00:02:57.958 --> 00:03:00.500
(Sound of wind fades in)

00:03:00.791 --> 00:03:03.833
(Alice’s voice over)

00:03:03.833 --> 00:03:06.833
There is a thousand possible beginnings
for this story,

00:03:07.625 --> 00:03:10.541
which started long before I was born
and will continue after I'm dead.

00:03:12.125 --> 00:03:14.375
But for me, it will always have started

00:03:14.375 --> 00:03:17.250
in the underground library.

00:03:31.166 --> 00:03:33.375
To this day, I don't know for sure

00:03:33.375 --> 00:03:36.125
what caught my eye
and brought me to that particular book.

00:03:37.791 --> 00:03:40.041
It was a small hardcover, dark red,

00:03:40.333 --> 00:03:43.041
a laminated Dewey Decimal Code
sticker peeling

00:03:43.041 --> 00:03:46.416
at the base of the spine.

00:03:53.208 --> 00:03:56.166
The Puritans believed that witchcraft
could be passed down

00:03:56.166 --> 00:03:57.750
through the mother's line.

00:03:57.750 --> 00:04:00.333
But being a witch wasn't
only about bloodlines.

00:04:01.166 --> 00:04:03.583
The potential for witchcraft
might be inherited,

00:04:04.041 --> 00:04:07.083
but the practice of it,
the becoming, was a choice.

00:04:07.875 --> 00:04:10.166
A person made that choice
and became a witch.

00:04:10.583 --> 00:04:13.375
When she signed her name
in what they called the devil's book,

00:04:14.500 --> 00:04:15.416
the devil's book

00:04:15.416 --> 00:04:19.708
is sometimes described as being small, red
and full of power,

00:04:20.250 --> 00:04:22.291
full of dangerous names.

00:04:40.208 --> 00:04:42.458
(Sound from headphones)
Welcome to Revolutionary Left Radio.

00:04:42.750 --> 00:04:44.750
I'm your host and comrade Brett O'Shay.

00:04:45.041 --> 00:04:47.791
Today we have on the wonderful
Silvia Federici,

00:04:47.791 --> 00:04:50.500
author of the monumental work “Caliban
and the Witch”.

00:04:50.875 --> 00:04:53.708
(Radio interview fades away)

00:04:53.791 --> 00:04:56.625
(Street noise and unsettling wind sound)

00:05:17.333 --> 00:05:18.708
The day in the library.

00:05:18.708 --> 00:05:19.791
When I found the red book.

00:05:19.791 --> 00:05:22.791
I made my choice, though
I didn't know it then.

00:05:22.791 --> 00:05:25.166
Or perhaps the choice wasn't made
that day at all.

00:05:26.041 --> 00:05:30.583
Some confessing witches in Salem testified
that a parent could set the child

00:05:30.583 --> 00:05:33.916
upon a path of witchcraft nearly
as soon as the child was born.

00:05:34.875 --> 00:05:37.333
If that's true,
then the choice was made years before,

00:05:38.333 --> 00:05:39.625
quite accidentally,

00:05:39.625 --> 00:05:43.083
my parents gave me the same initials
as Martha rearranged.

00:05:43.666 --> 00:05:46.500
Martha is M A C, and I am A M C.

00:05:47.125 --> 00:05:51.333
We have different beginnings
and different middles but the same end.

00:05:54.083 --> 00:05:56.541
(Atmospheric music fades in)

00:05:56.541 --> 00:05:59.000
Let me tell you a story.

00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:00.458
There was a woman.

00:06:00.458 --> 00:06:02.708
Her name was Martha Allan Carrier.

00:06:03.333 --> 00:06:07.083
When our story starts,
she was about 40 years old.

00:06:07.416 --> 00:06:09.625
She was the mother of five.

00:06:09.625 --> 00:06:13.166
And they lived in a town called Andover
in Massachusetts,

00:06:13.166 --> 00:06:15.416
New England.

00:06:16.208 --> 00:06:18.500
She was a farmer. She and her husband.

00:06:18.833 --> 00:06:23.333
They grew rye and nightshades,
pumpkins and squash.

00:06:24.166 --> 00:06:25.958
They were not rich.

00:06:25.958 --> 00:06:30.416
They were happy for a while.

00:06:30.541 --> 00:06:34.583
In 1692, Martha was arrested

00:06:34.583 --> 00:06:37.125
by the authorities of a nearby town.

00:06:37.916 --> 00:06:39.666
She was put in jail.

00:06:39.666 --> 00:06:42.041
Four out of her five children, all except

00:06:42.041 --> 00:06:44.583
the two year old, were arrested
and brought to jail.

00:06:45.291 --> 00:06:50.250
Her two oldest sons, a 16 year old
and an 18 year old, were tortured.

00:06:51.083 --> 00:06:53.791
And then she was hanged from a tree

00:06:54.166 --> 00:06:57.750
on a hill at the edge of town.

00:07:02.458 --> 00:07:04.750
My name is Alice Markham-Cantor.

00:07:04.750 --> 00:07:07.375
I've been researching Martha for the past

00:07:07.791 --> 00:07:09.500
ten years now.

00:07:11.125 --> 00:07:13.833
She's also my 11 times great grandmother.

00:07:14.541 --> 00:07:17.125
I'm descended from her second son,
Andrew Carrier,

00:07:17.500 --> 00:07:20.375
one of the two who was tortured
for witchcraft.

00:07:29.833 --> 00:07:33.083
The Salem Witch Trials.

00:07:33.083 --> 00:07:35.750
“You are there”.

00:07:37.458 --> 00:07:39.458
Walter Cronkite reporting. August 1692.

00:07:40.625 --> 00:07:42.208
A formidable story of fear

00:07:42.208 --> 00:07:45.625
has been seething in the little
Massachusetts colony village of Salem.

00:07:45.625 --> 00:07:47.083
Since Spring, several villagers

00:07:47.083 --> 00:07:49.041
there have faced trial for witchcraft.

00:07:49.250 --> 00:07:50.708
Hangings have occurred,

00:07:50.708 --> 00:07:54.625
convictions multiply and the atmosphere
of suspicion and terror deepens.

00:07:54.625 --> 00:07:58.708
But while scenes of confusion
sometimes occur in Salem Meeting Hall,

00:07:58.708 --> 00:08:00.166
where the trials are being held,

00:08:00.166 --> 00:08:02.708
the court must often be dismissed
to restore order.

00:08:03.041 --> 00:08:06.791
The accusations have all been made
by a group of girls ranging in age

00:08:06.791 --> 00:08:10.166
from 9 to 20 who claim to be tormented
and tempted

00:08:10.166 --> 00:08:13.708
by certain people and they cry out on them
as witches or wizards.

00:08:13.708 --> 00:08:16.666
England, the mother country has burned
20,000 witches.

00:08:16.666 --> 00:08:19.583
Spain 25,000. France 30,000.

00:08:19.583 --> 00:08:24.375
Not in Germany, no less than 75,000
souls have been burned alive

00:08:24.375 --> 00:08:26.041
for commerce with the devil.

00:08:26.041 --> 00:08:29.083
Nobody can
guess how far it will go in the new world

00:08:29.083 --> 00:08:30.833
while everybody stands in growing

00:08:30.833 --> 00:08:34.708
fear of the pointing fingers and
the outcries of the afflicted children.

00:08:34.708 --> 00:08:38.333
For a firsthand report of the trials, we
take you to Salem, Massachusetts colony.

00:08:38.333 --> 00:08:41.666
All things are as they were then,
except you are there.

00:08:47.958 --> 00:08:55.250
(Sound of waves crashing on rocks)

00:09:06.458 --> 00:09:12.750
(wind)

00:09:27.083 --> 00:09:28.708
Every place has its ghost stories,

00:09:28.708 --> 00:09:30.208
but everybody knows Salem’s.

00:09:31.666 --> 00:09:33.166
In 1692,

00:09:33.166 --> 00:09:36.166
more than 150 people were accused
of witchcraft.

00:09:36.166 --> 00:09:38.041
19 of these were hanged.

00:09:38.041 --> 00:09:39.833
Five more died in prison.

00:09:40.541 --> 00:09:44.125
We’ve told this story over and over
and over again

00:09:44.125 --> 00:09:47.625
in the United States for the past 327 years.

00:09:53.916 --> 00:09:55.458
So Salem starts

00:09:55.458 --> 00:09:59.250
when a 8 year old and 11 year old girls,
cousins,

00:10:00.125 --> 00:10:02.916
the daughter of the minister and his niece

00:10:02.916 --> 00:10:05.791
in Salem Village, begin to have fits.

