Infamous America - SALEM Ep. 1 | "The Devil"

Episode Date: October 2, 2018

When two girls fell ill in January 1692, no one suspected the affliction would lead to one of the most infamous events in American history. The Puritans of Salem Village believed the Devil had attacked their community and they would stop at nothing to find the witches who were Satan's minions. For episode details, visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A quote, The devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5.8. Reverend Samuel Paris wasn't frightened in the beginning. The fear happens slowly, gradually, like a man lost in the woods who makes one little turn and then another and then another, and by the time he realizes the severity of his situation, it's too late. Reverend Paris's daughter had been acting strangely for a couple of times. weeks, but he thought she was just sick. Sickness and disease ran rampant in the new world.

Bouts of smallpox had plagued the settlements, in addition to everyday illnesses brought on by the difficult living conditions and poor diet. And it was January 1692. The winter was harsh and growing worse. Betty's affliction had an odd beginning. It wasn't a runny nose or a fever or the chills. She felt a prickling sensation all over her body. It happened one night, and then the the next and then the next, and so on for an entire week. Paris and his wife Elizabeth were at a loss for how to help. In the second week, the symptoms grew worse. Betty then complained of being bitten and pinched.

Paris and his wife tried every home remedy they could think of. Nothing worked. And now, Reverend Paris's concern grew into real fear. His niece Abigail began to suffer the same affliction. He watched in horror as the child. two girls barked and yelped like dogs. Their bodies spasmed. They went stiff and rigid one minute and then collapsed to the floor limp and motionless the next. They fell dumb and stared at nothing. Then they sputtered and stammered and spouted gibberish. A chill surely ran down Paris's spine.

He recognized all the signs. Four years earlier, four children from Boston had suffered similar fits and agonies. It was determined that an elderly Irish woman had used magic to torment them. She was tried and hanged as a witch. And now, for the first time, the evil hand had found its way into a parsonage. Witchcraft had infiltrated the home of the Minister of Salem Village, and there was not a moment to lose. Paris had to save his daughter and his niece. He and the villagers of Salem had to root out the witches who were attacking his girls and stop them before they could do more harm. If he was lucky, this case was a case of witchcraft would remain relatively isolated like the others that happened in Massachusetts

colony over the years. But by February, Salem knew there would be no such luck. The number of afflicted girls rose dramatically. Hundreds were accused. Dozens were taken to court. Every community in the area was affected. Anyone could be a suspect. Witches were everywhere.

And then the executions began. And the devil and his legions laughed at the case. they had caused. Welcome to infamous America, a show that explores some of the darkest and most controversial people and events in American history. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and in season one, I'll tell you the story of the Salem Witch Trials. This is the tale of the 11 girls who claim to be afflicted by witchcraft, the dozens of people who stood trial, the 20 who were executed, and the five who died in jail. When it's all over, you'll hear from author historians and experts as we try to understand how and why this unique moment in American history

happened. This is Salem. Chapter 1. The Devil. As the last rays of light faded from the western sky, night brought bitter cold to Salem Village. Throughout New England, colonists gathered around fireplaces to stave off the biting chill. The climate was already harsh, but the onset of winter turned it downright brutal. The villagers were in the middle of what we now call the Little Ice Age, a period of 400 years that brought extreme temperatures and ferocious storms. Winter arrived early and stayed late. Crops baked in the blistering summer heat. It made a tough life in the New England farming community even more difficult. This was where John Proctor found himself on the final night of the year, 1691. He was 60 years old

and at home with his wife Elizabeth and their orphan ward Mary Warren. Mary was a 20-year-old beauty whose parents had died, so now she lived and worked with the Proctor's as a servant girl. Mercy Lewis was another servant girl who knew about the loss of family. She was a 19-year-old servant in the house of Thomas Putnam, one of the leading citizens of Salem Village. She had been orphaned twice in her home colony of Maine. All of her extended family had been killed during the Indian Wars of the Stubtonham.

1670s and 1680s. For a hundred years in the early days of the colonies, the French were desperate to take lands from the British in America. They partnered with the native tribes of New England and swooped down from Canada to attack settlements on the northern and western frontiers. They wiped out towns and villages and whole families. Colonists from New Hampshire and Maine fled south to Massachusetts and east toward the coast to find safety in more populated areas. Refugees like Mercy Lewis were taken in by local families and worked in their households until they could marry and begin their own families. On the surface, the family of Thomas Putnam was a good landing spot for Mercy.

He was part of the wealthiest clan in Salem Village. There were no less than nine Putnam families scattered through the farmland of the village. And the patriarchs were among the most powerful voices in the area. Nearly all were constables or officers in the local militia. but all their wealth and power and authority couldn't stop what was coming. In just a few weeks, the Putnam home would become the headquarters of witchcraft in Salem. It wasn't the first to fall victim, but it was the loudest. Just outside of the heart of Salem Village, Rebecca Nurse and her husband, Francis,

warmed themselves near one of their two enormous fireplaces. The aging couple shared the small, two-story house that Francis had built 14 years earlier when he bought. the property. The home consisted of two rooms. The first floor was the Great Hall, a general living space about the size of a typical master bedroom in today's homes. The second floor was the nurse's bedroom. One entire wall of each floor was dedicated to a gigantic hearth that was four or five feet high and seven or eight feet wide. Rebecca's children were grown and gone, so it was just she and Francis now. In her declining years, she had become sick, though her sickness did not prevent her from maintaining her devout religious values. She was a full member of the Puritan

church, which meant that she had proved she was a pious and spiritually pure person who was worthy of joining the ranks of the elected saints, as full members were called in the Puritan faith. That would all change three months from now when two little girls sent shockwaves through Salem by accusing a previously unimpeachable woman of witchcraft. Traveling down the road that ran past Rebecca Nurse's house would ultimately lead you to Salem Town on the Atlantic coast. Salem Town, as it was called at the time to distinguish itself from the farming community of Salem Village, was the first settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

It was the oldest. It was the original. And it was designed as a Puritan experiment that would prove to the rest of the world that their way of life was the right one. Puritans had formed a covenant with God, and they had fled the religious corruption of England to set up a system of living where lifestyle and religion were essentially one and the same. They envisioned this settlement as a great shining beacon that would show the world what a truly righteous people could do if they were allowed to operate without interference.

In 1630, Governor John Winthrop spoke about the glorious vision he had for the community. He said Salem would be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are on us. He was right about the second part. Salem Town had grown into a wealthy port city. It had become a hub of shipping, and the merchants of Salem had gotten rich. Those men emerged as the elite of Salem. They became judges and magistrates and constables and councilmen and militia commanders.

As their wealth grew, they began a practice that would become a bedrock of the American nation that formed a hundred years later. They expanded westward. They bought farms in the country several miles inland from Salem. As the original town around the harbor grew in prosperity and population, more and more people moved west in search of lands they could call their own, as they would for the next 200 years. The estates in the countryside were initially called Salem Farms and then became known as Salem Village. Wealthy men of Salem Town like John Hathorne bought hundreds of acres in the country and then sold them to families who migrated West. Thomas Putnam lived at the base of Hathorne Hill and around the corner from Hathorne's

great swamp. But John Hathorne himself stayed in Salem town. He was born into the elite of Salem, which allowed him to acquire the positions of Justice of the Peace and County Judge, positions that would ultimately secure his infamy as a judge of the Salem witch trials. But in the waning days of 1691, he had no notion of the calamity that was on the horizon. He was likely more concerned with the political turmoil that had besieged all of Massachusetts for the past 30 years. He no doubt eagerly awaited the return of the most esteemed religious mind in the colony. Reverend Increase Mather

Reverend Increase Mather had been in London fighting for a new charter for four long years. He thought he was making progress for the first year and a half or so, then it all fell apart and he had to start all over again. He had led an envoy to London four years earlier to try to fix a problem that had been plaguing his colony for 30 years.

