All language subtitles for Witches. Truth. Behind. the. Trials. S01E01. 480p. x264-RUBiK[EZTVx. to] - NH

For centuries, witch
hunts raged through Europe

and the Americas.

Everybody believed in
the existence of witches.

The trials catch fire.

...causing the deaths
of tens of thousands

of innocent people.

It was extraordinary.

♪ ♪

To this day, the most
infamous hunt of all

ravaged a small
religious community

in colonial Massachusetts.

Salem was a community
that was already

riven with hostility
to one's neighbors.

♪ ♪

The horrors begin when
children in the minister's

house have violent fits,
an affliction that seems

to be caused by the devil.

Triggering a savage, unstoppable
panic that saw hundreds

accused of witchcraft by their
neighbors, friends, and family.

This great network
of witches all working

together across the area.

They know at the end
of this that they could

be judged guilty of witchcraft,
and they'll be hanged.

Once you've
crossed that line, you

have actually executed
someone, it's very difficult to stop.

It could never go
back to the way it was.

This was a war zone.

This is the story of
the Salem Witch Trials.

♪ ♪

Salem is a Puritan community.

-The Puritans were a dissenting
branch of the Anglican Church

who fled England
in the early 1600s.

-They were concerned
that living in England,

the hierarchy of the Church of
England, the Anglican Church,

was telling them what to do,
was making them believe things

that they didn't
actually want to believe.

So off they go to America
to found their own church

and to own their own doctrine.

As the Puritan
population increased

over the coming decades,
they established multiple colonies

in what would become the
Northeast of the United States.

Really, the locus
of Puritan influence

and the locus of the
congregational church

was in Massachusetts, was in
places like Boston and Salem.

The community at Salem
is a congregation-less

community, which means
that the people there

have a belief that the
congregation itself should

be able to shape
how the church works.

Puritans in Salem
Village have the power

to elect a new minister
to lead their congregation.

They nominate the recently
ordained Samuel Parris.

Samuel Parris arrived
in Salem Village

in 1689.

He's come to Salem
from Barbados.

He has had a bit of a career
as a merchant before then.

He's not actually
very successful.

He comes to New England to
try his luck at something new,

at something different in
this new colony that's just sort

of building itself up
in the 17th century.

He sails first to
Boston, where he

lives for a couple of
years with his family,

and then to Salem Village.

Salem Village is a kind of

an appendage to Salem Town.

Salem Town is the much
more prosperous community.

Salem Village was fractious.

This was not
considered a destination

for an ambitious
minister like Parris.

He enters into the
community, and he

starts sifting out the most
godly people around him

to join his sort of
special congregation

of particularly pious villagers.

I think he's quite an
embittered individual,

and I think he tends to
take that frustration out

through very, very sort
of impassioned preaching.

Because he's a
new minister, he's

very keen to prove his place
in the village and his utility

to the local community.

Parris has overseen
the church in Salem

for two difficult years.

When this highly
religious community

is thrown into disarray,
young girls in nearby villages

have been
experimenting with magic.

They had been doing
something known

as the egg and glass.

The idea was that
you would take an egg,

and you would then
drip the white of the egg

into a bowl of water and
look at the shapes it makes.

You were asking God to
give you some insight into what

shape your future would take.

What starts off as
playing around with

fortune telling
becomes more sinister.

What they saw in the water
was the shape of a coffin.

They start feeling very worried.

This kind of divination
was regarded

as demonic.

It's impossible to
know if Samuel Parris's

daughter, Betty,
and niece Abigail

took part in these rituals.

But something terrible
happens shortly afterwards.

Betty Parris starts
showing strange symptoms

of affliction.

This then spreads to Abigail.

They start saying
that their muscles hurt,

and they start screaming.

You can imagine how
distressing that would

have been for their family.

This upheaval is coming
from right inside the

house of the minister.

The Reverend Samuel Parris

calls in the doctor.

He says, it is supernatural.

I can't cure it, so it
must be witchcraft.

The people of Salem,
they're very religious.

They believe in God.

But that means they
believe in the devil, too.

They're kind of on the
lookout for witchcraft.

There had certainly
been plenty of cases

in Europe involving

what was known as bewitchment.

What was happening
to Betty and Abigail

seemed to follow
this recognized model.

There was an
established precedent

for blaming this on witches.

When the community has

decided to accept the idea

that these girls are
being attacked by witches,

the next stage in the
process is then saying,

who is it who is
doing this to you?

Who is afflicting you?

The names that come up are two

women of middling age

who were unpopular
within their community,

Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.

The other name
we have is Tituba.

Tituba was a servant in
the house of Samuel Paris.

I think her name was
probably originally

something like Tata Bay.

She comes from a grouping
on the South American mainland

called the Tetebetana.

-There was that ethnic
difference compared

to the people surrounding her.

And it's kind of
that classic idea

of assuming that
people who are different

are more likely to be
in league with things

that are deemed evil
and unfamiliar to you.

Abigail and Betty
might have picked on

Tituba as well because
Betty's father Samuel may

have been critical
of a woman of color

who lived in his community.

I can imagine him
bullying Tituba.

I can imagine him
speaking critically about her,

maybe thinking she wasn't
a good enough Christian.

So it's really no
surprise to Samuel

when Abigail and Betty start
pointing the finger at Tituba

and saying that she's a witch.

♪ ♪

The affliction starts spreading
from Abigail and Betty

to their friends,
the Putnam family.

They start exhibiting
the same symptoms.

They start
screaming in the night.

They start convulsing.

They start pointing the finger
and saying that they, too,

are bewitched by the people that

Abigail and Betty
have suspected.

♪ ♪

First of March,
1692, the accused

are dragged in
front of magistrates.

A confession is needed
before they're sent to trial.

For all the women,
it's a terrifying ordeal,

especially Tituba, the woman
of indigenous or African heritage.

Tituba begins by

denying that she
did anything at all.

She's in front of these
powerful white men.

She's probably been hurt,
and she's certainly been

enslaved by powerful white men.

This is a very bullying
power relationship

that she's in in this room.

These women were
looking for ways

to try and save themselves.

Therefore, they might
come to say the things

that people wanted to hear,
confess to imaginary crimes.

♪ ♪

In the end, during
her questioning,

Tituba starts to say,
I did hurt the children.

She said, the devil came to me,
and the devil kept saying to me,

you must hurt the children.

You must hurt the children.

He threatened me, she said.

He said he would kill me.

He would tear me to pieces.

He would cut my head off.

With Tituba's
confession secured,

the magistrates also questioned
the other two women accused

of being witches, Sarah
Good and Sarah Osborne.

As part of this questioning,
Sarah Good's young

daughter, Dorothy, was
asked about whether her mother

was, in fact, a witch.

She was only four.

What was she expected to say?

And of course, she says,
yes, my mother is a witch.

And she admits
witchcraft herself,

which is particularly shocking.

♪ ♪

The people of Salem
send the suspects off

to Boston, the capital of
the colony of Massachusetts,

to await trial.

They're kept in chains.

There are women.

There are some children,
like Dorothy Good.

There are people who
are absolutely desperate.

Although the accused
women have been jailed,

it will be many months
until a trial can proceed.

The colony of
Massachusetts, it's

governed under a charter
from the British government.

And the charter has expired.

The governor and many of
the leading men of the colony

have gone off to England
to secure a new charter

to make sure that its
legal processes can

continue to function.

♪ ♪

Although the Salem
town magistrates

can question suspects,
they can't really

start any trials until the
governor arrives from England.

It gives more space and
time for the afflictions to spread

and the concern of
the community to grow.

During that time,

questions keep on being asked.

A lot of other names
start getting mentioned.

And these women who are
sitting around in these jail cells

happen to keep
remembering other people who

might have been involved.

Things start to spiral.

♪ ♪

Months pass.

The people of Salem village
grow ever more convinced

that witches walk amongst them.