00:10:05.791 --> 00:10:11.333
They contort and scream
and go catatonic for long periods of time.

00:10:11.333 --> 00:10:14.083
The doctor can’t
figure out what’s happening.

00:10:14.083 --> 00:10:17.750
He diagnoses
the girls as being under an evil hand.

00:10:19.166 --> 00:10:21.041
The minister asks them,
where are the witches?

00:10:21.041 --> 00:10:22.916
They don’t know.They don’t answer.

00:10:22.916 --> 00:10:28.250
But after a neighbor intervenes
with some Puritan folk magic,

00:10:28.250 --> 00:10:33.208
the curse seems to be lifted enough that
the girls can see who is bewitching them.

00:10:34.583 --> 00:10:36.750
They name three women as witches.

00:10:36.750 --> 00:10:40.625
Sarah Good, a local homeless
woman had begged at the parsonage.

00:10:40.625 --> 00:10:45.000
Sarah Osborne, a woman who was known
for having married her indentured servant

00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:46.958
and hadn’t been to church in years.

00:10:46.958 --> 00:10:52.166
And a woman named Tituba,
who was the slave of the minister,

00:10:52.166 --> 00:10:54.291
and probably from Barbados.

00:10:55.583 --> 00:10:58.625
Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne,
they both plead innocent.

00:10:58.625 --> 00:11:00.458
They say, I’ve never been a witch.

00:11:00.458 --> 00:11:02.750
I know nothing of witchcraft.
I know nothing of the devil.

00:11:02.750 --> 00:11:05.041
What the hell are you talking about?

00:11:06.375 --> 00:11:08.250
Tituba starts the same way.

00:11:08.250 --> 00:11:09.875
She starts by saying:

00:11:09.875 --> 00:11:12.416
I don’t know the devil.
I don’t I’m not a witch.

00:11:12.416 --> 00:11:14.125
I don´t know any of this.

00:11:14.125 --> 00:11:15.833
But then something changes.

00:11:15.833 --> 00:11:18.000
Everything changes on a dime and she says,

00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.166
the devil came to me
and made me serve him.

00:11:23.666 --> 00:11:25.375
(wind)

00:11:26.208 --> 00:11:30.500
It was a moment in her confession
when she said that

00:11:30.958 --> 00:11:33.375
when the devil brought her his book,

00:11:33.750 --> 00:11:36.750
she saw nine other names.

00:11:37.041 --> 00:11:39.083
Two of them, she said she recognized

00:11:39.083 --> 00:11:41.541
they were the signatures of Sarah
Good and Sarah Osborn.

00:11:41.791 --> 00:11:44.041
But the other seven, she didn’t know.

00:11:45.416 --> 00:11:47.750
Seven unidentified witches in Salem

00:11:48.791 --> 00:11:52.375
was about the most terrifying thing
the Puritans could have imagined.

00:11:53.041 --> 00:11:56.125
This is putting their souls at risk,
as well as being

00:11:56.125 --> 00:11:59.333
agents of the devil
in their hometown, hiding.

00:11:59.916 --> 00:12:01.166
Could be anyone.

00:12:01.166 --> 00:12:03.625
Your neighbor, your sister,

00:12:03.625 --> 00:12:04.791
your wife.

00:12:11.458 --> 00:12:14.541
That’s sort of how it starts.

00:12:15.166 --> 00:12:17.750
But there’s still a lot of

00:12:18.583 --> 00:12:21.000
questions and there always will be

00:12:21.750 --> 00:12:24.791
about how this happened, why it happened,

00:12:25.375 --> 00:12:27.750
and who made it happen.

00:12:38.583 --> 00:12:40.500
(Radio played from the computer)

00:12:41.500 --> 00:12:43.583
Welcome to Revolutionary Left Radio.

00:12:43.833 --> 00:12:45.875
I’m your host and comrade Brett O’Shay.

00:12:46.125 --> 00:12:48.875
Today we have
on the wonderful Silvia Federici,

00:12:48.875 --> 00:12:51.583
author of the monumental work “Caliban
and the Witch”.

00:12:51.958 --> 00:12:52.375
All right.

00:12:52.375 --> 00:12:53.750
So let’s just go ahead and dive in.

00:12:53.750 --> 00:12:56.708
So to begin,
what can you please summarize Karl Marx’s,

00:12:57.000 --> 00:12:59.833
his basic ideas about primitive
accumulation?

00:12:59.833 --> 00:13:01.166
Well, as you know

00:13:01.416 --> 00:13:06.291
what I came to understand
is that Marx´s interpretation

00:13:06.750 --> 00:13:11.666
of the origin and development
of capitalism it’s only part of the story.

00:13:12.083 --> 00:13:13.708
You know, what happens to women?

00:13:13.708 --> 00:13:15.833
What happens to reproductive activity?

00:13:16.083 --> 00:13:19.000
I always encounter this amazing

00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:22.041
phenomenon that was the Great Witch Hunts,

00:13:22.500 --> 00:13:27.416
which was a massive persecution of women
accused of being witches.

00:13:27.916 --> 00:13:31.583
So when I encountered this History
which you don´t find in Marx,

00:13:32.458 --> 00:13:35.083
I began to question...”
(Silvia turns radio interview off)

00:13:35.083 --> 00:13:36.333
Okay.

00:13:36.708 --> 00:13:38.750
All right.

00:13:43.125 --> 00:13:45.875
Yeah, I worked on it
many, many, many years.

00:13:47.333 --> 00:13:49.583
For me, it was painful to write it.

00:13:49.958 --> 00:13:52.750
Yeah, it was very, very painful. Yeah.

00:13:53.291 --> 00:13:56.250
And, yeah, many times

00:13:56.250 --> 00:13:59.208
I couldn’t sit down at night.

00:13:59.625 --> 00:14:01.541
I got very agitated.

00:14:01.541 --> 00:14:05.000
I can still see myself walking up and down
with the book in my hand

00:14:05.666 --> 00:14:08.000
because I got very agitated.

00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:10.125
When you read these things
and you are alone,

00:14:10.916 --> 00:14:15.000
you don’t know what to do with it.
You don’t know what to do with that.

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:17.416
With… Yeah.

00:14:17.416 --> 00:14:21.000
And the descriptions,
because what I put in the book

00:14:21.833 --> 00:14:25.958
is not even, in terms
of description of torture,

00:14:25.958 --> 00:14:28.166
it’s not even a tenth

00:14:29.208 --> 00:14:31.791
of what I was reading.

00:14:31.916 --> 00:14:34.458
And so

00:14:35.333 --> 00:14:38.791
You don’t want to keep reading.

00:14:38.791 --> 00:14:41.333
And then you’re saying,
no, I have to keep reading.

00:14:41.333 --> 00:14:45.791
I felt almost like I was betraying the
people who had been tortured if I stopped.

00:14:46.541 --> 00:14:48.916
“Oh, I cannot take it”.

00:14:49.166 --> 00:14:49.875
What?

00:14:50.083 --> 00:14:51.666
I cannot take reading it?.

00:14:51.666 --> 00:14:53.458
And this guy went through the torture.

00:14:53.458 --> 00:14:55.541
Many died under torture.

00:14:55.541 --> 00:15:00.166
(ominous music fades in)

00:15:37.875 --> 00:15:39.291
This thing here.

00:15:39.291 --> 00:15:41.833
This thing here has a tongue

00:15:42.333 --> 00:15:48.416
that goes inside the mouth and has a nail
that if the tongue moves

00:15:49.291 --> 00:15:51.625
it tears the tongue.

00:15:52.166 --> 00:15:55.541
That’s why you cannot talk,
because, in fact, this

00:15:57.291 --> 00:15:59.458
there’s a tongue that goes inside

00:15:59.458 --> 00:16:05.541
and keeps your tongue down,
and if you move it breaks it.

00:16:05.541 --> 00:16:07.708
And then they took them like this.

00:16:07.708 --> 00:16:09.333
They took them around the village.

00:16:09.333 --> 00:16:11.750
Yeah, they´d put it in all of us,
we would have had it.

00:16:12.291 --> 00:16:14.416
I know. I would have had it.

00:16:18.125 --> 00:16:22.375
Like you had the persecution of the Jews
by the Nazi,

00:16:22.375 --> 00:16:27.250
the persecution of the Armenians
by the Turkish government.

00:16:27.250 --> 00:16:32.833
This was a persecution
that was mostly directed against women.

00:16:32.833 --> 00:16:36.916
And this persecution
lasted three centuries.

00:16:37.458 --> 00:16:42.208
And the peak was in the 16th
and the 17th century.

00:16:42.750 --> 00:16:46.041
So it was a whole
big institutional operation.

00:16:50.916 --> 00:16:54.666
Can you imagine to be alone in a dungeon,

00:16:54.666 --> 00:16:57.958
naked, surrounded by men and knowing,

00:16:57.958 --> 00:17:01.333
knowing that the way out is to be burned alive?

00:17:02.083 --> 00:17:04.250
Do you imagine the level of desperation.

00:17:04.250 --> 00:17:07.416
Do you imagine
what went into the head of those women?

00:17:08.833 --> 00:17:12.125
These are our grandmothers.

00:17:13.458 --> 00:17:15.750
And now nobody? is it gone?

00:17:15.750 --> 00:17:22.333
No!

00:17:22.333 --> 00:17:27.250
(music increases intensity with percussion)

00:17:41.583 --> 00:17:42.875
(Outgoing call ringtone)

00:17:42.875 --> 00:17:44.083
Salem Witch Museum?

00:17:44.083 --> 00:17:46.208
(Alice’s voice)
I’m doing research on the Salem

00:17:46.208 --> 00:17:48.833
Witch Trials and I’ll
be visiting Salem tomorrow.

00:17:49.333 --> 00:17:52.208
I was wondering
if you have any primary source

00:17:52.208 --> 00:17:53.916
materials at the Salem Witch Museum.

00:17:53.916 --> 00:17:55.791
(Salem Witch Museum)
We have things, um, for...

00:17:55.791 --> 00:17:58.000
...different,
you know, teachers and things like that.

00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:00.291
Yeah, we have that in our books
section.

00:18:00.291 --> 00:18:01.875
(Alice)
Great.Thanks very much.

00:18:19.375 --> 00:18:22.375
I am getting to know this turn very well.

00:18:24.291 --> 00:18:26.166
(Music ends)

00:18:26.166 --> 00:18:28.791
(Wind sound)

00:18:30.291 --> 00:18:32.041
(Alice’s voice over)
Dear Martha,

00:18:32.041 --> 00:18:34.750
in early October, my friend texted me,

00:18:34.750 --> 00:18:37.333
“I’m going to be a sexy witch for Halloween”.

00:18:37.333 --> 00:18:41.583
And I was like, “Is this very unethical?”
I started to text her back,

00:18:42.041 --> 00:18:44.291
but it’s more complicated
than a yes or a no.

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:46.166
Of course it is.

00:18:46.166 --> 00:18:48.833
The witch has never been
a simple creature.

00:18:48.833 --> 00:18:52.500
She is a cultural archetype,
a historical figure or current corpse.

00:18:53.291 --> 00:18:56.666
She is a fictional character
and the excuse for the torture of hundreds

00:18:56.666 --> 00:18:58.291
of thousands of people.

00:18:58.291 --> 00:19:02.083
She is the ultimate scapegoat and
a feminist lightning rod of resistance.

00:19:02.791 --> 00:19:06.208
And, you know, also
one of the most popular costumes

00:19:06.208 --> 00:19:10.791
in a Halloween market in which Americans
are projected to spend $8.8 billion

00:19:10.791 --> 00:19:12.416
this year alone.

00:19:19.458 --> 00:19:29.208
(festive crowd sounds)

00:20:24.750 --> 00:20:27.708
I’m sitting across the street from where
the Salem Village meeting house

00:20:27.708 --> 00:20:32.375
used to stand where the trials began,
where the preliminary hearings took place.

00:20:32.875 --> 00:20:34.791
There’s a memorial here now.

00:20:34.791 --> 00:20:37.208
They list your names,
the words of the dead.

00:20:37.208 --> 00:20:40.250
They pay special attention to the men
of course.

00:20:40.250 --> 00:20:41.833
They call it a hysteria.

00:20:41.833 --> 00:20:43.583
It wasn’t a hysteria.

00:20:43.583 --> 00:20:46.458
You know all this.
But it still has to be said.

00:20:46.458 --> 00:20:48.541
The story has to be told again.

00:20:54.666 --> 00:20:57.208
(Water running)

00:21:15.791 --> 00:21:22.958
(scattered percussion sounds made with broom sticks)

00:21:44.166 --> 00:21:51.750
(percussion sounds gain intensity)

00:22:13.541 --> 00:22:15.833
(music ends)

00:22:15.833 --> 00:22:16.791
Okay.

00:22:16.791 --> 00:22:19.291
This is going to get a little messy.

00:22:20.708 --> 00:22:23.541
(Vivaldi Summer violin music)

00:22:26.041 --> 00:22:30.125
In 1688, what is now known as King William’s
War starts up

00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:34.833
with the British on one side

00:22:34.833 --> 00:22:38.750
and the Quebec based French
and the Wabanaki Confederacy, an alliance

00:22:38.750 --> 00:22:42.500
primarily of four Algonquian nations
in the Northeast on the other.

00:22:44.583 --> 00:22:47.041
Salem isn’t near the front,

00:22:47.041 --> 00:22:49.250
but they’re still scared of Native
American attacks,

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.291
in particular because they thought
that Native Americans were the devil’s servants.

00:22:54.291 --> 00:22:55.500
“How else”, they thought,

00:22:55.500 --> 00:22:58.291
“could these people appear
and disappear in the woods so easily?

00:22:58.291 --> 00:23:00.166
That must be evil witchcraft”

00:23:00.166 --> 00:23:03.541
So they thought they were fighting
a holy war long before the trials began.

00:23:14.708 --> 00:23:15.958
In 1689,

00:23:15.958 --> 00:23:19.625
a year after the war starts, King James
the Second is overthrown in England.

00:23:20.250 --> 00:23:23.250
The Puritan clergy in Massachusetts,
along with a citizens

00:23:23.250 --> 00:23:26.416
militia, takes the opportunity
to overthrow the governor

00:23:26.416 --> 00:23:29.125
of Massachusetts, Edmund Andrews.

00:23:30.708 --> 00:23:34.791
Technically, nobody is in charge
of Massachusetts colony under English law,

00:23:35.250 --> 00:23:39.250
and it's in this period before the King
answers that the Salem Witch Trials begin.

00:23:48.708 --> 00:23:51.041
The trials
start in a place called Salem Village.

00:23:51.500 --> 00:23:53.708
It is an autonomous parish of Salem Town,

00:23:53.916 --> 00:23:57.500
which means they pay taxes to Salem Town,
but they can hire their own minister.

00:23:58.208 --> 00:24:01.250
The Salem villagers are split
about how they feel about this.

00:24:01.916 --> 00:24:02.541
There’s a faction

00:24:02.541 --> 00:24:05.583
that wants to stay a part of Salem
Town, actually, and in general,

00:24:05.875 --> 00:24:09.416
these are the businessmen.
And there's another faction that doesn't.

00:24:09.625 --> 00:24:12.791
They think it's just an insult,
that they're paying taxes to people

00:24:12.791 --> 00:24:15.625
who don't care about them,
who don't want to know what they think.

00:24:24.791 --> 00:24:27.083
These factions polarize even more

00:24:27.083 --> 00:24:30.291
when a man named Samuel
Parris comes to Salem Village.

00:24:34.666 --> 00:24:38.250
He comes to Massachusetts from running
a sugar plantation in Barbados

00:24:38.583 --> 00:24:40.833
and becomes the Salem Village minister.

00:24:42.375 --> 00:24:44.083
He’s not well-liked,

00:24:44.083 --> 00:24:47.458
but he ends up becoming a sort of rallying
point where the people

00:24:47.458 --> 00:24:50.583
who want village independence are like
“this is going to be our minister

00:24:50.583 --> 00:24:54.125
and we’re going to be
separate from Salem Town”.

00:24:58.791 --> 00:25:00.791
The pro-Parris network is led by a man

00:25:00.791 --> 00:25:03.208
named Thomas Putnam Junior.

00:25:14.333 --> 00:25:16.875
He testifies
personally against almost 20 people.

00:25:17.625 --> 00:25:20.708
He transcribes a full third
of the depositions and complaints,

00:25:20.708 --> 00:25:25.250
accusing people, including the first
and last complaints in the trials.

00:25:26.458 --> 00:25:29.541
And there's even recorded moments of him
and his wife instructing

00:25:29.791 --> 00:25:32.291
afflicted girls what to say before trial.