King Charles II had revoked all the royal charters of the colonies to force them to renew their loyalty to him. The trouble was, the Massachusetts Bay colony was not a royal charter. It was a company, and the people of Massachusetts did not think the king had the right to demand their loyalty, a trait in them that would rear its head passionately in the next century. Twenty years later, it got worse.

The new king, King James II, flat out canceled the Massachusetts government. He ripped up the founding documents and sent over one of his own men to rule the colony. This new royal governor imposed the Church of England onto a group of people who had left England specifically to gain religious freedom. Naturally, the Puritans of Massachusetts hated the new governor. The tug of war started immediately, and in the end, the Puritans won. They overthrew the governor and shipped him back to England.

But now they had an even bigger problem. They didn't have a government at all. The charter was the document that outlined all the laws and governing principles of their settlement. Without it, they technically didn't know who was in charge or what was legal or what wasn't. The court system was paralyzed. Judges couldn't make rulings because there was no foundation of law.

So a group of representatives led by the most prominent minister in the colony sailed over to England to straighten out the situation. Increase Mather was a graduate of Harvard College. He was the president of Harvard College. He was the son of a Puritan minister, and he himself was the minister at one of the biggest churches in Boston. He arrived in London in 1680. and began negotiations with King James.

And just when he thought he was making progress, King James was tossed out by King William. Increased Mather had to start all over again with a new king. By this point, the political problems had spanned 30 years and three kings, but as 1691 drew to a close, Mather could see a light at the end of the tunnel. His efforts had paid off. Three days into the new year of 1692,

King William granted Massachusetts a new charter. Massachusetts had its government. Now all it needed was a new governor. And Mather just happened to have the man for the job right there with him in London. He got the king to appoint Sir William Phipps, the new governor of the colony. Phipps was something of a celebrity

because he had made a discovery that earned him wealth and a knighthood. Five years earlier, he found the sunken Spanish ship, the Concepcion. and recovered a treasure that was worth more than 200,000 English pounds. Now, it was January 3, 1692, and he and Increase Mather had just kissed the ring of the king. Their spirits were high, and they were ready to sail back to Massachusetts.

But they were thoroughly unprepared for what awaited them there. On the same day, Increase Mather and William Phipps concluded their business with King William, Reverend Samuel Paris launched into a sermon designed as a warning to his congregation in Salem Village. It was the Sabbath, and Paris preached to a divided flock, the few who were able to make it anyway. The temperature had plummeted, a snowstorm raged outside. Many parishioners couldn't make it to the meeting house

in the center of the village for regular worship. The ones who did suffered in a cold, wooden structure with nothing for warmth but their own clothes. Members with wealth and status would have been seated on the benches in the front, just below the elevated pulpit of Reverend Paris. Children, like Paris's daughter Betty and her cousin Abigail, would have been seated in the balcony. Paris had not often invoked hell in his sermons,

but over the last few months, his lectures had become more fiery, and he started using words like enemies and wicked men and the devil. He was halfway through his fourth year as the Minister of Salem Village, and his experience with the country community was just as turbulent. as that of his predecessors. The farmers of Salem Village had a well-earned reputation as a collection of contentious misers.

As their community had grown in the 1640s, 50s, and 60s, they had petitioned the general court of the colony to grant them independence from Salem Town and allow them to build their own meeting house for worship. The farmers were expected to contribute the same taxes as the people in Salem Town, and they were expected to contribute men to the Knights' Watch and the militia, even though they didn't use many of these services.

And it was a long trek from Salem Village to Salem Town for Sabbath lecture, a journey that took them down muddy roads and driving rainstorms and nasty blizzards. In 1692, the court had granted one of their wishes. It gave them permission to build their own meeting house. In the 20 years since then, they had burned through three ministers and were now on their fourth. In those days, the congregation was responsible for the congregation was responsible for. was responsible for paying the minister's salary, usually in a combination of currency and goods. The problems had started immediately. They wanted to pay their ministers less than other communities.

They haggled over everything he might need or want. Soon, they divided into factions that took on political errors. There were people who supported the minister and people who opposed him, and they often separated along the lines of old family rivalries. The people who opposed a certain minister stopped contributing to his salary. The bickering escalated to the point where the minister left or was driven out. In a time where a minister stayed with his congregation for an average of 20 years, Salem Village had been through three and was now on its fourth in that same span. And Reverend Paris knew all about Salem Village when he applied for the job. He had wrestled with them for months over the salary and the firewood and a

whole host of other things before he finally agreed. No sooner had he joined the community than the same routine flared up again. Certain people stopped contributing to his salary. They stopped providing him with firewood, which was crucial to surviving the brutal New England winters. He grew more and more frustrated. He would have been pounding around his house, railing against the troublemakers. He began to lash out at them through his sermons. Sometimes his attacks were direct. Other times they were thinly veiled, like today. His first sermon of 1692 was a warning that the devil's number one goal was to bring down the church, and he was assisted by wicked men. It's probably no coincidence that this was the final sermon Betty and Abigail heard before they fell ill with

strange and terrifying symptoms. In the dark winter days of 1691 and 1692, Betty Paris and Abigail Williams snuck away from prying eyes to conduct an experiment. This would have been difficult in a crowded house, but they found a way. The two-story parsonage that was the home of the minister held Reverend Paris and his wife Elizabeth, their children, 10-year-old Thomas, 9-year-old Betty and four-year-old Susanna, as well as their niece, 11-year-old Abigail Williams. The Paris has also had two slaves, Tichaba and her husband John, whom Reverend Paris brought with him to America when he closed his family's failing sugar plantation in Barbados. There were few things a Puritan girl could look forward to in life, and by far the most

interesting was her future husband. Her husband would own land and perform a trade and earn income for the family. She would keep the home and raise the children. Her life would be an endless cycle of tending the livestock, the garden, and the housework, baking, knitting, spooling, weaving, and sewing, and raising children in a harsh environment as well as attending religious services. So Betty and Abigail tried an age-old tradition that many girls in the area had tried. It was called a Venus glass, and it was meant to show them glimpses of the men they would marry and their social status. They poured water into a container and then strained egg white onto the water. The egg white was supposed to take the shape of a suitor. Whether the experiment worked or not, or just looked like

an egg in water, we'll never know. But it was out of this simple childhood curiosity that the witchcraft crisis grew. Over the next couple weeks, Betty Paris began to forget things. She forgot to run errands. She had trouble concentrating, or she seemed transatlantic. fixed by something no one else could see. And then Abigail began having the same trouble. Reverend Paris and his wife Elizabeth weren't sure how to help. These weren't symptoms of a common cold. The girls couldn't be bandaged and allowed to heal.

The Paris has tried mixing home remedies, all kinds of elixirs and wines and combinations of seeds and oils, but nothing worked. Naturally, they prayed fervently that whatever ailed the girls would go away quickly and quietly. But their prayers made things worse. Betty barked like a dog. When Reverend Paris began the Our Father,

she screamed wildly and hurled a Bible across the room. Abigail twisted herself into odd postures. She babbled incoherently. She complained of headaches. Reverend Paris was at a loss. As a minister, he had a solemn and weighty responsibility to his congregation. Many ministers spent upwards of seven hours writing one sermon. some used an entire week of solitary study to craft a single lecture.

Paris had been stomping through his home for months as he haggled with his stingy villagers. They were constantly late paying his salary and they were taking back their promise to provide him with firewood. He was preaching not only to save their souls, but to honor their commitments to him as their spiritual leader. It was in this maelstrom that Betty and Abigail fell ill and their afflictions were getting worse. They screamed that they were being pinched and stabbed with needles, though no one could see their assailants. They shrieked that their skin was burning, though no one could see the fire or the marks on their bodies.

