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00:00Save your soul!
00:02In 1692, witchcraft fever burns through Puritan New England.
00:07It tears the small frontier village of Salem apart,
00:10as residents turn on friends and neighbours.
00:15Go in my faith.
00:17Fearing the devil is among them.
00:19Have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is a devil.
00:23Our Lord Jesus Christ knows who these devils are.
00:26Nineteen are sentenced to death.
00:29It got out of hand. It really got out of hand.
00:33No!
00:34Was it a case of mass hysteria, devil worship, or the act of just one man?
00:41The panic began in his own house.
00:45Author and historian Catherine Howe,
00:47a descendant of one of the executed witches,
00:50arrives in Salem and uncovers new evidence of a conspiracy.
00:59It's quite likely that Elizabeth Howe met her end where I'm standing right now.
01:05The End
01:23Catherine starts her investigation at the heart of the witch panic.
01:27In 1692, Salem was a far-flung community of farmers, settled just 50 years earlier.
01:41Danvers, Massachusetts, was then known as Salem Village.
01:46At its heart was the Parsonage, the home of the Reverend Samuel Paris and his family.
01:57These foundations are all that remain of the spot where the witch panic began.
02:03Here, Catherine meets Salem expert Professor Ben Ray to learn more.
02:07So, how would this area have looked in 1692?
02:11Well, this was all open land here.
02:13There was a pasture around the house and a garden.
02:17And this is a two-story structure in the front doorway here.
02:21So, right here at this very front doorway is where the whole thing started?
02:26This is the beginning.
02:28In January 1692, rumours spread in the village that the two girls living in the Parsonage are acting strangely.
02:36Betty Paris, the Reverend's daughter, and Abigail Williams, his niece.
02:56Betty starts hiding in terror, as if being tormented by an unseen spirit.
03:06And her cousin starts having terrifying fits.
03:11What?
03:13Abigail Williams is demonstrating and falling into her fits.
03:18She's flying around the room here.
03:23That's the back of the chimney, so she runs right in, as if she's going up the chimney.
03:27Incredible.
03:28After that, she ran into the fire and began to throw firebrands about the house.
03:35They're in a wooden house.
03:36This would have wooden floors and wooden beams overhead and small windows.
03:41That would have been terrifying.
03:42She's endangering the whole house.
03:44Yeah.
03:45Instantly.
03:46And that happened right here in the fireplace.
03:48Right in this spot.
03:53The girl's dangerous behaviour continues for weeks.
03:57She is so keep the devil without...
04:00Which have wetted their tongue as a sword.
04:03Shooting secret places at the park.
04:07The Reverend Paris seeks advice from a colleague, John Hale, a minister from the neighbouring town of Beverley.
04:14He has experience of similar cases of adolescent hysteria.
04:18In time, he believes the girls will recover.
04:21There aren't forces here.
04:23But Paris doesn't wait.
04:24He seeks a medical opinion.
04:26Great.
04:27His friend, Dr. Griggs, observes the girls' behaviour and has no doubt.
04:31The girls are possessed.
04:40A witch.
04:40A witch.
04:41A witch.
04:41A witch.
04:42A witch.
04:42A witch.
04:43A witch.
04:46So, how did the accusations start?
04:48The triggering event seems to have been the occasion when Sarah Good, 38 years old, an impoverished woman of the
04:59village, comes to this doorway of the Paris household with her five year old daughter, asking for food.
05:11Yes?
05:13Can we have some food?
05:14Food?
05:15Yes.
05:16I just had a baby, please, sir.
05:18Please.
05:19Give us something to eat.
05:21I see.
05:21I'll get you some food.
05:25Although Paris gives them food, as Sarah Good walks away, he hears the beggar muttering.
05:32A self-righteous, pig-ish man.
05:35Words that he interprets as a curse.
05:43And so, when the children start behaving strangely in the house, they think about that episode with Sarah?
05:50What they have seen or what they have heard of this incident at the doorway causes them to accuse Sarah
05:58Good.
05:58And Sarah is the first person named, officially, during the Salem Witch Panic.
06:03She is the first one, and this is where it happens.
06:08Just weeks later, authorities arrest the destitute mother as a witch on the evidence of the two young girls living
06:16under Paris' roof.
06:19I'd like to find out what could have happened in this house to kick off the behavior of these little
06:25girls.
06:26Were they afflicted with some kind of ailment? Were they sick?