Further accusations
are coming from the

supposedly afflicted girls.

Samuel Powers is preaching about

witchcraft to the congregation.

And the contagion
seems to be continuing.

There are stories of
more girls getting afflicted.

The suspects also carry
on being questioned.

And they carry on telling
stories about the witchcraft

that they've
supposedly committed.

They name new suspects
back in Salem village,

people like Bridget Bishop.

And then these people are
brought in for questioning, too.

♪ ♪

Most news is spread
by word of mouth.

People communicated
at the marketplace

when they were trading.

♪ ♪

About 75% of those
who are accused

are female.

And that's because women
are seen as particularly

prone to becoming witches.

They're seen as
gateways of the devil.

They're seen as people
who might fall prey

to these sort of demonic lies.

♪ ♪

Samuel Powers also asked
the previous minister of Salem,

Diodat Lawson, to come
and visit and see what

he thinks of the situation.

And then he goes to
the Powers household.

And he sees Betty
Powers in one of her fits.

She's running around
the room screaming.

She's trying to climb
out of the window and fly.

And he writes an
account of what he saw

and what he experienced
while he was in Salem Village.

As a minister and
trusted member of society,

Lawson's vivid account adds
credibility to the witch hunt.

The first accused
witches were the outsiders.

They were those
you might consider

the usual suspects
in witchcraft.

But as the accusations grow,
more and more prominent people

are actually
drawn into this net.

The sorts of people
who would not

expect to be giving
themselves up to the devil.

They're not people
who might be seen as

outsiders or scapegoats
like the Native American

Tituba or the homeless
person Sarah Good.

These are prime, upstanding
members of Samuel Powers's

congregation, people
like Rebecca Nurse,

who's been a member
of the church all her life

and is seen by her neighbors as
being a pious and good person.

She's a pillar of the
godly community.

You would expect her to
be protected from accusation.

But nevertheless,
she's named as a witch.

As the accusations spread,
they dig deeper and deeper

into Salem's community.

We have to begin
from the important fact

that everybody believed
in the existence of witches.

And so as these
rumors begin spreading,

there's a sense of crisis.

There's a sense that Satan
is actually successfully waging

this war on their community.

Salem was a community

that was already
riven with division.

You've got the tension

between Salem
Village and Salem Town.

Salem Village is
more backward looking,

much poorer than Salem Town.

Salem Town is wealthier.

It's fancier.

It's becoming more interested
in the refinements of society,

the kind of things that
Puritans disapprove

of very strongly indeed.

And then you've got Paris.

Rather than smoothing things
over and calming things down,

he really intensifies the
factions and the resentments.

And I think the fact that
the afflictions of the children

start in his household
suggests that he very much is

at the center of a
lot of this concern.

Within Salem Village,
there is a division

between two of the
prominent families.

And those are the
Putnams and the Porters.

The Porter households
and their allies

were much more politically
linked to Salem Town,

whereas the Putnams
are inward looking,

much more linked to Paris
as the Salem Village minister,

much more older
fashioned in their emphasis

on Puritan godliness.

The accused witches tended
to come from the Porter network,

whereas the afflicted tended
to be much more closely linked

to the Paris Putnam faction.

-The villagers are
turning on each other.

But beyond the village,
there are even worse threats.

There are Native
American peoples

who the villagers have
taken their land, essentially,

and they've dispossessed them.

There's also famine,
because they don't know

which kind of crops to grow.

The Native Americans
aren't helping them anymore,

naturally enough.

There's disease.

There are wars to
the north in Maine.

And some of the people who
are doing the accusing in Salem

Village are probably
refugees from the war.

We're dealing with people
who are really traumatized.

♪ ♪

-All of these factors are
then feeding into the division

at Salem and perpetuating
this mood of suspicion,

potentially of hostility
to one's neighbors.

Between January
and May, we end up

with 81 people accused
of witchcraft, 49 of whom

are imprisoned.

♪ ♪

-This is developing into
a massive social, cultural,

political crisis.

