Fear was America’s first form of government.
Long before Congress convened, before the Constitution was written, and before liberty became a national ideal, the American colonies learned how powerful fear could be as a tool of order. In this episode of The Archive Algorithm, we begin at one of the earliest and most revealing moments in American history: the Salem witch trials.
In 1692, a small Puritan settlement in Massachusetts descended into panic. Accusations of witchcraft spread rapidly through the community, fueled not by evidence, but by emotion. Over the course of a single year, more than 200 people were accused, 30 were convicted, and 19 were executed by hanging. One man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death under stones for refusing to confess. These events are often remembered as superstition run amok, but that explanation misses the deeper lesson.
Salem was not chaos. It was order built on fear.
This episode explores how terror unified the town, how authority consolidated power, and how obedience was produced faster than logic or law ever could. When people are frightened, they do not demand proof, they demand protection. And whoever promises protection gains control. Salem became an early demonstration of fear-based governance, where emotion replaced evidence and accusation became civic duty.
But Salem is not just a historical curiosity. It is a prototype.
As this episode reveals, the emotional mechanics that drove the witch trials did not disappear when the gallows came down. They evolved. Fear proved efficient. It simplified governance, narrowed thinking, and created unity by defining an enemy. Once that system worked, it was refined and reused, shifting from theology to politics, from witchcraft to speech, from superstition to policy.
This episode traces how fear transforms from survival instinct into political technology, how societies learn to manage emotion rather than truth, and why “witch hunts” continue to echo through modern political language centuries later. Drawing on historical records and documentary analysis, The Archive Algorithm shows how power learns, and why fear remains one of its most reliable tools.
Salem eventually apologized for its crimes. But the system that allowed them remained intact.
Because the lesson learned was not never do this again. It was be more careful next time.
