestor?
[00:07:22] Katherine Howe: It's a little bit of a funny story. So my last name is Howe, like, how are you? But with an "e" on the end. And one of the witches who was accused towards the beginning of the Salem panic and who was put to death was Elizabeth Howe. And she was from the same broad region that my family was from also. So it wasn't a huge surprise when my aunt, back in the nineties, she was doing some genealogical research, and she figured out that that Elizabeth Howe is, I think it's like my eighth great aunt. So it's a lateral thing, rather than a direct thing. But at the time, she discovered that Elizabeth [00:08:00] Howe was related to us that way and also that Elizabeth Proctor was also a eighth or ninth great aunt, as well.
[00:08:07] Just not all that surprising given that those communities were pretty small, and there were lots of intermarriages between different family groups and things like that. So it was in the nineties when I first learned that and thought, of course, it being the nineties and me being a grunge kid, and I thought was like, "oh, that's so badass. That's so metal." thought that was the greatest thing ever.
[00:08:27] I didn't give it much thought beyond that, until I was actually living in that region of New England, because my family left New England in the 1930s. I grew up with this sense of it as like the motherland, but I didn't actually grow up there myself. So I arrived in this region with this kind of funny twin consciousness of, oh, this is home, but I'm also a stranger here. And so it was being a stranger in this place that I felt this kinship that probably contributed somewhat to my getting started [00:09:00] writing fiction.
[00:09:00] My first book was The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, which was something I started working on when I was in graduate school at Boston University and just trying to think about the humanity of people living in this time and the, maybe a funny little detail. So one of the historians of witchcraft who I really admire the most is a woman named Mary Beth Norton, who wrote a book called In The Devil's Snare, which anyone is interested in Salem has to know Professor Norton's work, cause she's just like the kind of detail that she can bring to it. And she writes in a novelistic sort of way. It's just like the most gripping account of Salem ever. And Professor Norton has said that the more you work on witchcraft, the more superstitious you become. And I have to say that this is true. As evidenced by the anecdote I'm about to tell you.
[00:09:54] So my first book was The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. It asked, "what if one of the Salem witches the real [00:10:00] thing?" But the real thing the way the colonists believe, which is to be not in that pointy hat fantasy, Harry Potter Sense.
[00:10:07] And I built that story around a woman named Deliverance Dane who's a real person. And she was a minor person in the Salem Witch crisis. She was accused towards the end of the panic. She was not put to death. She really, like, was a footnote, I think, in the real history of Salem. And so I felt like it was okay to build a more fantastical story.
[00:10:30] Physick Book is a magical realist story, so I wanted room to have kind of a fantastical story around a real person. And so I picked her because of her obscurity, but also because of her name. Her name is so evocative of this particular moment in time of this like subculture that she was living in, Puritan New England, Deliverance Dane. Just amazing. So that is why I chose to write about her.
[00:10:59] That book [00:11:00] came out in 2009, and so several years later I was futsing about on a genealogy website because of course, for people who are interested in family history, life's gotten a lot easier. Over the last couple of years, with the advent of digital humanities and so many more ways of doing research online. Like, when my aunt was doing research in the nineties, it was really hard to do, and now it's actually much more accessible, which is a huge gift.
[00:11:25] So I'm messing about, point, click, point, click, and I come upon Nathaniel Dane, which is actually the name of a character in the book that I wrote, and I was like, "huh, that's a weird coincidence. Who knew?" Point, click, point, click, point, click. Lo and behold, I learned that it turns out Deliverance Dane, the real one, is my eighth great-grandmother. And so she's more closely related to me, genetically speaking, than Elizabeth Howe, even though Elizabeth Howe and I have the same last name. And I had [00:12:00] zero idea, no idea whatsoever, and I'd written an entire novel about this person and found that there she was, just hanging out, waiting for me. So I definitely have gotten more superstitious the longer I've worked on witchcraft.
[00:12:11] Josh Hutchinson: That's a very strange thing to have happen to you. But it turns out that Deliverance Dane is actually my like eighth or ninth great grand aunt, and Elizabeth Jackson Howe is also an aunt, and Deliverance Dane, in her confession, says that she worked with Mary Osgood, and that's my grandmother. I connected to a lot of the people you're connected to.
[00:12:39] Katherine Howe: So we're cousins, Josh.
[00:12:40] Josh Hutchinson: And Sarah's my cousin through Mary Esty.
[00:12:44] Katherine Howe: Wow.
[00:12:45] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. It's a small world when you get back to those little towns back there.
[00:12:50] Katherine Howe: Yes. It really is, for sure. It's still pretty far back there. It's a long time ago. It was very funny. I once did a book event, and someone came out to me very emotional, [00:13:00] and they were, turns out, a descendant of a judge from the Salem trials. And this person wanted very much to personally apologize to me. And I was like, " no, it's really, it's okay". Like he's, this is not something that you need to feel badly about. This is, everything's fine, cool's fine. But it is interesting to me how close people can feel to people who are living in such a distant time period.
[00:13:26] Josh Hutchinson: We definitely feel connected to our ancestors, and we talk to a lot of descendants of which trial victims, and they have an emotional bond with those ancestors, but that was so long ago. Did you get interested in Salem because of your connection with Howe and Proctor?
[00:13:51] Katherine Howe: Partly. I went to graduate school for American and New England studies, which is like interdisciplinary American history. And I actually came to it from an art history [00:14:00] background. I have a background in visual culture, and it's a where for grad school visual culture and also material culture, which is to say, stuff, objects. On a whim, my husband and I moved to Marblehead, Massachusetts, which is a small town on the water close to modern-day Salem.
[00:14:19] We're having this conversation in October, and there was just an article on Boston Globe about how like a hundred thousand people came to Salem for Halloween and running streets. Salem is a town of 40,000 people. I can't even wrap my head around how many people they cramming in this season. And a lot of people come to Salem for Halloween. It's like Halloween Central, and understandably.
[00:14:41] But it was interesting to me while I was living in Marblehead and I was studying history. And I was living in a house that was built in 1705. And so one thing I have to say is people associate me so closely with Salem, because I've written so much Salem fiction. I grew up in [00:15:00] Houston, Texas. Okay. So the oldest building extant in Houston, Texas is a wine bar that was originally built as a bakery, and it's from 1856. So the oldest building in the entire city that I grew up in is six years younger than the new edition of the house that I was living in in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Earlier, when I was talking about having a sense of being home but being a stranger there. I brought my new south eyes to this incredibly old environment, because Marblehead has the biggest collection of century houses in the entire country. They even have more than Colonial Williamsburg, for instance, except that in Marblehead, the houses have been continually occupied.
[00:15:46] On the second floor of the house was an apartment, but the house had been a single-family house, been carved into apartments. Pine floors were like foot wide, and the ceilings were incredibly low. Like, you couldn't stretch your arms over your head, cuz [00:16:00] the ceilings were so low. And this is actually when I learned for the first time, talking material culture, that bed headboards actually have a function. They're not just decorative. And I discovered this, because we were so broke in grad school that we would turn the heat down as far as we could manage.
[00:16:16] And so the room that we used as our bedroom, ice would form on the inside of the windows, because it was so cold, and we were so broke. And so when we were first living there, we had this futon I'd brought with me from Texas, of course. And there was no headboard on the futon. And so we were freezing, just like having your head up by this wall with ice on the window. We were freezing cold. And it wasn't until we got like a bed with a headboard, we like, "oh, this is a lot warmer. This is great." We just only then did I discover that a headboard really is important, at least if you're living in New England.
[00:16:48] And in this room, the bedroom that we had was tucked under the eaves of the lean-to part of a house. So if you're familiar with colonial architecture, houses tended to be built in stages. You'd have room here and a [00:17:00] room here, and you have maybe you'd add a second floor and you might add a lean-to in the back to add some extra space. So we were in what had been the lean-to, and there was a little door that went into the back stair, and over the back stair, there was this little horseshoe-shaped charm over the back door that had been painted over. And of course, horseshoes are something that I think all over the country, we all recognize what they mean, and they mean that they're there for luck or for protection. And you see this all over the place. This is a piece of folk magic belief that is incredibly widespread, such that we don't even really notice it, as evidenced by the fact that you can buy horseshoe necklaces at Tiffany's, wherever. We don't even think about it anymore. But it was interesting to me to see this little remnant piece of magic. It wasn't a real horseshoe. It was clearly there. It was tiny. It was a charm. It had been made as a charm, sold as a charm.
[00:17:54] And so then I started looking around and noticing horseshoes wherever I went. And it got me thinking [00:18:00] between the fact that there was this little remnant magic shred, that there was that and also the fact that I was in this physical space that people had been moving through, who had been present when the trials were happening. Like we were only one town over from Salem, and, of course, when the trials were happening, people were traveling from towns all over the place to come and see, because it was a huge spectacle. People were talking about it.
[00:18:26] So there was one day when I was sitting and thinking, like, "someone's foot has been on this board, this actual board under my hand. The same foot was standing and watching what was going on." And something about that tangibility or that proximate tangibility was really moving to me, and it got me thinking about the humanity of people who were living through that very strange moment in time, cuz I feel like much of the time their humanity is elided by our presentist biases or what have you. I feel like in [00:19:00] highly fantasy versions of witchcraft, the humanity of the people in the past is elided, and in, certainly in Arthur Miller, the actual humanity of people is alighted.
[00:19:12] I started thinking about what became the story in Physick Book from that perspective, from like occupying this very weird, specific physical space as a stranger and trying to think about what it meant to be in that space and like how it felt to be in this space, over this incredible span of years, and how, in one sense, the early modern period is this incredibly alien and remote time. Their understanding of how reality worked is very different from our understanding of how reality works. But at the same time, there are certain common elements of common humanity that persist, like lying in bed and being freezing cold, unless you have a headboard at your head, and so a lot of my fiction, my desire to write fiction came [00:20:00] from thinking about these common points of humanity across really wide, gaping spans of time.
[00:20:06] Josh Hutchinson: Can you give us a little background on what the situation was in Massachusetts Bay, when the witch trials started?
[00:20:17] Katherine Howe: A few things were happening. A question that I get a lot is, what is the proximate cause o f the Salem Witch crisis, what caused it? And the thing that I think is interesting about that question is that it suggests that it would be so much easier if there were just one cause, if we could just point to the thing, and be like, "oh, that's the thing."
[00:20:36] When we were corresponding, Josh, you mentioned the ergot hypothesis, that back in the seventies, somebody floated the idea that maybe all the afflicted girls had eaten moldy bread and were suffering from ergotism, and they were all tripping outta their mind. And that hypothesis was actually dismissed, I think, six months after it was first floated. But it still bubbles up periodically in [00:21:00] documentaries and popular discourses about Salem, because, and I think the reason that it doesn't go away is because it's so simple. It's so tidy to be like, "okay, that's the thing."
[00:21:11] And the truth of the matter is there isn't one thing. The way that I sometimes talk about it is that it's like a Venn diagram, and Salem is the point of the intersection of all the overlapping circles.
[00:21:24] So one overlapping circle is the very specific kind of religion that everyone in Salem adhered to. It was a world view that did not hold that there was anything outside of Christianity. So, for instance, the indigenous population that was already living in Massachusetts at that time, by virtue of not being adherents of Christianity in their very specific puritan worldview, that which is not Christian is by definition devilish, and it was actually Mary Beth Norton who's made the point that a lot of the language that the [00:22:00] people at Salem use to describe the devil is language that is used to describe indigenous people. So, one big Venn diagram circle is the specific religious and cultural moment that they're living in.
[00:22:15] Another diagram circle that we could point to is the weather, that the first panicky behavior that erupts with Betty Parris and with Abigail Williams, it starts in January, January, super cold in Massachusetts, cold, dark. The sun sets at 4:30 in the afternoon. And I'm not exaggerating, like it is dark AF. And and that's true in the 17th century, as it's today. And also in 1690s, North America was in miniature ice age. It was even colder and more bitter than it is now in Massachusetts.
[00:22:50] Another piece is pretty relentless class and gender context. The girls who first experienced symptoms that they describe as [00:23:00] fits are Betty Parris, daughter of Samuel Parris, who's the unpopular minister in Salem Village, Abigail Williams, who's his 11-year-old, she's described as being his niece, although that had a different meaning for them than it does for us today, but she was bound out to service.
[00:23:17] So can you imagine living in a culture where when you can't afford to feed your 11-year-old, you just give her to somebody to live with, for her to work for them? You just give her away. And so Abigail was this lonely, impoverished, starving, freezing child whose job it was to obey everyone all the time.
[00:23:42] Oftentimes, I think with great sympathy about Abigail Williams, poor Abigail, who, by the way, in Arthur Miller is turned into a 17-year-old temptress. She's a child. She's a child. And if you look at the descriptions of her behavior that are described as her being in her fits, a lot of her behavior sounds to me like playing, [00:24:00] like running around in circles and flapping your arms and saying, " whish" and saying that you're gonna fly at the chimney.
[00:24:05] Is that devilish possession, or is it an 11 year old girl being silly? And I feel like that is a, that is something that's worth thinking about. So there's the kind of class and gender politics, that's another big.
[00:24:16] So there are a number of different aspects, but you were asking about the politics and the charter. So this is another pretty big circle. So, typically in the early modern period in the colonies, if someone was accused as a witch, they would be accused and have a trial, and if they were found guilty, by the way, it's hard to find people guilty. They actually had a pretty high bar for for evidence at that time. Believe it or not, you could be tried and found guilty, and if you're found guilty, you could be put to death, and that could happen within a matter of weeks. Salem, the panic begins in January, the first hangings aren't until June. That's like a huge long span of time. And the reason for that long span of time is because the Glorious Revolution was unfolding.
[00:24:57] Back in England at that [00:25:00] time, Massachusetts Charter had expired, so they didn't have the legal wherewithal to hold a trial. That's why the Salem trial trials are conducted by a special Court of Oyer and Terminer. They basically had to convene like a special tribunal to deal with this problem that had come together. In fact, there's some historians who wondered if the Court of Oyer and Terminer didn't just deal with witchcraft. They were supposed to deal with all the rest of the backlog. But we just don't know what that backlog was, cause the records of the witch trials are what have survived.
[00:25:28] And then there's another piece of the Venn diagram, and we have to consider it. At the very beginning, the very first person who's accused as a witch is accused by Abigail and Betty and she's the only person who has less social and cultural power than they do. And they accuse Tituba or Titube Indian, who is an enslaved woman in the Parris household.
[00:25:50] So she's basically the only person who has less ability to protect herself than these children themselves do. And so Tituba's accused. She [00:26:00] has two confessions, and there's some evidence that she is beaten in between the two confessions. And in one of the confessions, Tituba introduces the idea of a conspiracy. She says that there is a group of witches at work in Salem Village. She doesn't know who they are or how many.
[00:26:20] And so at one point early on, there's actually a sermon is preached in Sermon Village that I'm gonna man the title, but it's something along the lines of "Christ Knows How Many Devils There Are." And so you have this idea of an unknown number of conspirators, who must be discovered. And when you have this undefined, invisible threat and also no legal relief, there's no like pressure valve that this tension could be released by, because of the like, unfortunate timing of the expiration of the charter.
[00:26:58] So you bring [00:27:00] all of these circles in the Venn diagram together, and that is why Salem gets as big as it does. And by the time Salem was over and done, 19 people were put to death and hundreds had been accused, hundreds in a period of time when a given town would only have a couple thousand people.
[00:27:16] Josh Hutchinson: That was a great, thorough explanation of how it took all these different factors to create the situation. It wasn't something, a single bullet theory, that you can put to rest.
[00:27:32] Katherine Howe: But I think one reason that, that we keep craving for simplicity is because with a simple explanation for why than it's easier to consign, to history. It'd be so much more encouraging or it'd be such a relief to be able to say, "Oh, it was air got poisoning. No big deal. That's all." But like the fact that it, what really was at stake was this intersection of circumstances and that everyone who was a participant in [00:28:00] Salem pretty much believed that they were doing the right thing. Not only the right thing, but the necessary thing to save their community. That to me is also a moving but also terrifying thing to remember and to realize.
[00:28:13] Because certainly we all, we've all lived through moments where we are convinced that we're doing the right thing, only to see ourselves perpetuating horrors, and that is I think that's one of the reasons we as a culture are never really able to let go of Salem.
[00:28:25] Sarah Jack: You said, " as a culture, we're never able to let go of Salem." Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, " shall we never get rid of this past? It lies upon the present like a giant's dead body." I'm wondering what you think you would write now about that.
[00:28:43] Katherine Howe: Hawthorne in particular is someone who, like he personally, so felt the weight of Salem's past in a very personal way, because he was a descendant of Judge Hathorne, obviously. And because he was living there himself, and for many [00:29:00] generations, in fact, much during much of the time period when Hawthorne was living in Salem, the witch trials were not discussed in polite society. This was true into the 20th century, actually. They were not discussed. It was not something that was brought up. It's certainly something my family never talked about until this is something that my, my aunt uncovered. There was a sense of embarrassment attached to it, I think.
[00:29:23] But I'm also intrigued by the fact that when Hawthorne has tried to grapple with it, and he has tried to grapple with it, he took the line from he, he knew what had happened. Like he took a line from Sarah Good and put it in the mouth of Matthew Maule, in The House of the Seven Gables.
[00:29:39] Was it Hawthorne who grumbled about "damn scribbling women?" I think it was. I think it was. And so this is me tweaking his nose a little bit, but Sarah Good. Sarah Good was a beggar. Okay. She was destitute. She was one of the first people accused, because she was in no position to defend herself. She was thrown into jail. She has a baby on her and like [00:30:00] toddler, essentially with her, the baby dies while they're in jail. The toddler, whose name is Dorothy, ends up losing her mind and has to be like supported by the town after the trials are all over. So like this person is in absolutely dire straits and is and suffers mightily at the hands of the community where she lives and who's supposed to be helping them.
[00:30:23] And when she's on the scaffold, she says the most badass thing anyone has ever said in history of time, my unbiased opinion. She says, "I'm no more than a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink." And I wish I had that kind of wherewithal, because who has that kind of wherewithal under in those circumstances?
[00:30:45] And so Hawthorne takes this line, Hawthorne knows it's happened, and he puts this line in a guy, in a guy's mouth. I understand that he's writing in the 19th century. I get it. But at the same time, I think it's impossible to [00:31:00] look at Salem and not consider gender politics in place. The fact that virtually everyone who's accused and put to death was a woman. Any man who was accused cuz he's associated with a woman who was already accused. Giles Corey was crushed to death between stones. He's accused cuz his wife, Martha's accused first, but also the accusers are initially children, but then also women. So there's a really intense gender politics in place here.
[00:31:28] So your question was, the past lying with the weight of the giant and what would Hawthorne say today? And I'm actually curious what Hawthorne would say about it today. I think he would sympathize with, or maybe be aggravated by the fact that we're still having the conversation that he was having a hundred and fifty years ago. But at the same time, I feel like we're talking about different things from what he was concerned. And and also I think he would be really annoyed because I write novels. I'm a woman.
[00:31:58] Sarah Jack: I [00:32:00] love that you brought up that he took Sarah's words and gave them to a man, because it just dawned on me very recently that Ann Putnam didn't read her own apology. I just assumed, and I think that possibly other descendants, we read that, we think I don't know what we really think about it. We're evaluating what it says anyways, but we're doing that with her voice in our head, and no, it was not.
[00:32:30] Katherine Howe: One thing that, that continues to interest me, as a history person, about Salem is that it's one of the rare instances when regular people are at the center of the store. So much of history, especially the further you go into the past, the vast majority of people who've been alive in history of ever, have left no record of themselves. They weren't literate, they weren't of sufficient note to have their burial place noted, [00:33:00] and so much of history, even academic history, as it's gotten more serious about excavating stories, just by the nature of the way that archives come to exist, there's still going to be a bias towards power.
[00:33:13] There's gonna be a bias towards privilege and a bias towards power, and, when it comes to Salem, that is one of the rare instances where the bias towards power falls away, because the people who are at the center of the drama are regular people, and where historians have put the work in to try to excavate what is able to be excavated of these lives that otherwise would've been invisible to us.
[00:33:40] Would we have known Abigail Williams ever existed, if she hadn't been part of the Salem Witch Trials? We would not have? And in fact, even with her central position at the beginning of the panic, we don't know what happened to her. We don't know where she went. We don't know how old she was when she died. Nobody actually knows for sure.
[00:33:56] And so particularly talking about people who are not literate, Anne [00:34:00] Putnam had her confession read. If I remember correctly, Anne Putnam wasn't literate. And so you're right in saying here's this apology that she delivered in front of everybody and that it was read on her behalf. To what extent was she the author of her own apology? And it's impossible to say. It's impossible to know.
[00:34:19] And it's one of the reasons that you've touched on one of my rant buttons, I'm sorry to report, but as a writer of historical fiction, like I have so little patience for historical fiction about kings and queens. I don't give a damn about kings and queens. Who cares? They get enough attention, they have enough records, they're all literate, everyone documents every single thing that they do. And I do not give a damn, because history pays them enough attention, and I'm so much more interested in trying to excavate the history of people who would otherwise be forgotten.
[00:34:54] Sarah Jack: I caught that from you reading Conversion, because [00:35:00] your main character, Colleen, she's getting to give us the firsthand experience like no other afflicted person was able to do.
[00:35:09] Katherine Howe: Thank you for saying that. I confess I haven't looked at Conversion in kind a long time. You're making me think I should look at it again, cuz there's actually a group of high school students who are reading it right now and I'm gonna talk to next week. I should read that book.
[00:35:22] But I appreciate you saying that, because I feel like, like one question I sometimes wrestle with as a history person and someone who's a novelist is what does historical fiction have to offer that nonfiction doesn't have to offer? Like, why not just write a really good history of something?
[00:35:38] And I feel like in many instances, in the cases where a story cannot be recovered, that's where historical fiction can be a really wonderful intervention. If you can build a credible world with credible material culture, and credible details, and credible politics, and credible ideology, and then [00:36:00] people it with people who are credible people, it is a way of accessing history that otherwise is not extant, where it doesn't exist.
[00:36:11] Is there going to be some imagination involved? Obviously, but it is, I feel like that's where the opportunity lies. And I realize we've gotten off Salem a little ,bit and I apologize, but it's something that I think about a lot. Like, particularly for some, a story that's as revisited as often as the Salem story is, what does fiction have to offer? Like why tell a fictional version of this story? I feel like fiction gives you permission to fill in and shade in stories that where there just is no other shading available. And that to me seems like the real area of opportunity for storytelling.
[00:36:52] Josh Hutchinson: I wanted to ask you about the afflicted girls. Do you think it's plausible that conversion disorder could [00:37:00] explain some of the fits?
[00:37:01] Katherine Howe: Yes and no. I'll explain that hedge of an answer. For one thing I find it always a little bit tricky to apply contemporary psychoanalytic categories to people in the past. Like on the one hand, I believe very urgently in, the shared humanity of people in the past, but at the same time, like we take as natural so many habits of mind that are actually very historically contingent. The fact that you and I might casually talk about what our dreams mean or what our subconscious motivations might be for something like that is indicative of post-psychoanalytic. And I think it's tricky to try to access the interior light of people who are living in a different moment, especially a moment like the early [00:38:00] modern in Massachusetts. It's even hard for a scholar of that time period to really grasp the extent to which Christianity informed every, single aspect of existence.
[00:38:15] So for my second novel I was working on. No, it's Physick Book. I was reading up about alchemy, and like we know about alchemy as this pseudoscientific practice in early modern practice in which someone tries to turn that into gold. Okay, fine. But that's actually not what it was. It is actually a way of understanding the order of the universe that took as scientific fact the perfectability of the human soul.
[00:38:41] There's this tense layering of religion and materiality and mirroring of structures and images like, like as soon as I would get close to thinking I understood alchemical thought, it would slither out of my grasp. And I would realize this because I'm just [00:39:00] too much of someone born in the 20th century to, to I will never actually really understand that intellectual landscape.
[00:39:09] So when you ask can conversion disorder explain the girls' behavior? Like in a way yes. But in another way I don't know that we can actually really understand their selfhood, the way that these girls thought about themselves or understood themselves as individuals.
[00:39:28] It's just very different from the way that we think. It's very different. So that there's that qualification. With that qualification in place, I would say that, so conversion disorder is where you are under so much stress that your body converts it into physical symptoms. And then mass psychogenic illness is when a group of people experience strange behavior together.
[00:39:56] And there are many examples of mass psychogenic illness [00:40:00] or mass psychogenic illness expressions of conversion disorder, and many examples of it across cultures, across time, across continents, across ethnicities. And it very often happens among adolescent girls, for whatever reason. Maybe cause we are conditioned to be more like socially engaged with other people. Who knows? You can try to explain it a number of different ways.
[00:40:22] But it's not only adolescent girls. I think that it is, this is gonna be a controversial thing to say, but like the recent incidences of Havana Syndrome are pretty clearly an example of mass psychogenic illness. Now it's important to say that mass psychogenic illness is real. It counts as a real thing. It's not just people like, it's not all in your head. You know what I mean? Like the fact that it is, that it has its origin in mental disorder doesn't make it any less real to the body. Conversion disorder is a disorder. It is your body being sick. It's just that the sickness originates [00:41:00] from inside your own organism. That doesn't make it count less. You know what I mean?
[00:41:03] All of which is to say, did a group of girls start exhibiting strange behavior? Yes. Did it spread from girl to girl on networks of kinship and friendship? It did. But at the same time, their behavior, when you say "fits" today, that has a very specific connotation. And it sounds like a epileptic seizure or something like that to, to us today. If I say, "Oh my gosh, I just saw this person have a fit." You'd be like, "Oh no." And you'd imagine that they fell down twitching and foaming at the mouth, but that's not what they were doing.
[00:41:32] What they were doing was behaving out of the ordinary. So like earlier we were talking about Abigail running around flapping her wings and saying, her arms, and saying, "whish, whish, whish." That is her in her fits. Or like another instance of Abigail in her fits is when she challenges Deodat Lawson to name his text. She like gets up in the middle of church and like mouths off to this very famous divine and rolls her eyes about how boring it's gonna be when he reads his text. That's [00:42:00] not her having a fit. That's her misbehaving.
[00:42:02] But her behavior was such a challenge to the gender and economic power structure that was in place while she was living. It was so out of the ordinary that her community could only chalk it up to devilish influence because it was that unimaginable that she would behave this way.
[00:42:20] So was there a social illness aspect to the afflicted girl's behavior? I feel certain, yes. So that, that's my long and qualified example about or discussion of conversion disorder.
[00:42:34] Josh Hutchinson: Do you think that they were really afraid of witches and that the fear of witches might have also translated?
[00:42:43] Katherine Howe: Sure. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I think the fear was real. I think it is a mistake to either chalk it up as craven opportunism or as naked stupidity or superstition. One of [00:43:00] the things that I think is important, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt who live in the past and that is that like absolutely they were afraid.
[00:43:08] Can you imagine, what does it feel like to live in a world where you really, actually, honest to gosh believe that the devil can go walk about on the earth, as a real person and that he can disguise himself as people you know and love and trust? That at any given time, I could be talking to you right now, Josh, and you could be the devil in disguise, and I wouldn't know it.
[00:43:30] That's a and if you really believe that, you really do believe that, and you actually really believe that hell is a real place that you can go there if you make a mistake. That there is no, this is another like aspect of puritan belief, that like they believed in the elect. The idea that you have no way of saving yourself. That your being saved was only up to God, and you had no control [00:44:00] over it whatsoever. Like what? You couldn't go to confession. You couldn't do penance. You could try your best to behave, but it was ultimately just up to God.
[00:44:10] What an existentially dreadful way to live your life, to have no certainty. It's a little, a really hard life, first of all, and to believe that there was such a thing as paradise after death, but to have no idea whether or not you got to go there and that nothing you did made any difference. And that everywhere, at every turn, the devil was waiting to trip you up. Like that would be a difficult and impossible mental landscape to occupy.
[00:44:44] So yes, if your question was did they really believe in witchcraft and was that fear, could not fear contribute to their behavior? Like absolutely. What a terrifying way to live, and also what a relief. Like one of the reasons that I think witches [00:45:00] was such a persuasive idea for so many people at that time was wouldn't it be great if something was going bad in your life, to be able to not try to see it as a sign of God's Ill favor, but instead to have someone to blame for it? To be like, "it's not me. I'm not messing up here. Someone's doing this to me."
[00:45:20] I think that's also very human, that human feeling. It's not just bad luck or misfortune or like the luck of the draw, and it's so much more of a, "no, this person doing something to me. They wish me ill, and that's why my life is hard." I think that's a very human way to be.
[00:45:39] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We talked a little about Anne Putnam, Jr.'s apology earlier, and she still does that in her apology. "The devil made me do it."
[00:45:49] Katherine Howe: And Samuel Sewall does the same thing, like the two big apologies that come about after Salem is over after everything's done are Ann Putnam's and [00:46:00] Samuel Sewall's apology. But Samuel's apology, too, is weird where he like, first of all, he comes to it. It's not that he stops believing in witchcraft or stops believing that there is an invisible world. He comes to it after a series of wonders and marbles, including, if I remember correctly, like his house being tilted with stones. Who knows what really happened? And maybe there was like a passing hailstorm is how it took it.
[00:46:22] But he comes to it after a series of wonders and marvels, and he comes to believe that the devil tricked them all. That it wasn't that that the devil wasn't luring people into witchcraft. Instead, the devil obscured the minds of the people who are supposed to keep the community safe. And but also what a horrifying thing to, to come to believe about yourself. To look back at your actions and think you're doing the right thing, and think that you are saving your community from the most threatening presence that your imagination can come up with, and instead to conclude that, no, what happened [00:47:00] was that threatening presence tricked you. That you were so weak that you were fooled. Like what a, what a heinous thing to believe about yourself. It's a very punishing worldview that they subscribe to.
[00:47:16] Josh Hutchinson: Do you see any modern parallels to the Witch hunt?
[00:47:20] Katherine Howe: Sure. A few years ago a historian of witchcraft named John Demos published a book about witch hunting, in which he has a chapter about the 1980s daycare satanism thing that happened, much of which I was only dimly aware of, being a small person in 1980s myself.
[00:47:41] But what happened was, a group of people were put on trial, actually put on trial and actually convicted of having you run a daycare center and used the children in satanic rituals. And at the time that it was happening, and this is preposterous, like I, it's actually just like on the surface of it, I [00:48:00] think preposterous. I think, taken out context, any of us looking at this would say, "this makes, this is ridiculous. Obviously this did not happen." And at the time that it was unfolding, John Demos saw it unfolding and he was like, "Oh my God, it's Salem all over again." Like the same pieces are in place, like the idea of a conspiracy, the idea of trusted people that you cannot trust, the idea of children being at risk.
[00:48:24] And I think that you see some of the same hysteria and language. I don't like using the word hysteria, cuz it's such a specific word, but you see some of this in like contemporary corners of the conspiracy internet, where I try not to spend any time, but Isn't that Pizzagate? Isn't there some like thing not too long ago about worrying a particular pizzeria was like putting kids at risk in this same kind of way? Like you see the same kind of like at any time that someone worries that children are at risk, there will be a lot of open-mindedness about it.
[00:48:55] But of course, here's me getting political. Like, of course, children actually literally are at [00:49:00] risk by, by school shooting, right? Like the one thing that would really keep children really safe in places where they're supposed to feel safe and trust people around them, is if they restricted access to military assault weapons. That's my opinion. My opinion is that if we really care about keeping children safe, we take those guns off the street, right, full stop. But feel free to send me hate mail. I can be reached to KatherineHowe.com/contact.