Several months after
the first accusations,

Governor Phipps arrives
with the new Massachusetts

charter in hand.

He now has the power
to open the courts.

And the accused will either
find justice and freedom

or a brutal death.

♪ ♪

When the governor
arrives back from

England with the new charter,
he has a range of pressing matters

to deal with.

There are Native American
wars going on to the north.

There are wars between
the English and the French.

And he has to go in
person to intervene.

So, he's not present in
the colony of Massachusetts

for quite some
time after his arrival.

However, he's briefed
about the people awaiting trial

for witchcraft in Boston jail.

And on May the 27th,
he sets up a special court

to deal with them, a court
of our own termina, which

means to hear and determine.

Which is basically
an old English method

for dealing with a
legal emergency.

It's a bit of a challenge
in the Middle Ages

for things like
popular rebellion,

when you've suddenly got a
really unusual number of trials

that you need to get through.

♪ ♪

The trials are held
in the meeting house,

so essentially the
community's own church.

It's a packed room.

It's a hot room.

It's a noisy room. It's crowded.

It must have felt
incredibly intimidating.

This is a spectacle that

a lot of villagers, some of whom

are accused, are
coming to watch.

Governor Phipps won't
lead the court himself.

He won't be the judge.

He asks his friends,
the intellectuals,

the important men in the
community, to help him.

There's also a lot
of potential for the

judge to steer things in
the way that he wants.

♪ ♪

As the court assembles
in Salem town,

the accused witches
are led from jail,

desperately hoping
they will find mercy.

The accused people have to

defend themselves.
They don't have lawyers.

They would have
been reliant on their

own words, their own denials.

♪ ♪

You get this very, very
dramatic, peculiar situation

where the afflicted girls,
including Betty Parris

and Abigail Williams, are
brought into the courtroom

♪ ♪

They might writhe
or whimper or babble.

They actually throw fits

in front of the court.

They make new accusations.

They say things like,
she's attacking me.

She's screaming at me.

She's hitting me.

If the accused witch in the dock

raises an arm, the afflicted
individuals would react to that.

It's quite hard for us to
imagine how sensational that

would have been and how
much their performance kind

of convinces people that
they're being attacked by witches.

The suspects must
have been frightened.

They must have
been terribly upset

by this public humiliation.

It must have been an awful,
traumatic experience for them.

They know at the end of
this that they could be judged

guilty of witchcraft, and
that they'll be hanged.

Your options when
it came to defending

yourself against a witchcraft
charge were pretty limited.

But there was an idea that
those who confessed to the crime

had at least shown
some kind of repentance,

some kind of remorse.

If you confessed, you
lost your reputation.

Not only had you
told a lie before God,

but all your
neighbors would then

judge you to be a witch.

You'd be permanently tainted.

But also, the people who
confess will be spared.

They will be judged guilty,
but they won't be executed.

And of course, it's a massive
inducement to confess.

The judges don't seem
to have spotted that one.

But it's something that really
makes the trials catch fire.

Tituba, the first person
accused of witchcraft

by the Paris family,
finally takes the stand.

♪ ♪

Tituba did admit
that she was a witch,

whether she believed
herself to be one or not.

When she introduced
this idea that there

might be this great network
of witches all working together

across the area.

♪ ♪

And she was spared.

Therefore, she was
not to be executed.

She was returned to jail.

Of course, that was
a punishment in itself.

But it did save her life.

♪ ♪

Those who confessed to the

crime might well have helped

out the authorities by
giving details about what

happened, naming other names.

As one person after
another confesses and is

spared, the number of witchcraft
suspects and convicted witches

starts to grow again.

♪ ♪

As well as sparing
confessing suspects,

the court also makes
another fatal decision,

which is to admit what's
called spectral evidence.

♪ ♪

And this is essentially
evidence based

on the visions of the accusers.

Spectral evidence
draws on this idea

that the devil has the
power to cause hallucinations

in people's minds.

Spectral evidence
was basically evidence

that wasn't visible to
most of the townspeople

but was, in fact,
visible to the accusers.

♪ ♪

Sometimes these spirits
admitted their culpability

to earlier crimes.

Sometimes other spirits
accused the supposed witch

of a particular crime.

This now is an absolute
nightmare when it

comes to evidential standards,
because what you have here

is a form of evidence
that is basically

impossible to disprove.

♪ ♪

So spectral evidence
allows the trials to escalate,

allows them to move further
into the realm of fantasy

and away from anything we
would consider valid proof.

♪ ♪

Other members of the
community are essentially

allowing this to happen by
not protesting loudly against it.

There are cases
of brave individuals

who'd fight to defend
their loved ones,

but it was potentially a
pretty dangerous business.

♪ ♪

Trials are doing
very, very quick

by comparison with today.

It can be as little
as 15 minutes

to determine whether
somebody lives or dies.

On the 2nd of June,
the court of Oyer and

Terminer renders
their first verdict.

♪ ♪

It's Bridget Bishop,

and she's sentenced
to be hanged.

♪ ♪

On the 2nd of June,
the court makes its first

conviction of Bridget Bishop.

♪ ♪

She says not guilty in court.

She's condemned to die, but
she maintains her innocence

to the gallows, and that's
quite disturbing for people.

♪ ♪

Having an execution of
someone for witchcraft

is dramatic enough,
but she's not

going to the gallows as
a kind of a penitent sinner

admitting her guilt.

She's actually saying,
you guys got it wrong.

♪ ♪

The same day, one
of the judges actually

resigns from the court.

So there are already some signs

that things aren't going well.

Now an actual
execution has happened.

Things have got serious.

People are getting murdered
because of these accusations.

♪ ♪

On the 29th of June, one of

the original
suspects, Sarah Good,

is arraigned and
formally charged,

and she's charged
alongside four other women...

Rebecca Nurse, Susanna Martin,
Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wild.

♪ ♪

At that trial, all
five of the women

are found guilty and
they're sentenced to death.

♪ ♪

The five women are
executed on the 19th of July.

Sarah Good turns on the
crowd and the ministers

and the judges, and
she says to them,

I'm no more a witch
than you are a wizard,

because she is an innocent
woman about to be hanged.

God will give
you blood to drink.

And that sounds
very much like a curse.

But at the same time, it also
feels like a bit of a prophecy

that this is all going to come
to a very bad end indeed.

♪ ♪

There's also growing
doubts over what's

going on now that it's
proving just so serious.

♪ ♪

A number of ministers
are asked for their

opinion of the trials,
and in particular, the way

that spectral
evidence is being used.

Some people are concerned
that the accused people might

actually be making up
evidence of seeing the specters

of the accused witches.

♪ ♪

And they want people
like Cotton Mather, who

is a university
intellectual and somebody

with wide experience in the
field of judging the demonic.

Cotton Mather was regarded
as one of the foremost

authorities on witches.

He wrote widely on the
subject, and he wrote widely

from a position
of real authority

as being one of the senior
ministers in Massachusetts

at the time.

♪ ♪

So Cotton Mather
and a number of other

ministers write a
letter to the court

in which they sum
up their opinion

on this type of evidence.

It is, however, a
very equivocal letter.

They say on the
one hand that there

are some doubts about
this kind of evidence

and that exquisite
caution, as they put it,

should be used in judging
the accused people.

But at the same time, they
give the court a pat on the head

and they say, well,
you should just continue

doing what you're doing.

Because of course,
the ministers do

believe that there are witches
in the Salem community.

♪ ♪

Very important that

a group of men
of Puritan ministers

with such influence in
the colony say, be careful.

But then they're
also saying, but it's a

jolly good thing
to hunt witches.

So it's a very, very difficult
situation for the authorities.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile, some people
are asking questions

about why the
accusers are making

the accusations that they are.

Perhaps things have gone
out of hand and gone too far.

♪ ♪

That's part of this
beginning of perhaps doubt

about the validity
of the testimony

and the validity of
the spectral evidence.

