Salem Witch Trials | Specter of Injustice | 3

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In May 1692, William Phips, the new royal governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, sailed into Boston Harbor and was immediately faced with an unprecedented crisis. The colony was in the throes of a full-blown witchcraft panic. Dozens of accused witches had been jailed, new accusations continued to surface, and the colony was without a legal system to handle the cases.

Phips quickly established an emergency court, and in June, the Salem witch trials began. As the first suspects took the stand, controversial evidence about apparitions and visions soon played a key role in sending innocent men and women to their deaths.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine it's May 11th, 1692.
0:17.1	You're sitting in a dark room in a tavern in Salem-Town, Massachusetts.
0:21.2	Your leg is trembling.
0:23.0	Yesterday, you were mending clothes when a constable appeared at your door and arrested
0:27.4	you and your grandfather on charges of witchcraft.
0:31.3	Your grandfather is being held at a room down the hall, but right now you're the one facing
0:35.8	questioning.
0:36.8	You nervously raise your eyes to meet the cold gaze of magistrate John Hathorn, who's
0:41.8	standing in front of you.
0:43.1	I know you are in league with the devil, and I am going to prove it.
0:48.5	Come in, girls.
0:50.0	Half a dozen girls, including your grandfather's maid, file into the room.
0:54.5	You're barely seventeen, and these girls are not much younger than you.
0:58.4	As you look up at them, their eyes widen and terror.
1:01.8	Suddenly, the girls drop to the floor and begin convulsing.
1:06.0	What's happening to them?
1:07.6	You tell me.
1:08.9	I know nothing.
1:10.4	You must be causing it.
1:13.0	Why else would these poor girls fall at the sight of you?
1:16.2	I can't explain it.
1:18.5	It's terrible to see them suffer like this, but I'm not to blame.
	...

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