06:30Was this a psychological state that they were in?
06:33Did they really believe themselves to be afflicted by witchcraft?
06:44Catherine meets with historian, Tad Baker.
06:47So, this is the Rebecca Nurse house. You've probably heard about it.
06:50It is really an amazing house, dated from the 1670s.
06:54Come on in here.
06:55Thanks.
06:57This is actually one that wouldn't have been here in the 17th century.
06:59He takes her to a restored 17th century homestead, looking for clues.
07:04What was it like to be a child during this time?
07:06Well, there really wasn't any childhood as we would know it.
07:10In fact, actually, if you see the portraits of the children, they were dressed like miniature adults.
07:16And that isn't to say that they weren't allowed to occasionally have fun and play, but from an early age,
07:21children are given a lot of responsibility.
07:25You know, by the time you're 9 or 10 or 11, you're helping out a lot with your parents, with
07:30the household chores, you have routines, and it's not the kind of childhood that we would think of.
07:36Their notion of personal space must have been completely different from our own.
07:40Essentially, most houses in New England at that time were one room or two room.
07:44Most of the kids would have probably slept right here, maybe on a straw mat.
07:47If you were lucky enough to have a bed, you might share it with two or three of your siblings.
07:55And almost no sense of privacy.
07:57The windows, small, not a lot of light, smoke from the fireplace.
08:04Imagine probably getting on each other's nerves, especially in a long winter.
08:12So it may have been a pretty cold, dark, smoky experience for these little girls.
08:19But also, an actual bedroom.
08:22Oh, such luxury!
08:23By the 17th century standards...
08:25Do I understand correctly that there are a number of theories about what kicked off the Salem Panic that have
08:29been discredited?
08:30Well, there's a theory written every day, it seems like, and a book every year, yeah.
08:38One of the favorite theories is ergot poisoning.
08:42And that is that the girls were ingesting moldy grain, rye grain,
08:48which had a side effect of giving them hallucinogenic trips.
08:55The only type of ergot poisoning that gives hallucinogenic side effects is called the necrotizing ergot.
09:01Where your, if it sounds nasty, it is.
09:03It sounds awful.
09:03It's where your limbs shrivel, blacken, and fall off.
09:07And I think that might have been mentioned in 1692.
09:09So we can scratch ergot as one of the reasons.
09:14Other theories suggest the girls are caught up in a frenzy of superstition.
09:31I heard there's something about fortune telling, too.
09:37Again, that sort of sounds good, but contrary to The Crucible, there was no fortune telling and voodoo and things
09:42like this.
09:45It's just not a viable explanation.
09:47So if it isn't poisoning or voodoo, do the girls really believe they are bewitched?
09:54For these girls, witchcraft was actually very real.
09:59In fact, when you consider that witchcraft was against the law,
10:03that kind of underscores the reality of it.
10:06Because we don't bother to pass laws against things that we don't think are real.
10:10They lived in a small frontier town on the edge of the settled universe.
10:16And the town subscribed to Puritanism, which was very extreme,
10:21and which held that Satan was actually a real influence in their lives.
10:27But these two girls have more reason than most to fear the devil.
10:32This is the word of God.
10:34Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer.
10:36They lived in Samuel Parris' house.
10:39So their lives would have been governed even more intensely by Puritan doctrine
10:44than the other families in the Salem Village community.
10:47Who shall drop from the eyes of God?
10:57How did one book lead to nearly two centuries of persecution and bloodshed?
11:04The Witch Hunters Bible.
11:05Tonight at 10 on National Geographic Channel.
11:17A short walk from the home of the Reverend Samuel Parris
11:20is Salem's first church, the Meeting House.
11:25This austere building is the centre of Betty Harris and Abigail Williams' world.
11:32OK, so here you see the interior of the Meeting House,
11:34and it's a pretty, stark, simple building.
11:40Really very simple building, both inside and out.
11:42Not even any heating.
11:43And if you can imagine being in here for six hours on a cold Sunday in January,
11:49listening to Reverend Parris speak of the devil.
11:51Six hours a day?
11:53Three hours in the morning.
11:55Break for lunch.
11:56Three hours in the afternoon.
11:58Now, tell me where everyone would have been located.
12:01Well, it was a very hierarchical society,
12:03and you see that even in the Meeting House.
12:05You have the women on one side.
12:07The men on the other.
12:13Children have that lowest rank in society,
12:16so they're back there with the servants.
12:18Christ knows!
12:19The congressional divisions are built along strictly religious lines.
12:24Those full members of the church were known as insiders,
12:27while those attendees who chose not to join were very much outsiders.
12:33There's such a clear delineation between insiders and outsiders in Parris' community.
12:38Absolutely.
12:38It all sort of started at the top with the minister,
12:41with Reverend Parris, who will be up there.
12:43I'll demonstrate.
12:45Great.
12:46The minister is in the pulpit, commanding the stage, if you will,
12:50and this is from where he spends most of his time of those six hours
12:53preaching the word of God, giving his sermon.
12:56None of you!
12:57The Puritan ethos is so pervading that Parris is not only the central figure in the church,
13:02but also in the village.
13:04It is in his house the two girls allegedly become possessed.
13:09It is in his house that witchcraft is diagnosed,
13:13and it's partially on the basis of his meeting with Sarah Good,
13:16that she is accused of witchcraft.
13:20None ought to maintain communion with Christ,
13:23and yet keep up fellowship with...
13:25The more Catherine learns...
13:26And yet keep up fellowship with...
13:29The more Parris seems to loom large in the story.
13:33For a fresh perspective on the man who dominated Salem Village,
13:37Catherine visits the current minister of the Salem Village Church,
13:40the Reverend Judy Proctor.
13:43Will you travel with the devil?
13:46She's struck by how Parris was immediately a firebrand Puritan.
13:51I hesitate to say this, but he's a typical Puritan pastor
13:55and very strong language, very lengthy sermons.
14:00Have you read any of his sermons? What kind of minister was he?
14:03This is the first sermon that Samuel Parris preached in this church.
14:07Oh, wow.
14:08And he defines his own role of who he sees himself as and what he should be doing,
14:14and he also talks about what the congregation should do
14:18and what role they have in this covenanted church.
14:21Accept the Almighty God, Jesus Christ, into your soul.
14:26Parris demands unwavering devotion from his new flock,
14:30and to be a member of that flock, he expects the villagers to become,
14:33in his words, clean.
14:35He will punish those who fall from his grace.
14:39He goes on again and he speaks about the difference between ye clean and unclean.
14:44Oh, yes, the devil is close.
14:46I am to make a difference between ye clean and unclean,
14:49so as to labour to cleanse and purge the one,
14:52and confirm and strengthen the other.
14:56Parris is Salem Village's first ordained minister,
14:59and it's his aim to make the entire village clean.
15:02In other words, full members of his church, insiders.
15:06None of you!
15:07Those who refuse to join would remain outsiders.
15:11Unclean.
15:14How does he do those first few years?
15:15He doubled the congregation, and I can tell you being a minister now,
15:19if you get a 10% increase in your first year, you're doing really, really well.
15:24So doubling it is amazing.
15:26Doubled it in just a year.
15:27Yes.
15:28That's impressive.
15:28Yes.
15:29It was a very positive, hopeful time.
15:35Paris appointment is a huge event for this small frontier town.
15:38It is so important that the village council offers him an astonishing contract.
15:43They guarantee him a supply of firewood, a salary, and the deeds to his own parsonage.
15:57But three years later, Betty and Abigail are bewitched, and the witch hunt begins.
16:06Along with Sarah Good, they now accuse a second woman of witchcraft.
16:1449-year-old Sarah Osborne is arrested on the same day as Sarah Good.
16:19Both women conform to the classic profile of those accused of being witches.
16:24Sarah Good is poor and unpopular.
16:27Osborne is scandalously remarried to her live-in servant.
16:31Most significantly, neither woman has been attending church.
16:43Catherine turns to a vital source, Samuel Paris' personal record book.
16:48It details his sermons and charts his quest to make all churchgoers full members.
16:57New analysis of this book provides a revealing insight into Paris' mission.
17:03From 1689 to 1690, his membership was able to double.
17:06But in 1691, it pretty much ground to a screeching halt.
17:14All this good work that he'd been putting into building his community had suddenly stopped.
17:19And we don't know why.
17:23In his first months, Paris manages to attract 54 fully-fledged members.
17:28But there are still over 400 villagers who steadfastly refuse to join.
17:38The minister's record book contains another clue.
17:42The sermons written by Paris during his tenure have survived in his own handwriting.
17:50They provide insight into his state of mind.
17:53They're the closest that we can get to an insight into the world of Paris and his family.
17:58Over the years, Catherine spots a change in tone.
18:02Paris seems troubled.
18:04As we approach the time of a girl's afflictions, a new theme appears for the first time in Paris' sermons.
18:11He's making a sinister warning that Salem is under attack.
18:15And one of us is the devil!
18:18In the few months leading up to the outbreak of the Salem Panic, his sermons start talking about the devil
18:23a lot and in a really explicit way.
18:26Look at this one from January of 1692.
18:30Christ having begun a new work, which a lot of historians interpret to mean the new church he's been working
18:35to establish.
18:36It is the main drift of the devil to pull it all down.
18:40Paris' sermons now warn that the church is under attack.
18:44Unless you turn to Almighty God!
18:47Now the key phrase here is the assistance of Satan.
18:51That's a really harsh, damning phrase that is strongly associated with witchcraft.
18:57This analysis offers a new perspective on the events leading up to the witch hunt.
19:06Even before the girls become possessed, Paris is warning of witches at work in Salem village.
19:12Who here has not sinned?
19:14Paving the way for the chaos to come.
19:24What was troubling Salem's minister in the run-up to the witch hunts?
19:31Deep in a vault in the Danvers Archive Center, town archivist Richard Trask holds the records of the village council.
19:39This is called the Book of Transactions.
19:42That's the original cover. Wow, it's amazing.
19:44It says you can just barely see Book of Transactions.
19:47And this begins in 1672 and has basically what happened in Salem village having to do with the parish itself.
20:00The book gives Catherine more details about Paris' original contract with the village council.
20:09Paris at first was told he would have a salary of a certain amount of money, would be provided money
20:14for firewood, very important.
20:17And he basically rejected that.
20:20And a committee, we aren't sure if it was a legal committee or not, agreed with Paris to give him
20:27the parsonage plus two acres of land.
20:30The records also reveal not everyone agrees with the committee.
20:35So almost from the time he was ordained in 1689, there was a very vocal minority that grew over the
20:43years that said he had no right to the parsonage.
20:47This committee was illegal. The parsonage was built out of rates by the inhabitants of Salem village and therefore he
20:55didn't deserve it.
20:56In a village coup, the men who gave Paris his unprecedented deal are replaced.
21:05Crucially, these new councillors are not members of Paris church.
21:10They act fast. Within months they stop paying Paris firewood and demand that he return the deeds to the parsonage.
21:18They want him out.
21:26This actually represents a total sea change in power.
21:29That's right. Here he is, not being paid, and he doesn't have a lot of wood.
21:34So he was in a somewhat precarious position.
21:38Paris is begging them to give him wood for the winter.
21:45In 17th century New England, keeping warm was crucial.
21:50In those days, you would need about 16 cord a year in a Puritan homestead to be able to stay
21:57warm.
21:59He had virtually none.
22:02With a ferocious winter approaching, the minister has no fuel, no income, and is in danger of losing his home.
22:10With a new hostile council in charge, Paris sermons become ever more divisive.
22:16He even talks explicitly of the devil in Salem attacking his church.
22:20In the church and who they are?
22:22Wicked and reprobate men.
22:24The assistance of Satan to afflict the church and punish him.
22:27Then two girls living under his roof start behaving oddly.
22:32Setting the stage for the single largest witch hunt in the English speaking world.
22:43As Good and Osborne await interrogation, the girls accuse a third woman of witchcraft.
22:49Authorities arrest a slave named Tituba.
22:52Like the two before her, Tituba fits the classic witch profile.
23:01But there is something else that separates her from the others.
23:05She's the slave of Samuel Paris.
23:23Authorities take the three women to the meeting hall for a while.
23:26For interrogations, standing them in front of the pulpit where Paris warned the devil was at large.
23:35The entire village gathers, captivated.
23:39I'm sitting in the position where the magistrates sat.
23:43You are standing with your arms out to your sides.
23:46Being held, each arm by a constable.
23:51The young afflicted girls are standing right here.
23:56Between the justices and you.
23:59So, standing here, I can feel how exposed the accused would have felt.
24:04Because you can see the galleries just from either side of the corner of the eye.
24:08I am not. I am not. I have no dealings with the devil.
24:15Judge Hathorne interrogates Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.
24:19Despite intense pressure, both women fervently deny being witches.
24:24You are a witch. Tell us. Tell us you are a witch.
24:29Nay, I never saw the devil.