♪ ♪

Yet even though there
are doubts about the

process of the convictions,
on August the 19th,

a further five
people are hanged.

And one of them is even a
former minister, George Burrows.

He's Samuel Paris' predecessor.

♪ ♪

Burrows is being accused
partly because he's

drifted from the position
that Samuel Paris feels

the church should be occupying.

George gives supposedly

this quite impassioned speech

where he talks about
what's happened,

closes it with a
perfect recitation

of the Lord's Prayer.

♪ ♪

This was an old
stereotype about witches

that they couldn't get
through the Lord's Prayer

without at some
point tripping up.

♪ ♪

George recites it perfectly.

And this also may have
generated some doubts

in the minds of the onlookers.

♪ ♪

The crowd start to murmur.

And they move
towards almost a riot.

And they say the
execution should be stopped.

But who should come
along but Cotton Mayer,

who has come to the executions
to watch justice being done.

♪ ♪

He gives almost a sermon
to the crowd in which he says

that these people
are indeed witches

and that there's
nothing wrong here.

The execution should continue.

And of course,
because he's a minister,

he's a powerful, important
figure in the community,

the crowd accept his authority.

The executions proceed,
and the five people are killed.

♪ ♪

The bodies aren't
even buried properly.

They're thrown into a
nearby crevice in the rock

and partially covered by earth.

♪ ♪

As doubts about
the witch trials grow,

some villagers courageously
decide to take a stand.

But the repercussions of
their actions will prove deadly.

♪ ♪

On the 18th of September, 1692,

one of the witchcraft suspects,

Giles Corey, refuses
to plead at his trial.

And the courts at
this time had a slightly

strange idea that if people
refused to enter a plea,

you could subject them to
torment to compel them to do so.

And this is what
happens to Giles Corey.

♪ ♪

It's an act of defiance
to not submit a plea

and allow yourself to
be subjected to torture.

♪ ♪

And it may be that he would
have imagined that he was going

to be found guilty either way,
that the outcome was inevitable

and that he had
no control over it.

-The 18th to the 19th
of September, 1692,

he has heavy weights
piled on top of him.

♪ ♪

That would have
been like a suffocation.

It's like a slow death.

♪ ♪

When they ask him,
what do you want to say to

the court, he says, more weight.

He had nothing to lose.

He's going to die anyway.

But he can die
with his own dignity,

and he can die with his
own sense of innocence.

♪ ♪

But one effect of him
dying without entering a

plea is that his estate
remained his own property

and passed to his
descendants, to his son-in-laws.

If he had died having
been convicted of witchcraft,

his estate would become
the property of the authorities.

♪ ♪

Without a plea,
trial, or conviction,

the execution of
Giles Corey is unlawful.

His death sends shockwaves
through the community.

Days later, his
wife, Martha Corey,

is also executed, sent to the
gallows, guilty of witchcraft.

♪ ♪

It's an absolute disaster

for the community
of Massachusetts,

and it will leave
a terrible legacy.

♪ ♪

It's been seven months now.

We've had 185 people accused.

59 have gone to trial.

19 were hanged.

Others died in prison.

This then takes on a life of its
own, spreads geographically.

Across communities

like Beverly, Molden,
Gloucester, Andover,

Ipswich, Marblehead,
Charlestown, and Boston itself,

people are being
accused of witchcraft.

♪ ♪

The witch hunts spread
across New England.

They continue to attract the
attention of religious experts.

Including a clergyman
and scholar from Boston,

Increase Mather, whose
son, Cotton Mather,

is already deeply involved
with the trials in Salem Village.

♪ ♪

Increase Mather writes
a letter to express some

of his doubts, to say that
maybe some of the evidence,

maybe some of the
accusations, don't carry the water

that we once thought they did.

After all, spectral evidence
is a pretty slim reed

to hang people on.

Increase really
begins to call on the

governor, Phipps, to
come and sort stuff out.

♪ ♪

Phipps and Increase
Mather go back a long way.

