About this episode

The episode explores the life and role of William Phips during the Salem witch trials, highlighting his lack of qualifications and the circumstances that led to his governorship.

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…

People in this episode

Hosts: Josh Hutchinson, Sarah Jack

Topics covered

• Salem Witch Trials
• William Phips
• Puritan New England
• legal history
• colonial America

Keywords

• Salem Witch Trials
• William Phips
• Increase Mather
• Puritan
• colonial history
• legal crisis
• Massachusetts

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