| September 28 |  |
Editor says, what if the Governor of Massachusetts' intervention in the Salem Witch Trials had failed miserably? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
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In 1692, Mary Spencer Hull was hanged at Gallows Hill on this day. For many God-fearing residents of the Colony, the execution of the wife of Massachusetts governor Williams Phips was an unmistakeable indication that the Salem Witch Trials had gone insanely out of control. And yet John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, the two magistrates sent from the General Court had received sufficiently credible reports of talking animals, dark shapes, red cats and a "Tall Man" (undoubtedly the devil) to form the conviction that Middlesex Counties were in the grip of Satanism.
The Tall Man Walks in MassachusettsWhen the magistrates ordered the arrest of the pious and saintly seventy-one year old Rebecca Nurse, townsfolk realized that insanity was the order of the day. In response, forty neighbours of the Nurse Homestead in Danvers signed a petition in support of the accused. But when the jury dismissed the charges of witchcraft, the judge had ordered them to reconsider (pictured) and she was hanged on July 19th.
Hundreds of new accusations of witchcraft were now raised. The Colonial Governor had done absolutely nothing to stop the witchcraft mania. And so his outraged response1 to the charges against his wife were set aside by the Special Commission he had appointed. And when he forbade further executions for witchcraft in Salem, he was arrested, joining the one hundred and fifty men and women still chained to prison walls and awaiting trial. During his short incarceration, Phips would hear tales that had not reached the Governor's residence in Boston. And too late he discovered that the flame of witch-madness ignited by Tituba2 was real, shockingly real indeed.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© "Conspiracies and Secret Societies" by Brad and Sherry SteigerStory Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Beasts Source: Wikipedia Labels: Salems Witch Trials, Witches, Massachusetts, Satanic, America. Editor says, please note that large amounts of content have been repurposed from the source article.
1) In OTL the Governor's intervention was decisive, although he was later ordered to return to London to explain his actions.
2) Tituba was the female slave of the Puritan Preacher Samuel Parris.
Comment from Michael Lee Foley on Facebook: We wouldn't have Wiccans today, America would have been much greater!
Comment from Robby Croke on Facebook: we would live in an America that persecutes people based on religion even more, probably to the point of controlling what you're supposed to believe in, the 1st amendment probably would not exist anymore, and we would have defeated the purpose of escaping religious persecution in Europe to find America anyway
Comment from Keith Glass on Facebook: Well, fewer of my ancestors would have gotten turned into newts, although, eventually, they got better. . . ;-P
~ Or, in time, there might have been a stronger reaction against religious hysteria, resulting in a more secular America.
And if we didn't have Wiccans today, how would that make this country "much greater"? It's not as if they're all that influential, or ever have been.
~ I think that sooner or later, the British authorities would have to intervene. You might have the Royal Navy landing soldiers and direct control from London imposed until things had calmed down.
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© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