They came together
on the ship from England

with the new charter.

William Phipps really
respects Increase Mather.

And what he sees in Increase's
letter really concerns him.

♪ ♪

There's also a rumor
going around the colony

that somebody has named
Mary Phipps, governor's wife,

as a witch.

♪ ♪

And it would make sense,
from Satan's perspective,

not to limit himself to the
older, less affluent women

that were so often
associated with witchcraft.

If Satan really meant
business, he would go

after the elites among them.

So there are a couple
of powerful motives

for William Phipps to want to
put an end to the witch trials.

It's a huge crisis, and he needs
to do something immediately.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Governor Phipps
decides that public opinion

has shifted enough to call
a stop to these proceedings.

Governor Phipps
dismantles the courts

responsible for the
brutal witch trials.

The remaining accused
are safe from execution.

The people still
in jail are released.

Tituba was kept in
prison for at least a year.

There's a statement
from the jailer

where he says that
he hasn't been paid.

And we know that
somebody paid that bill, which

leads us to think that maybe,
in the end, Tituba was freed.

♪ ♪

Samuel Parris's
role in the witch trials

had created such bad
blood within the village.

Parris, by that point,
is very embittered.

He feels that he's
failed as a minister.

The family members
of some of the executed

actually successfully
pushed him out of the village

and out of his ministry.

So what's left at Salem?

Not very much.

A dislocated community
where neighbors are not

speaking to each other.

The whole church
structure has fallen apart.

♪ ♪

The economic
impact of that would

have been very significant.

The pendulum of support
swings towards the families

of the accused.

It becomes an episode
the whole community

really wants to forget about.

There is a legacy of guilt

and unease over
the whole affair.

♪ ♪

It could never go
back to the way it was.

♪ ♪

In January 1697,
the general court

orders a day of
prayer and fasting

to reflect back on the
history of the witch trials.

♪ ♪

Then another of the judges
publishes a public apology

for his role in the trials.

♪ ♪

In 1752, Salem
Village rebrands itself.

It calls itself Danvers.

It's caused a lot of
division, a lot of friction.

And then in the 20th
century, it's revisited.

♪ ♪

In 1957, the state
of Massachusetts

apologized for the witch trials.

That happened partly because
of a play, "The Crucible."

And that play is really the
reason why the Salem witch

trials are so famous today.

♪ ♪

Historians have been
trying ever since to explain

these terrible events.

This started with
two young girls being

sick at the house of a minister.

♪ ♪

People have wondered
whether the girls were psychotic.

Were they lying?

Did they make
the whole thing up?

A lot of the blame
is placed on the girls

who made the
original accusations.

But that exonerates the
men who led the trials,

who rendered the judgment.

These men were the
literal adults in the room,

and they have
blood on their hands

far more so than the young,
powerless, original accusers.

♪ ♪

It's retained this status
as a sort of almost

archetypal witch hunt, in part
because it was extraordinary

and it was extreme and
it happened so rapidly.

It provided this
really vivid example

of how witch hunts
can snowball and how

on the basis of some
slightly strange behavior

from two adolescent
girls, hundreds of people

can be accused and a proportion
of them can be executed.

You can see that the
community's misogyny

and racism is reflected
in their choice of suspects.

Tituba, a Native American
woman previously enslaved.

Sarah Good, a very poor woman,
somebody who was homeless.

Sarah Osborne, a
woman who was regarded

as being insufficiently
submissive to those around her.

Dorothy Good, she's
gone through seriously

traumatic things
within this jail

and allegedly is insane
by the time she's allowed

to leave when she's five.

♪ ♪

The lessons that
colonists learn from Salem

aren't entirely clear.

Even the regret over the trials
didn't shake anyone's belief

in the existence of witches,
didn't make them apologetic

or regret the wars
against Native people

on the northern frontier.

What Salem did was make
them regret the amount of authority

that they invested in the
young female accusers.

That to them was the
lesson from Salem,

not to trust the word
of young women

quite like they had before.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