Show Notes
William Phips was the last person anyone should have trusted with one of the most consequential legal crises in American history. No formal education. No legal training. No political experience.The man who put him in charge of Massachusetts was Increase Mather, the most powerful Puritan minister in colonial New England.
Phips arrived at the Salem witch trials as governor of Massachusetts Bay with a life behind him that had nothing to do with governance. There was a Spanish shipwreck, a knighthood, a failed military campaign, and a financial disaster that forced the colony to print currency for the first time. By the time he sailed into Boston Harbor in May 1692, the jails were already full of the accused, the Court of Oyer and Terminer was waiting to be built, and the pressure to act was immense.
Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack examine the full arc of William Phips, the contradictions he embodied, the power he held during the Salem witch trials of 1692, and what he did and did not do with it.
What You Will Learn:
- The kind of man Puritan New England handed its witch trials to
- What it took to become the most powerful man in Massachusetts without ever learning to write
- How a man who could not read until age 21 came to control the Salem witch trials
- The Spanish shipwreck that launched a political career
- Why New England’s most powerful minister chose an illiterate treasure hunter for governor
- The military disaster that forced Massachusetts to print money for the first time
- What the ministers actually told Phips about the witchcraft cases
- The accusation that landed inside his own home
- Who Phips blamed when the Crown demanded answers
Hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack.
End Witch Hunts: endwitchhunts.org | aboutwitchhunts.com
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