00:25:46.208 --> 00:25:50.458
So if you were convicted of witchcraft in Salem,
your property could potentially

00:25:50.458 --> 00:25:53.208
be confiscated by the state
and a loss for your family.

00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:59.000
But even when property wasn’t seized,
a lot of accusations follow a pattern.

00:26:11.583 --> 00:26:14.750
And it’s just really going
to not be any coincidence at all

00:26:14.750 --> 00:26:17.125
that many of the people
who were accused in the Salem witch

00:26:17.125 --> 00:26:20.458
trials are the faction
that are anti Samuel Parris

00:26:20.458 --> 00:26:22.375
and anti village independence.

00:26:30.500 --> 00:26:32.333
It was not hysteria,

00:26:33.500 --> 00:26:36.458
it wasn’t like they all went mad.

00:26:36.458 --> 00:26:38.125
They were perfectly in their right mind

00:26:38.125 --> 00:26:40.541
when they hanged 19 people for witchcraft,

00:26:42.416 --> 00:26:44.166
it was straight of a power grab.

00:26:48.125 --> 00:26:50.333
(music ends)

00:26:56.541 --> 00:26:59.000
I didn’t grow up
knowing about any of this.

00:26:59.333 --> 00:27:01.958
I did not grow up
knowing about Martha Carrier.

00:27:01.958 --> 00:27:05.791
Nobody told me we had a witch
in the family because nobody knew.

00:27:05.791 --> 00:27:08.208
When I was 13,

00:27:08.875 --> 00:27:13.250
my uncle did some
genealogy research and sent us

00:27:14.333 --> 00:27:18.500
a very casual email saying: “Oh yeah,
here’s this woman,

00:27:18.500 --> 00:27:19.416
we’re related to her.

00:27:19.416 --> 00:27:22.583
She was hanged in the Salem Witch Trials”.
We all got really excited.

00:27:23.375 --> 00:27:26.916
48 hours later, we just sort of

00:27:26.916 --> 00:27:27.583
forgot.

00:27:27.958 --> 00:27:29.541
(suttle wind sound)

00:27:29.541 --> 00:27:34.666
About a year after that, I was
in a library.

00:27:34.666 --> 00:27:38.375
I was visiting my brother at college,
and I was wandering

00:27:38.375 --> 00:27:41.916
through the stacks on my own.

00:27:41.916 --> 00:27:43.625
And I have no idea

00:27:43.625 --> 00:27:47.041
why this book caught my eye,

00:27:47.041 --> 00:27:49.791
but I saw a red book on a shelf
this little red book,

00:27:50.875 --> 00:27:52.458
and I pulled it out

00:27:52.750 --> 00:27:54.250
and I opened it

00:27:54.833 --> 00:27:57.958
and I saw her name on a page
and I knew it.

00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:03.750
Something changed for me.

00:28:03.750 --> 00:28:08.625
I couldn't let the story go anymore.

00:28:13.250 --> 00:28:14.833
All the people we see here are being held

00:28:14.833 --> 00:28:18.333
for trial as witches or have already faced
the court and are condemned to hang.

00:28:18.750 --> 00:28:21.333
Madam, would it be a mess
if we had a few words with you?

00:28:22.791 --> 00:28:25.250
Are you
one of those charged with witchcraft?

00:28:25.250 --> 00:28:27.125
I’m condemned to death for it.

00:28:27.125 --> 00:28:28.750
I'm sorry.

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:30.625
Thank you sir, but regret is not enough.

00:28:30.625 --> 00:28:33.291
I know…
Grief is not enough.

00:28:34.375 --> 00:28:37.291
The apologies
and the redress that come after

00:28:37.291 --> 00:28:41.041
the innocent have been long gone
with the grave, and we’re all too late..

00:28:41.166 --> 00:28:43.416
Except to instruct the future to be wiser.

00:28:44.625 --> 00:28:45.541
Yes.

00:28:45.666 --> 00:28:46.791
(somber piano music)

00:28:46.791 --> 00:28:47.291
Of course,

00:28:47.291 --> 00:28:50.333
the three women who were first accused
all represent

00:28:50.916 --> 00:28:54.083
the most vulnerable sectors of society.

00:28:54.083 --> 00:28:56.500
An impoverished woman who was homeless.

00:28:56.500 --> 00:29:00.541
A woman who has shown
that she is a sexual being.

00:29:01.250 --> 00:29:04.666
And then a woman who is a woman of color
and is enslaved.

00:29:06.250 --> 00:29:10.833
But it quite quickly moves on
to accusing people who are much more

00:29:10.833 --> 00:29:13.458
established in the community, who are

00:29:13.833 --> 00:29:15.583
much more respected.

00:29:23.291 --> 00:29:25.500
Part of what makes Salem
stick in our imagination

00:29:25.500 --> 00:29:30.416
is this idea of hysteria
and spectral evidence.

00:29:31.250 --> 00:29:34.500
This is the idea that you can
look at your neighbor and say,

00:29:34.500 --> 00:29:37.833
I see a yellow bird flying to her,
I see her talking to it

00:29:37.833 --> 00:29:39.416
and feeding it at her breast.

00:29:39.416 --> 00:29:42.083
And your neighbor
could be killed for that.

00:29:49.666 --> 00:29:53.333
But what makes Salem weird is not
that people got killed for witchcraft,

00:29:53.583 --> 00:29:56.416
that had been happening
in Europe for 250 years.

00:29:56.916 --> 00:30:00.250
What is weird about Salem
is that if you’re accused of witchcraft,

00:30:00.250 --> 00:30:03.083
you can survive if you confess

00:30:03.500 --> 00:30:05.458
and give the names of other witches.

00:30:11.125 --> 00:30:13.208
She lies in her witches teeth
and she knows it.

00:30:13.750 --> 00:30:15.375
She is a witch.

00:30:15.458 --> 00:30:16.375
She is one of us.

00:30:17.500 --> 00:30:19.500
There you see a true confessed witched.

00:30:19.500 --> 00:30:21.791
She made me a witch.

00:30:21.791 --> 00:30:27.375
We went together to the witches meeting
in the reverend Parris’ pasture.

00:30:27.375 --> 00:30:31.583
The devil himself
told me he picked her to be his queen.

00:30:32.250 --> 00:30:34.041
She murdered 13 people.

00:30:36.750 --> 00:30:38.666
(Alice’s voice)
Why was she accused?

00:30:38.666 --> 00:30:40.791
Why didn't she confess?

00:30:40.791 --> 00:30:44.250
Over 150 people were accused of witchcraft
in Salem.

00:30:44.500 --> 00:30:47.000
Over 50 confessed
to witchcraft and survived.

00:30:47.458 --> 00:30:51.000
Only 19 refused to confess
and were hanged as a result.

00:30:51.750 --> 00:30:53.250
Why was she one of them?

00:31:16.916 --> 00:31:19.000
(Alice reading names)
Bridget Bishop.

00:31:19.916 --> 00:31:21.375
Sarah Good.

00:31:23.291 --> 00:31:24.625
Elizabeth Howe.

00:31:26.583 --> 00:31:28.000
Susannah Martin.

00:31:29.375 --> 00:31:30.750
Rebecca Nurse.

00:31:31.875 --> 00:31:33.000
George Burroughs.

00:31:37.875 --> 00:31:38.958
Martha Carrier.

00:31:50.083 --> 00:31:52.416
What else is a woman
but a foe to friendship?

00:31:52.416 --> 00:31:54.541
An inescapable punishment,

00:31:54.541 --> 00:31:56.083
a necessary evil,

00:31:56.083 --> 00:31:57.875
a natural temptation,

00:31:57.875 --> 00:31:59.625
a desirable calamity,

00:31:59.625 --> 00:32:01.291
a domestic danger,

00:32:01.291 --> 00:32:03.000
a delectable detriment,

00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:04.333
an evil of nature

00:32:04.333 --> 00:32:05.916
painted with fair colors.

00:33:11.958 --> 00:33:14.791
Woman is a wheedling and secret enemy.

00:33:16.583 --> 00:33:17.791
When a woman weeps,

00:33:17.791 --> 00:33:19.250
she weaves snares.

00:33:20.708 --> 00:33:22.333
They have slippery tongues.

00:33:23.458 --> 00:33:25.541
She is a liar by nature.

00:33:27.958 --> 00:33:31.708
The crimes of witches
then exceed the sins of all others.

00:33:33.208 --> 00:33:35.041
And we now declare what punishment

00:33:35.041 --> 00:33:37.666
they deserve.

00:33:39.458 --> 00:33:41.666
Excommunication.

00:33:41.916 --> 00:33:43.333
Deposition.

00:33:44.041 --> 00:33:46.583
Confiscation of their goods and death.

00:33:53.291 --> 00:33:55.833
(wind sounds)

00:34:12.833 --> 00:34:15.375
The iconography of the witch hunts

00:34:15.875 --> 00:34:20.833
is an iconography that was slowly built
through the Middle Ages

00:34:21.333 --> 00:34:25.500
by the Church over pagan rituals

00:34:25.958 --> 00:34:32.041
pagan stories coming from the Roman world,
as well as the Germanic world,

00:34:32.375 --> 00:34:35.208
and, of course, the pagan cults,

00:34:35.791 --> 00:34:39.666
people who had all these practices
believing in magic.

00:34:39.666 --> 00:34:41.416
Magic means “knowledge”.

00:34:41.416 --> 00:34:44.625
So all of that goes into forming this image,

00:34:44.625 --> 00:34:48.125
this horrendous creature.

00:34:48.125 --> 00:34:51.583
And as we know,
as we have seen from recent History,

00:34:52.125 --> 00:34:55.916
you know, the History of Nazism
and the Jews persecution,

00:34:56.166 --> 00:35:01.083
we see that if you repeat those images
and if you begin arresting people

00:35:01.083 --> 00:35:04.833
and then you accuse them, slowly
people accept

00:35:05.583 --> 00:35:10.083
that this reality exists
and they don’t ask where they come from

00:35:11.166 --> 00:35:13.458
or how they have been produced.

00:35:13.458 --> 00:35:15.708
They don’t go into the History.

00:35:24.041 --> 00:35:27.250
But, you know, the concept of which,
I mean, that it’s complicated.

00:35:27.250 --> 00:35:30.500
It is like, you know, a black
using black, right?

00:35:30.500 --> 00:35:34.083
It’s always being used
in a derogatory way,

00:35:34.541 --> 00:35:38.500
and then people recuperate it
as a symbol of struggle.

00:35:38.875 --> 00:35:43.208
And I think that the challenge
is to recuperate that

00:35:43.208 --> 00:35:47.166
without hiding the story,
without hiding the History.

00:35:48.125 --> 00:35:52.541
Because to me, in between, there’s
also the History of these women

00:35:52.541 --> 00:35:56.416
who said, I’m not a witch please, I’m
not a witch, because if I say I’m

00:35:56.416 --> 00:35:59.166
a witch I’m going to be burned alive.

00:36:12.875 --> 00:36:17.250
So a number of of us,
beginning with Spain,

00:36:17.250 --> 00:36:22.666
have begun to reclaim
the history of the witches from below.

00:36:23.750 --> 00:36:26.375
We don’t trust what is being written

00:36:26.375 --> 00:36:30.791
from the academic world, which is always
written from the objective point of view.

00:36:30.791 --> 00:36:34.958
And we need to go to the archives,
read the documents, understand

00:36:34.958 --> 00:36:38.625
who were these women,
what they were actually accused of,

00:36:38.625 --> 00:36:41.708
how the persecution has come down to us.

00:36:42.500 --> 00:36:44.958
To say: let’s not forget these women.

00:36:46.375 --> 00:36:49.458
Let’s not forget what they did to them.

00:36:49.458 --> 00:36:51.666
And, you know,

00:36:51.666 --> 00:36:54.958
we are there, they are there,
but we are there, we can speak for them.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:56.583
We can speak for them.

00:36:56.583 --> 00:37:00.083
We can hear them screaming.

00:37:00.083 --> 00:37:02.500
We can hear them and we can talk for them.

00:37:04.250 --> 00:37:08.000
There is a solidarity that we can’t erase it.

00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:11.916
We can’t erase it.

00:37:15.541 --> 00:37:17.500
(Alice reading)

00:37:17.500 --> 00:37:19.458
The examination of Martha Carrier

00:37:19.458 --> 00:37:21.458
31st of May 1692.

00:37:31.166 --> 00:37:32.916
Abigail Williams, who hurts you?

00:37:32.916 --> 00:37:35.125
Goody Carrier of Andover.

00:37:35.125 --> 00:37:37.000
Elizabeth Hubbard who hurts you?

00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:37.875
Goody Carrier.

00:37:37.875 --> 00:37:41.500
Suzanna Sheldon, who hurts? Goody Carrier.

00:37:41.500 --> 00:37:44.333
She bites me, pinches
me and tells me she would cut my throat

00:37:44.333 --> 00:37:46.041
if I did not sign her book.

00:37:49.791 --> 00:37:51.458
What do you say to
this you are charged with?

00:37:52.458 --> 00:37:54.583
I have not done it.

00:37:56.166 --> 00:37:58.083
There’s a black man whispering in her ear.

00:37:58.083 --> 00:38:00.333
Say many of the afflicted.

00:38:00.333 --> 00:38:02.041
What black men did you see?

00:38:02.041 --> 00:38:04.625
I saw no black man but your own presence.

00:38:05.041 --> 00:38:07.333
Can you look upon these
and not knock them down?

00:38:09.125 --> 00:38:11.375
They will scatter if I look upon them.

00:38:13.333 --> 00:38:15.583
It is false. The devil is a liar.

00:38:16.625 --> 00:38:19.750
I have looked upon none
since I came into the room but you.

00:38:24.458 --> 00:38:27.375
It is a shameful thing
that you should mind these folks

00:38:27.375 --> 00:38:29.083
that are out of their wits.

00:38:37.625 --> 00:38:40.000
If I do speak, you will not believe me.

00:38:56.791 --> 00:38:59.000
Dear Martha, they said you taught

00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:02.791
women to fly on broomsticks and thought
you would be the Queen of Hell.

00:39:02.791 --> 00:39:04.750
Those are the stories they told.

00:39:04.750 --> 00:39:07.625
And this is the story they didn’t tell,
but that everyone knew:

00:39:08.500 --> 00:39:10.375
you were pregnant
before you were married.

00:39:10.500 --> 00:39:14.375
And when you did marry,
it was to a foreigner with a shady past.

00:39:14.375 --> 00:39:18.250
And you were acerbic and assertive
and you had the bad luck of moving back

00:39:18.250 --> 00:39:21.666
into your parents house just a few months
before they died of smallpox.

00:39:22.208 --> 00:39:25.750
Your father died, your mother died,
and both your younger brothers died.

00:39:25.750 --> 00:39:27.458
And you got the farm.

00:39:27.458 --> 00:39:29.958
They said you returned
and brought the fire with you.

00:39:49.458 --> 00:39:51.958
(door closing)

00:40:15.875 --> 00:40:19.375
(forest sounds)

00:40:19.916 --> 00:40:22.458
(insects buzzing)

00:40:28.208 --> 00:40:31.666
(dogs barking from afar)

00:40:31.666 --> 00:40:35.083
(crow cawing)

00:41:08.875 --> 00:41:11.250
(Alice reading)

00:41:11.250 --> 00:41:15.541
The trial of Martha Carrier at the Court
of Oyer and Terminer,

00:41:15.541 --> 00:41:19.541
held at Salem on August 2nd 1692.

00:41:21.250 --> 00:41:24.291
Martha Carrier was indicted
for the bewitching of certain persons,

00:41:24.791 --> 00:41:27.333
according to the form usual in such cases,

00:41:27.333 --> 00:41:30.500
pleading not guilty to her indictment.

00:41:30.500 --> 00:41:34.125
They were first brought in
a considerable number of bewitched persons

00:41:34.125 --> 00:41:37.000
who not only made the court
sensible of a horrid witchcraft

00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:40.750
committed upon them,
but also deposed that it was Martha Carrier,

00:41:40.750 --> 00:41:43.333
or her shape,
that grievously tormented them

00:41:43.333 --> 00:41:46.666
by biting, pricking, pinching and choking them.

00:41:46.666 --> 00:41:48.375
The poor people were so tortured

00:41:48.375 --> 00:41:50.916
that everyone expected their death upon
the very spot.

00:41:52.291 --> 00:41:54.708
Benjamin Abbott gave his testimony.

00:41:54.708 --> 00:41:56.625
Sarah Abbot also testified.

00:41:56.625 --> 00:41:58.958
Alan Baker testified.

00:41:58.958 --> 00:42:00.833
John Roger also testified.

00:42:01.500 --> 00:42:03.166
Samuel Preston testified.

00:42:03.166 --> 00:42:04.791
Phoebe Chandler testified.

00:42:04.791 --> 00:42:06.458
Mary Lacy testified.

00:42:06.458 --> 00:42:10.500
One, Ann Foster, who confessed her own
share in the witchcraft of which

00:42:10.500 --> 00:42:12.250
the prisoner stood indicted,

00:42:12.250 --> 00:42:15.625
affirms that she had seen the prisoner
at some of their witch meetings

00:42:15.625 --> 00:42:18.541
and that it was Miss Carrier
who persuaded her to be a witch.

00:42:19.833 --> 00:42:20.833
Memorandum:

00:42:21.750 --> 00:42:24.041
This rampant hag, Martha Carrier,

00:42:24.541 --> 00:42:28.583
was the person of whom the confessions
of the witches and of her own children

00:42:28.583 --> 00:42:31.291
among the rest agreed,
that the Devil had promised her

00:42:31.750 --> 00:42:33.375
she should be Queen of Hell.

00:43:11.041 --> 00:43:18.208
(soft piano music)

00:44:21.833 --> 00:44:24.458
(Alice’s father from home video)

00:44:24.458 --> 00:44:26.500
It is August.

00:44:26.500 --> 00:44:28.916
14th maybe?
What is the next day?

00:44:28.916 --> 00:44:30.333
Anyone knows?

00:44:31.125 --> 00:44:35.041
August 15th, 2004,

00:44:35.041 --> 00:44:38.416
it is Sunday afternoon and we are relaxing

00:44:40.166 --> 00:44:46.208
at the home of Kim Berger

00:44:46.208 --> 00:44:49.041
in Saltaire, Long Island,

00:44:49.041 --> 00:44:50.750
and pretty darn good time too.

00:44:52.458 --> 00:44:54.333
(Alice’s, voice over)
Dear Martha,

00:44:54.333 --> 00:44:57.250
I know so much about you
and you don’t know me.

00:44:58.625 --> 00:45:01.125
I grew up in Brooklyn
at the end of the 20th century.

00:45:01.833 --> 00:45:03.375
My mom writes books on parenting.

00:45:03.375 --> 00:45:05.375
My dad’s a political organizer.

00:45:05.375 --> 00:45:08.666
I have one older brother who’s my favorite
person in the world to argue with.

00:45:09.958 --> 00:45:11.250
That’s the easy part.

00:45:15.041 --> 00:45:17.041
See, if we actually met.

00:45:17.041 --> 00:45:19.291
There are things I’m
pretty sure you wouldn’t like about me.

00:45:20.041 --> 00:45:22.083
First of all, I’m Jewish.

00:45:22.083 --> 00:45:23.791
Second of all, I’m queer.

00:45:24.791 --> 00:45:28.750
I keep thinking about how the Puritans
didn’t like the notion of equality.

00:45:29.375 --> 00:45:33.000
Equality, after all,
was the mark of the Devil’s Kingdom.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:35.291
A world without status, without shame.

00:45:36.375 --> 00:45:38.625
That was the world
you were accused of ushering in.

00:45:39.458 --> 00:45:40.958
Ironic, maybe.

00:45:40.958 --> 00:45:42.958
I have no idea
if you would have wanted that

00:45:43.541 --> 00:45:45.541
but you ended up standing up for it.

00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:52.375
(Sound of plane in the sky)

00:46:02.708 --> 00:46:04.583
(Alice’s voice)
Well, here’s a good question.

00:46:04.583 --> 00:46:06.458
Did Martha Carrier believe in witches?

00:46:06.458 --> 00:46:09.500
I think almost certainly, yes,

00:46:09.500 --> 00:46:11.041
she was a a good puritan…
Yes, she was.

00:46:11.041 --> 00:46:13.000
(Alice’s mother)
Then she probably did believe in witches,

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:14.791
she just knew she wasn’t one of those.

00:46:17.416 --> 00:46:19.291
I called David.

00:46:19.291 --> 00:46:20.125
What did he say?

00:46:21.625 --> 00:46:23.583
Well, I just asked him how

00:46:23.583 --> 00:46:30.041
he actually found out about Martha,
because I remember when he let us know. But...

00:46:30.041 --> 00:46:32.791
There’s also two different
stories of when he let us know.

00:46:34.750 --> 00:46:36.875
For the longest time, I thought he’d
just told us.

00:46:36.875 --> 00:46:40.708
He just called us up
when I was like 13 and told us in an email

00:46:40.708 --> 00:46:42.333
because I remember the email.

00:46:42.333 --> 00:46:44.708
And then when I was doing the project

00:46:44.708 --> 00:46:47.666
converting all our old home
videos to digital,

00:46:47.916 --> 00:46:52.333
I found a recording of Eli
practicing his D’var Torah for his Bar

00:46:52.333 --> 00:46:55.416
Mitzvah, and he’s
talking about various ancestors,

00:46:55.416 --> 00:46:58.708
and he mentions Martha, which means
he knew about… we as a family….

00:46:58.708 --> 00:46:59.916
We’re all in the video.

00:46:59.916 --> 00:47:02.791
And then, four years later,
none of us remember it.

00:47:03.333 --> 00:47:07.375
But at 13, when I’ve talked to you
or the family about how

00:47:07.875 --> 00:47:10.750
I found out and it was, you know,
when David e-mailed us at 13,

00:47:10.750 --> 00:47:13.208
how come nobody corrected me? It was like,
no, we knew about it beforehand.

00:47:13.541 --> 00:47:18.583
Like there’s this weird, consistent
lack of memory around this story.

00:47:19.291 --> 00:47:21.750
Well, even then, what David said is

00:47:22.375 --> 00:47:25.291
that there was lack of memory
in the family

00:47:25.291 --> 00:47:29.166
because he found out about it
but other people in the family

00:47:29.166 --> 00:47:32.791
had done research
and they had not really noticed it.

00:47:32.791 --> 00:47:35.166
They hadn’t put it together. And I said,
well, didn’t they notice her?

00:47:35.458 --> 00:47:38.291
I looked at it to reinforce it,
you know, just to double check it.

00:47:38.541 --> 00:47:43.250
And you can find pretty clear sources
that you can look at each generation

00:47:43.541 --> 00:47:48.291
from Martha and look at the children
and keep going and you eventually

00:47:48.291 --> 00:47:49.791
get to me.

00:47:50.875 --> 00:47:54.541
Actually,
I know for me that part of it was,

00:47:54.541 --> 00:47:58.041
oh, I know a lot of people were killed
at the trials, I did know that.

00:47:58.708 --> 00:48:01.291
But Martha Carrier we had never heard of…

00:48:01.333 --> 00:48:06.333
And she seemed like she was just
one of many people killed at the trials.

00:48:06.333 --> 00:48:11.625
And we didn’t really know the details
and I don’t know,

00:48:11.916 --> 00:48:16.625
life is busy somehow, it
didn’t seem it was interesting.

00:48:17.208 --> 00:48:21.875
It was a cool fact, but I don’t think
I understood what happened at the trials.

00:48:22.541 --> 00:48:25.208
There are a lot of descendants
walking around.

00:48:25.666 --> 00:48:26.333
Oh yeah,

00:48:26.333 --> 00:48:28.958
Not just of Martha, but
of all the people involved in the trials.

00:48:29.916 --> 00:48:33.458
And the question is,
in all of those families,

00:48:33.458 --> 00:48:36.666
you know, it’s not necessarily talked about.

00:48:36.666 --> 00:48:37.791
But I think it’s also…

00:48:38.708 --> 00:48:42.041
We knew, at least somebody in our family knew

00:48:42.041 --> 00:48:43.958
that we were descended
from Martha, right?

00:48:44.541 --> 00:48:46.000
We’re also descended from her jailer.

00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:47.541
Yeah.

00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:49.791
Nadine found out. Right? So...

00:48:52.625 --> 00:48:55.250
we pick and choose our ancestors
that we’re proud of.

00:48:55.250 --> 00:48:56.708
We pick and choose the parts
of our History

00:48:56.708 --> 00:48:58.958
that we’re proud of,
and those are the parts that we pass down.

00:49:00.666 --> 00:49:02.375
But that’s also not the full story.

00:49:03.375 --> 00:49:07.000
The story, even at the time,
who was in control of the story?

00:49:07.875 --> 00:49:10.375
- If the story had been more widely known
at the time,

00:49:10.375 --> 00:49:11.750
the trials would not have continue.

00:49:11.750 --> 00:49:13.541
I don’t know if that’s true.

00:49:14.333 --> 00:49:17.583
If more people had known,
would it have stopped?

00:49:17.583 --> 00:49:18.458
Maybe.

00:49:18.583 --> 00:49:20.291
But a lot of people knew.

00:49:20.291 --> 00:49:22.625
I mean, people in Boston,
they all knew about this.

00:49:23.291 --> 00:49:27.791
It’s the whole thing that both rich people
and poor people were accused

00:49:27.791 --> 00:49:29.333
of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials

00:49:29.333 --> 00:49:31.625
but only poor people died.

00:49:31.625 --> 00:49:33.166
I mean, what stops the trials,

00:49:33.166 --> 00:49:37.208
brings immediately to a halt
is that the girls overstep

00:49:37.208 --> 00:49:41.291
and they accuse the wife of the Governor,
and he’s like, we’re done.

00:49:41.291 --> 00:49:42.250
That’s it.

00:49:43.166 --> 00:49:45.541
Do you think they actually thought

00:49:45.958 --> 00:49:48.583
that the Devil
was trying to take over their land?

00:49:48.583 --> 00:49:49.875
I’m absolutely sure.

00:49:49.875 --> 00:49:53.250
So the world could be simply,
we’re under attack,

00:49:53.250 --> 00:49:54.333
not we’re doing something wrong.

00:49:54.333 --> 00:49:55.333
It could be.

00:49:55.333 --> 00:49:58.541
But then, why not write
about how you’re under attack?

00:49:59.916 --> 00:50:01.708
People write when they feel victimized.

00:50:01.708 --> 00:50:04.125
They don’t write
when they’re victimizing other people.

00:50:04.125 --> 00:50:08.500
The Salem Village Book of Transactions,
that entire year is missing.

00:50:09.125 --> 00:50:11.041
Let’s say they did try and write it down.

00:50:11.041 --> 00:50:14.041
Let’s say they wrote everything
that was happening down in the Salem

00:50:14.041 --> 00:50:15.250
Village book of transactions.

00:50:15.250 --> 00:50:16.750
Which is likely.

00:50:16.750 --> 00:50:18.541
I mean, also the court record book,

00:50:18.541 --> 00:50:21.541
they would have written everything down
down in the Court of Oyer and Terminer

00:50:21.541 --> 00:50:23.500
Record Book, ¿right?
That book is gone too.

00:50:23.500 --> 00:50:24.666
Nobody knows where it is.

00:50:24.666 --> 00:50:27.041
Nobody has seen it in a couple of hundred years.

00:50:27.041 --> 00:50:30.041
Let’s say you do write stuff down.

00:50:30.041 --> 00:50:31.291
You have to make sure also that

00:50:31.291 --> 00:50:34.166
it doesn’t get destroyed.
Maybe you just have to keep telling

00:50:35.250 --> 00:50:36.500
the story

00:50:38.583 --> 00:50:41.958
over and over until they can't destroy it

00:50:41.958 --> 00:50:43.791
just because it's inconvenient.

00:50:47.708 --> 00:50:48.125
I don't know.

00:50:49.250 --> 00:50:51.666
I do think, though, that Salem is not just

00:50:55.416 --> 00:50:56.500
the story of a witch hunt.

00:50:56.500 --> 00:51:00.125
I think that it has much more to teach us
about how to stop them.

00:51:01.083 --> 00:51:02.291
The lesson is:

00:51:02.916 --> 00:51:04.458
none of this is over.

00:51:06.250 --> 00:51:10.791
What happened in Salem is still happening,
both literally in terms of people

00:51:10.791 --> 00:51:11.750
thinking that their neighbors

00:51:11.750 --> 00:51:14.458
can do witchcraft
and killing them all around the world.

00:51:14.708 --> 00:51:18.750
On the more sort of theoretical
mirroring level,

00:51:19.250 --> 00:51:22.333
the language that they use to describe
witches in

00:51:22.333 --> 00:51:25.541
Salem is extremely similar

00:51:25.541 --> 00:51:28.750
to the language that we use to talk about
undocumented immigrants today.

00:51:29.375 --> 00:51:32.333
But I still don't know why you think that

00:51:33.375 --> 00:51:35.708
this gives us lessons about how to stop

00:51:35.958 --> 00:51:38.291
such a situation in the future.

00:51:38.916 --> 00:51:42.291
I think that the question
the trials poses to us is:

00:51:43.041 --> 00:51:44.833
what are you willing to do?

00:51:46.708 --> 00:51:51.708
Are you willing to survive knowing that
you only survived because you didn’t…

00:51:51.875 --> 00:51:52.875
Because you kept your head down?

00:51:52.875 --> 00:51:54.666
Yeah, because you stayed quiet.

00:51:55.250 --> 00:51:56.375
That’s the only reason you survived.

00:51:58.833 --> 00:52:00.416
Are you willing to do that?

00:52:00.416 --> 00:52:02.125
Are you willing to not do that?

00:52:30.250 --> 00:52:31.750
(Alice’s voice over)
Dear Martha

00:52:31.750 --> 00:52:35.041
Salem was 400 years ago,
but the last person I know about

00:52:35.041 --> 00:52:37.833
who was killed in a mob witch
hunt was killed two weeks ago.

00:52:38.833 --> 00:52:41.041
Between 1987 and 2020,

00:52:41.041 --> 00:52:44.166
at least 30,000 people have been killed
in witch hunts worldwide.

00:52:44.916 --> 00:52:46.791
That’s almost a thousand per year.

00:52:46.791 --> 00:52:48.958
More than two people per day.

00:52:48.958 --> 00:52:50.375
None of this is in the past.

00:52:51.750 --> 00:52:55.416
(percussion music)

00:54:45.375 --> 00:54:50.375
Martha, I hear the word witch hunt
everywhere these days.

00:54:50.375 --> 00:54:54.791
Powerful men, Prime Ministers, Presidents
use it to shake accusations

00:54:54.791 --> 00:54:56.250
made against them.

00:54:58.750 --> 00:55:02.750
And simultaneously, people, mostly
poor women, are dying in witch

00:55:02.750 --> 00:55:04.708
hunts, not so dissimilar to yours.

00:55:12.458 --> 00:55:15.916
But there are more of us now, organizing
against them in the present,

00:55:17.166 --> 00:55:18.333
and researching and writing

00:55:18.333 --> 00:55:20.375
to tell the truth about the past.

00:55:27.333 --> 00:55:29.250
¡Así va el mundo!

00:55:30.916 --> 00:55:33.875
I have all my little theaters here.

00:55:33.875 --> 00:55:36.583
I organize all my little theaters. Yes.

00:55:37.958 --> 00:55:39.541
These are from Paraguay.

00:55:39.541 --> 00:55:41.833
They are from a friend
who with this collective

00:55:41.833 --> 00:55:44.791
fighting against the contamination
and all of that.

00:55:46.000 --> 00:55:48.458
You see that? The “concha”?

00:55:48.458 --> 00:55:53.916
In La Plata, a few years ago,
women had build “La Santa Concha”

00:55:53.916 --> 00:55:56.708
and they brought it in a procession.

00:55:56.708 --> 00:55:58.541
Very courageous.

00:55:59.833 --> 00:56:02.083
This is Ireland, these are the gleaners.

00:56:02.083 --> 00:56:06.333
Gleaning is something that poor people,

00:56:06.333 --> 00:56:10.333
poor peasants after the enclosure,
they were allowed to do

00:56:10.958 --> 00:56:13.875
after the harvest,

00:56:14.458 --> 00:56:18.166
after the “cosecha” was cut,
whatever remained,

00:56:18.666 --> 00:56:21.250
the poor could go and pick it up.

00:56:21.250 --> 00:56:23.166
So here are the women picking up.

00:56:23.166 --> 00:56:25.625
But of course,
there is the guard just looking.

00:56:28.583 --> 00:56:32.541
And this, I make a connection with these two.

00:56:32.541 --> 00:56:35.208
She is a kind of

00:56:35.333 --> 00:56:36.583
what would be called a witch.

00:56:36.583 --> 00:56:41.041
She is an old woman and she’s
dealing with the earth.

00:56:41.500 --> 00:56:45.291
And is a powerful figure to me because,
you know, the woman who deals with

00:56:45.291 --> 00:56:49.916
the earth is of course, is agriculture,
it is growing things

00:56:50.541 --> 00:56:54.875
and is also touching
the earth gives you powers.

00:56:54.875 --> 00:57:00.041
You know, in the demonology
they always said

00:57:00.583 --> 00:57:05.416
that women accused of witchcraft
they should be lifted from the earth

00:57:05.416 --> 00:57:08.125
because touching the earth they will gain
their powers.

00:57:08.833 --> 00:57:10.750
It’s really interesting, right?

00:57:11.250 --> 00:57:13.750
(door bell rings)

00:57:16.125 --> 00:57:18.250
(door opening)

00:57:19.125 --> 00:57:21.125
Hi, good to see you!

00:57:21.125 --> 00:57:23.125
Come on in!

00:57:24.250 --> 00:57:25.291
(Alice’s voice)
How was your travels?

00:57:25.291 --> 00:57:26.666
(Silvia’s voice)
Oh, it was fantastic.

00:57:26.666 --> 00:57:28.541
It was very, very good.

00:57:28.541 --> 00:57:31.541
Yeah, tiring, exhausting, but it was good.

00:57:31.541 --> 00:57:33.333
Yeah. Very, very good.

00:57:34.375 --> 00:57:37.083
The binder with the witch stuff

00:57:37.083 --> 00:57:39.541
it is over here,

00:57:39.833 --> 00:57:42.208
some of this probably have…

00:57:50.166 --> 00:57:50.916
Educators' stuff

00:57:50.916 --> 00:57:54.833
Witchcraft made in Africa

00:57:56.166 --> 00:57:57.416
Yeah, this is more witchcraft.

00:58:01.458 --> 00:58:02.541
Yes, this is the one!

00:58:02.708 --> 00:58:04.958
This is the one: witch hunt in Africa...

00:58:07.250 --> 00:58:09.166
So I’d like to know what is

00:58:09.166 --> 00:58:12.250
what is you are working on
about Martha Carrier.

00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:16.250
I’m at this place where I feel like
I know this woman very well.

00:58:16.250 --> 00:58:17.083
Yeah.

00:58:17.083 --> 00:58:21.750
And I have also no idea if I'm right.

00:58:22.125 --> 00:58:22.833
Yeah.

00:58:22.916 --> 00:58:25.208
But at some point, like,

00:58:25.208 --> 00:58:26.708
maybe it doesn’t matter.

00:58:26.708 --> 00:58:28.333
I can tell the parts of her story
that I know.

00:58:28.333 --> 00:58:30.208
Yeah.

00:58:30.541 --> 00:58:35.708
And it's good that you have
this sense of her from within because this

00:58:35.708 --> 00:58:39.791
what is going to give you courage
and ability to go on.

00:58:40.875 --> 00:58:42.791
When I started researching Salem,

00:58:42.791 --> 00:58:49.458
I had a series of dreams
where my mouth was sewn shut.

00:58:50.916 --> 00:58:55.000
I would try and wake up and try to say something
and I would feel like I couldn’t.

00:58:55.000 --> 00:58:56.500
I couldn’t speak.

00:58:56.500 --> 00:58:58.791
You are her voice!

00:58:58.791 --> 00:59:03.666
The thing is… I mean, that woman died
horribly.

00:59:03.666 --> 00:59:11.333
Also, she set a kind of example of rather
let the body be destroyed

00:59:11.333 --> 00:59:14.541
rather than betray
what it was important to her.

00:59:14.541 --> 00:59:18.041
And, you know, it’s a principle.

00:59:18.041 --> 00:59:21.666
You cannot allow these injustices
to be silenced,

00:59:22.291 --> 00:59:25.208
to remain unspoken of.

00:59:25.416 --> 00:59:29.958
Maybe it is because I’m preparing to die,
but the solidarity with the dead

00:59:30.375 --> 00:59:34.000
is now becoming something very important,
not only with the living.

00:59:34.333 --> 00:59:37.125
Their story is the story of today.

00:59:37.958 --> 00:59:41.333
Their story is the story of women
who are being tortured right now

00:59:41.333 --> 00:59:44.541
in whatever jail of the world.

00:59:45.041 --> 00:59:47.041
So we have to speak about them.

00:59:47.041 --> 00:59:48.750
We have to speak for them.

00:59:49.916 --> 00:59:50.541
I know!

00:59:50.541 --> 00:59:53.708
This is the foundation

00:59:53.708 --> 00:59:58.541
of this beautiful, civilized,
capitalist society, the capitalist system,

00:59:58.541 --> 01:00:02.208
that has brought the democracy
to the world.

01:00:02.208 --> 01:00:03.416
Right.

01:00:03.416 --> 01:00:06.916
There is always a question
in almost every talk that I give,

01:00:06.916 --> 01:00:08.708
and the question is:
Who would be the witches today?

01:00:08.708 --> 01:00:10.083
And I would say: us!

01:00:10.083 --> 01:00:11.500
Us!

01:00:14.041 --> 01:00:16.291
You can feel this inside too, right?

01:00:16.291 --> 01:00:17.083
Yes.

01:00:19.500 --> 01:00:21.291
(wind sounds)

01:00:21.291 --> 01:00:22.750
(Silvia Federici’s voice over)

01:00:22.750 --> 01:00:25.833
The rise of capitalism implies

01:00:25.833 --> 01:00:28.666
a transformation of every aspect of life,

01:00:29.041 --> 01:00:32.375
a transformation of every relation.

01:00:32.958 --> 01:00:36.333
And that meant transforming
the condition of women.

01:00:36.541 --> 01:00:41.208
And it’s attacking women’s power
on communality.

01:00:44.041 --> 01:00:46.041
From a capitalist optic

01:00:46.041 --> 01:00:49.166
the human being is labor, is labor power.

01:00:50.125 --> 01:00:52.625
Then, the body of the woman is a machine,

01:00:53.333 --> 01:00:55.791
a machine for the production of workers.

01:00:57.458 --> 01:00:59.041
What is happening today?

01:01:00.041 --> 01:01:02.708
There is now a massive restructuring

01:01:03.083 --> 01:01:08.708
of property, land expropriation,
the creation of vagabonds,

01:01:08.708 --> 01:01:13.541
and then the criminalization of the people
that they have expropriated.

01:01:13.541 --> 01:01:17.166
So many women have been assassinated
now in Latin America,

01:01:17.166 --> 01:01:20.375
places like Colombia, Brazil,
in the rural areas.

01:01:20.375 --> 01:01:23.875
Women who are in movement against mining,

01:01:24.458 --> 01:01:26.541
against the privatization of land,

01:01:27.583 --> 01:01:29.916
against the poisoning of the waters.

01:01:30.333 --> 01:01:33.416
And they had been murdered
by paramilitaries, the so-called narco

01:01:33.416 --> 01:01:36.041
traffickers or by the army.

01:01:36.666 --> 01:01:39.375
They are not only killed,

01:01:39.375 --> 01:01:42.791
but they are tortured and left out
publicly.

01:01:43.583 --> 01:01:46.208
It’s like the burning of the witches
has to be public.

01:01:46.625 --> 01:01:49.500
It has to be public.

01:01:49.500 --> 01:01:52.750
It’s a pedagogical tool,
is a terror campaign.

01:01:53.833 --> 01:01:55.000
And the women are saying:

01:01:55.000 --> 01:01:58.083
“Somos las nietas de todas las brujas
que no pudisteis quemar”.

01:01:58.083 --> 01:02:01.583
We are all the granddaughters
of all the witches

01:02:01.583 --> 01:02:03.875
that you were not able to burn.

01:02:03.875 --> 01:02:06.666
People have forgotten who we are!

01:02:08.125 --> 01:02:10.000
We are the product of a long

01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:12.833
history of torture and struggles!

01:02:27.375 --> 01:02:29.083
My name is Martha Carrier.

01:02:29.708 --> 01:02:32.250
I am not a witch.

01:02:32.250 --> 01:02:35.458
I ask no pity of grieving
when the truth be known.

01:02:36.791 --> 01:02:42.625
Let the future redress this wrongs,
with kindness and mercy and sanity

01:02:43.500 --> 01:02:44.875
to its own time.

01:02:46.083 --> 01:02:47.916
I ask nothing else.

01:02:53.875 --> 01:02:56.750
(smooth piano music)

01:04:10.833 --> 01:04:15.750
(piano music increases intensity)

01:06:16.166 --> 01:06:24.375
(crowd chanting: We are the granddaughters
of the witches you could not burn)

01:06:30.041 --> 01:06:36.750
(sound from women’s demostrations)

01:09:56.041 --> 01:10:02.666
(music fades away)

01:10:04.333 --> 01:10:13.166
(wind sounds)