Episode Description
Welcome back to Salem Witch Trials Daily. In today’s episode, we take a breath as the legal records in Salem Village go quiet for a moment. While the "machinery" of the trials has already been set in motion, March 10th, 1692, left behind no new warrants or examinations.
Instead of focusing on the quiet in the village, we are stepping back to look at the broader, often unstable colonial legal world that surrounded the accused.
A Quiet Day in Salem: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba remain in custody as the community processes the initial examinations.
Lessons from Virginia: We look back 36 years to a 1656 law in the Colony of Virginia regarding the right of suffrage.
The Concept of Standing: We discuss how the legal system was built around a narrow category of "freemen" and why that left women like Sarah Good and Tituba completely outside the circle of protection.
Legal Instability: A look at how rights in colonial America—from the franchise to the court systems—were constantly negotiated and renegotiated by those already in power.
A Colony in Flux: Why the timing of the witchcraft accusations was particularly dangerous given that Massachusetts was operating under a brand-new provincial charter.
"The gap between who the legal system was built to protect and who it was fully capable of punishing is one of the defining features of the world that produced the Salem crisis."
The quiet won't last long. Join us tomorrow as we cover the developments of March 11th and see how the community continues to react to the growing crisis.
Sign the petition to exonerate Massachusetts witch trial victims
Find My Massachusetts Legislators
The Thing About Witch Hunts / About Salem YouTube channelSalem Witch Trials Daily Hub
Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
Bernard Rosenthal, ed., Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt
Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege