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Don't mind the thumbnail- it's not as gory as it seems I promise- victoria

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I Was There: The Dark History of the Salem Witch Trials (Season 1)

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There's a small pox image 1:19-1:44 and at the very beginning of the video. It might be kind of disturbing to some people.

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25 DISTURBING Facts About The Salem Witch Trials

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Picture of what happened in the Salem witch trial court rooms.

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Tituba and the Children (Image)- Marie Graham

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Tituba and the Children (Image)- Marie Graham

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What really happened during the Salem Witch Trials - Brian A. Pavlac

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What Caused the Salem Witch Trials? - Avian

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What Caused the Salem Witch Trials? - Avian

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The icon indicates free access to the linked research on JSTOR.

In February 1692, the Massachusetts Bay Colony town of Salem Village found itself at the center of a notorious case of mass hysteria: eight young women accused their neighbors of witchcraft. Trials ensued and, when the episode concluded in May 1693, fourteen women, five men, and two dogs had been executed for their supposed supernatural crimes.

The Salem witch trials occupy a unique place in our collective history. The mystery around the hysteria and miscarriage of justice continue to inspire new critiques, most recently with the recent release of The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Pulitzer Prize-winning Stacy Schiff.

But what caused the mass hysteria, false accusations, and lapses in due process? Scholars have attempted to answer these questions with a variety of economic and physiological theories.

The economic theories of the Salem events tend to be two-fold: the first attributes the witchcraft trials to an economic downturn caused by a "little ice age" that lasted from 1550-1800; the second cites socioeconomic issues in Salem itself.

Emily Oster posits that the "little ice age" caused economic deterioration and food shortages that led to anti-witch fervor in communities in both the United States and Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Temperatures began to drop at the beginning of the fourteenth century, with the coldest periods occurring from 1680 to 1730. The economic hardships and slowdown of population growth could have caused widespread scapegoating which, during this period, manifested itself as persecution of so-called witches, due to the widely accepted belief that "witches existed, were capable of causing physical harm to others and could control natural forces."

Salem Village, where the witchcraft accusations began, was an agrarian, poorer counterpart to the neighboring Salem Town, which was populated by wealthy merchants. According to the oft-cited book Salem Possessed by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Village was being torn apart by two opposing groups-largely agrarian townsfolk to the west and more business-minded villagers to the east, closer to the Town. "What was going on was not simply a personal quarrel, an economic dispute, or even a struggle for power, but a mortal conflict involving the very nature of the community itself. The fundamental issue was not who was to control the Village, but what its essential character was to be." In a retrospective look at their book for a 2008 William and Mary Quarterly Forum, Boyer and Nissenbaum explain that as tensions between the two groups unfolded, "they followed deeply etched factional fault lines that, in turn, were influenced by anxieties and by differing levels of engagement with and access to the political and commercial opportunities unfolding in Salem Town." As a result of increasing hostility, western villagers accused eastern neighbors of witchcraft.

But some critics including Benjamin C. Ray have called Boyer and Nissenbaum's socio-economic theory into question. For one thing -the map they were using has been called into question. He writes: "A review of the court records shows that the Boyer and Nissenbaum map is, in fact, highly interpretive and considerably incomplete." Ray goes on:

Contrary to Boyer and Nissenbaum's conclusions in Salem Possessed, geo graphic analysis of the accusations in the village shows there was no significant villagewide east-west division between accusers and accused in 1692. Nor was there an east-west divide between households of different economic status.

On the other hand, the physiological theories for the mass hysteria and witchcraft accusations include both fungus poisoning and undiagnosed encephalitis.

Linnda Caporael argues that the girls suffered from convulsive ergotism, a condition caused by ergot, a type of fungus, found in rye and other grains. It produces hallucinatory, LSD-like effects in the afflicted and can cause victims to suffer from vertigo, crawling sensations on the skin, extremity tingling, headaches, hallucinations, and seizure-like muscle contractions. Rye was the most prevalent grain grown in the Massachusetts area at the time, and the damp climate and long storage period could have led to an ergot infestation of the grains.

One of the more controversial theories states that the girls suffered from an outbreak of encephalitis lethargica, an inflammation of the brain spread by insects and birds. Symptoms include fever, headaches, lethargy, double vision, abnormal eye movements, neck rigidity, behavioral changes, and tremors. In her 1999 book, A Fever in Salem, Laurie Winn Carlson argues that in the winter of 1691 and spring of 1692, some of the accusers exhibited these symptoms, and that a doctor had been called in to treat the girls. He couldn't find an underlying physical cause, and therefore concluded that they suffered from possession by witchcraft, a common diagnoses of unseen conditions at the time.

The controversies surrounding the accusations, trials, and executions in Salem, 1692, continue to fascinate historians and we continue to ask why, in a society that should have known better, did this happen? Economic and physiological causes aside, the Salem witchcraft trials continue to act as a parable of caution against extremism in judicial processes.
Editor's note: This post was edited to clarify that Salem Village was where the accusations began, not where the trials took place.

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What Caused the Salem Witch Trials? - JSTOR Daily

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Looking into the underlying causes of the Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century.

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Remembering Victims of the Salem Witch Trials - Avian

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Remembering Victims of the Salem Witch Trials - Avian

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On September 22, 1692, eight people were hanged for their alleged crimes as witches. They were among 20 who were killed as a result of the hysteria that took place in the New England village of Salem where fear of demonic possession struck panic among the Puritans and led to more than 200 accusations against anyone suspected of witchcraft.

The witch hunts resulted in the arrests of 150 people

In Massachusetts in the late 1600s, a few young girls (including Elizabeth Parris, age 9, Abigail Williams, age 11) claimed to be possessed by the devil and blamed local "witches" for their demons. This sent panic throughout the Village of Salem and led to accusations of more than 200 local citizens over the next several months, including Dorothy "Dorcas" Good who was by far the youngest accused at age 4 (she spent eight months in the prison's dungeon before being released) along with her mother, Sarah Good (who was later executed).

Sometimes described as "witch hunts" (as also seen in Europe from the 1300s-1700s), this hysteria resulted in the arrests of nearly 150 people, multiple court hearings, and the guilty convictions of dozens. Those found guilty were often chained to the walls in the prison's basement, known as the "witch jail:" a perpetually dark, cold, and wet dungeon infested with water rats. While in prison, the accused, many of them women, were repeatedly humiliated by being forced to strip naked and undergo physical examinations of their nude bodies.

About 20 years after the convictions, in 1711, the colony passed a bill pardoning those accused and granted monetary restitution to the surviving victims and their families. However, hundreds of lives were damaged by the Salem witch hunts. A total of 24 innocent people died for their alleged participation in dark magic. Two dogs were even executed due to suspicions of their involvement in witchcraft.

None of these alleged "witches" were burned at the stake

In all, there were four execution dates on which 19 women and men were taken to Proctor's Ledge to die by hanging from a tree. On June 10, 1692, Bridget Bishop was hanged. About a month later on July 19, 1692, Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe and Sarah Wildes were executed. Five more were hanged on August 19, 1692, including one woman (Martha Carrier) and four men (John Willard, Reverend George Burroughs, George Jacobs, Sr. and John Proctor). The final execution date was September 22, 1692, on which eight were hanged (Mary Eastey, Martha Corey, Ann Pudeator, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Alice Parker, Wilmot Redd and Margaret Scott). In addition, 71-year-old Giles Corey died after being pressed with heavy stones-his punishment for refusing to enter an innocent or guilty plea to the court.

Four more of the convicted (Lydia Dustin, Ann Foster, Sarah Osborne, and Roger Toothaker) died in the unbearable conditions in the "witch jails" awaiting their execution dates. As colluders with the devil, they were not afforded proper Christian burials. Their corpses were thrown into shallow graves. However, the bodies of Rebecca Nurse, John Proctor and George Jacobs were eventually retrieved by their families and given Christian burials.

Despite common folklore, none of these alleged "witches" were burned at the stake. This myth likely derives from the fact that more than 50,000 of the accused were punished by fire for "malevolent witchcraft" during the European witch hunts that peaked around the 15th century. Some were burned alive while others were initially hanged or beheaded and later incinerated to prevent any possibility of postmortem black magic.

Another common misconception is that all the accused "witches" were women. While the majority were women, men were also both accused and convicted of being involved in the occult. In fact, five of the 20 who were executed were men. These men were not well-liked in the community and many were very outspoken against the witch trials. The accused and convicted women also challenged the norms of the community; many were opinionated and forthright while some had bad reputations due to their "unladylike" behavior. Many believe that this is perhaps why certain men and women were targeted and accused of witchcraft.

The cause of the hysteria in Salem is unknown

It is unknown exactly what brought about the mass hysteria in Salem in 1692. Some have theorized that the witch hunts were the result of personal vendettas or economic competition, while others have suggested that the consumption of ergot-poisoned rye grain may have resulted in hallucinations and faulty thinking among the Puritans in New England. Whatever the case, the Salem witch trials and executions are universally declared as a shameful part of history. The Puritans themselves recognized the errors of their ways and held a day of prayer on January 15, 1697, known as the Day of Official Humiliation, to plead with God for forgiveness. In 1702, the trials were declared unlawful. However, it took more than 250 years for Massachusetts to formally apologize for the events of 1692.

On the 325th anniversary of the first mass execution, the city of Salem dedicated Proctor's Ledge as a memorial to the victims who were hanged there. Although many initially believed that Gallows Hill was the site of the executions, recent evidence from The Gallows Hill Project pinpointed Proctor's Ledge as the exact site of the infamous Salem witch hangings. Along with numerous renditions of Arthur Miller's The Crucible as well as the Salem Witch Museum, the Proctor's Ledge Memorial reminds us of the appalling tragedies that took place in 1692, including the false imprisonment and murder of innocents.

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Remembering the Victims of the Salem Witch Executions

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On September 22, 1692, eight people were hanged for their alleged crimes as witches. They were among 20 who were killed as a result of the hysteria that took place in the New England village of Salem where fear of demonic possession struck panic among the Puritans and led to more than 200 accusations against anyone suspected of witchcraft.

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Puritans - Britannica School (Marie Graham)

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Puritans - Britannica School (Marie Graham)

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"Puritans." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 3 Mar. 2022. school.eb.com/levels/middle/article/Puritans/353681. Accessed 20 Apr. 2022.

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Welcome to Britannica School, a safe, up-to-date, and age-appropriate information resource for Elementary, Middle, and High School.

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Though the Salem witch trials began in Salem Village, it was certainly not the only village involved in the hysteria of 1692. Because Salem Village was, at that time, a parish of Salem Towne and lacked its own government, most of the legal businesses, including the executions, were held in the larger city of Salem. These two communities are the most recognized in the Salem witch trials' hysteria; however, several other towns in Essex County also experienced witchcraft allegations and initial examinations of the accused. Some of these communities included nearby Andover, which produced most of witchcraft accusations and trials; Ipswich, Beverly, Haverhill, Topsfield, Gloucester, and many others.

While these were not the first examples of executions for witchcraft in New England, the volume of accusations and convictions generated one of the most infamous examples of mass hysteria in American History.

Amesbury - Situated in Essex County, Amesbury was settled in 1655 as a part of the village of Salisbury. However, it was separated from Salisbury in 1666 and incorporated as the town of Amesbury in 1668. It began as a modest farming community and later developed an aggressive maritime and industrial economy. The 90-foot drop in the falls of the Powwow River provided water power for sawmills and gristmills. Shipbuilding, shipping, and fishing were also important. The ferry across the Merrimack River to Newburyport was a lively business until the construction of bridges to Deer Island.

During the Salem witch trials of 1692, Amesbury had only one person accused, Susannah North Martin. Unfortunately, the 71-year-old impoverished widow was hanged on July 19, 1692.

Today, Amesbury is mainly residential and is home to more than 16,000 people.

- Located about 15 miles northwest of Salem Village, Andover started when a portion of land was set aside for an inland plantation in 1634. During the Salem witch trials of 1692, Andover, like other area villages, found itself amid the hysteria. More people from Andover were accused and arrested for witchcraft than any other town in New England. Before the hysteria in Andover ended, 80% of the town's residents had been drawn into the witch hunt. Andover also holds the dubious distinction of having the most confessed witches and the highest number of children arrested. See the Full Article HERE.

Beverly - Situated in Essex County, Beverly was originally part of Salem Towne and the Naumkeag Territory. However, due to religious differences with Governor John Endicott, Beverly was separated from the larger city and officially incorporated in 1668. It was named after the town of Beverley in Yorkshire, England. In 1671, Roger Conant, with 34 others, petitioned that the name be changed to Budleigh, the name of the city in England where he was born. He said they should accept his petition because he was such an important founder of Beverly and had never petitioned for anything else. But his petition was, obviously, denied. In 1675, King Philip's War erupted, in which the Indians tried to eliminate the white settlers. Many of Beverly's men fought in this war.

During the Salem witch trials of 1692, Beverly, like many other area villages, played a role. The pastor of the Church of Christ in Beverly, Massachusetts, the Reverend John Hale, was one of the most prominent and influential clergymen associated with the witch trials. Initially, he supported the trials until his wife, Sarah Noyes Hale, was accused. He then changed his mind and later published a critique of the whole affair. Though his wife was accused, she was never charged. However, this would not be the case for several other Beverly residents. Dorcas Galley Hoar, a widow in her late fifties, was known to have practiced fortunetelling and had long been suspected of being a witch. It comes as no surprise that she was the first to be accused in Beverly. At her trial, she was found guilty and condemned to hang. However, she then confessed and, with the support of several ministers, was given a reprieve and released. Also accused were Sarah Murrell, Sarah Morey, Sarah Riste, Susanna Rootes, and Job Tookey. Almost all of Beverly's accusations were made from the end of April to June 1.

Today, Beverly is a community of almost 40,000 people. The Reverend John Hale's house, built in 1694, still stands at 39 Hale Street and is open to the public. His body is buried at the Ancient Burial Ground between Hale and Abbott Streets.

Billerica - Situated in Middlesex County, the settlement was an Indian village named Shawshin when European settlers first visited the site. In 1638, Massachusetts Bay Governor John Winthrop and Lieutenant Governor Thomas Dudley were granted land along the Concord River, and a settlement was formed. Under the supervision of the City of Cambridge, financial difficulties prevented the village from being settled immediately. Finally, in 1652, roughly a dozen families from Cambridge and Charlestown Village began to occupy Shawshin, and later more families from Woburn would join them. Wishing to replace the foreign-sounding Shawshin with a more familiar name, the settlers chose the name Billerica because many of the families had come from there. The town was incorporated in 1655.

During the witch trial frenzy of Salem Village, Billerica, which is situated about 20 miles west of Salem Village, soon found many of its citizens accused. Dr. Roger and Mary Allen Toothaker would be accused by their niece, Sarah Carrier of Andover. Their daughters, ten-year-old Margaret and Martha Toothaker Emerson of Haverhill were also accused. Although there is no testimony to such, many believe that John Durrant and Rebecca Chamberlain were also victims of the Salem witch hunts. Both died in prison in Cambridge, John Durrant in October 1692 and Rebecca Chamberlain in September 1692. Other Billerica residents were summoned to testify as witnesses, including John Rogers, who had once been a close neighbor to Thomas and Martha Carrier, and Captain Jonathan Danforth. Though John Rogers agreed to attend, Captain Danforth refused, stating that he had nothing to say.

Today, the population of Billerica is about 40,000 people.

Boxford - Located in Essex County, Boxford was first settled in 1646 as part of Rowley Village by Abraham Redington. It was officially incorporated in 1685, when about 40 families resided in the settlement. The primary occupation of early settlers was farming, though there were several craftsmen located in the village. Boxford did not gain its own church until 1701, so its residents likely attended church in other nearby villages. During the infamous witch trials of 1692, three Boxford residents were accused of witchcraft. Rebecca Blake Eames was the first accused in August. She and her husband, Robert, lived near the Andover line with their son and his family.

She was examined on August 19, 1692, along with Mary Lacey, Sr., of Andover, who testified that Rebecca Blake Eames had baptized her son, Daniel Eames, as a witch. Confessing, Rebecca claimed that the Devil had bewitched her in the hollow through which Ipswich Road runs. She would also say that her son, Daniel Eames, was also a witch. On September 17, 1692, she and nine others were condemned to die. She would be imprisoned until May 1693, when she was finally released. Her son, Daniel, was also imprisoned for a time, but the results are unknown. Boxford's only other case was when Hannah Post, the sister of Mary Post of Andover, who had been found guilty and condemned of witchcraft, was also examined and indicted. She was later found not guilty and released.

Boxford is now called home to about 8,000 people

Gloucester - Located on Cape Ann in Essex County, Gloucester was founded at Cape Ann by an expedition called the "Dorchester Company" of men from Dorchester, England, chartered by King James I in 1623. It was one of the first English settlements in what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony and predated both Salem and Boston. The first company of pioneers made a landing at Half Moon Beach and settled nearby. However, life in this first settlement was harsh and short-lived. Around 1626, it was abandoned, and the people moved to Naumkeag, later called Salem. Even the meetinghouse was disassembled and relocated. However, the original location was slowly resettled over the years, and Gloucester was formally incorporated in 1642. It took its name from the city of Gloucester in southwest England.

When the infamous witch trials began in 1692, Gloucester was still an isolated farming community, not yet the thriving port and fishing town it would soon become. Like Salem Village, Gloucester had gone through several factional conflicts earlier in the century but, by 1692, mainly had obtained the stable, harmonious environment that Puritans expected of their communities. However, this model Puritan community produced 17 witchcraft accusations, more than most area villages, except Andover, Salem Village, and Salem Towne.

Though most of the community's problems had resolved themselves, there was some remaining friction, as most of those accused were of high social and economic status, leading to the belief that there was envy on the part of some villagers. The remaining accused were known to have reputations as trouble-makers or were related to other accused witches.

The first Gloucester residents accused of witchcraft were Margaret Skillings Prince and Elizabeth Dicer on September 3, 1692. Ebenezer Babson accused them after he had asked some of the afflicted Salem Village girls to visit his mother, Eleanor, who was complaining of spectral visions of Indians and French soldiers. Ironically, the previous summer, Ebenezer Babson had been involved in an odd hysteria over phantom Indians and French soldiers that had allegedly gripped Gloucester. Despite this strange history, after the " afflicted girls" pinpointed Margaret Skillings Prince and Elizabeth Dicer, a complaint was sworn out against the two women. Around the same time, four more women were accused, including Mary Prince Rowe, Phoebe Day, Rachel Vinson, and Joan Penney.

Shortly afterward, James Stevens, a local church deacon and lieutenant in the militia, sent for the "afflicted girls" of Salem Village to name the witch he believed was afflicting his sister Mary Fitch, much like Joseph Ballard had done in Andover in September. When Mary Fitch, who was deathly ill, was visited by the "afflicted girls," they named Rebecca Dike, Esther Elwell, and 15-year-old Abigail Rowe as the witches who had caused her illness.

Others accused of witchcraft in Gloucester included William Brown, Ann Higginson Dolliver, Joseph Emons, and Abigail Somes. Four more women who were accused successfully fought back by filing a legal action for slander against those who were spreading rumors about them. These women included Agnes Evans, Grace Dutch, Elizabeth Perkins, and Sarah Vinson. Fortunately for the accused, it appears that these cases never went to trial because the use of spectral evidence was banned in October 1692, giving prosecutors little evidence to go on, and the Court of Oyer and Terminer was disbanded. Public officials set up the Superior Court of Judicature in November to hear the remaining witchcraft cases. Between January and May of 1693, most accused were released due to a lack of evidence or tried and found not guilty.

Today, Gloucester is an important center of the fishing industry and a popular summer destination. It's called home to a population of almost 29,000 people.

Haverhill - Located about 24 miles north of Salem, on the Merrimack River, Haverhill started as a farming community, founded in 1640 by settlers from Newbury. It was initially known as Pentucket, a Native American word for "place of the winding river." It was later renamed for the town of Haverhill, England, in deference to the birthplace of the settlement's first pastor, Reverend John Ward. Haverhill has played a role in nearly every era of American history, from the initial colonial settlement to the French and Indian Wars and the American Revolution and Civil War. It also played a role in the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692.

When the hysteria began, Haverhill resident, Judge Nathaniel Saltonstall, was chosen to preside over the Salem witch trials; however, he found the trials objectionable and recused himself. Some historians cite his reluctance to participate in the trials as one of the reasons that the witch hysteria did not take as deep a root in Haverhill as it did in the neighboring town of Andover, which had the most witch hunt victims. However, several women from Haverhill were accused of witchcraft, and a few were found "guilty" by the Court of Oyer and Terminer. In the old Pentucker Cemetery, located at the intersection of Water and Mill Streets, lies the remains of Major Nathaniel Saltonstall, who objected to the witch trials.

Today, Haverhill is called home to almost 61,000 people.

Ipswich - A coastal town in Essex County, Ipswich was founded by John Winthrop the Younger, son of John Winthrop, one of the founders of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 and its first governor, elected in England in 1629. When the colonists first arrived, they investigated the region of Salem, Massachusetts, and Cape Ann, including a place they called Agawam. However, they settled in Charlestown. In 1633, John the Younger decided to settle at Agawam. He and 12 men soon sailed into Ipswich harbor and took up residence there. The following year, the town was incorporated and called Ipswich, after a town in Suffolk County, England. Nathaniel Ward, an assistant pastor in town from 1634 to 1636, wrote Massachusetts's first code of laws. Early settlers became farmers, fishermen, shipbuilders, and traders.

Like other local villages, Ipswich would see some of its citizens arrested for witchcraft, but the hysteria that took over other nearby settlements, such as Salem Village and Andover, would not have the same impact in Ipswich. This is accredited to the ministers of the settlement who put themselves on record as not being in agreement with the delusion of the witch trials.

However, Rachel Clinton was arrested for witchcraft at the end of March 1692. She was indicted and imprisoned until 1693. Destitute, she would die just two years later. It probably came as no surprise to area residents that Mehittable Braybrook Downing, who had quite a questionable history and reputation for the time, was also arrested and imprisoned. Also accused were Thomas Dyer, Anna Edmunds, Margaret Read, and Thomas Wells. No one from Ipswich was executed. Sarah Buckley, the wife of William Buckley, who was a former resident of Ipswich, was also accused, but the Reverend William Hubbard stepped up to save her.

Today, Ipswich is a residential community with a vibrant tourism industry. It is called home to about 13,000 people.

Lynn - Located in Essex County, Lynn was first settled in 1629 by Edmund Ingalls, who was followed by a number of other settlers who wanted to find a less crowded area. They bargained with the Nipmuck Indians for some land known as Saugus, and in 1631 the settlement was incorporated as Saugus. The land originally purchased from the Indians now encompasses not only the city of Lynn but also Reading, Swampscott, Nahant, Saugus, and Lynnfield. In 1637, the settlement's first official minister, Samuel Whiting, arrived from King's Lynn, England. The settlers were so excited that they changed the name of their community to Lynn in honor of him. Although mostly an agricultural community, early settlers also relied on shellfishing, and many were skilled in making leather shoes, resulting in the first tannery in the United States being established in Lynn in 1629.

Lynn had its first "witch scare" in 1669 when Ann Holland Basset Burt, a Quaker, and a midwife, was brought up on charges of witchcraft. Because she was not a doctor but was successful at curing the sick, some people felt she could only have medical skills if she were a witch. Apparently, no action was taken against Ann Burt as a result of these charges. However, some of her descendants would not be so lucky. Her granddaughter, Elizabeth Bassett Proctor, of Peabody, Massachusetts, would be accused of witchcraft, found guilty, and condemned to die. She was only spared because she was pregnant. Her husband, John Proctor, would be hanged for wizardry. Several more in the family would also be accused.

During the witch hysteria, there were a number of people from Lynn who were accused of witchcraft, including Sarah Hood Bassett, Sarah Aslett Cole, Jane Greepe Collins, Thomas Farrar, Margaret Gifford, Elizabeth Huthinson Hart, and Mary Leach Ireson.

Today, Lynn is the largest city in Essex County. It is an urban manufacturing and commercial center, densely populated and culturally diverse. Residents are proud of the city's long history, which parallels the history of New England as a whole. It is called home to more than 90,000 residents.

Malden - Situated in a hilly woodland area north of the Mystic River in Middlesex County, Malden is about 16 miles southwest of what was once called Salem Village. It was settled by Puritans in 1640 on land purchased in 1629 from the Pennacook Indian tribe. The area was originally called the "Mistick Side" and was a part of Charlestown. It was incorporated as a separate town in May 1649. The name Malden was selected by Joseph Hills, an early settler and landholder, and was named after a small parish in Surrey County, England. That same Joseph Hills compiled the first code of enacted laws printed in New England in 1648. A church was organized in 1649, but the date of the erection of the first meeting house is not known. Among the early ministers was the Reverend Michael Wigglesworth, a poet as well as a preacher, who was ordained in 1656 and continued as pastor until his death on June 10, 1705. Malden originally included what are now the adjacent cities of Melrose (until 1850) and Everett (until 1870).

During the witch hunts of 1692, several Malden residents were accused, including Mary Cox, Elizabeth Betts Fosdic, and Elizabeth Carrington Paine. The influential Captain John Floyd, who lived in Chelsea at the time of his accusation, had earlier lived in Malden.

Today, Malden is a large and prosperous town situated just four miles north of Boston. It is called home to more than 59,000 people.

Marblehead - Located in Essex County, Marblehead was first settled as a plantation of Salem in 1629 by John Peach, Sr. At that time, the area was inhabited by the Naumkeag tribe; but smallpox epidemics in 1615-1619 and 1633 devastated the tribe. What was left of the tribe would later sell 3,700 acres to area residents in 1684. Over the years, more and more people migrated from nearby Salem, often to escape the strict discipline of the intensely religious Puritans. These people co-existed peacefully with the Naumkeag tribe. Twenty years after John Peach, Sr. had settled his plantation, enough people had come to the area that a town was incorporated in 1649. It was first called Massebequash after the river, which ran between it and Salem. It was also referred to as Marvell Head and Marble Harbor.

Later, the town's name was changed to Marblehead by settlers who mistook its granite ledges for marble. The town prospered as a fishing village with narrow, crooked streets, gradually growing inland from the harbor. In fact, the fisherman did so well, that more people, hearing of the abundant fish, began to arrive from England to settle in Marblehead. On December 12, 1648, members of a Salem Towne Meeting voted, subject to the approval of the Massachusetts General Court, to grant Marblehead its complete independence from Salem.

Two years later, Marblehead would deal with its first official witch accusation. In 1650, a fisherman named Peter Pittford claimed that he had seen the "Goodwife James" step aboard a boat and put to sea "in the likeness of a cat!" He also insisted that she employed her evil talents to ruin his corn and beans. Jane James was the wife of a ship carpenter, who had, years earlier in 1639, been convicted of stealing. This created, for her, a bad reputation, and she soon became the target of numerous rumors. By 1650, neighbors began to cast her in the role of a witch. That year, as well as the next - 1651, and again in 1667, formal complaints would be made that James was a witch. Though she was never convicted, and all three times, won lawsuits against her accusers for slander, her reputation in the "court of public opinion" was forever ruined.

The next person accused of witchcraft in Marblehead would not be so lucky. Marblehead's sole victim during the witch hysteria of 1692 was Wilmot Redd, the wife of a fisherman who was known for her bad temper and many disputes with her neighbors. She was accused by several of the " afflicted girls" of Salem Village, a warrant was issued for her arrest in May 1692, and she was examined in Salem Village. Several months later, in September, she was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged. Her execution was carried out on September 22, 1692. Years later, Marblehead would be known for another celebrity "witch" - Moll Pitcher. Though she never claimed to be a "witch," many thought of her as such. She was actually a sought-after fortune-teller who was thought to have been very accurate, so much so that some sailors would not set foot on their vessels if she predicted any bad luck. Had she been "practicing" her skill a century earlier, she probably would have been hanged.

Today, Marblehead displays much of its early architecture from its heydays as a commercial fishing era. It is called home to almost 20,000 people. Several sites from the witch hysteria of 1692 can be seen. Redd's Pond, located at the intersection of Pond and Norman Streets, is named for Wilmot Redd, who was one of the many executed during the infamous witch trials. Her home once stood near here. Adjacent to Redd's Pond is the Old Burial Hill, founded in 1638. Though Wilmot Redd was not buried here as the law would not allow her to be buried in consecrated ground, she was probably buried in an unmarked grave near her home. Today, however, a memorial marker now stands next to her husband's grave in Old Burial Hill. The historic cemetery also features numerous other historic Puritan gravestones. It is located on the high ground between Marblehead's colonial-era residential and retail district, called "Old Town," and the Barnegat neighborhood that stretches from Little Harbor to Doliber's Cove. It is accessible via a walkway at Redd's Pond and a stairway at the intersection of Orne and Pond Streets.

Also still standing in Marblehead is the Ambrose Gale House, built about 1663. Ambrose Gale is known for his testimony against Wilmot Redd, who would later be hanged for witchcraft. The privately-owned house is located at 17 Franklin Street, between Washington and Selman Streets.

© Kathy Alexander/ Legends of America, updated June 2023.
Also See:
The Salem Witchcraft Hysteria (main article)
Accused "Witches" The "Afflicted" Girls Procedures, Courts & Aftermath Timeline of the Salem Witchcraft Events

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Though the Salem Witch Trials began in Salem Village, there were several other area villages involved.

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In early 1692, during the depths of winter in Massachusetts Bay Colony, a group of young girls in the village of Salem began acting strangely. The daughter and niece of the local minister, Samuel Parris, claimed to be afflicted by invisible forces who bit and pinched them, sending their limbs flailing. By mid-February, two more girls had joined them, and the first waves of panic gripped Salem's residents: The girls had been bewitched.

The afflicted girls soon accused three women: the Parris' "Indian" enslaved worker, Tituba; a local beggar woman, Sarah Good; and an invalid widow, Sarah Osbourne. As local magistrates began questioning the accused, people packed into a tavern to witness the girls come face to face with the women they had accused of witchcraft.

While the other two women denied the accusations against them, Tituba told vivid stories of how Satan had revealed himself to her. She said she had signed the devil's book with her own blood, and seen the marks of Good and Osbourne there beside her own.

Tituba's riveting testimony helped unleash a notorious witch hunt that swept quickly beyond Salem and engulfed all of New England. Close to 200 people would be accused before the Salem Witch Trials ended the following year, and 20 of them would be executed by hanging over the summer and fall of 1692. These are five of their stories.

1. Bridget Bishop

When the special Court of Oyer and Terminer convened in Salem Town in early June, the first case it heard was against Bridget Bishop, a local widow, as the prosecutor assumed her case would be easy to win. Bishop had been accused of witchcraft more than a decade earlier, but was acquitted for lack of evidence. She also fit everyone's idea of a witch: elderly, poor and argumentative.

Ten witnesses testified against Bishop, and she was quickly found guilty and sentenced to death. On June 10, she was taken to Proctor's Ledge near Gallows Hill in Salem and "hanged by the neck until she was dead," according to the report of the sheriff who escorted her.

2. Sarah Good

By then, signs of opposition to the Salem Witch Trials had begun to surface. Several ministers questioned whether the court relied too much on spectral evidence, or testimony about the ghostly figures witches supposedly sent to afflict their victims. "Everyone assumed there were specters who could do it," says Margo Burns, a New Hampshire-based historian specializing in the Salem witch trials. "That was not disputed. But what was disputed was whether the devil could send the shape of an innocent person to afflict."

Still, when the Court of Oyer and Terminer reconvened on June 28 after its success convicting Bishop, Sarah Good was quickly convicted and sentenced to death. Several of the afflicted girls claimed Good's specter attacked them, and Tituba and several others had named her as a fellow witch in their confessions, claiming she flew on a broomstick and attended witches' gatherings. On July 19, Good was carted to Gallows Hill and executed along with the churchgoing grandmother, Rebecca Nurse, and three other convicted witches.

3. Susannah Martin

Susannah Martin did not even live in Salem, but in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Like Bishop, she had been accused of witchcraft before, but the charges had been dropped for lack of evidence. Her bad reputation may have spread to Salem by 1692, when four of the afflicted girls in Salem accused her by name, claiming her specter had attacked them.

When the court asked them how they knew the specter was Martin's, the girls said "'Oh, she said her name was Goody Martin and she was from Amesbury,'" Burns recounts. "They didn't even have to recognize her." Despite the general lack of evidence against her, Martin was also convicted and hanged on July 19, the same day as Sarah Good.

4. Martha Carrier

When the Court of Oyer and Terminer met for a third session in early August 1692, it heard the case of Martha Carrier of Andover, which would be home to more accused witches than any other town. "Her family was very unpopular," Burns says of Carrier; they were thought to have brought smallpox to Andover. After Carrier was accused, the authorities interrogated her two teenage sons, torturing them into confessing to witchcraft themselves, and implicating their mother.

In The Wonders of the Invisible World, his famous account of the Salem Witch Trials, Cotton Mather memorably called Carrier a "rampant hag" who aspired to be "Queen of Hell." The court convicted Carrier in the same session as two prominent male victims of the witch hunts, John Proctor and Reverend George Burroughs, whom people suspected of being the ringleader of Salem's witches. On August 19, Carrier went to Gallows Hill along with Proctor, Burroughs and two other men -she was the only woman executed that day.

5. Martha Cory

Like Rebecca Nurse, Martha Cory was far from the usual witch suspect, who tended to be a poor outcast. She was a covenanted member of her church, and was considered an upstanding member of the community. But Martha had attracted suspicion after she tried to stop her husband, Giles, from attending one of the early examinations in the witch trials, even going so far as to hide his saddle. Shortly after this, one of the afflicted girls accused Martha of bewitching her and turning her blind.

Martha's defiant attitude turned court officials against her, and Giles refused to corroborate her testimony, and even testified against her-at least until he himself was accused. Less than two weeks after Martha was found guilty and sentenced to death, Giles was pressed to death after he refused to enter a plea in his own trial. On September 22, Martha Cory went to the gallows along with seven other convicted witches, in what would be the last hangings of the Salem Witch Trials.

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5 Notable Women Hanged in the Salem Witch Trials | HISTORY

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An elderly widow, a beggar and a church-going woman who made a stand against the trials were among those executed.

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This shows the ways that the girls back then would lie to get people killed :|

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Table of Contents

1. What Caused the Salem Witch Trials?: Context & Origins

2. Salem Witch Trial Victims: How the Hysteria Spread

3. Salem Witch Trials: Conclusion and Legacy

The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem's Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months.

By September 1692, the hysteria had begun to abate and public opinion turned against the trials. Though the Massachusetts General Court later annulled guilty verdicts against accused witches and granted indemnities to their families, bitterness lingered in the community, and the painful legacy of the Salem witch trials would endure for centuries.

What Caused the Salem Witch Trials?: Context & Origins

Belief in the supernatural-and specifically in the devil's practice of giving certain humans (witches) the power to harm others in return for their loyalty-had emerged in Europe as early as the 14th century, and was widespread in colonial New England. In addition, the harsh realities of life in the rural Puritan community of Salem Village (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts) at the time included the after-effects of a British war with France in the American colonies in 1689, a recent smallpox epidemic, fears of attacks from neighboring Native American tribes and a longstanding rivalry with the more affluent community of Salem Town (present-day Salem).

Amid these simmering tensions, the Salem witch trials would be fueled by residents' suspicions of and resentment toward their neighbors, as well as their fear of outsiders.

Did you know? In an effort to explain by scientific means the strange afflictions suffered by those "bewitched" Salem residents in 1692, a study published in Science magazine in 1976 cited the fungus ergot (found in rye, wheat and other cereals), which toxicologists say can cause symptoms such as delusions, vomiting and muscle spasms.

In January 1692, 9-year-old Elizabeth (Betty) Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams (the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, minister of Salem Village) began having fits, including violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. After a local doctor, William Griggs, diagnosed bewitchment, other young girls in the community began to exhibit similar symptoms, including Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Walcott and Mary Warren.

In late February, arrest warrants were issued for the Parris' Caribbean slave, Tituba, along with two other women-the homeless beggar Sarah Good and the poor, elderly Sarah Osborn-whom the girls accused of bewitching them.

Salem Witch Trial Victims: How the Hysteria Spread

The three accused witches were brought before the magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne and questioned, even as their accusers appeared in the courtroom in a grand display of spasms, contortions, screaming and writhing. Though Good and Osborn denied their guilt, Tituba confessed. Likely seeking to save herself from certain conviction by acting as an informer, she claimed there were other witches acting alongside her in service of the devil against the Puritans.

As hysteria spread through the community and beyond into the rest of Massachusetts, a number of others were accused, including Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse-both regarded as upstanding members of church and community-and the four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good.

Like Tituba, several accused "witches" confessed and named still others, and the trials soon began to overwhelm the local justice system. In May 1692, the newly appointed governor of Massachusetts, William Phips, ordered the establishment of a special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide) on witchcraft cases for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties.

Presided over by judges including Hathorne, Samuel Sewall and William Stoughton, the court handed down its first conviction, against Bridget Bishop, on June 2; she was hanged eight days later on what would become known as Gallows Hill in Salem Town. Five more people were hanged that July; five in August and eight more in September. In addition, seven other accused witches died in jail, while the elderly Giles Corey (Martha's husband) was pressed to death by stones after he refused to enter a plea at his arraignment.

Salem Witch Trials: Conclusion and Legacy

Though the respected minister Cotton Mather had warned of the dubious value of spectral evidence (or testimony about dreams and visions), his concerns went largely unheeded during the Salem witch trials. Increase Mather, president of Harvard College (and Cotton's father) later joined his son in urging that the standards of evidence for witchcraft must be equal to those for any other crime, concluding that "It would better that ten suspected witches may escape than one innocent person be condemned."

Amid waning public support for the trials, Governor Phips dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer in October and mandated that its successor disregard spectral evidence. Trials continued with dwindling intensity until early 1693, and by that May Phips had pardoned and released all those in prison on witchcraft charges.

In January 1697, the Massachusetts General Court declared a day of fasting for the tragedy of the Salem witch trials; the court later deemed the trials unlawful, and the leading justice Samuel Sewall publicly apologized for his role in the process. The damage to the community lingered, however, even after Massachusetts Colony passed legislation restoring the good names of the condemned and providing financial restitution to their heirs in 1711.

Indeed, the vivid and painful legacy of the Salem witch trials endured well into the 20th century, when Arthur Miller dramatized the events of 1692 in his play "The Crucible" (1953), using them as an allegory for the anti-Communist "witch hunts" led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. A memorial to the victims of the Salem witch trials was dedicated on August 5, 1992 by author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

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Salem Witch Trials - Events, Facts & Victims | HISTORY

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The infamous Salem witch trials were a series of prosecutions for witchcraft starting in 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. Learn about what led to the allegations and the hundreds of people who were were accused.

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The Salem Witch Trials: Real Facts That Will Haunt You

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You may come to uncover that the Salem witch trials facts that you think to be true may not be. Discover some real facts about the period of mass hysteria.

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In January of 1692, nine-year-old Betty Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece of Salem Village minister Reverend Samuel Parris, suddenly feel ill. Making strange, foreign sounds, huddling under furniture, and clutching their heads, the girls' symptoms were alarming and astounding to their parents and neighbors. When neither prayer nor medicine succeeded in alleviating the girls' agony, the worried parents turned to the only other explanation; the children were suffering from the effects of witchcraft. As word of the illness spread, others began to fall ill with the same alarming symptoms. The afflicted complained disembodied spirits were stabbing them, choking them, and jabbing them with pins. Soon names were cried out as the afflicted began to identify these specters. Neighbors, acquaintances, and total strangers were named in the statements and examinations that followed. Over the course of the year 1692, between 150-200 people were jailed for witchcraft. Ultimately, 14 women and 5 men were hanged, one man was tortured to death, and at least five people perished in prison. This was the largest series of witchcraft trials to ever take place in North America, and would be the last large-scale witch panic to take place in the English colonies.

To understand the events of the Salem witch trials, it is necessary to examine the times in which these events occurred. There were the ordinary stresses of seventeenth-century life in Massachusetts Bay Colony; a strong belief in the devil, the recent smallpox epidemic, the ever-present threat of attack by Indigenous tribes and their French allies, boundary and border disputes between neighbors. These factors alone created a fertile ground for fear and suspicion. However, these fears were made worse by a growing factional conflict in Salem Village, rising inflation, and the removal of the Massachusetts Bay Charter in 1684. To many it seemed the Puritan ideal of a "City on a Hill" was slipping away, decades of work suddenly pulled from their grasp. Many wondered if Satan's forces had infiltrated their new land.

When a new charter finally arrived in May of 1692, the growing number of witchcraft accusations prompted newly appointed Governor William Phips to hastily create a special court, the Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to determine), to oversee these cases. As a special court created amidst an ever increasing witchcraft panic, the magistrates made a series unusual procedural choices- the most dangerous being the decision to allow the use of spectral evidence. At this time, some believed witches were able to project a ghostly version of themselves beyond their physical body, which could be sent to torment unsuspecting victims.

The first to be tried by the Court of Oyer and Terminer was Bridget Bishop of Salem Town. Goodwife Bishop was found guilty and hanged on June 10. Eighteen people, from all stations of life, followed her to the gallows on three successive hanging days. Finally, due to a combination of factors, including numerous petitions and letters authored by the accused, their family members, and local ministers, as well as the accusation of individuals from the highest levels of society (including the Governor's own wife!) Governor Phips disbanded the Court of Oyer and Terminer in October.

Trials resumed in January of 1693, this time with a new court, the Supreme Court of Judicature, the same court we use in Massachusetts to this day. This court differed from the first in that it no longer accepted spectral testimony. With this controversial evidence gone, most were found not-guilty and released. Though a few convictions, from both the old and new court, remained, in late January Governor Phips stepped in once again and issued last minute reprieves. The Salem witch trials were over.

As the years passed, some offered apologies for their role in the witchcraft trials and restitution was eventually paid to many of the victims and their families. In 1697, the Massachusetts General Court ordered a day of fasting and prayer in atonement for errors made by the colony, including the witchcraft trials. On this day one judge, Samuel Sewall, and 12 jurors, came forward to apologize for their roles in the Salem witch trials. The other magistrates never admitted there had been a miscarriage of justice, going to their graves believing they did what was best for the colony.

Though a resolution was passed by the General Court in 1711 which reversed the attainder (restored the civil liberties) in the case of many of those condemned in 1692, seven individuals were not included by name, and thus technically remained convicted of witchcraft. In 1945, a bill was introduced into legislature to clear six names, headed by descendants of Ann Pudeator. Twelve years later, a resolution was passed that pardoned "Ann Pudeator and certain other persons." However, these "other persons" were yet to be formally named. Five of the missing names were finally added to the resolve in October of 2001, formally declaring the innocence of Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott, and Wilmott Redd. Unfortunately, one last name, that of Elizabeth Johnson Jr., was missed in the 2001 resolve. Inspired by a talk given by historian Richard Hite, a group of middle school students in North Andover, Massachusetts, took it upon themselves to clear the remaining name. This last case was finally resolved in the summer of 2022.

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1692 Salem Witch Trial Education | Salem, MA History

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Examine the times in which the Salem Witchcraft occured by visiting the Salem Witch Museum. Visit the museum in Salem, MA to ask our historians your questions. Learn about the true occurrences by touring the historical monuments/resources in salem and surrounding towns.

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In January of 1692, the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village became ill. William Griggs, the village doctor, was called in when they failed to improve. His diagnosis of bewitchment put into motion the forces that would ultimately result in the hanging deaths of 19 men and women. In addition one man was pressed to death; several others died in prison, and the lives of many were irrevocably changed.

Time Period Of The Salem Witch Trials

To understand the events of the Salem Witch Trials, it is necessary to examine the times in which accusations of witchcraft occurred. There were the ordinary stresses of 17th-century life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A strong belief in the devil, factions among Salem Village families and rivalry with nearby Salem Town combined with a recent small pox epidemic and the threat of attack by warring tribes created a fertile ground for fear and suspicion. Soon, prisons were filled with more than 150 men and women from towns surrounding Salem; their names had been "cried out" by tormented young girls as the cause of their pain. All would await trial for a crime punishable by death in 17th-century New England - the practice of witchcraft.

Historical Background of the Witch Trials

In June of 1692, the special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide) sat in Salem to hear the cases of witchcraft. Presided over by Chief Justice William Stoughton, the court was made up of magistrates and jurors. The first to be tried was Bridget Bishop of Salem who was found guilty and was hanged on June 10. Thirteen women and five men from all stations of life followed her to the gallows on three successive hanging days before the court was disbanded by Governor William Phipps in October of that year. The Superior Court of Judicature, formed to replace the "witchcraft" court, did not allow spectral evidence. This belief in the power of the accused to use their invisible shapes or spectres to torture their victims had sealed the fates of those tried by the Court of Oyer and Terminer. The new court released those awaiting trial and pardoned those awaiting execution. In effect, the Salem Witch Trials were over.

As years passed, apologies were offered and restitution was made to the victims' families. Historians and sociologists have examined this most complex episode in our history so that we may understand the issues of that era and view subsequent events with heightened awareness. The parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and more modem examples of "witch hunting" like the McCarthy hearings of the 1950's, are remarkable.

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Salem Witch Trials Of 1692 | Landmarks, Events, & More

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Find information about local museums, historical events, happenings, and attractions in Salem related to the Witch Trials of 1692

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The Salem Witch Trials were a series of legal proceedings in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692-1693 resulting in the deaths of 20 innocent people accused of witchcraft and the vilification of over 200 others based, initially, on the reports of young girls who claimed to have been harmed by the spells of certain women they accused of witchcraft.

The initial accusers were Betty Parris (age 9) and her cousin Abigail Williams (age 11) who were supported in their claims by Ann Putnam the Younger (age 12) and Elisabeth Hubbard (age 17), but once those accusations were made, many others not only supported the girls but brought charges against their fellow citizens, sparking a witch hunt in Salem and the surrounding communities.

At the heart of the trials and later executions were religion and superstition in Colonial America. The Bible, in the Book of Exodus 22:18, states "Thou shalt not suffer a witch live," and this was adhered to as closely as any other biblical injunction and encouraged by the Salem Village minister of the time, the Reverend Samuel Parris (l. 1653-1720). Parris was the fourth minister called by the Salem Village congregation. Earlier ministers had left after relatively brief stays, and Parris was faring little better in his ability to mediate disputes between neighbors until he managed to focus their energies on accusing each other of witchcraft. The underlying tensions of the community found expression in the persecution of marginalized members - and then those well-respected - in the community which resulted in the execution of 20, self-exile, loss of status, or death in jail while awaiting a court appearance.

As early as 1695, criticism was leveled against the magistrates of Salem for the deaths and persecution of the innocent and this opinion only gained ground afterwards. Between 1700-1703, petitions were filed to have the convictions reversed and the accused exonerated, and in 1711, compensation was authorized for the families of those unjustly executed. Since that time, the Salem Witch Trials have been referenced simply as "witch trials" or "witch hunts" in connection with any unfounded, unfair, and baseless claim against a person or the ideals that person stands for and the event has been given iconic status in the USA and elsewhere.

Colonial Belief in Witchcraft

Legal documents and testimonies of the time establish that there were a number of citizens who did not believe in witchcraft, but the majority - in the New England Colonies as well as the Middle and Southern English Colonies - certainly did. This belief was encouraged by the Bible through stories such as the Witch of Endor (I Samuel 28:3-25) and the line from the Book of Exodus mentioned above. The Bible was understood as the inerrant word of God and made clear that witches were as much of a reality as anything else; questioning the existence of witches meant questioning the divine authority of the Bible.

A belief in witchcraft was further encouraged by the need to explain the seemingly unexplainable.

A belief in witchcraft was further encouraged by the need to explain the seemingly unexplainable. If a pious person or a child or young bride should suddenly fall ill or die, it might be attributed to God's mysterious will but could as easily be explained by witchcraft and the workings of the devil. Although it may seem strange and irrational to a modern-day audience, the belief was also supported by colonists' interpretation of everyday experience. If Neighbor A asked to borrow some candles from Neighbor B and Neighbor B refused the request, and if Neighbor B later became ill or their house caught fire or their horse died for no apparent reason, Neighbor A might be accused of having cast a spell to cause the otherwise inexplicable misfortune.

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A belief in witches did not originate in the colonies, however, as England - and Europe overall - had been persecuting those accused of witchcraft for centuries. One of the most famous witch trials in English history was that of the Pendle Witches in 1612 in Lancashire which resulted in the execution by hanging of ten people convicted of witchcraft. The records of the proceedings were published in 1613 and widely read, and the case was popularized again in 1634 when one of the accusers was herself accused of witchcraft. The 1634 case was further popularized by the melodrama The Late Lancashire Witches by Thomas Heywood (l. c. 1570-1641) and Richard Brome (l. c. 1590-1652), which ends with a supposition of the guilt of the accused.

This was almost always the foregone conclusion of an accusation of witchcraft since it was understood that no one would bring such a serious charge against another without good reason. Accusers seem to always have believed that their word and anecdotal evidence was all the proof a court needed to convict, and while this may have been true of popular opinion, courts did try to weigh objective evidence before handing down a conviction, even if the paradigm of guilty-until-proven-innocent was largely adhered to. This was certainly the case with the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693 during which over 200 people were accused of witchcraft in Salem Village, Salem Town, Andover, Ipswich, and Topsfield; 30 were found guilty and 20 executed, most by hanging.

Social & Religious Context

Tensions were already high in both Salem Town and Salem Village in 1692 and had been for some time. The citizens of Salem Village resented the greater affluence of Salem Town as well as its presumption in controlling the village's affairs. Salem Village had no civil government of its own and was under the jurisdiction of Salem Town. All citizens of both were required to attend Sunday worship services, but Salem Town refused to allow Salem Village to have its own meeting house and so villagers had to travel to the town on Sundays, no matter the weather, which they came to resent.

Salem Village eventually hired their own minister but refused to pay him and so he left. The second minister, George Burroughs, experienced the same problems and resigned but remained in the village. A third minister also resigned, and this contributed to Salem Village's reputation, as held by Salem Town, as contentious and petty. The fourth minister was Samuel Parris, a failed merchant who had attended Harvard University but never completed his course of study. He seems to have become a minister as a second career choice. In 1689, Salem Village was allowed to form its own church with Parris as their pastor. Scholar Brian P. Levack comments:

Parris proved to be an unfortunate choice: a failed and bitter merchant who resented those who succeeded in the world of commerce, he fueled local hostilities. Parris gave a series of inflammatory sermons that translated faction division into a cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil. In the minds of his supporters, Salem Town became the symbol of an alien, corrupt, and even diabolical world that threatened the welfare of Salem Village. