07: The Usual Suspects

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A PRODUCT OF THE WHISPERFORGE: SOUND & STORY, BROUGHT TO LIFE

[[MUSIC: “Lakeside Path” by Blue Dot Sessions]]

KATE: Hello, and welcome to Remarkable Providences, the podcast about quarrels and queries, animals and accusations, and, of course, the Salem witch trials. I’m your tour guide, Kate Devorak.

When we last left the people of Salem Village, they were grappling with a perceived spiritual attack.

[[MUSIC: Somber]]

In less than a month, four young girls in the Village had been struck with strange symptoms ranging from convulsions and seemingly involuntary screaming to the sudden loss of senses and visual or auditory hallucinations of animals and spectors. The diagnosis- witchcraft. The solution- witch hunt. On February 29th, 1692, upon the complaints of several men in the Village, three women were arrested on suspicion of witchcraft, having been specifically named by most of the girls- Sarah Good, an angry, impoverished woman; Sarah Osborne, a reclusive woman involved in several Village scandals; and Tituba, a woman enslaved in the Parris household where the first afflictions began. The three women were taken into custody by the village constable, Joseph Herrick, and brought to the watch house for holding. For now, this would remain a Village affair, so there would be no need to travel to the Salem Town dungeon. Questioning was scheduled for 10 o’clock the next morning at the Ingersoll Ordinary, an inn and tavern across the way from the watch house. The two magistrates from Salem Town who had issued the arrest warrants, Jonathan Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, would ride up to the Ordinary to preside over the proceedings, even though, and I cannot stress this enough, neither one of them had formal legal training. But then, who better to pass judgement on others than two rich, old, white men?

Before the suspects were questioned, they were taken to a room in the Ingersoll Inn and examined by Hannah Ingersoll for witch marks. As I mentioned last episode, witch marks could be pretty much anything- moles, birthmarks, weird scars, pimples, freckles, misogyny, rough patches of skin, you name it, it could be a sign of the devil. Goody Ingersoll could not find any marks on the accused, though she noted that Tituba held her arm as though she was trying to hide something and Sarah Osborne protested her innocence throughout. I imagine Sarah Good just seething in the corner, muttering to herself the whole time.

[[MUSIC: Upbeat]]

The next steps should have been simple. If this impromptu court was following the protocols set up by the writings of Puritan preacher William Perkins, ideally, all they would need was a confession from each of the accused women admitting their guilt in hurting the girls in the Village and swearing allegiance to the Devil. Worst case, they would only need testimony from two reliable witnesses against each of the accused in order to convict. Easy peasy. This idea of public confession is a big theme we’ll see throughout the trials, if I may unpack the past like an English Lit undergrad upacks The Great Gatsby. As I’ve mentioned previously, public confession was an important part of the Puritan faith. Which is funny given that, down the line, the people in charge will largely ignore this very important tradition. And by “funny”, I mean, as that undergrad might say, “deliciously ironic”.

I should clarify that what was scheduled for the day was not an official trial, but rather an evidence-gathering session. At this point, the entire Massachusetts Bay Colony was in legal limbo since their charter, which essentially sanctioned their government, had been revoked by England eight years earlier. I’ll get into all that in a later episode because there’s a lot there, but basically the colony had been flying by the seat of their pants for the better part of the last decade while they tried to get their government reformed. So in the meantime, the magistrates were aiming to gather as much information from both parties as possible until a proper court could be formed. The record of this pretrial was courtesy of four notetakers- Jonathan Corwin, Jonathan Hathorne, Ezekiel Cheever, and Joseph Putnam. Joseph Putnam was the half-brother of Thomas Putnam, guardian of two of the afflicted girls and Ezekial Cheever was chosen by the court because he could mostly write, so you can guess how impartial these accounts are. Samuel Parris also made some notes, you know, for variety.

Enough spectators showed up to watch the questioning that the proceedings were moved from the Ingersoll Ordinary down the street to the meetinghouse. Tensions were probably high as Villagers funneled in. Since the arrests the day before, new accusations had come forward from the afflicted. It was one thing to hear about these bewitched girls, but today the Villagers were going to see them. This would be a showdown between the Puritan authority and three supposed witches, which essentially boiled down to a battle between the righteous and the Devil, and all this was happening in their little meetinghouse. Now that had to be more exciting than whatever else they’d be doing on a Tuesday morning.

The three were brought in together, though questioned separately, probably so they wouldn’t be influenced by the others’ stories. The afflicted, however, were in attendance the whole time, which I think would be a bigger cause for contamination of testimony, or at the very least really distracting. All four girls had experienced fits before the pretrial even started, and they were likely to be set off at the drop of a buckled hat.

First up for questioning was Sarah Good. Since the idea of Goody Good is so tied to the idea of a stereotypical witch, which we discussed last time, she is often painted as an old, shabby hag. In fact, she was in her late 30s with two children and one on the way. By this time, she had to have been at least four months pregnant. Her husband, William Good, had helpfully visited the Ingersoll Inn the morning of the questioning to offer some important information… against his wife. He wanted to be sure that when Goody Ingersoll examined the women for witch’s marks she take note of a wart he had noticed the night before that he was sure hadn’t been there. Thanks, William.

[[MUSIC: Quirky]]

John Hathorne started in with what would become his trademark, an incredibly frustrating line of questioning. You see, Hathorne was not especially well versed in what we might call “empathy” or “impartiality” or “basic human decency”. Hathorne’s favorite tactic was, instead, to assume that the defendant was guilty from the get-go and refuse to take “no” for an answer. His barely-a-judge buddy Corwin didn’t say too too much during the initial questioning, which might actually be worse. Bad things happen when good people do nothing and all that.

[[SFX: The voices of Hathorne and Sarah Good are layered over Kate]]

HATHORNE: “Sarah Good, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?”
SARAH GOOD: “None.”
HATHORNE: “Have you made no contract with the devil?”
SARAH GOOD: “No.”
HATHORNE: “Why do you hurt these children?”
SARAH GOOD: “I do not hurt them, I scorn it.”
HATHORNE: “Who do you employ then to do it?”
SARAH GOOD: “I employ nobody.”
HATHORNE: “What creature do you employ then?”
SARAH GOOD: “No creature, but I am falsely accused.”

KATE: As you can gather from that exchange, if you found yourself facing down John Hathorne on the stand, you were better off shouting at a brick wall. As we’ll see, he uses this tactic again and again in the hope of wearing down the accused, treating every denial as an attempt to stall an inevitable confession, until they eventually break down and gave him the answers he was looking for. Which, unfortunately, worked better than you’d hope. After futilely protesting her innocence, mainly by demanding to know why she had been singled out when two other women had been brought to the meetinghouse with her, Good pointed the finger at Osborne. The afflicted, who had been causing a general ruckus the whole time, screamed that it was Osborne and Good who were tormenting them. They claimed that Sarah Good was sending spectors to harm them in the meetinghouse, even as she swore to her own innocence.

When asked about her mumbling, Sarah asserted that she simply muttered her psalms and commandments. I can relate, I am also a low talker. To which, Hathorne immediately was like, “Prove it, say your commandments.” For some reason, Sarah was not prepared for this eventuality and paused for way too long before spitting out half a psalm. When asked what god she served, Sarah said that she served quote “the God who made heaven and earth”, though Ezekial Cheever noted that she seemed reluctant to say the word “God” and spoke, quote, “in a very wicked, spiteful manner with base and abusive words and many lies.” Just in case you were wondering how those totally impartial court records were coming along.

William came forward as a character witness… again, against his wife. When asked about previous comments he had made that he was afraid that Sarah was a witch already or would become one quickly, he explained that he had never seen any suspicious behavior on her part exactly, but instead based it off of her general demeanor and treatment of him, saying “she is an enemy to all Good.” Which is a terrible sentiment, but a pretty solid pun. Thanks, William. You’re really killin’ it. And by “killin’ it”, I mean “killin’ your pregnant wife.” What a guy.

Following William’s tight five, Sarah Osborne was brought in. The afflicted immediately identified her before the impromptu court. Osborne was questioned much in the same way Good had been, only this time Hathorne had an in- Good had identified Osborne as a fellow witch. Osborne denied having any familiarity with the devil or with Sarah Good for that matter, having seen her maybe a handful of times in the past two years and barely knowing her by name. Hathorne told her that Good had told them that it was she who had hurt the children, to which Sarah Osborne objected, saying that she did not know if the Devil used her likeness to do harm.

[[MUSIC: Reflective]]

I want to talk about that because this argument- that the Devil had the ability to use people’s likenesses to cause chaos- would become a major argument for the opposition to the witch trials. And it does make sense, if you’ll live in that world of logic for a sec. If the Devil is as powerful and insidious as the church would have you believe, it isn’t really a stretch that he could make himself look like a totally innocent person in order to turn folks against each other. This should, therefore, call into question the reliability of spectral evidence taken on the word of the supposedly afflicted. Unfortunately for Osborne, and many others further down the line, the magistrates were not willing to entertain that notion. At least not now. Hathorne barely registered her objection, instead ordering that the girls identify Osborne again. Which, of course, they all did. During her physical examination, Osborne had complained to Goody Ingersoll that she was more likely to be a victim of witchcraft than a witch herself. She had been bedridden as of late, though a few of the men in attendance might have argued that if she was well enough to marry her servant and challenge her late husband’s will, she’d be well enough to make a pact with Satan. So Hathorne decided to dig into that, asking exactly what she had meant by her comments to Goody Ingersoll. And Osborne’s response was… not great. It’s honestly kinda weird and seems to come from nowhere. Osborne launched into this story about how once she woke up with a start and saw, or thought she saw? Dreamed she saw? Whichever, she said she saw, quote, “a thing like an Indian, all black” that pinched her neck and pulled her by the back of her head toward her front door. And then disappeared, I guess? She offers no resolution to this story, which the judges took in stride, given that they didn’t press further on that. Hathorne asked if she had seen anything else, to which she responded “no”. It’s then recorded that some of those in the meetinghouse reminded the court of another incident, which I imagine as basically some narc in the crowd standing up yelling, “What about the lying spirit, Sarah? You know, that other one! That other time you heard a demon, Sarah!” Audience participation was apparently seen as a valid legal tactic. Hathorne followed up on this, which Sarah described as an incident in which she thought she heard a voice that told her that she should stop going to Sabbath meetings, but clarified that she was sure it was not the devil and that she had gone to the next church meeting in defiance of the voice. But, Hathorne countered, here she stood in front of the court, and she had not been to Sabbath since. She argued again that it was due to her long-standing illness, which several witnesses attested to. She was then sent back to holding with Sarah Good. To be honest, I’m not sure where these stories are coming from or why Sarah Osborne decided that this would be the best time to talk about them. Specifically the “thing all black” that she saw. And, as for that description that she gave- I’m gonna set that aside for a second because we will get into it later. Spoilers- it’s racist! Anyway, it does seem like she offered up those stories as a way to change the attitude of the judges in her favor. If she was just as much a victim of the afflicted girls, then there was no way she could be branded a witch! Right? Unfortunately, this tactic did not work out super well for her. But we’ll see down the line as people start confessing to the crimes of which they are accused, feeding into the narrative would bring you leniency. Well, comparative leniency.

Finally, it was Tituba’s turn to speak.

[[MUSIC: Somber]]

Things were not looking good for Tituba. She was already in hot water after the witch cake incident (which, again, she performed under the direction of the Parris’ neighbor, Mary Sibley, who you’ll note was NOT put on trial for witchcraft), and she had previously admitted to a roomful of ministers and Salem gentlemen that her previous mistress had made her a witch. She lived in the house where the outbreak began, and was the primary caretaker of the first two afflicted. To top it off, she was nearly powerless. As an enslaved woman of color, she was probably already regarded by the Villagers with a great deal of suspicion, she had no representation other than Samuel Parris, known dickwad, and if the court records are to be believed (which, ehh?) it is clear that English was not her first language. It is interesting to note that neither Good nor Osborne named Tituba as a co-conspirator during their respective questionings, though to be honest, it is likely because they either assumed she would be immediately indicted, or they did not think of her at all. So here she stood in front of two white merchants turned unofficial judges, closely watched by a sea of mostly white faces, accused of the capital crime of witchcraft, seemingly with no way out.

[[MUSIC: “Our Names Engraved” by Blue Dot Sessions]]

Remarkable Providences was written, researched, and performed by me, Kate Devorak. It was produced by Dan Manning, and recorded by Chad Ellis. The voice of Sarah Good was Eli Barraza. The voice of Jonathan Hathorne was James Oliva. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on Twitter @RemarkablePod, and everywhere else @RemarkableProvidences. For transcripts and links to everything, visit us at whisperforge.org/remarkableprovidences

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Thanks for listening, and remember, the devil’s in the details.