24:31Then they bring in Paris' slave to Tuva.
24:36You witch!
24:37All eyes are on the little girls as their behaviour mirrors and exaggerates the actions of the accused.
24:45If you move slightly, if your head tilts to one side, and remember, you are understood to be in the
24:54power of the devil, that transmits immediately to them.
24:57You cannot move forward or backwards.
25:04If you should bite your lips, they bite their ribs until blood comes out.
25:11You're a witch!
25:13You're a witch!
25:14You're a witch!
25:15You're a witch!
25:16You're a witch!
25:16Stop it!
25:18This is basically a theatre as well as a court.
25:25For a slave, the experience is terrifying.
25:29Unlike Good and Osborne, Tuva tells the courtroom what they've come to hear.
25:33Are you a witch?
25:34A witch.
25:37What you must do is confess.
25:44Confess now.
25:46And tell us to help these young women.
25:52Tell us you are a witch.
25:57Are you a witch?
26:00Yes.
26:06You're a witch!
26:08You're a witch!
26:10She confesses to having seen the devil.
26:12She confesses to being a witch.
26:15And she confirms that Good and Osborne are also witches.
26:20The Inquisitors have their confession.
26:22Witch! Witch!
26:23But it's not enough.
26:27The next day, the court calls to Tuva back.
26:32This crucial second interrogation changes the course of history.
26:38The confession of Tuva begins to reveal more than they ever believed was happening.
26:49Although she can't name them, Tuva reveals the existence of six other witches.
26:54A coven.
26:56Tell me that.
26:58Now.
27:00Yes.
27:02The slave describes how they fly on sticks.
27:05And how they each sign their names in the devil's book.
27:08A classic manoeuvre by Satan.
27:10Now, the whole situation will change.
27:21The confession of Tuva, Reverend Paris Slave, fuels the witch hunt, providing evidence for a diabolical conspiracy.
27:30How many more witches are there?
27:32And who are they?
27:36Suspicion and accusations spread like a virus throughout Salem.
27:40It burns its way through another 25 towns, ensnaring over 160 victims.
27:49But for historian Ben Ray, there's a problem.
27:53He believes the slave's confession seems tailored.
27:56It's possible she came from Barbados because Paris was the owner of a plantation there.
28:02This is not exactly confirmed, but probable.
28:06But all the witchcraft lore that she's talking about is really English.
28:11But Tituba was a Caribbean slave, wasn't she?
28:15I mean, this sounds very strange coming out of her mouth.
28:18Tituba's description of witchcraft reflects the description found in English lore.
28:23It's strikingly at odds with her background as a Caribbean slave.
28:31The identity of Tituba's owner, the Reverend Samuel Paris, only adds to Catherine's growing suspicions of the confession.
28:40Is there any other evidence that Tituba was sort of pushed into talking the way that she did?
28:45Well, that's an interesting question.
28:47There is a contemporary account, a critical one, that says Paris beat her and told her what to say before
28:58her examination.
28:59Samuel Hale, minister of Beverly, records that when her body was examined, marks were found on her body, which were
29:07interpreted as the devil's marks.
29:09As Judge Hawthorne records, that he saw on her leg marks.
29:17What he may have been referring to were bruises, recent bruises.
29:29So, it sounds like Paris, in effect, put these words in Tituba's mouth.
29:34Whether or not Paris actually beat her and told her what to say, she knows what to say.
29:40To be a cooperative, reliable, verifiable almost, witness for the prosecution.
29:52It's a shocking revelation.
29:53If Paris forced Tituba to confess, then he bears responsibility for what follows.
30:01I started by looking at the little girls and trying to understand why their behavior would have been so strange.
30:07But it seems like you can't really consider the little girls without looking at Samuel Paris.
30:16The witch panic is reversing Paris' misfortune.
30:19Now, instead of having to fight for his job, he leads a battle to save Salem village from a concerted
30:26attack by agents of the devil.
30:27The villagers must look to their minister to protect them.
30:31But he may have engineered the entire situation.
30:40Catherine's surprised to learn that when the witch panic hit, the villagers already had their suspicions.
30:49She returns to this restored 17th century homestead, thought to have been the home to another victim of the Salem
30:56witch trials.
30:57Rebecca Nurse.
31:01Here she meets Margot Burns, a descendant of Rebecca.
31:05Margot has studied thousands of historical documents and has a unique insight into the thoughts of her ancestors.
31:12Good morning, Rebecca.
31:14Good morning.
31:17What can you tell me about Rebecca Nurse?
31:19She was the matriarch of the Nurse family in Salem village.
31:23She had a lot of children that were grown and all lived in this area.
31:28She was probably in her late 60s at the time and a very powerful woman.
31:33Even with her untarnished reputation, Rebecca Nurse can't escape the accusations.
31:40They named her and then she was just amazed.
31:48She was sick in bed for about eight days.
31:58And suddenly here were these accusations coming in.
32:02And she was arrested fairly soon after that.
32:06No!
32:10Harris is at the heart of the initial accusations against the women.
32:14And now he becomes central to their prosecution.
32:18He is placed in charge of recording Rebecca Nurse's testimony in court.
32:24He was playing both sides in this.
32:26He was a minister who was working for the court, but also there were afflictions in his own family.
32:31And here he is supporting the accusations from the family, the Putnams, who were his biggest supporters.
32:39And it's very rare to have a minister in the middle of these proceedings writing down this testimony
32:45plus submitting his own deposition against all the various accused.
32:49And Paris' influence spreads beyond the court.
32:56Now he uses the pulpit to seal Rebecca Nurse's fate.
33:01Three days after Rebecca Nurse has been arrested and examined and held by the magistrates,
33:08Samuel Paris then goes before his parish and delivers this sermon that's just, to me, inconceivable.
33:19Paris makes a veiled reference to Rebecca Nurse, damning her in front of the congregation,
33:25before the court has passed judgment.
33:27He positions himself in the role of Jesus, looking at Judas and says,
33:34Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of us is the devil?
33:43Attending church that day is Rebecca's sister, Sarah Cloyce.
33:48Now, Paris throws out the threat to the entire congregation.
33:52Christ knows how many devils there are.
33:55And Christ knows who these devils are.
34:00Paris' sermon makes it clear to everyone in the village that anyone could be considered guilty.
34:06God will punish you. God will strike you down with greatness.
34:10Paris' deliberate targeting of the very people he's supposed to be protecting is too much for some to bear.
34:16During the sermon, Rebecca Nurse's sister, Sarah Cloyce, was in the meeting house and she left.
34:32The door slammed behind her.
34:43Now, whether she slammed it or the wind slammed it, that's up for debate.
34:46But still, she left.
34:48She left and it slammed and it drew attention.
34:50And within a few days, she too was also accused.
34:54Sarah Cloyce goes to prison and is never brought to trial.
35:00But authorities find Rebecca Nurse guilty and hang her alongside Catherine's ancestor, Elizabeth Howe, on July the 19th, 1692.
35:13Margot's ancestors had no doubt who was to blame.
35:16Basically, Samuel Paris turned his back on her.
35:20That's doubly shocking given the fact that the panic began in his own house.
35:24He was partial and he was siding with the people who supported him and he was participating in the prosecution
35:31of the people who were not supporting him.
35:34One of the villagers not supporting Paris is France's nurse, Rebecca's husband and a member of the new council trying
35:42to force him from his ministry.
35:46In a petition, the nurse family accuses the minister of perjury and selectively targeting his enemies.
35:52This is just a huge indictment by the nurse family of what Paris' involvement was.
35:59And they accuse him basically of murdering their mother.
36:04The claims of Margot's ancestors seem to be confirmed by new research from Professor Ray's team.
36:11For the first time ever, they have analyzed the accusers and the accused in the context of their religious status.
36:18Their work uncovers a disturbing pattern.
36:21They discover that the majority of those accusing witches are full members of the church, loyal to Samuel Paris.
36:29Insiders.
36:30But when they plot those who were accused of witchcraft, they reveal that the majority are not church members.
36:37Outsiders.
36:43There's something else about Paris' role in this story that Catherine needs to return to.
36:48The key part of Tituba's confession.
36:54To get to the bottom of this quirk, Catherine takes one last journey.
37:13Ben was very intrigued by Tituba's confession, primarily because it seems to tick all the necessary legal boxes for bringing
37:21people to trial as witches.
37:23I found in the library an original edition of this book that was discussed in the proceedings of the Massachusetts
37:31Historical Society.
37:32It's called A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft by a theologian named William Perkins.
37:41William Perkins' text really provides a blueprint or a manual for how to bring someone to trial as a witch.
37:55This is one of the best known treatises on witchcraft, how to define it and how to prosecute it.
38:04And what's especially interesting is there is this little footnote that no one's ever noticed before that's in the proceedings
38:13of the Massachusetts Historical Society from 1892.
38:17This footnote says that a particular book was inscribed as the gift of Deacon Robert Sanderson to Samuel Paris.
38:32And this book is a witchcraft hunting manual.
38:44It's interesting enough to have evidence that Samuel Paris owned a copy of William Perkins' book, but the inscription tells
38:51us not only who gave it to him, but also when.
38:54The date is March 1st, 1692.
38:59That's the same day as Tituba's first confession.
39:02Tell us you are a witch.
39:06Are you a witch?
39:08It is on March 2nd that the most significant part of Tituba's confession takes place.
39:15It's a remarkable coincidence.
39:20On the second day, Tituba showing signs of a beating reveals details that correlate closely with the Perkins' book.
39:33This new evidence makes it seem possible that Paris put the words of Tituba's confession straight into her mouth.
39:56She claims that there is a conspiracy of nine witches still to be uncovered in Salem Village.
40:05It's the conspiracy idea that sets Salem apart from other witchcraft episodes in New England history.
40:14It's also the conspiracy idea that comes out of Perkins.
40:26Catherine Howe's search for the trigger behind the horrific sequence of events that claimed her ancestor brings her here to
40:33this forgotten site.
40:38For over three centuries, this piece of wasteland has been neglected.
40:45Now, using GPS data alongside eyewitness accounts and old maps, a team of experts believes this could be the true
40:54location of the hangings.
41:00Elizabeth Peterson, the director of the Salem Witch House, takes Catherine to visit the site where her ancestor met her
41:07death.
41:09We do believe this is the site of the executions in 1692.
41:14We do believe this is the site of the executions in 1692.
41:15It seems to fit the descriptions of the area, the rocky outcroppings, the trees, the ledges.
41:23The executions most likely took place somewhere along this area here.
41:34In looking at some of the contemporary accounts, we have a gentleman born in the year 1692.
41:40His name is John Simmons, and his nurse writes and claims that she could see the victims hanging from the
41:51upstairs window in their home.
41:54And that house was roughly where that brown industrial building is now.
41:59It's entirely likely that the burials took place as well because all accounts do say buried within a few feet
42:06or within a short space of the site of execution.
42:10Well, they were just pitched into a ditch, weren't they, because they wouldn't have been given a religious burial.
42:13Right. Well, Puritans, as you know, not having consecrated ground attached to their churches, so it wouldn't have been in
42:23the manner that we think of today.
42:25But yes, certainly not allowed to go to their families' plots or wherever their families, you know, traditionally buried there.
42:32They were left here as criminals, having committed felonies in the eyes of the court.
42:43It's quite likely that Elizabeth Howe met her end about where I'm standing right now, which is a very, very
42:51moving idea.
42:55I began this process wanting to learn everything that I could about why Elizabeth Howe and the other victims of
43:00the Salem Witch Crisis had to die.
43:03It ended up touching so many different communities all over Essex County.
43:09None of that would have happened if there hadn't been an outbreak first in Salem Village.
43:15To my surprise, standing in the middle of that maelstrom was Samuel Parris.
43:22Catherine found a great deal of evidence that points to one man being responsible for the Salem Witch Hunt.
43:30Paris was a man under attack, about to lose his livelihood and his home.
43:37His sermons warned of an attack on the church by the devil.
43:40And our Lord Jesus Christ knows who these devils are.
43:44Then suddenly, his two girls began having fits.
43:49They accused three women of being witches.
43:52Hysteria took hold as accusations started to fly and panic spread throughout Essex County.
43:58In all, 162 people were arrested on charges of witchcraft.
44:03Five died in jail, including Sarah Osborne.
44:08Nineteen died at the gallows.
44:10Amongst them, Catherine's ancestor, Elizabeth Howe.
44:24Tituba never hanged.
44:27A confession saved her life.
44:32Throughout the trials, not one person who confessed to witchcraft was executed.
44:42Paris held on to his job for four more years.
44:47But in September 1697, the town council finally ousted him.
44:55Paris was never held to account in court for his part in the events that ruined so many lives.
45:05Just how guilty he was is a secret he took with him to his grave.
45:14Discover the surprising role of Benjamin Franklin in America's Lost Pirate Fleet, brand new on Tuesday at nine.
45:20Stay tuned for Witch Hunters Bible.
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