Ten-year-old Thomas and Little Susanna must have been terrified. Paris couldn't work. His home was in an uproar. He was expected to deliver a sermon every Thursday and two on Sunday, but there was mayhem in his house. The afflictions of Betty and Abigail worsened his jam. passed into February. Their torments infected Paris's sermons. Word of their sickness began to spread. An illness of any kind was news in the village, but one like this was big news. Villagers

crowded into the parsonage to see the girls. Some offered help. Others were there to just gawk at the spectacle. Regardless, they got a show. The girls writhed in pain. They suffered convulsions and seizures. At times they were smothered with fear so intense they collapsed to the floor and lay motionless. Between fits, Betty cried to her parents. She agonized over the idea that she was damned, and this was a very real terror for Puritans. They firmly believed in predestination. God decided who would go to heaven and who would go to hell before the person was born. If God had damned you to spend eternity in hell, there was nothing you could do about it. No amount of piety or religious devotion

could change his mind. You couldn't reverse his decision through good works or charitable offerings. It was done. Reverend Paris and his wife tried to assure their daughter that she would not meet this fate, but it didn't seem to help.

On Wednesday, February 24th, Paris called a local doctor to his home, traditionally thought to be William Griggs who lived just down the road to the east. The doctor looked at the girls and dispensed the diagnosis that everyone suspected and feared.

They had been touched by the evil hand. This was witchcraft. The devil was in Salem. The revelation that the devil attacked members of his family in his own home was devastating to Paris. In a Puritan society, every little malfunction was a sign that God was displeased.

If your cow got sick, if your butter went bad, you had to search your soul to find out how you had offended God. Paris now had two girls under his roof who were being tortured and tormented by witches. In his own words, this was a sore rebuke and a horrid calamity. But beyond the spiritual criticism leveled by God, there was a very real, earthly crime being committed here. Betty and Abigail were victims of witchcraft,

which meant there were witches in the area attacking them. And the belief in witches was absolute at the time. They had to exist, based on the religious logic of the day. witches were either weak people who had been tempted and turned by the devil or they were evil people who were willfully in league with the devil and helped him push his agenda. His agenda, as always, was to take down God's faithful children. Salem considered itself to be a shining beacon of Puritan faith, so it only made sense that the devil would want to destroy God's most obedient servants.

Witches were the devil's servants. And the devil was created by God, God was certainly real, therefore the devil was real, therefore witches were real. To question the existence of witches meant you questioned the existence of God, and since there was no question that God existed, there was no question that wishes existed. All the leading ministers and community leaders agreed on this basic foundation. The only real debate was whether or not a specific instance of trouble was witchcraft. Salem Village quickly determined that Betty and Abigail were victims of witchcraft.

So, the witches had to be found. The next day, February 25th, Reverend Paris and Elizabeth left home to attend Thursday lecture in a neighboring town. Betty and Abigail stayed at the parsonage with Tichiba and her husband, John. This was the day that would launch the crisis into the stratosphere. The Paris' neighbor, Mary Sibley, suggested to Tichiba to bake a... witch cake to try to reveal the witches who were afflicting the girls. Tichuba did as instructed. She mixed a batch of rye meal. She added splashes of the girl's urine. She pressed the mixture into a loaf and baked it over hot ashes. When it was done, she fed it to the family dog.

As the dog devoured the cake, the act was supposed to harm the witch. A witch and his or her victim were linked. If you hurt a part of the victim, you would hurt the witch. By having the dog eat a cake that contained the girl's urine, Tichiba hoped to injure the witch and find out who it was. But even though this was done with good intention, the use of magic was still a dangerous practice. It could open the girls up to even worse torments, and that's exactly what happened.

When the paris has returned home, they knew nothing of the witch cake, but Betty and Abigail were suddenly worse. Now they weren't just experiencing random and mysterious pains and fits and seizures, now they were seeing the shapes of actual people attacking them. Their afflictions were clearly caused by witches. Now the girls just needed to figure out the identities of the witches. But before they could, witchcraft spread like a demonic virus.

That night, Anne Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard were afflicted. The next day, Friday, February 26th, dawned bleak and cold in Salem Village. In the parsonage, Betty and Abigail's symptoms escalated. Now they blamed Tichiba for their pain, which had intensified since the Witchcake experiment. Reverend Paris and his wife demanded to know who was hurting the girls. The questions only heightened the girl's pain.

The girls said they saw Tichaba's form pursuing them around the house when no one else could see it. Even stranger, they knew where Tichiba was when no one else did. Paris was horrified. He summoned a colleague from nearby Beverly, Reverend John Hale, to witness the girl's afflictions. Hale chronicled his experience. He said they were bitten and pinched by invisible agents. Their arms, necks, and backs turned this way and that way and returned back again,

so as it was impossible for them to do of themselves, and beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to affect, Sometimes they were taken dumb, their mouth stopped, their throats choked, their limbs racked and tormented, so as might move a heart of stone to sympathize with them. Paris questioned Tichiba. What did she know of these things? Tichiba admitted she had baked a witch cake. Now she claimed that a woman who had owned her in Barbados had been a witch, and had taught her methods for discovering witchcraft and preventing future harm.

Tichiba said that she herself was not a witch, but she knew some of these basic techniques. Paris was livid. She had brought magic into his house. Even if it was done with an intent to help, she had opened the door to greater evil. The cake had been a gateway for the devil, and only God knew what kind of havoc he would wreak. While Tichiba revealed her secret to Reverend Paris, Anne Putnam Jr. worsened by the hour in her family's home more than a mile to the West. She was tormented by an apparition who had taken the afflictions to a new level.

The Spector had tried to get Anne to sign the devil's book, literally to make a deal with the devil. She had been able to resist, but the pressure would only get worse as time went by. A mile to the east of the parsonage, Elizabeth Hubbard's symptoms were still mild, but they would flare up the following day. Saturday, February 27th, would be a pivotal day in Salem village. That day, a biting wind blasted down from the northeast. Elizabeth was sent on an errand that required her to walk all the way across the village. On her way back, as she fought through the teeth of the gale, she was positive that a wolf stalked her footsteps. She was certain that a woman named Sarah Good had sent the creature to terrorize her. Or maybe it was Sarah Good herself in the shape of a wolf.

Either way, it was clear that Sarah Good meant her harm. At the same time, Anne Putnam's tormentor revealed herself. The spirit that tempted her to sign the devil's book was none other than Sarah Good. But Sarah Good wasn't alone in her attacks. Elizabeth Hubbard was now certain that the spirit of Sarah Osborne was also harassing her. Saturday night was frightening, and Sunday was worse. On the Sabbath, intense rain and wind lashed New England. Rivers flooded and washed away buildings and bridges.

Cattle drowned in the fields and crops were destroyed by the storm. The four afflicted girls were no better, and by Monday, February 29th, something had to be done. Anne's father, Thomas Putnam, and two other men navigated the dangerous roads to Salem Town. They met with magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin. and made official complaints against Tichiba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. Hathorne and Corwin listened intently to the accusations of mischief that had been perpetrated on the four girls. At the end of the meeting, the magistrates agreed that the three women needed to be picked up

for questioning, and they issued the first arrest warrants for witchcraft in Salem. The next day, Hathorne and Corwin traveled to Salem Village to question the three accused women. The hearings were explosive. The witchcraft conspiracy grew to scary proportions, and it was only just beginning. In the month of March, 1692, events in Salem passed the point of no return. That's next time on Infamous America Season 1, Salem. If you enjoyed the show and you're listening on iTunes, please give it a rating and a review. You can check out our website at blackbarrelmedia.com and follow us on social media. Our Facebook page is Black Barrel Media.

Our Twitter handle is at B-Barrel Media and our Instagram handle is at Blackbarrel Media. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.