[00:49:21] Sarah Jack: So I think asking the question about are there parallels, we have these modern parallels that are popping into our heads. We have our strong feelings, but what can the understanding of the Colonial Witch trials and those before do to help us with these parallels? Can it help us? Will it help?
[00:49:43] Katherine Howe: I'd like to think that it can. One of the things that I like to say when talking about Salem is that I feel that one of the reasons we can't let Salem go. As a culture, like we come back to it and we, like we can't let it go.[00:50:00]
[00:50:00] And I feel that the reason that we can't let it go, among the many reasons, but I think one of the big reasons is that it forces us to confront how fragile our ideals really are. We are an unusual country in that in many respects, we are, notwithstanding those of us who were brought here against our will, which is many of us, but broadly construed, you could argue that we are something of an intentional community.
[00:50:26] That the only thing that really holds us together is this set of shared ideals, and that some of our shared ideals include religious freedom. They include a social safety net. That we value people who are different from us, that we value people who are vulnerable. " Bring us you're tired, your poor, your huddled masses." Like that, that arguably this is an ideal that we hold in common. This is an organizing principle of the culture in which we live.
[00:50:52] And yet Salem is this instance where everybody, believing they were doing the [00:51:00] absolute right thing, instead put to death, the state put to death 19 people. That, in the course of doing the right thing, the state did the absolute wrong thing, and they also put to death people who were, many of them were vulnerable in their community. People who were more likely to be accused were those who were at the most vulnerable, who were the most out step vulnerable in community. And so I feel like Salem is an instructive moment for that, because here's this moment where, in the course of being convinced of our total moral authority and correctness, a huge miscarriage of justice took place.
[00:51:41] And I think that's a really difficult thing to reconcile. And I think especially for a country like ours, where also so many of us are brought up to look to the colonial period for our origin, that we're told, rightly or wrongly, that we are taught to look into the 18th, and to a lesser [00:52:00] extent the 17th century, and see in it the seeds of the country that we would become.
[00:52:04] Maybe that's another way of thinking about it. Like another way of thinking about it, is it more productive to think about what we want the future to look like than it is to try to think about what the past has to tell us? That's a question. That's a question that I think is interesting. One, particularly for an intentional community like ours. We have, we get to reinvent ourselves as a country, and we get to decide, and what kind of place do we want to be? Do we want to be the kind of place that protects vulnerable people? Do we want to be the kind of place that protects people who are at risk, who are different from us, who are angry, who are grumpy, who read too many books? I would prefer to live in a place that protects those kinds of people. But we get to choose We choose who we protect.
[00:52:47] Sarah Jack: We can make that choice, and not only is it going to stop suffering here, there are places in this world that are still totally captured [00:53:00] by doing the wrong thing, thinking they're doing the right thing, witch hunting. This discussion it is about us here, but it's about us there.
[00:53:10] You have referred to time so much. That is such a strong piece of this. Even in Conversion, one of the simple quotes you have says, "any number of things could happen in the time it took to go down the hall." You like go right to the time thing. And today when you started talking, you talked about time. And I look at the history, I look at us now, how do we all get caught up on this witch-hunting mentality and start looking out for humanity and protecting other?
[00:53:42] Katherine Howe: It's a hard thing. It's a really hard thing. And I wish I had easy answers for it. I think simply the act of reflection and awareness is an important one. Stopping to interrogate what our assumptions are.
[00:53:56] Josh Hutchinson: We've talked about a lot of heavy things. [00:54:00] I wondered if we could switch and discuss your new book project. What can you tell us about it?
[00:54:06] Katherine Howe: Oh, so many things. So I'm obsessed with pirates, who isn't? Hopefully, the answer is everyone is obsessed with pirates.
[00:54:13] So I have a book coming out in fall, and I think they're gonna let me keep the title. And you. Okay, Josh, Sarah, you guys have to tell me what you think of the title. You ready? So get comfortable, here it is: A True Account of Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself. That's the title. It's a mouthful.
[00:54:30] It starts in Boston in 1726 at a very real an actual pirate trial that really did happen. Like most of my stuff, it's, it is grounded in actual facts and then becomes what I'm describing as a little bit like Gone Girl meets Treasure Island. And I had so much fun with it, and I'm really excited about it. And it is a little bit of a departure from what I've done, but it is about a girl, Hannah Masury, who has to disguise herself in order to escape some pretty heavy circumstances. And [00:55:00] she ends up basically stealing away on what turns out to be a pirate ship. And we have to follow her on her adventures.
[00:55:06] And I have so much fun with some basic pirate tropes. There is treasure, there is a parrot. It's so much fun, and there's also some, a little bit of romance, and I have the most fun ever.
[00:55:18] Josh Hutchinson: Sounds like a fun one to read.
[00:55:22] Katherine Howe: I really hope so.
[00:55:24] Sarah Jack: I'm so delighted by what I just heard.
[00:55:28] Katherine Howe: That makes me very happy. Makes me very happy. It's weird because it's one of the, it's probably the most violent book I've written. If y'all have read my stuff, then you know I'm a teensy bit squeemish and shy away from. So there's some violence in this book, but what's strange about it is, I didn't invent any of it. It is actually all from historical record. I take no responsibility whatsoever for any of the stuff that happens in this book, because it all ripped from the headlines. It all really happened.
[00:55:55] Josh Hutchinson: And was Hannah herself based on a real person?[00:56:00]
[00:56:00] Katherine Howe: Hannah is based on a couple of people. She's inspired in part by real accounts of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who are two working-class women, who ended up disguising themselves as men and going raiding in Jamaica at the end of the 17th century. They were real people ,and there was a real Hannah Masury ,who I talk about a little bit in the author's note of the book. She was a 19th-century person, and she ended up, I was inspired when I came across her. She was the wife of a ship captain. She was married to a ship captain, and she ended up putting down a mutiny by herself, armed only with a pistol, in the Pacific Ocean.
[00:56:39] And so I read about her, and she didn't have any children, and I was like, "oh my gosh, I am obsessed with you." And so I decided to name my awesome pirate after her. Hannah, Hannah comes from a couple of different sources, but I really like her as a person. She's a tough character .
[00:56:56] Josh Hutchinson: Sounds like it. You said that it's set [00:57:00] around a pirate trial in Boston?
[00:57:03] Katherine Howe: Yeah, it starts, the action starts in Boston in 1726, and in 1726, it's the end of the golden age of piracy. It's actually funny that the Salem period, like the witch craze, the end of the witch craze and golden age of piracy are at the same time period, which I think is interesting. And a guy named William Fly was tried as a pirate, and the person who ministered to him and preached about him was none other than Cotton Mather .
[00:57:32] So Cotton Mather by then was this like hugely famous, successful cleric. He was really rich. He was, like, had a very popular ministry and so he had taken it upon himself to crusade against piracy. So he tries to bring William Fly and his compatriots back to God, and he's there when they're hanged. William Fly was hanged, and then he was gibbeted. He was, his body was hung in chains on a tiny island in the Boston Harbor Islands and [00:58:00] left there to rot. He was really avid as a warning to other people who might go out on the account, which is a way of describing going, turning pirate.
[00:58:09] And so I was fascinated by this. It was only a hundred years later that excursion boats are starting to leave Boston. Like steam boats are going from Boston to Nahant. This is no time all. To think that you could go by Nixes Mate, which is where William Fly was hanged and chained. You could go by there and to see you remnant oft remain dangling there.
[00:58:29] So that's where the action begins at William Fly's trial, and things even crazier.
[00:58:36] Josh Hutchinson: Sounds like a fun ride. .
[00:58:38] Katherine Howe: I'm excited for it. I'm not sure when it's coming out. I think it's gonna be November, 2023. So it's coming up.
[00:58:46] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with an important update on what's happening now in your world.
[00:58:51] Sarah Jack: Thank you for listening a few minutes longer to hear End Witch Hunts World Advocacy News. How many innocent world citizens [00:59:00] is it okay to accept as suffering from violent brutalization, due to harmful practices related to accusations of harmful witchcraft and ritual attacks? These attacks are happening now to thousands of innocent people, who are not causing supernatural harm but are being punished by their community, as if they are the ultimate explanation.
[00:59:20] They are innocent, not dangerous witches. These attacks are happening across countries of Africa and Asia. Please see the show notes for links to read about how some countries have advocacy groups working to intercede. When there is not an answer for unexpected bad luck, unfortunate death, or personal misfortune, blaming others for supernatural malevolence is the actual crime. This witch fear is still causing unfounded, violent attacks against women, children, and sometimes men. Listen and watch for the reports. These attacks are reported on.
[00:59:55] The Northern Ireland borough of Larne wants to [01:00:00] commemorate eight Witch trial victims from the Islandmagee Witch Trial that took place on March 31st, 1711. A borough counselor raised questions very recently of whether the eight women and a man who were found guilty of witchcraft were actually innocent. In the trial era, using witchcraft was a covenant with the devil against the victims. When this counselor questioned if it is within the counsel's capacity to say they were innocent, he's questioning if the accused were indeed working with the devil himself to cause harm.
[01:00:32] Is it within human capacity to not assign witch harm guilt onto others? I want to answer that question right now. Yes, it is within our capacity to stop questioning other people about their status as a supernaturally harmful witch. It is our duty to stop questioning accused witch innocence, past or present. These accused people were not, and today's accused witches are not, causing the supernatural harm that is feared of them.
[01:00:59] [01:01:00] This week, academic research was published that is "a new global data set on contemporary witchcraft beliefs ." It has determined that witchcraft beliefs cut across sociodemographic groups, but are less widespread among the more educated and economically secure. Country-level variation in the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs is systematically linked to a number of cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic characteristics. Altogether, the resulting data set covers more than 140,000 individuals from 95 countries and territories and 5 continents. Over 40% of all survey respondents claim to believe in witchcraft. Stay tuned for a discussion on this research outcome. Find a link to the report in the show notes.
[01:01:48] While we watch and wait, let's support the victims across the world where innocent people are being targeted by superstitious sphere. Support them by acknowledging and sharing their stories. Please use all your communication channels to be an [01:02:00] intervener and stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our End Witch Hunt movement on Twitter @_endwitchhunts. And visit our website, endwitchhunts.org.
[01:02:11] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah, for that eye-opening update.
[01:02:16] Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[01:02:21] Sarah Jack: Join us next week for a special Connecticut witch trial victim descendant episode.
[01:02:31] Josh Hutchinson: And join us in our efforts to end modern witch hunts. Go to endwitchhunts.Org.
[01:02:38] Sarah Jack: Subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen.
[01:02:41] Josh Hutchinson: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[01:02:44] Sarah Jack: Remember to tell your friends that you love what you've been hearing on Thou Shalt Not Suffer, so that they will not miss out.
[01:02:52] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[01:02:56] [01:03:00]

December 1, 2022

The Putnams of Salem with Greg Houle

Short Story: The Putnams of Salem by Greg Houle

Show Notes

Presenting author and communications professional Greg Houle. He discusses his upcoming novel, “The Putnams of Salem”. Listen as he gives us a glimpse of what he imagines the first person perspective could have been for Ann Putnam Jr, and her father Thomas Putnam. What role did they play in the trials? His fictional short stories are linked below. We continue the conversation inquiring with our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?
Links:
Greg Houle Website

Short Story: A Tie is Never Just a Tie by Greg Houle

Short Story: Oomancy by Greg Houle

University of VA, Salem Witch Trials Documents and Transcriptions

End Witch Hunt Projects

Please sign the petition to exonerate those accused of witchcraft in Connecticut

Join us on Discord to share your ideas and feedback.

Listen in Your Favorite App

Listen and subscribe wherever you enjoy podcasts:

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Hutchinson: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Exodus 22:18.
[00:00:05]
[00:00:26] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to another episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:33] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack.
[00:00:35] Josh Hutchinson: Today's guest is Greg Houle, an author currently working on a novel about the Putnams of Salem.
[00:00:43] Sarah Jack: Because you like the show, please share it with your friends, family, and followers.
[00:00:47] Josh Hutchinson: We hope you're enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving. Have a slice of Turkey for me.
[00:00:53] Sarah Jack: Share the mashed potatoes.
[00:00:55] Josh Hutchinson: Pass that gravy.
[00:00:58] Sarah Jack: This is a great topic for [00:01:00] Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to talking to a Putnam of Salem descendant.
[00:01:06] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, and we hope this episode gives you lots of conversation ideas for your Thanksgiving dinner.
[00:01:15] Sarah Jack: Especially if you've been having boundary disputes with your friends or family.
[00:01:21] Josh Hutchinson: Make a peace offering, and be sure to watch Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, the best Thanksgiving anything ever made, hands down.
[00:01:33] Sarah Jack: But only after you watched Holly Hunter's Home for the Holidays.
[00:01:36] Josh Hutchinson: Then get back to your Walking Dead marathon. That's what you're really watching. Or House of the Dragon.
[00:01:42] Sarah Jack: And now Josh is gonna tell us some history about the Putnams of Salem.
[00:01:47] Josh Hutchinson: The Putnams of Salem Village were instigators of the Witch Hunt. Thomas Putnam and his brother, Edward, were two of the four men who [00:02:00] filed the first complaints against Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. Thomas went on to make 35 complaints, testify against 17 people, and record 120 depositions, including those of his daughter Ann Putnam, Jr., who was the first villager outside of the parsonage to be afflicted. Later on, she was joined by her mother Ann Putnam, Sr. and their maid, Mercy Lewis, among the ranks of the afflicted. The Putnam family was an important family in the village for three generations. 12 out of the original 25 villagers to sign the church covenant were Putnams, and they ranked among the top taxpayers in the village, along with the Porters.
[00:02:55] After accusing many people and going through [00:03:00] all her theatrics in the courtroom, Ann Putnam, Jr. did apologize in 1706, specifically to Rebecca Nurse's family, but also to the whole village, as she joined the church under the new minister, Joseph Green.
[00:03:17] Sarah Jack: Thank you for introducing us to the Putnams of Salem. I cannot wait to get more of these details from Greg.
[00:03:23] Josh Hutchinson: You're welcome. I'm also looking forward to hearing this family covered in depth. They were so heavily involved, what they did in the witch trials, which was so much. So many Putnams were involved in so many ways.
[00:03:40] Sarah Jack: I'm so happy to welcome Greg Houle, writer of short fiction and author of The Putnams of Salem, coming 2025.
[00:03:49] Greg Houle: So I came into this story, the story of Salem and the Salem witch hysteria like a lot of people do, with a personal family connection to it.[00:04:00] My mother is a Putnam. She is a direct as descendant of Thomas Putnam, Jr., who, along with his oldest daughter Ann, were probably two of the most prolific accusers during the Salem witch hysteria. But yet, despite that connection, I really didn't have any interest in exploring the story as I was growing up. And in spite of having a really intense, lifelong interest in history, I really didn't care, and I think part of that was because of the fact that Salem is such a huge story, and it has a life of its own, and it's become this kind of larger than life almost true crime story.
[00:04:44] And I think a lot of times what has happened is it's deflected a lot of the attention away from the important things, the victims, why it happened, how can we prevent it from happening in the future, that [00:05:00] sort of thing. It was always an interesting thing to be connected to, so many of us are.
[00:05:04] Everything changed in the summer of 2021. And that is that summer, I live in LA now, and my wife and daughter went back east to visit our family, and my wife's family lives in Boston. And while we were there, we decided, let's go to Salem. And we went there, I thought, "Okay I really want to connect my daughter to my, her grandmother's side of the family. I really ought to understand the story better and really dig into it. "And that's really what I did.
[00:05:35] And as soon as I did that, I became immediately enamored by what was going on in the heads of someone like Thomas Putnam, Jr. and Ann. So you have someone who's accusing all of these people, and then you have another one who is said to be afflicted. And I started exploring [00:06:00] that. And this is the part that's unknowable for a historian. So we all wish we could be inside their heads and understanding what's going on during that time. I thought the best way to explore it would really be to look at the environment in which they were in, the things that led to Salem and what happened there and then really just use fiction at that point to tell the story, and, of course, no historian would ever use conjecture , but the beauty of fiction is you can do that. And I think what I tried to do initially in this short story and then now to much greater depth in the novel, is really explore that and look at the forces that created this really tragic event.
[00:06:54] The short story and the novel, at least a tentative title of the novel is The Putnams of Salem. [00:07:00] And there is a sort of subtitle that I'm throwing around. That's really The Fall of an American Family. Not sure how my family will feel about that, but it's what we find out in this story.
[00:07:14] And I think it's really quite fascinating when you think about all the different forces involved in the world that they were living. One of the major themes of the short story and the novel is really fear and the way in which fear drives a lot of what happens and the various types of fear and various sources of fear, from the fear that's inherent within the Puritan religion to fear of the native population. In the case of Thomas Putnam, there's fear of losing your place in society. The sense that throughout history there's the common case of [00:08:00] the patriarch of a family kind of building something, the second generation making it stronger, and then the third generation messing it up somehow. Thomas Putnam Jr. was the third generation of the Putnams in America, and it really does follow that trajectory. And I think it's really interesting when you insert this man into these circumstances and you see the way in which it drove him to do some pretty awful things.
[00:08:30] Josh Hutchinson: You've touched on it already, but how did you go from where you were doing your research into your family to deciding to write stories and then a novel about them?
[00:08:43] Greg Houle: Yeah, it's a great question. I, again, a lot of the impetus for this was my 12 year old daughter at the time and really wanting to connect her to this story in a way that I thought was meaningful. For me it was about really trying to get behind any [00:09:00] lore that existed within our family to the actual story, and it's not always easy to do when you're dealing with 17th century America. You can't always get every detail.
[00:09:14] In my family, there was not a lot of detail. I think there was always the sense of we are connected to this great American story, "great" in quotes, by the way. And isn't that fascinating? But I think, for me, my interest in history has always been about the fact that it is multi-dimensional and dynamic. I think what tends to happen with history is over time we flatten it out, and it becomes very one dimensional. So the sort of typical story of Salem is that it's these sort of fundamental crazy puritans who experience something one [00:10:00] day, start accusing women of witchcraft, and then put them to death. And while the basic facts may be true, there's so much more involved in that story. They lived in a different world than we live in today, obviously, but they still wanted to succeed.
[00:10:21] They laughed sometimes. They cried. They had fights, and they, wanted to be successful. And I think a lot of times we forget that. And in looking at the story, the part that really fascinated me was thinking about the context of this tragedy within that parameter.
[00:10:43] And so for me that's my entry point into this. And so when I really thought about both Thomas and Ann, I kept thinking, " what must be going on in our heads?" I think a lot of times our simple answer is Thomas [00:11:00] is a devout Puritan, and he believes wholeheartedly that all these people he's accusing are witches. And isn't that crazy? But the reality of the fact is that's probably not true, right? He was very strategic in his efforts. Again, we don't wanna have too much conjecture here and assume that we know everything that was going on, but, for me, I was fascinated by that.
[00:11:26] And then you also have Ann, who, in my writing of her, tried to present her as the sort of typical, idealized Puritan girl who's really trying to do all the right things and failing because of her affliction. We know that her afflictions are probably not a real thing, but they are something, and it's it's a sort of interesting juxtaposition between [00:12:00] the two of them. And that was what really fascinated me.
[00:12:03] Josh Hutchinson: For our listeners who aren't as familiar with the Putnams, can you explain Thomas's role in the trials?
[00:12:11] Greg Houle: The sort of patriarch of that family was John Putnam, who came over during the great Puritan migration, came over from England probably in the early 1630s. He was one of, not the initial group of settlers that settled Salem, but he was there a few years later. Pretty prominent landowner. But one of the things that the Putnams at least say that they always wanted to do was create this kind of communal society in Salem, where it was a little bit more, " we're not worried about individual wealth, we're gonna just try to bring everyone up."
[00:12:51] But again, this was at a time where everyone, where Puritans were much more sanguine about their prospects and in the new [00:13:00] world. And I think by the time we get to the witch hysteria 60 years later, everything, the shine has come off a little bit. But so John was the initial patriarch of the family, and then Thomas Sr. was, of course, Thomas Jr.'s father, and he built their land holdings. They were farmers. He was pretty privileged person, but things were different for him, and they weren't quite so easy. By the time we get to 1692, Thomas is still doing pretty well, and his family is pretty prominent.
[00:13:39] He was known as Sergeant Thomas Putnam, because he fought in King Philip's War, which was, some say, the bloodiest war in colonial American history, where it was, in many ways, almost like a akin to a world war in some respect. [00:14:00] It was fought throughout New England between the colonists and their Native allies and other native communities. I think by the time of the Salem witch hysteria, 1692, Thomas was a much different person than his father and his grandfather.
[00:14:21] I think that there are a couple of things that, that are going on. One is the realization that the Puritans are not going to have a shining city on the hill like they initially thought. Now, that doesn't mean that, that they weren't still trying, or they didn't still believe that they were superior in many ways. But I think they realized at that point that wasn't gonna be easy.
[00:14:49] The relationships that they had with the native populations in New England had really soured to the point where that [00:15:00] had created a lot of fear. You may have talked about the fact that they that Massachusetts did not have a charter at that time, had lost its charter. So there's a lot of uncertainty there. So I think, the way I portrayed in the novel and the short story, to some extent, is that Thomas is really this fading patriarch but family that is still prominent, but like a lot of people with power, he wants to do whatever it takes to keep that power, and this opportunity arises, and he takes advantage of it.
[00:15:35] Josh Hutchinson: What were some of the things that he did during the witch-hunt that stand out to mark him as a prominent figure?
[00:15:43] Greg Houle: So he accused many people of witchcraft. He also pretty much wrote all of the documents that needed to be submitted to court for Ann, so he was really orchestrating a lot of that. There [00:16:00] was also, as I'm sure you're aware, quite a rift in the community and had been for generations about who leads the church, and Thomas was very much in favor of the head of the church, Samuel Parris, but others were not. There was a lot of choosing sides there, and that became a big part of it as well.
[00:16:26] In terms of his actual role, he was there during the very first examinations of the first three witches when they were examined by the magistrates. The first three were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, who were three kind of outcasts. But he was there and playing a very prominent role. I think that he saw himself as a leader. He was, a military [00:17:00] leader and a fairly wealthy person with land, and I think he saw his role as being someone who should take a prominent role during a time like this. And he certainly did. And I think, certainly, as I explore in the novel, he uses that as an opportunity to really reshape the nature of his relationships.
[00:17:26] Sarah Jack: What you had just said about growing and securing their wealth with that land, I think that was a really big part of the fight, as well as having a stake in what was happening with the church.
[00:17:40] Greg Houle: That's a great point. I think that another interesting component with Thomas is his father, Thomas Sr., remarried at a very older age, so Thomas had a half brother who ended up inheriting a lot of what he was expecting to inherit. In many [00:18:00] ways, he comes across by 1692 as really just having this series of just one after another of what he would think are tragedies. But again, the thing I kept coming back to and what was fascinating to me was this idea that, you have this privileged person who's then throwing a fit because he's not getting his way every time.
[00:18:23] Maybe I'm projecting something that's 330 years old to today, but I really, that was the thing that I kept coming back to, and a lot of it is tied up in those land disputes and the endless lawsuits and the just no way to ever solve these problems, either in court or outside of court. And it really brought it to the forefront that you realize that they have a lot of these kind of frivolous and difficult problems that we all deal with [00:19:00] today. And I think, again, going back to what I said earlier, we tend to just have this very one dimensional view that they were this sort of whole community block that just all did, were in lockstep with each other, and it's just not like that.
[00:19:17] The other thing I explore in the novel and have fun with is their desire to gossip and just really spread these, rumors and innuendo and all of this other stuff. Obviously, a lot of it was part of the driving force of the accusations of witchcraft, but it's really tied up in the same disputes, those family squabbles. They were a big deal obviously, but they go back generations. When you start digging into it, you realize, you know, what a mess it actually is.
[00:19:56] Sarah Jack: And it sounds like getting to look inside [00:20:00] the Putnam family the way you are doing it with your novel is a way to redeem them.
[00:20:05] Greg Houle: That's a really great point. I hope so. There's a lot of redeeming that needs to be done. The one thing that I've never really been able to quite put my finger on, and I think it's really difficult, because we don't have full knowledge in the historical record, and that sort of thing is what role someone like Thomas really did play. I think, obviously, it's clear he made a lot of accusations.
[00:20:34] I'm making a lot of conjecture that was purposeful and political and driven by anger and annoyance and all these other things, but we don't really know how true that is. And we don't know if he got caught up with the people on his side of the argument. And so it's really one of those things where I want to be a little [00:21:00] careful. I certainly don't pull any punches and protect my family members, but I don't really know, and I've never really been able to pinpoint the role precisely that the Putnams played.
[00:21:15] And, for me, what's more interesting actually is to think about the role that Ann played as a 12 year old , because, you imagine a scenario where she is really believing that she has done something wrong, or she, like a lot of Puritans at the time, thinking that they've let the devil into their being and into their world. But then there's a part of me that thinks, "or was she just doing what her father wanted her to do?" so it becomes one of those things where those are the unknowable questions that I think are challenging for us to understand.
[00:21:55] But you can certainly, looking at the history, looking at [00:22:00] the situation of the Putnam family, you can see where they may have said, "hey, let's just make this thing happen. Let's just keep pushing it forward and see what we can do." And perhaps that was what happened, and that's what's so challenging about this, because we never really will know. But part of what's fun about writing historical fiction is you can then tell the story the way you want to tell it, right?
[00:22:27] Josh Hutchinson: I think the way that you're telling it is so important, because to understand how witch hunts happen, we need to get into the head of both sides of them. So we need to know the people who were making the accusations, what were they thinking, what was going on in their minds, so we can learn from that, and I think it's just terrific that you are exploring, getting inside the heads of Thomas and Ann in the way that you [00:23:00] are.
[00:23:00] Greg Houle: Thank you. I think you're right. That's the part that is just so fascinating. I think a lot of it, and certainly the work that you're doing here with the podcast is really touching on this as well, but I think we live in modern times, and I think we can't help but think about the way that works today, the way, you know, people are exposed to certain media and develop certain beliefs, and then that manifests itself in certain actions. And so I think the whole time that I've been working on this, that's always been in my mind is it's easy for us in a one dimensional world to say Thomas was just a leader in the community. He was a devout Puritan. He firmly believed that these women were evil, and he just [00:24:00] wanted to cleanse Salem, which, by the way, the novel is a dual narrative between, first person narrative with Thomas and Anne, and he's basically saying that the whole time, he's saying, "no, I'm just trying to cleanse our community."
[00:24:14] But I think as intelligent people, we know that cannot possibly be the case, that it isn't just black and white, that there may be an inkling of that there. We don't want to completely dismiss it, but it's just too convenient for him not to have taken the opportunity to, essentially, engage in behavior that resulted in the deaths of many needlessly.
[00:24:45] Josh Hutchinson: I like the way you frame it as, in the terms of, dimensions that we look at, history as this one dimensional black and white thing. And I like how you're getting into [00:25:00] the persons of these complicated people, getting into their minds and their characters to analyze them from a human perspective and make them three dimensional. I think that's very important to our modern understanding of how we operate today.
[00:25:18] Greg Houle: Yeah, that's right. I think it's a really important component anytime we look at history, I think, for anyone, and I'm sure you both feel the same way. Anyone who has real interest in history tends to be interested in the fact that it's really about people, right? And it's about decisions they make and then how those decisions affect other decisions. And this kind of long stretch of what occurs. And I think, a lot of times, people think of history as a series of events and things that happen at certain dates. And it really is about taking that three dimensional or [00:26:00] multidimensional view and really trying to understand what was going through the minds of people when these things were happening.
[00:26:07] I think the probably any legitimate historian listening to me would be very angry, because without actual historical record or information, you can't extrapolate what is actually happening. But I do think the value of something like historical fiction, in this case, is really trying to use your knowledge and the information you have to make those leaps a little bit and try to understand it.
[00:26:39] One thing I'll say about the novel is that I really tried hard to make it plausible. Obviously, I wasn't privy to what was going on inside of Thomas or Ann's mind, wasn't privy to a lot of conversations that they may have had with other people, but the world in which they lived [00:27:00] and the thinking that they had were, it's legitimate, and I'm trying to create something is realistic in terms of, how they would respond to those things. And I think, when you look today, at similar manifestations of persecution, you really do the same thing.
[00:27:23] Josh Hutchinson: What can you tell us about Ann Jr. And her struggles during all of this?
[00:27:31] Greg Houle: She, very early on, was afflicted, and I'm using the air quotes, and struggled a lot with various manifestations of that affliction. But one thing about Ann that you can tell from what sparse information is available about her, is that she was pretty well liked. And she seemed to, at [00:28:00] least the way I present her is, she was a good girl, I guess you could say, for lack of a better way of putting it, that she tried to live the way Puritan girls were meant to be living.
[00:28:15] What is very interesting, though, about Ann is in 1706, when she went back to the church in Salem and requested to take communion and become a member of the church. And that was when she essentially apologized, although it was a semi apology.
[00:28:42] Sarah Jack: I think readers would love to hear what she was thinking around that. We have the apology, but I wanna know what she was thinking. I've seen so many family researchers or descendants of the accused talk about that, and they have different [00:29:00] perspectives, which I always enjoy reading. Some feel that it was very acceptable, especially based on what her beliefs of the devil's work in her life would've been. Others think it was not really good enough. Getting to hear what was going on in her mind around the apology would be really interesting.
[00:29:20] Greg Houle: I agree. It's a very rare example for us to hear from someone who was involved so early on being also involved at the end like this. My view is that Ann was a broken woman at that time, and my thinking, and again I wanna preface this by saying, "of course I could be completely wrong here," but my thinking is that, by that point, everyone knew, of course, that what happened in 1692 was this horrible thing, and she was this last vestige of that. And so [00:30:00] my read of the situation is that she is this outcast, and at the end of the novel, there's a sort of epilogue where this comes up, and the pastor, Pastor Green at the time, is hesitating and thinking, "do I really wanna let this person back into the church? I worked so hard to try to bring us back together." And, ultimately, of course, does, because she really has nothing else.
[00:30:29] Both her parents died the same year, in 1699. She never married. By all accounts, her experience was the kind of thing that basically ruined her life. And by the time 1706 rolls around, she basically just realizes that the only thing she has is the church, and she'll do anything to be a part of it. So that's my read. Now, whether or not it is sincere,[00:31:00] I think it's really hard to speculate about. I think that it's very plausible that it was not, but it's also plausible that, there is a way of thinking about it where Ann truly was an innocent victim. Not saying that's the case, but she may very well have manifested all of these afflictions and challenges and that she was encouraged by her father and others and that by the time they were all gone, she thought it was safe now to beg for mercy and try to live a life where she could be member of the church again.
[00:31:43] Sarah Jack: I had mentioned family researchers and descendants. I'm wondering, are you ready for other Putnam descendants and other descendants to reach out to you about the book you're writing?
[00:31:54] Greg Houle: You know, I really would love to hear what they have to say. I'm sure I could learn a lot [00:32:00] from those folks. So I really am interested in that. You know, I'm not someone who wants to defend the Putnams or what occurred here. So I'm happy to have those discussions. I think that's a very dangerous thing, so I would not wanna do that at all, but I would definitely love to hear what others know, and the Putnam family has a very important long legacy in New England, and there's a lot to be proud of, but this is not one of those events that anyone should be proud of.
[00:32:33] Sarah Jack: One of the things that you can be proud of is that there were seven Putnam that signed Rebecca Nurse's petition.
[00:32:41] Greg Houle: I think, you know, it speaks to another aspect of the Salem witch hysteria that really fascinates me, is how quickly it seemed to go south, right? The whole collection of events took place in a very short period of time, but it was like [00:33:00] all of a sudden the bottom fell out and everyone realized it was as if they woke up and realized what were we doing? And so that's something that I'm not really that knowledgeable about, would love to know more about, because I think it's really like a community of people realizing at that moment that they were on the wrong side of history and saying, "what are we doing? What have we done? How can we get out of it?" And I think, that's why we see some of this stuff happening so quickly after, and even maybe why we saw Ann petition to, to want to join the church again.
[00:33:40] Josh Hutchinson: I can totally relate to that. I'm a descendant of, among others, Joseph Hutchinson, who was one, along with Thomas Putnam, who complained against the original three suspects, but then later on he changes sides and defends Rebecca nurse. [00:34:00] So I've been exploring that a lot in my own mind, how you start off believing in this witchcraft and then at some point you realize you are on the wrong side of history.
[00:34:14] Greg Houle: The one thing I'll add to that is, when you think of the first three women who were accused, they were clearly outside the norm of late 17th century Puritan society. Tituba is a slave from the West Indies. Sarah Good is essentially homeless, for the most part. Sarah Osborne was always outside of the norms. In the beginning you think, "of course they're gonna be the ones who were accused." But it's interesting as the accusations continue to fly going forward. When you get to someone like Rebecca Nurse, who is not like those folks, and that she was [00:35:00] well respected, it's almost like the fire burned out of control, and you had a point where maybe people realized, "what are we doing at that point?" I think maybe some of that was what was happening, and that's where you get people switching sides ,and there are multiple cases of that sort of thing. And I think part of that has to do with the fact that, I don't know if anyone really expected it to become this kind of inferno that ended up really engulfing the entire community.
[00:35:39] Sarah Jack: Yeah, I think about that too, cuz I think about when I first realized that people were writing testimony and defense of Rebecca and signing some petitions for her, and there were a lot, I remember thinking, "how was this not enough?" And also, [00:36:00] when her verdict was changed on her. I just remember, I'm like, "how could that happen?" And it's just another tell of how out of control, when a fire takes off, sometimes you just don't have enough water to put it out right then, and that was definitely happening.
[00:36:20] Greg Houle: Yeah I think in many ways this goes back to the kind of perfect storm that existed, where you have, you know, a community appearance that is moving away from their original purpose, or they know that they're not as pious as they should be at this point, three generations on, you have fear of, " what's gonna happen to our charter? Are we going to remain a colony of England?" And then you have this really burgeoning concern over the native population and the conflicts that were existing there. You have just the [00:37:00] inherent concern that exists within the Puritan religion of, " am I going to heaven?" This idea of predetermination and that you don't even really know and it's all determined. "Am I on God's path? I don't know."
[00:37:15] And I think it was almost like this perfect storm, where some things happen. Some people who are outcast get accused as. One would expect in a case like this, and then it just took off from there, and I would contend that people like Thomas Putnam were fanning the flames. There were others, as well. But I think that is part of what speaks to this, is that convergence of all of those different things and the kind of fear and concern about the future and what their world was gonna be like.
[00:37:54] I think, also, this may be a reach, they're going into a new century soon, and I think there was a [00:38:00] lot of concern about, " who are we gonna be?" There was, after King Philip's War, there was a lot of concern that it was so gruesome that, "are we turning into these savages, who we claim they are?" So there's all kinds of components here, and I think it's interesting how they all play together.
[00:38:18] Josh Hutchinson: It was a grand conflagration. In previous witch trial cases, you'd have one, maybe two people get accused at a time. And I think that's what they expected in the beginning, when you had those first three outsiders accused. But then you get things like Tituba's confession, where she says there's nine witches, and you have people like Samuel Parris fanning the flames every week in church. And, like you said, a perfect storm of ingredients had to come together for it to continue and to expand the way it did.[00:39:00]
[00:39:00] Greg Houle: Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up Tituba, because I think that was really the linchpin of a lot of this. And that scene is portrayed in the novel, and the way I portray it is they, it's almost like boiler plate. Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, of course they're gonna deny it, but we know they're witches. And then Tituba comes and says, "yeah, the devil came to me. Yeah, he wanted me to kill these girls. Yes, there was a yellow bird," and saying all this stuff that they are suddenly thinking, "whoa, wait a minute, we weren't expecting this."
[00:39:36] So I think in many ways her saying the things that she said to the magistrates really helped get the wheels turning in the heads of a lot of people like Thomas Putnam. Again, it's conjecture, I know, but I think that it's an interesting concept to think about that, that really helped turn the tide a little [00:40:00] bit and fan the flames further.
[00:40:02] Sarah Jack: And, like you said, there was this uncertainty with the charter. We know there was deceit with the new charter that ended up coming, but the court that was opened that, that was certain, that had procedure. It gave the powerful men power. So you had that piece sliding in when everything else was uncertain.
[00:40:27] Greg Houle: Yeah, that's a really important point. It was a sense of certainty at a time of great uncertainty. And that helps push the process along. And, also, and maybe we're gonna touch on this, but the other aspect that really fascinates me is how, the new governor's wife suddenly gets accused and everything falls apart at that point. So it also is a nice button to the story in the sense that you realize these external forces [00:41:00] are really what is driving this, rather than the Satan, the underworld, these dark forces. It's endlessly fascinating, but there are all kinds of those markers along the way that you see, where you realize, "okay, this is why this happened, or this is why this didn't happen, and et cetera."
[00:41:21] Sarah Jack: Yeah, I'm thinking, when would've the devil have got his foot in the door on some of this? It was already full.
[00:41:28] Greg Houle: I don't know. Yeah. I think again, looking at it from our eyes now with everything we see and just seeing the, maybe some of it, and it's not, not trying to be political, and the novel is not political in that regard, but I think it's, we see divisions in our own society and you see how those divisions are further exploited. And so it's very easy to look back through that lens and [00:42:00] see where that is happening. And I think I was doing a lot of that as I was researching and writing this, this novel.
[00:42:08] Josh Hutchinson: So what does it boil down to? What you are trying to say through your writing on the Putnams?
[00:42:16] Greg Houle: That's a really great question. For me, the biggest thing that I want to say, I think about the Putnam's is that it's the story of this privileged family who was losing its privilege. And in many ways, as that happened, you see what the family did in order to try to retain that power. For me, that's what I kept coming back to, is that there is this sort of multi-generational, pretty powerful family that is losing its power in [00:43:00] that moment, and the years leading up to the Salem witch hysteria, it's a fading family. That's why I said earlier that a good subtitle for the book would be The Fall of an American Family, because I think it really is that kind of story, and so for me it's about telling that story through this sort of famous American tragedy. And that's, I think, probably the biggest thing that I want to try to do.
[00:43:32] Sarah Jack: When you talk about their fall, and when one reads about all of their tactics with what was happening with all the families and the boundaries and stuff, they were really put trying to push forward. They were really fighting tooth and nail to not lose footing.
[00:43:51] Greg Houle: That's something that I really try to explore through various flashbacks and so forth. And the novel is just the [00:44:00] idea that Thomas Jr., In particular, has the weight of the world on his shoulders. His father did so much to try to build it up, and now it's all on him, and you can feel it slipping away. But he's very arrogant, and he's got a lot of hubris, and he just is gonna keep saying that he's great. And what's interesting about how it appears during the witch hysteria at Salem is that you see there, you witness the fall, you witness the way in which he was trying to take advantage of this opportunity and failing, ultimately.
[00:44:44] And that's what I really enjoyed exploring, even though it is a tragic story within my own family. And of course, again, a lot of this is fiction. I don't wanna sound like I know everything that went on inside his [00:45:00] head, but I do think that it's all plausible, and I think, the way the story sort of progresses before and after Salem, you see it, as we already talked about with Ann, you see what happens to her. She fades from history at that point. And that's, in many ways, a metaphor for the entire family. Now, I don't mean to say that my Putnam family no longer exists. They're fine. They're all over the country, but it's not the same. So that is what I was trying to tell that story through this major event.
[00:45:38] Josh Hutchinson: What do you hope people take away from your stories and your novel?
[00:45:43] Greg Houle: I think the biggest thing I'd like for them to take away is realize that what we've been talking about in terms of the multi-dimensional aspect of history is real. When we think of [00:46:00] the Salem witch hysteria, we often think about it as, "well, there was witchcraft and these, this monolithic group of puritans then went crazy and accused witches and then put them to death," but the reality, of course, is that there were a lot of things that led up to that and a lot of things that happened after it. And I think for me the biggest takeaway's for people to see this story as a larger story, as the story of various things occurring at the same time, rather than just this one snapshot of an event.
[00:46:46] Because, going back to what I said earlier, my feeling with Salem is that it is often almost like a caricature of what we talk about, this idea that this thing happened [00:47:00] and isn't that crazy? But the reality is it happened for a variety of reasons. And to me the biggest takeaway that someone reading the novel would get would be, "wow, I understand that there are multidimensions to this. And isn't that an interesting way of thinking of it?
[00:47:20] Sarah Jack: I think right now as a society, there's a growing number of people who are learning to look at history dimensionally. So many of us were taught it as a snapshot, and I think everyone is ready. Not everyone, I think the amount of people ready to take a deeper look is now, and I think that's why historical fiction is important, and the history's important, but I think it's great timing. I think your book is coming at a great, I know it's, you still have a little while before it's released, but that just means more people are gonna be ready to receive it.
[00:47:56] Greg Houle: I think the same is true with podcasts. I think that's why we're having a [00:48:00] moment with podcasts. I think that's why, even when you look at like true crime series and things that really take a deep dive into these stories that were often very flat and one dimensional, I think that is, you're right that we're at a time where a lot of people are interested in that, and for me that was really what I was trying to do here is create some dimension to this story. Now, I don't claim to be the first person ever to do that, many others have, but I think that there needs to be as much of that as possible, in order for people to be able to connect to the elements that we hopefully will learn from and avoid, as we go into the future.
[00:48:45] Josh Hutchinson: I think your writing is so important to help people understand what really happened. I know it is fiction, but it gets people into the right mindset to [00:49:00] start exploring possibilities of what happened and to reflect on what's happening now. So I highly recommend that everybody read it. How can people access your writing currently?
[00:49:14] Greg Houle: I guess the easiest way is they can visit my website, which is greghoule.info, that's g r e g h o u l e.info. There are links to some of my writing about the book, and I'll continue to build that up prior to publication.
[00:49:32] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you. We very much appreciate you and your wisdom, and you've gone a long way towards answering the fundamental questions that are behind the podcast. We like to get in every episode part of the how do we hunt witches why do we hunt witches, how can we turn away from hunting witches? And your [00:50:00] answers have been quite elegant, speaking on those questions.
[00:50:05] Greg Houle: Obviously, it was much different, but they had the same sensibilities. They wanted to succeed. They wanted to defeat their enemies, and they wanted to make sure that their kids succeeded. And there were a lot of the same fears that they had that are very familiar to us today.
[00:50:27] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I like to point out that witch hunting in one form or another has been going on as long as humans have been around, because we, though the technology evolves and our beliefs evolve, at the core of us, we still have those same insecurities and fears that you point out.
[00:50:51] And now Sarah's here with another update on real-life witch-hunts happening in the present day.
[00:50:58] Sarah Jack: Welcome to this [00:51:00] episodes Witchcraft Fear Victim Advocacy Report, sponsored by End Witch Hunts News. Today's Thanksgiving 2022 in the United States. I thank you for tuning into our weekly End Witch Hunts News. Thank you to the advocates across the globe standing in the gap. For those who can't, thank you for being an activist against witchcraft.
[00:51:21] On its 47th session, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on July 12th, 2021 for the promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economics, social, and cultural rights, including the right to development. Here is what they resolved regarding the situation of the violations and abuses of human rights rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks. It requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to organize an expert consultation with states and other relevant stakeholders, including the United Nations [00:52:00] Secretariat and relevant bodies, representatives of subregional and regional organizations, international human rights mechanisms, national human rights institutions, and non-governmental organizations, the result of which will help the office of the High Commissioner to prepare a study on the situation of the violations that abuses of human rights, rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, as well as stigmatization and to inform further action by existing mechanisms at the United Nations and to submit a report thereon to the Human Rights Council at its 52nd session.
[00:52:39] Mr. Volker Turk is the current United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He took up official functions as high commissioner on October 17th, 2022. His Twitter handle is @ V O L K E R _ T U R K. Let him know you support his taking a suggested action on the [00:53:00] resolution. Let him know people like you stand against these violations and support finding solutions. Thank him for his work and accomplishments.
[00:53:07] Next, support the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project. You can support the project by sharing @_endwitchhunts, CT Witch Hunt, and CT Witch Memorial social media, and especially the news interviews in the first three Thou Shalt Not Suffer Podcast episodes. You can support the project by signing your name on the change.org petition. All these links are in our show episode notes. Go to the links, learn, support, and share.
[00:53:36] When the state of Connecticut moves forward with an exoneration for their accused witches, they're taking state action that stands with the promotion and protection of all human rights. Their exoneration decision is for Connecticut, but it is also for Africa and Asia. Their decision shows where they stand on violations and abuses of human rights, rooted in harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks, as [00:54:00] well as stigma.
[00:54:01] While we watch and wait, let's support the victims across the world where innocent people are being targeted by superstitious fear. Support them by acknowledging and sharing their stories. Please use all your communication channels to be an intervener and stand with them. The world must stop hunting witches. Please follow our End Witch Hunt movement on Twitter @_endwitchhunts and visit our website at endwitchhunts.org.
[00:54:25] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:54:26] Sarah Jack: You're welcome. Join us next week.
[00:54:29] Josh Hutchinson: Like, subscribe, or follow wherever you get podcasts.
[00:54:32] Sarah Jack: Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com often.
[00:54:35] Josh Hutchinson: And join our Discord for rousing discussions of the show.
[00:54:41] Sarah Jack: Follow us on social media, links in description.
[00:54:45] Josh Hutchinson: Remember to tell your friends, family, and anybody else you run into about Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:54:53] Sarah Jack: Catch you next time.
[00:54:55] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
[00:54:59] [00:55:00]

November 24, 2022

Documenting the Exoneration of the Last Witch of Salem