The Thing About Witch Hunts

Check out Salem Witch Trials Daily, our new podcast that follows the 1692 Salem Witch Trials in real time, day by day, court date by court date, through the documented record. In Salem, Massachusetts, 19 people were executed, one man was pressed to death for refusing trial, and more than a hundred others were accused and imprisoned, leaving a lasting mark on American history. Building on the extraordinary listener response to this series when it launched within The Thing About Salem, the show now has its own dedicated feed, available wherever you get podcasts. Each micro-episode is tied to the actual calendar of 1692 and draws directly from primary sources like court documents, examination transcripts, petitions, letters, and contemporary accounts, alongside established scholarship and our own research. We also provide weekly companion blog posts and downloadable worksheets on aboutsalem.com for deeper, self-paced learning.⁠Salem Witch Trials Daily – The Thing About Salem Podcast

In 1629, 27 men, women, and a 15-year-old child were executed in Peebles, Scotland — and their ashes cast into the River Tweed. For centuries, their names were largely forgotten. Now, a community theater production called Rope and Flame is bringing their stories back to life, just steps from the river where they were lost.Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack sit down with the creative team behind this remarkable project: director and co-writer Clare Prenton, playwright and co-writer Anita John, actor Scott Noble, and historian Mary Craig, whose book Borders Witch Hunt laid the foundation for the script.This conversation will take you into the Scottish Borders, into the streets and kirk of a 17th-century market town under pressure from famine, religious upheaval, and the reach of Edinburgh's legal machinery. Listeners will come away with a richer understanding of how witchcraft accusations spread through a community, why both accusers and accused deserve to be understood as full human beings, and what a commemorative plaque on Tweed Green sparked in a modern Scottish town.You'll also hear how three women writers intentionally pushed back against the framing of female fear and coercion as irrational, how a 15-year-old girl was pressured into naming names, and why one local historian argues that boots on the ground matter more than books when it comes to understanding the past.From generational trauma to the parallels between 17th-century gossip and why the mechanics of a whisper spreading through a 17th-century Scottish market town are not as distant from our own moment as we might like to think. this episode connects the Scottish witch trials to questions that are urgently alive right now.In This EpisodeThe history of the 1629 Peebles witch trials and what made the Scottish Borders a hotbed of witchcraft prosecutionsHow the 2022 memorial on Tweed Green sparked a community theater productionThe role of Calvinism, political turmoil under Charles I, and economic hardship in fueling accusationsWhy Rope and Flame portrays accusers as complex, frightened human beings rather than simple villainsThe story of Isabel Haddock, the 15-year-old accused whose testimony changed everythingHow community theater is doing what history books alone cannotIf this episode moved you, share it. These stories survive because people carry them forward. Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack are descendants of Salem witch trial victims who helped build End Witch Hunts nonprofit to educate about witch hunts past and present, advocate for the accused, and support the communities doing that work. Subscribe to The Thing About Witch Hunts wherever you listen, and visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more and donate.LinksPlay Podcast Episode: A History of Scottish Witches with Mary W. CraigPlay Podcast Episode: Scottish Witch Trials with Mary W. CraigDuns Play Fest East Gate Arts TheatreBuy Books Mentioned in this EpisodeSign the Petition to Exonerate the Boston 8The History of Witch Trial Exonerations in MassachusettsAbout the MA Witch Hunt Justice ProjectPurchase a MA Witch Hunt Justice Project Memorial Pin

What's in This EpisodePodcasthon is a global event where thousands of podcasters use their platforms to raise money for a cause they believe in. This year, The Thing About Witch Hunts is participating to support End Witch Hunts, the only US nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about witchcraft accusation violence past and present. If this episode moves you, donate at endwitchhunts.org/donate. Every contribution goes directly to the work.The Salem Witch Trials ended in 1693. We know what went wrong. And yet the pattern keeps showing up, different century, different accusation, same structure. This episode names that structure.Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack step back from individual cases to look at what moral panics are actually made of: how they get built, who builds them, who gets targeted, and why the fear feels so real and so righteous from the inside. The history moves from colonial Massachusetts through the Red Scares, McCarthyism, and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 1990s, connecting to witchcraft accusation violence happening in communities around the world right now.What You'll LearnWhy the same panic keeps working across centuries. How institutions transform fear into prosecution. Who gets chosen as the target, and why that choice is never random. What genuine fear has to do with other agendas operating underneath it. And perhaps most importantly: what the people who actually disrupted witch hunts throughout history had in common.The dissenters are always in the record. This episode finds them.Why It MattersEvery person who can recognize a moral panic in progress becomes a potential dissenter. That is not a small thing. Support End Witch Hunts at endwitchhunts.org/donate. Keywords: moral panic, witch hunts, Salem witch trials, Satanic Panic, McCarthyism, Red Scare, witchcraft accusation violence, folk devils, spectral evidence, historical exoneration, End Witch Hunts, Podcasthon 2026, Dr. Leo Igwe, Maimunat Mohammed, Thomas Brattle, Cotton Mather, Massachusetts Bill H.5154LinksBuy the Book: Folk Devils and Moral Panics by Stanley Cohen Buy the Book: The Enemy Within, A Short History of Witch Hunting⁠Listen to Podcasthon: When Children are Accused of WitchcraftListen to the Episode:Fearing the Devil: A Cultural History of America’s Satanic Panic with Scott CulpepperArticle by Dr. Leo Igwe Give to Gain: Justice for Women Accused of Witchcraft in AfricaAdvocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) End Witch HuntsUN Human Rights Council Resolution 47/8

In honor of International Women's Day 2026, End Witch Hunts hosted a powerful panel discussion bringing together advocates, legal experts, journalists, and survivors to raise awareness about witchcraft accusations targeting women in Nigeria and across Africa. This conversation is part of the global "Give to Gain" initiative — the theme of International Women's Day 2026 — calling on individuals, organizations, and governments to give resources, empathy, legal support, and voice so that women accused of witchcraft can gain justice, safety, and dignity.Witchcraft accusations disproportionately target women, especially those who are poor, widowed, elderly, or otherwise vulnerable. Accusation can mean social ostracism, physical violence, displacement, imprisonment, and even death. Our panelists shared firsthand experience, legal expertise, and on-the-ground advocacy work illuminating what is happening in Nigeria today and what all of us can do about it.How witchcraft accusations specifically harm women and compound existing inequalityThe psychological toll of accusation, including self-doubt and mental health impactsLegal protections that exist in Nigeria and why they are not being usedHow women can seek justice through courts, NGOs, and community channels even without financial resourcesThe role of patriarchy, poverty, and community silence in perpetuating accusationWhy empowerment and financial independence are protective factorsHow diaspora communities outside Nigeria are funding witchcraft accusations back homeWhat governments, international organizations, media, and individuals can give to create real changeThe critical importance of reaching rural communities in local languagesDr. Leo Igwe is the director of Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW), an initiative working to end witch hunts in Africa by 2030, and the Critical Thinking Social Empowerment Foundation. A board member of Humanist International and the Humanist Association of Nigeria, Dr. Igwe earned his doctoral degree from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, where he wrote his thesis on witchcraft accusations.Chief Magistrate Safiya Musa Salihu is a Chief Magistrate in Bauchi State, Nigeria, and Vice Chairman of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Bauchi branch. She has trained paralegals across multiple communities and works fearlessly to ensure that accused women have access to justice.Hauwa Mundi is a broadcast journalist with Radio Nigeria — the largest radio network in Africa with over 40 million listeners — a social media influencer, and a member of Advocacy for Alleged Witches. She uses her platform to challenge belief in witchcraft and amplify the stories of the accused.Maimunat Mohammed is an Information Officer at a university in Minna and representative of the Niger State Branch of Advocacy for Alleged Witches. She shared her own experience of being accused alongside her mother following her father's death, and her years of advocating for her family in the face of community hostility.Dr. Barrister is the National President of the Association of Women against Gender-Based Violence and founder of the ADI Foundation in Bayelsa State, Nigeria, working for justice and security for vulnerable persons.Article by Dr. Leo Igwe Give to Gain: Justice for Women Accused of Witchcraft in Africa Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) End Witch HuntsInternational Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) Association of Women against Gender-Based Violence Radio NigeriaUN Human Rights Council Resolution 47/8

What does American literature reveal about how a society imagines justice, belonging, and the power of women? Samaine Lockwood, Associate Professor of English at George Mason University and the 2026 Fenwick Fellow, has spent years tracing that question through one of the most enduring stories in American culture: the Salem witch trials. Her fellowship project, Tituba Indian: The History of an American Cultural Figure  follows Tituba Indian from the historical record of 1692 through two centuries of novels, plays, and reimaginings to ask what her story has been made to carry and why.In This EpisodeHow the Salem witch trials became one of the most reimagined episodes in American literary historyWhy Tituba Indian sits at the center of debates about race, gender, and civic belonging across two centuries of American cultureHow culture reuses the pastHow Ann Petry's Tituba of Salem Village broke from literary tradition decades before most readers noticedWhy Arthur Miller's The Crucible remains complicated and how teachers are beginning to challenge it in the classroomThe real significance of the witch as a figure in literature, from colonial revival to contemporary young adult fictionWhere to find the vast archive of Salem witch trial literature that predates copyright, freely available onlineAbout Samaine Lockwood Samaine Lockwood is an Associate Professor of English at George Mason University, specializing in 19th century American literature and gender and sexuality studies. She is the 2026 Fenwick Fellow, a research fellowship funded by the George Mason Fenwick Library supporting her book in progress, Tituba Indian and the History of an American Cultural Figure. Her previous book, Archives of Desire: the Queer Historical Work of New England Regionalism, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2015.Authors and Works Mentioned in This EpisodeAnn Petry: Tituba of Salem Village; The Narrows; Biography of Harriet Tubman. First black woman to write a bestselling novel in the United States.Maryse Conde: I, Tituba: Black Witch of SalemHenry William Herbert: The Fair Puritan (written 1850s, published 1870s)Elizabeth Gaskell: Lois the WitchCharlotte Perkins Gilman (with Grace Ellery Channing): Untitled Salem play, 1890, held at the Schlesinger Library, HarvardPauline Elizabeth Hopkins: Fiction writer, first Black woman editor of a magazine, key figure in the Boston African American community at the turn of the 20th centuryArthur Miller: The CrucibleMarian Starkey: The Devil in MassachusettsMatilda Joslyn Gage: Woman, Church, and State (1890s)Saidiya Hartman: Venus in Two ActsGretchen Adams: The Specter of SalemHenry James: The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost StoriesKimberly Bellflower: John Proctor is the Villain (Broadway, 2024)Samaine Lockwood: Archives of Desire: the Queer Historical Work of New England Regionalism Keith Clark: The Radical Fiction of Ann PetryWhere to Find These Works Most works published before 1923 are in the public domain and freely available through Open Library and Internet Archive. For titles still in print, support this podcast and End Witch Hunts by purchasing through our Bookshop.org storefront: bookshop.org/shop/endwitchhuntsEvery purchase (of any title) through Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores and helps fund the work of End Witch Hunts when you purchase through our affiliate link.LinksPublications by Samaine LockwoodUniversity Libraries has named Samaine Lockwood, associate professor of English, the 2026 Fenwick FellowBuy Books Mentioned in Today's Episode Sign the Petition to Exonerate the Boston 8 The History of Witch Trial Exonerations in Massachusetts About the MA Witch Hunt Justice ProjectPurchase a MA Witch Hunt Justice Project Memorial Pin