Salem Witch Trials: 1692

(00:00:00) The Spark That Condemned a Colony: Salem's First Accusations<br /> (00:01:55) The First Accused<br /> (00:03:48) Spectral Evidence and the Legal Machine<br /> (00:05:53) The Executions Begin<br /> (00:07:46) Giles Corey and the Breaking Point<br /> (00:09:07) The Institutional Reckoning<br /> (00:10:37) The Long Aftermath<br /> <br /> In January 1692, nine-year-old Betty Parris and her eleven-year-old cousin Abigail Williams began convulsing in the household of Reverend Samuel Parris in Salem Village, Massachusetts. A doctor found no physical cause and delivered a verdict that would detonate a colony: they were bewitched.<br /><br />This opening chapter of the Salem witch trials traces the precise mechanism by which a...