WEBVTT NOTE 59. Aftermath of the 1690s: The Salem Witch-Hunt and Stoughton's Rise to Power 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.960 Volume 1, Chapter 59. Aftermath in the 1690s, the Salem witch hunt and Stoughton's rise to power. 2 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:17.040 The glorious revolution imposed of the last great settlement on the northern colonies. After the 3 00:00:17.040 --> 00:00:24.080 smoke of the tumult was over, Massachusetts, New York and New Hampshire were royal colonies, 4 00:00:24.080 --> 00:00:31.720 similarly structured. The main forces of conflict were, as they had long been in Virginia, 5 00:00:31.720 --> 00:00:38.400 the royal governor and his oligarchic council on the one hand, and the more democratic assembly 6 00:00:38.400 --> 00:00:45.320 representing the people of the colony on the other. In New York, the royal and landed oligarchy 7 00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:51.480 had been particularly strong and rapacious for many years, and the institution of a representative 8 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:58.480 of Assembly was just beginning. In Massachusetts, as we have seen, the electoral base made the 9 00:00:58.720 --> 00:01:05.120 always more democratic assembly an especially democratic and relatively liberal voice of 10 00:01:05.120 --> 00:01:11.800 the people, whereas the new royal post of governor bid fair to preserve the rewards 11 00:01:11.800 --> 00:01:18.800 of oligarchic and royal rule. When Massachusetts heard the news of the new charter at the turn 12 00:01:18.800 --> 00:01:36.800 At the turn of 1692, a power vacuum opened in the colony. The new institution of royal governor offered a tempting prospect for oligarchic power and plunder, despite the prospect of conflict with the popular House of Representatives. 13 00:01:36.800 --> 00:01:43.440 But it was still not clear which group would take control. The old Puritan theocracy was 14 00:01:43.440 --> 00:01:50.320 in rather frantic retreat from external and internal blows, but still remained strong 15 00:01:50.320 --> 00:01:56.720 in the colony. The new coalition of Governor Phipps and Increase Mather was an alliance 16 00:01:56.720 --> 00:02:03.680 of moderates. Mather, rather half-heartedly, was trying to lead the more fanatical Puritans 17 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:08.880 to the New Realities of a More Pluralistic and Liberal Society. 18 00:02:08.880 --> 00:02:15.560 Phipps, highly liberal for a royal official and as Massachusetts Governor, was strongly 19 00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:21.520 sympathetic to the colony's desires for freedom from the exactions and regulations of the 20 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:22.520 Crown. 21 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:29.200 If the Mather-Phips coalition had been allowed to continue in control, Massachusetts might 22 00:02:29.200 --> 00:02:37.040 might have found a tolerable and even welcome path into the 18th century. The steady easing 23 00:02:37.040 --> 00:02:43.680 of Puritan restrictions combined with the decided drift back to effective Massachusetts 24 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:52.720 independence from royal depredations. In short, Massachusetts might have been able to advance 25 00:02:52.720 --> 00:03:00.040 toward a synthesis of the best of the two contending sides of the recent past, the self-government 26 00:03:00.040 --> 00:03:07.880 and freedom of trade, of the Puritans, without the theocratic persecutions, and the religious 27 00:03:07.880 --> 00:03:15.720 freedom and mercantile cosmopolitanism of the pro-royal opportunist, without the royal 28 00:03:15.720 --> 00:03:23.960 Despotism. But such a synthesis for liberal independence was not to be, for at the heart 29 00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:31.760 of the new regime was a sinister canker, Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton. Stoughton was 30 00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:37.680 determined to overthrow this moderate liberalism in order that he and his friends, including 31 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:44.040 the formerly discredited Joseph Dudley, might return to power and that he might renew his 32 00:03:44.040 --> 00:04:14.040 Stoughton and Dudley were determined to regain power and to re-impose a royal absolutism that they would lead at the head of a newly plundering oligarchy. To do this, they would have to discredit and eliminate Governor Phipps. With great luck, William Stoughton found his opportunity at hand, opportunity to split the ordinarily anti-royalist masses and to rally 33 00:04:14.040 --> 00:04:24.260 In short, Stoughton found a way to rally the two extremes to swing the Puritan masses behind 34 00:04:24.260 --> 00:04:30.160 his Tory opportunist in order to crush the moderate center. 35 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:37.840 This opportunity was the notorious Salem witch hunt of 1692. 36 00:04:37.840 --> 00:04:42.980 Witchcraft had always been a capital crime in New England, but it had also been almost 37 00:04:42.980 --> 00:05:07.980 The problem, after all, was obtaining evidence of guilt, and until now the sober judges and leaders of the community had not been willing to credit spectral evidence, the unsupported testimony of a historical victim of witchcraft that somebody's spectral witch-shape had appeared to attack him. 38 00:05:07.980 --> 00:05:19.980 But now Puritan zeal was in retreat on many fronts, notably was it retreating from the burgeoning rationalistic and skeptical temper. 39 00:05:19.980 --> 00:05:34.980 Perhaps the Puritan leaders felt a re-emphasis on spectral evidence and the powers of witchcraft could vindicate the true faith and roll back the tide of rationalism and secularism. 40 00:05:34.980 --> 00:05:41.980 As early as 1681, a group of leading Puritan divines had decided to combat rationalism 41 00:05:43.060 --> 00:05:50.060 by gathering supposed evidence of the supernatural in earthly affairs. Among these evidences 42 00:05:50.440 --> 00:05:57.440 was Witchcraft. One of the leaders of this project was Reverend Increase Mathur. In 1684, 43 00:05:57.940 --> 00:06:04.940 he compiled A Galaxy of Superstitions, an essay for the recording of illustrious providences. 44 00:06:04.980 --> 00:06:29.140 With the most eminent divines of the colony paying 45 00:06:29.140 --> 00:06:35.760 and eager and almost loving attention to any signs of juvenile hysteria, these signs were 46 00:06:35.760 --> 00:06:43.380 accordingly encouraged and nurtured by the eager solemnity with which they were greeted. 47 00:06:43.380 --> 00:06:48.900 The Reverend Cotton Mather took one of these young girls into his home, the better to record 48 00:06:48.900 --> 00:06:57.500 the memorable providences, 1689. The time was now ripe for the Puritan divines to lead 49 00:06:57.500 --> 00:07:04.660 a frenzied mob in a determined rear-guard attempt to reinstall Puritan fanaticism in 50 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:12.280 its old home, an attempt that would be abetted and used by Stoughton and the Tory opportunist. 51 00:07:12.280 --> 00:07:21.380 In February 1692, at the town of Salem Village, now Danvers, these reactionary forces found 52 00:07:21.380 --> 00:07:23.140 their chance. 53 00:07:23.140 --> 00:07:28.740 The stage had been set by the solemn findings of the Mathers. Now a group of young girls 54 00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:36.060 of Salem Village became bewitched and began the delightful game of accusing other people, 55 00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:42.420 at first mostly personal enemies, of witchcraft. The leaders of the bewitched girls were the 56 00:07:42.420 --> 00:07:49.060 two daughters of the Puritan Divine, Reverend Samuel Parris, and so their accusations were 57 00:07:49.060 --> 00:07:55.940 were taken all the more seriously. At first, neighbors who had annoyed the girls were accused 58 00:07:55.940 --> 00:08:02.940 of being witch tormentors, but like an infection the accusations spread with great speed throughout 59 00:08:02.940 --> 00:08:09.260 the colony. Legal proceedings commenced. Since spectral evidence was now accepted by 60 00:08:09.260 --> 00:08:16.500 the courts, the supposed witches were quickly condemned, imprisoned and hanged. After the 61 00:08:16.500 --> 00:08:22.580 The classic pattern of intimidation and informing, reprieve came only if the witch would confess 62 00:08:22.580 --> 00:08:30.460 his or her guilt. And the confession was deemed sincere, only if other people, accomplices, 63 00:08:30.460 --> 00:08:37.300 were named. Many of these confessions were extracted under torture. The circle of accusations 64 00:08:37.300 --> 00:08:43.180 thus became ever wider. The first hanging was that of a neighbor of the Paris family, 65 00:08:43.180 --> 00:08:49.300 Sarah Goode, whose five-year-old daughter was even imprisoned as a witch. 66 00:08:49.300 --> 00:08:55.260 Beginning with helpless old women, the circle of victims of the witch hunt soon expanded. 67 00:08:55.260 --> 00:09:01.240 The Reverend George Burroughs, a retired Puritan minister himself, had the bad fortune of incurring 68 00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:03.980 the dislike of the parishes. 69 00:09:03.980 --> 00:09:10.980 Burroughs was duly accused of being a leading witch—witches are male as well as female—of 70 00:09:10.980 --> 00:09:14.160 Confederacy with the Devil, and so forth. 71 00:09:14.160 --> 00:09:19.800 Reverend Mr. Burroughs was accused by several of the girls of witchcraft. 72 00:09:19.800 --> 00:09:25.180 The unfortunate minister became the most prominent victim of the witch hunt. 73 00:09:25.180 --> 00:09:30.400 Although the more moderate increased matter was dubious of the spectral evidence, his 74 00:09:30.400 --> 00:09:37.100 son Cotton had no such doubts, and eagerly whipped up the witch hunt generally, and specifically 75 00:09:37.100 --> 00:09:39.100 against Burroughs. 76 00:09:39.100 --> 00:09:46.220 By dishonest or deluded witnesses and biased judges, Burroughs was sentenced to be hanged. 77 00:09:46.220 --> 00:09:52.400 It was no wonder that Burroughs, a good puritan, was led by these proceedings to disbelieve 78 00:09:52.400 --> 00:09:59.480 in witchcraft altogether, a dose of rationalism imbibed by many who were falsely accused in 79 00:09:59.480 --> 00:10:01.420 their turn. 80 00:10:01.420 --> 00:10:07.820 On the day of Burroughs' execution, he made a brief and moving statement of his innocence, 81 00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:32.820 The crowd, convinced of his innocence, began to move to free the unfortunate burrows, but Cotton Mather, playing a role reminiscent of Reverend Mr. Wilson's at the hanging of Mary Dyer a generation before, stepped to the fore and explained to the crowd that it was easy for an agent of the devil to simulate innocence. 82 00:10:32.820 --> 00:10:40.580 Thanks to Cotton Mather, the hanging of the venerable wizard proceeded according to schedule. 83 00:10:40.580 --> 00:10:46.660 The witch hunt flourished. One unfortunate woman, Martha Carrier, denounced by Cotton 84 00:10:46.660 --> 00:10:53.540 Mather as a rampant hag, found that her four children had been induced to testify against 85 00:10:53.540 --> 00:11:02.300 her. In a Boston court, even a bewitched dog was solemnly tried, convicted and executed. 86 00:11:02.300 --> 00:11:08.620 When Sir William Phipps arrived in Boston, he found the colony under a full head of witch-hunt 87 00:11:08.620 --> 00:11:17.180 steam. He found over 100 accused witches in prison in a waiting trial. In, over his depth, 88 00:11:17.180 --> 00:11:23.260 he turned, unfortunately, to the Mathers for advice. The Mathers and the rest of the clergy 89 00:11:23.260 --> 00:11:29.340 called for continual efforts to detect and root out witchcraft in the colony. The crime 90 00:11:29.340 --> 00:11:36.040 must meet speedy and vigorous prosecution. The mathers did warn that more than spectral 91 00:11:36.040 --> 00:11:43.100 evidence should be required for conviction, but this was a mere pro forma note of caution, 92 00:11:43.100 --> 00:11:50.520 unheeded by them or by the judges. Phipps then centralized the witch trials. On advice 93 00:11:50.520 --> 00:11:58.860 of the council, he turned over all witch trials to a special court of seven counsellors. Naively, 94 00:11:58.860 --> 00:12:06.860 Gips wrote to William Blathewaite that the seven judges were persons of the best prudence. 95 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:12.420 Chief Judge and strongman of the new court was Lieutenant Governor Staunton. 96 00:12:12.420 --> 00:12:18.300 The other counselors constituted, in the words of Professor Dunn, a perfect microcosm of 97 00:12:18.300 --> 00:12:24.660 the Massachusetts ruling coalition, Puritans and Tory opportunists. 98 00:12:24.660 --> 00:12:37.660 Trusting believingly that all was safe and in sober hands, Phipps left for Maine to fight Indians. Stoughton was left in charge of the court, which opened in Salem in early June. 99 00:12:37.660 --> 00:12:46.660 Too many writers have treated the Salem witch hunt in psychological terms, childish neuroses and mob hysteria. 100 00:12:46.660 --> 00:12:55.660 The vital point is not the hysteria of children, but the use made of it by the adult society. 101 00:12:55.660 --> 00:13:03.660 Neither can the witch hunt be treated as a case study in mob psychology, for the witch hunt was not a lynching bee, 102 00:13:03.660 --> 00:13:11.660 but a program carried out by the elite of the colony and directed by the lieutenant governor himself, 103 00:13:11.660 --> 00:13:41.660 The man whose major aim had long been the exercise of power. During the summer, the witch hunt centering in Salem spread throughout the colony. Other young girls joined in the business of being bewitched and of leveling accusations, until their number rose to fifty. Favorite targets of accusations were any who dared to raise their voice to criticize the witch hunt, or even to assert that witches didn't exist at all. 104 00:13:41.660 --> 00:13:47.660 and the investigation on these targets served to intimidate critics of the veritable reign of terror. 105 00:13:47.660 --> 00:14:00.660 This same cause was served by executing, as evident proof of diabolism, any conscience-stricken informer who dared to recant his implication of other persons. 106 00:14:00.660 --> 00:14:09.660 To make sure of verdicts against the accused, Lieutenant Governor Staunton decided remarkably to operate under the old charter rules. 107 00:14:09.660 --> 00:14:20.660 As a result, the jurors were chosen only from the ranks of Puritan church members, and the hapless defendants were allowed no rights of counsel. 108 00:14:20.660 --> 00:14:34.660 And, crucially, the special high court decided to admit all spectral evidence under the rather dubious assumption that the devil could not assume the spectral shape of non-witches. 109 00:14:34.660 --> 00:14:42.980 All of the witch executions, including Burroughs's, were the handiwork of the Stoughton Court. 110 00:14:42.980 --> 00:14:49.000 By the end of September the High Court had condemned twenty-seven for witchcraft and 111 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:56.280 had executed twenty. Fifty witches had escaped punishment by confession, an additional hundred 112 00:14:56.280 --> 00:15:03.700 were in prison awaiting trial, and some two hundred more were accused but not yet imprisoned. 113 00:15:03.700 --> 00:15:10.460 This amounted to almost one percent of Massachusetts' population being accused of witchcraft during 114 00:15:10.460 --> 00:15:16.280 a period of only a few months. Here and there brave men literally took their lives in their 115 00:15:16.280 --> 00:15:23.280 hands by coming out openly against the monstrous proceedings. Young Joseph Putnam, a relative 116 00:15:23.280 --> 00:15:29.280 of one of the bewitched girls, offered his home as refuge to any accused witch and announced 117 00:15:29.280 --> 00:15:36.280 More silently, counselor Nathaniel Saltenstahl, one of the judges on the special court, withdrew 118 00:15:44.220 --> 00:15:50.880 in disgust from the proceedings. The eminent young liberal Puritan of Ipswich, Reverend 119 00:15:50.880 --> 00:15:57.880 John Wise, who had led Massachusetts opposition to the Andros regime, now spoke up in defense 120 00:15:57.880 --> 00:16:03.880 and the defense of two accused parishioners, as did twenty neighbors of the accused couple. 121 00:16:03.880 --> 00:16:10.880 And the prominent liberal merchant of Boston, Thomas Brattle, widely distributed an open letter, 122 00:16:10.880 --> 00:16:17.880 a full and candid account of the delusion called witchcraft, which prevailed in New England. 123 00:16:17.880 --> 00:16:25.880 Brattle denounced the New Salem philosophy and attacked the suppression of personal liberty upon spectral evidence. 124 00:16:25.880 --> 00:16:32.760 Methodically, Brattle warned, what will be the issue of these troubles, God only knows. 125 00:16:32.760 --> 00:16:39.280 I am afraid that ages will not wear off that reproach, and those stains which these things 126 00:16:39.280 --> 00:16:42.720 will leave behind them upon our land. 127 00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:49.320 As the bewitched girls and their adult supporters felt their newfound power, the social level 128 00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:53.320 of their accusations continued to rise. 129 00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:59.320 with poor crones, the accusers now began to strike at some of the most eminent men of 130 00:16:59.320 --> 00:17:05.560 the colony. The renowned Puritan minister of Boston, Reverend Samuel Willard, was accused 131 00:17:05.560 --> 00:17:10.980 of witchcraft, although this was understandable in view of Willard's criticism of the witch 132 00:17:10.980 --> 00:17:17.600 trials. But soon the girls moved to strike at some of the leaders of the witch hunt itself, 133 00:17:17.600 --> 00:17:23.660 The wife of Rev. John Hale of Beverly, one of the most ardent of the witch-hunters, was 134 00:17:23.660 --> 00:17:30.260 accused of being a witch. So too the mother-in-law of one of the most zealous of the judges in 135 00:17:30.260 --> 00:17:37.260 prosecuting the witches. It is not surprising that Hale soon came to see that the witch-hunt 136 00:17:37.260 --> 00:17:44.060 was a double-edged sword, and he joined the outspoken critics of the witch trials. Perhaps 137 00:17:44.060 --> 00:17:50.180 Perhaps the most interesting and tactically the most mistaken of the accusation was the 138 00:17:50.180 --> 00:17:55.660 one leveled against none other than Lady Phipps, wife of the governor. 139 00:17:55.660 --> 00:18:01.620 The Phipps's were liberally inclined and during her husband's absence Lady Phipps angered 140 00:18:01.620 --> 00:18:07.740 the hardline witch hunters by ordering that one of the accused witches be freed. 141 00:18:07.740 --> 00:18:15.260 And so, in the full, heady exercise of its terrorizing power, the witch hunt reached 142 00:18:15.260 --> 00:18:23.740 too far. It moved against the Phipps' themselves, against, in short, the major obstacle to Staughton's 143 00:18:23.740 --> 00:18:30.300 assumption of power in Massachusetts. The witch hunters had made their fatal mistake. 144 00:18:30.300 --> 00:18:36.200 Phipps, never enthusiastic about the witch hunt, now turned flatly against it. At the 145 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:42.080 The End of September. He suspended the special court and all its proceedings for a three-month 146 00:18:42.080 --> 00:18:49.440 period. As Phipps explained to the Crown, some were accused of whose innocency I was 147 00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:55.960 well assured, and many considerable persons of unblameable life and conversations were 148 00:18:55.960 --> 00:19:00.320 cried out upon as witches and wizards. 149 00:19:00.320 --> 00:19:07.400 Mises Mather concurred in suspending the infamous court, but his son Cotton tried his best to 150 00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:14.060 have the witch trials continued. In fact, the witch hunt was not yet over. Phipps again 151 00:19:14.060 --> 00:19:20.760 journeyed to Maine and a large number of colonists, including ministers and judges, seized this 152 00:19:20.760 --> 00:19:26.640 opportunity to press for continuation of the trials, even though in defiance of Phipps 153 00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:34.280 The Rev. Samuel Tory was particularly eager to get on with the prosecutions. 154 00:19:34.280 --> 00:19:39.120 The matter now came before the general court, and debate was intense. 155 00:19:39.120 --> 00:19:43.440 The hardliners were determined to continue the trials as before. 156 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:48.920 The moderates called instead for a convocation of ministers to advise the government, with 157 00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:52.120 the trials to be suspended meanwhile. 158 00:19:52.120 --> 00:20:00.320 The resolution for convocation passed the General Court by a very close 33-29 vote. 159 00:20:00.320 --> 00:20:05.020 The margin of victory included those who either had been themselves accused of witchcraft 160 00:20:05.020 --> 00:20:08.200 or had had relatives so accused. 161 00:20:08.200 --> 00:20:12.440 If not for their votes, the General Court would have continued the witch hunt. 162 00:20:12.440 --> 00:20:18.720 When Phipps returned, such counselors as the old Puritans Samuel Sewell and James Russell 163 00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:24.720 tried desperately to persuade him to change his mind and continue the prosecutions, but 164 00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:26.760 to no avail. 165 00:20:26.760 --> 00:20:32.480 When the Convocation of Puritan Ministers assembled, the hard-line old guard, sensing 166 00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:39.280 its defeat, remained away, and so the proceedings were dominated by such relative liberals as 167 00:20:39.280 --> 00:20:43.640 William Hubbard, Samuel Willard and John Wise. 168 00:20:43.640 --> 00:20:50.120 The ministers put the question to Increase Mather, who gave the expected moderate advice. 169 00:20:50.120 --> 00:20:56.540 The devil, Mather maintained, is capable of taking the shape of innocent persons. 170 00:20:56.540 --> 00:21:01.000 This could be seen, he shrewdly noted, by the fact that many ardent believers in the 171 00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:07.040 guilt of the witches were themselves soon accused or found a close relative in that 172 00:21:07.040 --> 00:21:08.680 position. 173 00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:16.680 And with the devil that able, spectral evidence was clearly worth little or nothing. 174 00:21:16.680 --> 00:21:22.180 Using the moderate Mather formula, Phipps ended the old special court, and after the 175 00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:27.600 general court incorporated the Massachusetts judicial system into the charter, Phipps created 176 00:21:27.600 --> 00:21:34.580 in January 1693 a new superior court, which heard the witch cases. 177 00:21:34.580 --> 00:21:40.780 The court, under FIPS orders to prohibit the use of spectral evidence, found it difficult 178 00:21:40.780 --> 00:21:44.340 to indict or convict witches. 179 00:21:44.340 --> 00:21:51.980 Of over 50 suspect witches, 26 were tried and only 3 convicted and sentenced to death. 180 00:21:51.980 --> 00:21:57.460 William Stoughton, Chief Justice of the old court, now assumed that office in the new. 181 00:21:57.460 --> 00:22:03.700 A hardliner to the end, he happily prepared to execute the three convicted women, along 182 00:22:03.700 --> 00:22:08.660 Along with five who had been condemned by the old court, but despite Stoughton's indecent 183 00:22:08.660 --> 00:22:15.540 haste, the eight executions were barred at the end of January by last-minute reprieve 184 00:22:15.540 --> 00:22:17.660 from Governor Phipps. 185 00:22:17.660 --> 00:22:23.780 The reprieve was cheered by thousands in the colony, but it infuriated Stoughton. 186 00:22:23.780 --> 00:22:29.260 Rising in passionate anger, Stoughton thundered that the court, if left unhampered, would 187 00:22:29.260 --> 00:22:35.100 Stoughton had cleared Massachusetts at last of witches, but now justice was obstructed 188 00:22:35.100 --> 00:22:40.540 and the task unfulfilled, thus advancing the kingdom of Satan. 189 00:22:40.540 --> 00:22:44.140 Stoughton left the implied question unstated. 190 00:22:44.140 --> 00:22:48.380 Was Phipps consciously doing the devil's work? 191 00:22:48.380 --> 00:22:53.120 With this diatribe, Stoughton tempestuously quit the court. 192 00:22:53.120 --> 00:22:58.180 The court proceedings dragged on for several months, but the heart was now out of it. 193 00:22:58.180 --> 00:23:04.180 The juries began to acquit everyone, despite the anger of the judges. Finally, in April, 194 00:23:04.180 --> 00:23:10.180 a servant girl, Mae Watkins, was indicted for witchcraft and acquitted by the jury. 195 00:23:10.180 --> 00:23:16.620 The court forced the jury to reconsider, but the panel was adamant. About this time, 196 00:23:16.620 --> 00:23:23.620 the remaining prisoners were released. The Salem reign of terror was over. The side of 197 00:23:23.620 --> 00:23:37.300 For one thing, the witch hunt was led and directed by the elite of the colony, the magistrates 198 00:23:37.300 --> 00:23:39.300 and the ministers. 199 00:23:39.300 --> 00:23:44.500 In addition, by no means were all the masses caught up in the witch frenzy. 200 00:23:44.500 --> 00:23:49.940 On the contrary, it was the revulsion of the people, as shown at the borough's execution 201 00:23:49.940 --> 00:23:55.500 and particularly by the jury acquittals that was instrumental in bringing the witch trials 202 00:23:55.500 --> 00:24:01.760 to an end. In addition, popular petitions had flowed into the government, denouncing 203 00:24:01.760 --> 00:24:08.600 the informers and defending the accused. The end of the witch hunt left Phipps in a very 204 00:24:08.600 --> 00:24:14.700 weak political position in the colony. Hated by the hard-liners for stopping the witch 205 00:24:14.700 --> 00:24:23.700 Fips had equally disenchanted his natural supporters, the liberals, by condoning the trials in the first place. 206 00:24:23.700 --> 00:24:33.700 The whole prosecution, after all, had been conducted by officials of his administration, and so Fips bore ultimate responsibility. 207 00:24:33.700 --> 00:24:41.700 The fanatical Puritan Old Guard, meanwhile, was not so constituted as to give up without a fight. 208 00:24:41.700 --> 00:24:49.700 The people of Massachusetts had almost been won back to the old faith and zeal by the frenzy of the witch hunt. 209 00:24:49.700 --> 00:24:55.700 Perhaps they could yet be won back with a further campaign against witchcraft. 210 00:24:55.700 --> 00:25:03.700 The indefatigable Cotton Mather now dug up the case of Margaret Rule, a bewitched girl of seventeen. 211 00:25:03.700 --> 00:25:10.700 Mather found the case, asked the girl numerous leading questions, gave her great publicity, 212 00:25:10.700 --> 00:25:16.700 tried in vain to get some accusations and then wrote up the case in the monograph 213 00:25:16.700 --> 00:25:20.700 another brand plucked out of the burning. 214 00:25:20.700 --> 00:25:24.700 Mather distributed the essay widely as an open letter. 215 00:25:24.700 --> 00:25:27.700 Phipps had banned any publication on witchcraft. 216 00:25:27.700 --> 00:25:32.700 Mather might have been successful in reviving the witch-hunting spirit 217 00:25:32.700 --> 00:25:38.700 had it not been for courageous Boston cloth merchant, Robert Califf, 218 00:25:38.700 --> 00:25:47.940 Bitter at the clergy's whipping up of the Salem witch hunt, Califf attended Margaret's 219 00:25:47.940 --> 00:25:57.060 public examination by Mather and refuted it in 1694 in an open letter of his own. Infuriated, 220 00:25:57.060 --> 00:26:02.740 Mather denounced Califf as one of the worst of liars and had him arrested for slander. 221 00:26:02.740 --> 00:26:08.820 But Mather prudently decided not to press charges, and Califf kept peppering Mather 222 00:26:08.820 --> 00:26:15.620 with letters pointing to the unreliability of the evidence and the absurdity of the accusation 223 00:26:15.620 --> 00:26:17.860 of witchcraft. 224 00:26:17.860 --> 00:26:24.460 Ministers and magistrates joined in reviling Califf as an atheist, but he stood his ground. 225 00:26:24.460 --> 00:26:31.540 President Increase Mather and the fellows of Harvard College, all but one of them Puritan 226 00:26:31.540 --> 00:26:38.980 The Harvard Scholars joined the fray in March 1694, trumpeting the remarkables of supernatural 227 00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:44.620 intervention in the natural world, and asking people to send to the Harvard fellows more 228 00:26:44.620 --> 00:26:46.540 such evidences. 229 00:26:46.540 --> 00:26:53.140 Caliph, with cutting sarcasm, sent in his own list of remarkables, the deaths of one 230 00:26:53.140 --> 00:26:59.740 of the witch-hunting judges, of two sons of another judge, and so forth. 231 00:26:59.740 --> 00:27:06.780 Early in 1700, the intrepid Caliph gathered the whole inflammable discussion into one book, 232 00:27:06.780 --> 00:27:12.260 More Wonders of the Invisible World, published in London, as no Boston printer would dare 233 00:27:12.260 --> 00:27:13.820 to publish it. 234 00:27:13.820 --> 00:27:19.600 Increase Mather had the book publicly burned in Harvard Yard, but this only served to spread 235 00:27:19.600 --> 00:27:22.180 the book more widely. 236 00:27:22.180 --> 00:27:28.700 Caliph's More Wonders, indeed, had served to crystallize the popular revulsion against 237 00:27:28.700 --> 00:27:35.720 The whole witch hunt episode and its leadership. The instigator of the witch hunt, Reverend 238 00:27:35.720 --> 00:27:42.620 Samuel Parris, was now driven out of his Salem Parish by the aroused congregation and one 239 00:27:42.620 --> 00:27:50.260 of the main bewitched girls of Salem confessed her dishonesty and begged forgiveness. The 240 00:27:50.260 --> 00:27:56.980 Massachusetts General Court itself admitted in 1696 that it had committed wrongs by participating 241 00:27:56.980 --> 00:28:03.980 in the Witch Hunt, and in the same year, Councilor Samuel Sewell, one of the Witch Hunt judges, 242 00:28:03.980 --> 00:28:10.580 confessed his errors publicly and had the liberal Reverend Samuel Willard read the confession 243 00:28:10.580 --> 00:28:17.580 aloud in church. Willard read the noble words, Samuel Sewell being made sensible that as 244 00:28:19.060 --> 00:28:26.060 to the guilt at Salem, he is more concerned than any that he knows of, desires to take 245 00:28:26.980 --> 00:28:33.180 Take the blame and shame of it, asking of men in especially desiring prayers that God 246 00:28:33.180 --> 00:28:39.980 would pardon that sin. Perhaps the supreme irony of the entire affair was that Margaret 247 00:28:39.980 --> 00:28:47.020 Rule, who, like so many of the other afflicted, turned to promiscuity in later life, after 248 00:28:47.020 --> 00:28:52.420 prodding by Cotton Mather to tell the name of the witch who was afflicting her, named 249 00:28:52.420 --> 00:29:00.420 and Mathur himself as the guilty wizard. Unsurprisingly, Cotton Mathur's interest in witchcraft dwindled 250 00:29:00.420 --> 00:29:06.940 markedly after that. But through it all remained Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton, as 251 00:29:06.940 --> 00:29:14.220 always unrepentant, as always ready to come out on top. Phipps had lost prestige from 252 00:29:14.220 --> 00:29:20.720 the witch frenzy, the old Puritan theocrats had been thoroughly discredited, rationalism 253 00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:27.720 The system was now stronger than ever, but political events were bringing Staunton to the brink of power. 254 00:29:27.720 --> 00:29:42.720 Governor Phipps now lost the confidence of the Crown for taking a vigorous part in defending Massachusetts liberties against the depredations of royal officials, and for his conflicts with other governors. 255 00:29:42.720 --> 00:29:49.920 In the summer of 1692, a captain, Short, tried to impress Bostonians into the English Navy. 256 00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:56.680 When two members of the Massachusetts General Court opposed these despotic acts, Short invaded 257 00:29:56.680 --> 00:29:59.760 their homes and assaulted them. 258 00:29:59.760 --> 00:30:04.960 Short then failed to obey orders by Phipps to follow him eastward to Maine. 259 00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:11.360 Infuriated at these peccadillos, Phipps, on his return to Boston in early 1693, fought 260 00:30:11.360 --> 00:30:17.720 Fips, with Captain Short on the street, knocked him down and beat his cane over Short's head. 261 00:30:17.720 --> 00:30:23.600 Fips then imprisoned Short and had him shipped to England for trial. In connection with Short's 262 00:30:23.600 --> 00:30:29.400 arrest, the governor also got into a row with Short's successor and with the government 263 00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:35.440 of New Hampshire. In addition, Fips, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the King's 264 00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:41.160 armed forces in the Northeast, came into conflict with Lieutenant Governor Usher of New Hampshire 265 00:30:41.160 --> 00:30:47.560 Governor, who repulsed Phipps' attempt to inspect the Portsmouth as well as his demand 266 00:30:47.560 --> 00:30:52.240 to search the New Hampshire towns for deserters from an English ship. 267 00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:57.380 Governor Phipps also defended Massachusetts liberties in opposing the depredations of 268 00:30:57.380 --> 00:31:04.660 Jaleel Brenton, whom Edward Randolph had contrived to have appointed as royal collector of customs 269 00:31:04.660 --> 00:31:06.080 for New England. 270 00:31:06.080 --> 00:31:12.720 Brenton, son of Rhode Island merchant William Brenton, enforced the duties rigorously, but 271 00:31:12.720 --> 00:31:18.760 Phipps joined the Massachusetts merchants in arguing that jurisdiction over customs, 272 00:31:18.760 --> 00:31:24.440 collecting, belonged to his own, more pliable, naval officers. 273 00:31:24.440 --> 00:31:31.800 When Brenton, toward the end of 1693, seized a ship arriving in Boston from the West Indies, 274 00:31:31.800 --> 00:31:36.920 The irascible Phipps threatened to break every bone in Brenton's body and to cut off the 275 00:31:36.920 --> 00:31:41.960 ears of Brenton's witnesses if he did not release the vessel. 276 00:31:41.960 --> 00:31:47.860 Phipps punctuated the threat by beating Brenton with his cane and fist. 277 00:31:47.860 --> 00:31:53.280 Even Edward Randolph, though Surveyor General of the King's Customs in America, was flatly 278 00:31:53.280 --> 00:31:58.800 refused in accounting of the Customs books by Governor Phipps. 279 00:31:58.800 --> 00:32:05.560 Moreover, Phipps sponsored a proposal to exempt Massachusetts from the exactions and requirements 280 00:32:05.560 --> 00:32:07.880 of the Navigation Acts. 281 00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:12.840 And when the Speaker of the Massachusetts House, Nathaniel Byfield, had the temerity 282 00:32:12.840 --> 00:32:20.880 to call for greater royal control over Massachusetts with the notorious Joseph Dudley as Governor, 283 00:32:20.880 --> 00:32:23.940 Phipps had him expelled from the House. 284 00:32:23.940 --> 00:32:31.060 In addition, Phipps, a man of decided pro-Les Lurien sympathies, came into sharp conflict 285 00:32:31.060 --> 00:32:37.100 with Governor Benjamin Fletcher of New York, a partisan of the royalist oligarchy of that 286 00:32:37.100 --> 00:32:43.600 colony. Both men claimed jurisdiction over the Connecticut militia, and Fletcher threatened 287 00:32:43.600 --> 00:32:49.260 to take under New York jurisdiction the island of Martha's Vineyard, by this time a part 288 00:32:49.260 --> 00:32:55.880 of Massachusetts. Fletcher also demanded the surrender of young Abraham Gouverneur, one 289 00:32:55.880 --> 00:33:03.300 of the convicted but released Leslarians, who had moved to Boston. Gouverneur had written 290 00:33:03.300 --> 00:33:09.400 a letter, seized by Fletcher, highly critical of the New York Chief Executive. Phipps angrily 291 00:33:09.400 --> 00:33:15.880 refused Fletcher's important demand and also informed Fletcher's agent that New York's 292 00:33:15.880 --> 00:33:21.300 Former Governor Henry Slaughter should have been brought to trial because of his murder 293 00:33:21.300 --> 00:33:28.100 of Leisler and Milborne. With the accumulation of cases concerning Phipps's opposition to 294 00:33:28.100 --> 00:33:35.700 royal power over Massachusetts, the King finally yielded to the charges, especially Brenton's, 295 00:33:35.700 --> 00:33:42.620 and to the anti-Phips machinations of men like Joseph Dudley, and recalled Phipps to 296 00:33:42.620 --> 00:33:49.140 to England in February 1694 to answer charges of misconduct. 297 00:33:49.140 --> 00:33:54.460 Fighting for his political life, Phipps tried to obtain a vote of support for his continuance 298 00:33:54.460 --> 00:33:56.260 by the general court. 299 00:33:56.260 --> 00:34:01.460 Bolstered by the support of Increase Mather, Phipps won a bare majority of the Democratic 300 00:34:01.460 --> 00:34:08.020 House of Representatives, but the relatively oligarchic council, headed by the implacable 301 00:34:08.020 --> 00:34:11.860 Stoughton, was determined to dispose of Phipps. 302 00:34:11.860 --> 00:34:19.860 Phipps finally sailed for England at the end of 1694 and died soon after arriving in England. 303 00:34:19.860 --> 00:34:27.660 Phipps' recall and death left the executive power in the hands of none other than Lieutenant 304 00:34:27.660 --> 00:34:36.060 Governor Stoughton, who now achieved his long-term objective of assuming power in Massachusetts. 305 00:34:36.060 --> 00:34:41.520 Stoughton was to remain as acting governor for the remainder of the decade. 306 00:34:41.520 --> 00:34:47.840 With Phipps gone, the days of a liberal governor were over, no more any quixotic defense of 307 00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:54.340 Massachusetts liberties. Instead, Staunton swiftly molded a pro-royalist ruling clique 308 00:34:54.340 --> 00:35:02.080 of spoils men and plunderers in the best Dudley tradition. Staunton's major allies were the 309 00:35:02.080 --> 00:35:08.840 self-same Dudley, still trying to win the permanent spot of governor, and Speaker Byfield, 310 00:35:08.840 --> 00:35:11.840 whose daughter was married to Staunton's nephew. 311 00:35:11.840 --> 00:35:15.840 Opposition to Staunton centered in the more democratic lower house. 312 00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:22.560 Thus, in 1696, the House of Representatives voted to send an agent to England to work 313 00:35:22.560 --> 00:35:29.680 for restoration of the old Massachusetts Charter, but the council oligarchy naturally vetoed 314 00:35:29.680 --> 00:35:31.200 the plan. 315 00:35:31.200 --> 00:35:36.640 With the glorious revolution over, a royal government fixed on Massachusetts and the 316 00:35:36.640 --> 00:35:44.600 The inconclusive war with France dragging to a close, and in 1697, with the status quo ante 317 00:35:44.600 --> 00:35:51.520 restored in the colonies, King William now had time to turn his attention to enforcing 318 00:35:51.520 --> 00:35:54.220 the imperial system upon America. 319 00:35:54.220 --> 00:35:59.080 The great trading center of Massachusetts especially needed attention, for there the 320 00:35:59.080 --> 00:36:03.780 navigation laws were still virtually unenforced. 321 00:36:03.780 --> 00:36:09.140 The London merchants in particular were pressing the crown more than ever to crack down on 322 00:36:09.140 --> 00:36:11.340 their colonial rivals. 323 00:36:11.340 --> 00:36:18.980 As a result, three significant steps were taken to tighten imperial control of the colonies 324 00:36:18.980 --> 00:36:23.100 and to compel enforcement of the navigation laws. 325 00:36:23.100 --> 00:36:32.100 For one thing, Parliament in 1696 passed another Navigation Act, which, one, confined all colonial 326 00:36:32.100 --> 00:36:55.100 to English-built ships, required all colonial governors, including the elected governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island, to take an oath to enforce the navigation laws, gave the royal customs official in the colonies the right of forcible search and seizure, 327 00:36:55.100 --> 00:37:25.100 5. Forced merchants re-exporting enumerated articles bought from another colony, for example tobacco from the South, to post a bond to ensure that the goods not be sold to another European country, and 6. Authorize the Crown to establish special vice admiralty courts to enforce the national law, and 6. Authorize the Crown to establish special vice admiralty courts to enforce the national law, and 328 00:37:25.100 --> 00:37:45.100 Second, also in 1696, the Administration of Colonial Affairs was taken from the Lords of Trade, a committee of the Privy Council dominated by the court aristocracy, and shifted to a new and independent Board of Trade. 329 00:37:45.100 --> 00:37:56.100 Although the new board contained seven privy councillors, the active working members were eight paid officials generally representing the London merchants. 330 00:37:56.100 --> 00:38:05.100 Among its many functions, the board was empowered to recommend the disallowing of laws conflicting with English law or policy. 331 00:38:05.100 --> 00:38:12.940 The third step, the following year, was the creation by the Privy Council of the Network 332 00:38:12.940 --> 00:38:19.500 of Vice Admiralty Courts for the Colonies, authorized in the Navigation Act. 333 00:38:19.500 --> 00:38:25.760 These courts were specially created for the trial and punishment of violators of the Navigation 334 00:38:25.760 --> 00:38:27.260 Acts. 335 00:38:27.260 --> 00:38:35.160 Prior to 1697, accused violators were tried at the regular common law colonial courts. 336 00:38:35.160 --> 00:38:40.760 This meant that the judges were colonists who probably disapproved of the restrictive 337 00:38:40.760 --> 00:38:49.200 laws and that the trials were by juries almost invariably sympathetic to the violators. 338 00:38:49.200 --> 00:38:55.820 To surmount this problem, the Privy Council now commissioned the royal colonial governors 339 00:38:55.820 --> 00:39:02.820 as Vice Admiral's, each empowered to create a vice admiralty court under his jurisdiction. 340 00:39:03.740 --> 00:39:10.740 The vice admiralty court could now convict violators without the inconvenience of putting 341 00:39:10.740 --> 00:39:17.140 the case to a jury of the defendant's peers, for here trial was conducted by the judge 342 00:39:17.140 --> 00:39:24.140 only. The judges, of course, were to be royal officials, in effect appointed by the governors, 343 00:39:24.140 --> 00:39:30.820 as were all of the vice admiralty court officials. In practice, the judges had the full management 344 00:39:30.820 --> 00:39:37.960 of the vice admiralty courts and, to ensure diligence in convicting offenders, the judges 345 00:39:37.960 --> 00:39:45.940 were paid a percentage of the value of the violators' goods that they condemned. Enhancing 346 00:39:45.940 --> 00:39:51.960 the power of each judge was the fact that each court had one judge only, although in 347 00:39:51.960 --> 00:39:57.680 In some cases, the judge appointed a deputy to try cases. For instance, the judge of the 348 00:39:57.680 --> 00:40:03.400 Massachusetts court, the jurisdiction of which covered New Hampshire, appointed a deputy 349 00:40:03.400 --> 00:40:10.640 for the latter colony. Since the vice admiralty post were only assigned to royal governors, 350 00:40:10.640 --> 00:40:16.480 the Massachusetts court was assigned jurisdiction over Rhode Island, and the New York court 351 00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:23.600 Over Connecticut and the Jerseys In 1699, the English also moved against the 352 00:40:23.600 --> 00:40:26.800 growth of manufacturing in America. 353 00:40:26.800 --> 00:40:33.000 The colonists were accustomed to rural household manufacture of textiles for their own use, 354 00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:39.920 but now New England and Long Island were beginning to manufacture woolens for commercial markets 355 00:40:39.920 --> 00:40:46.040 and beginning to out-compete the powerful English woolen industry. 356 00:40:46.040 --> 00:40:52.400 Not only were the English manufacturers alarmed, but so also were the English merchants, who 357 00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:57.480 stood to lose control of the trade of the southern colonies, should the latter purchase 358 00:40:57.480 --> 00:41:02.600 their manufactured goods from Boston instead of from England. 359 00:41:02.600 --> 00:41:09.760 Therefore, Parliament passed the Woolen Act of 1699, prohibiting the export of wool or 360 00:41:09.760 --> 00:41:14.720 woolens from any American colony, even to another colony. 361 00:41:14.720 --> 00:41:20.520 The instrumental in drafting and implementing these measures was none other than the old 362 00:41:20.520 --> 00:41:27.360 enemy of the American colonies, Edward Randolph. Randolph had had a great deal of experience 363 00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:33.720 with recalcitrant juries in the early 1680s and renewed that experience when Surveyor 364 00:41:33.720 --> 00:41:40.780 General of the Customs in America in the early 1690s. His later enforcement difficulties 365 00:41:40.780 --> 00:42:08.500 In the fall of 1695, Randolph submitted a lengthy memorandum on his findings. Randolph 366 00:42:08.500 --> 00:42:13.960 Randolph was now brought in to advise on the new Navigation Act, and he was one of the 367 00:42:13.960 --> 00:42:18.260 two co-authors of the original draft of the Act. 368 00:42:18.260 --> 00:42:22.980 Randolph then went to work for the new Board of Trade, of which his old friend, the Earl 369 00:42:22.980 --> 00:42:25.700 of Bridgewater, was president. 370 00:42:25.700 --> 00:42:31.580 And when the officers of the Vice Admiralty Courts were selected, Randolph's suggestions 371 00:42:31.580 --> 00:42:37.000 were adopted, as were roughly the boundaries of the court districts. 372 00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:43.460 One of the major disputes in framing the Navigation Act stemmed from Randolph's attempt to impose 373 00:42:43.460 --> 00:42:50.000 a royally appointed attorney general in every colony. To transfer full power over their 374 00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:55.940 trade from the colonies to the Crown, it was necessary for the prosecuting attorneys to 375 00:42:55.940 --> 00:43:02.440 be under Crown control. Randolph wanted the Crown to appoint all the attorneys general 376 00:43:02.440 --> 00:43:08.320 of the Colonies Directly, but the colonies themselves and their proprietors bitterly 377 00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:15.540 protested such a change, and the Crown finally decided to appoint Advocates General to prosecute 378 00:43:15.540 --> 00:43:22.940 admulty cases, but to allow the colonies to continue to choose their own Attorneys General. 379 00:43:22.940 --> 00:43:29.280 This meant that Crown agents would be limited to admulty cases, and further that jurisdictional 380 00:43:29.280 --> 00:43:35.240 Disputes over the Courts of Trial might loom large in the future. 381 00:43:35.240 --> 00:43:41.720 The upshot was a diversity of pattern in the several colonies, but generally the colonial 382 00:43:41.720 --> 00:43:49.260 attorneys general were used also as Crown Advocates General. Only in Massachusetts and 383 00:43:49.260 --> 00:43:56.520 Virginia was a separate Crown official appointed. Because of Randolph's good offices, Nathaniel 384 00:43:56.520 --> 00:44:09.120 Winthrop Winthrop, the old weak-willed moderate and member of the council, could not possibly 385 00:44:09.120 --> 00:44:16.120 accept this crowning of the nefarious Stoughton-Byfield alliance. These were the men whom Winthrop 386 00:44:16.120 --> 00:44:22.520 privately referred to as the Jacobite clique, the high Tory followers of the pretender James 387 00:44:22.520 --> 00:44:28.280 of the Second, who have in a little time got more by the government than all that have 388 00:44:28.280 --> 00:44:35.760 been before, who eat up the poor as bread and squeeze them to death by virtue of an office. 389 00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:41.360 With the Massachusetts Council overriding Staunton and refusing to assent to Bifield's 390 00:44:41.360 --> 00:44:46.920 appointment, Winthrop, pulling strings in England, was able to get himself appointed 391 00:44:46.920 --> 00:44:49.360 as judge instead. 392 00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:55.360 Roth bitterly concluded that the Massachusetts smugglers had turned out Mr. Byfield, a man 393 00:44:55.360 --> 00:44:59.400 zealous for having the acts of trade duly executed.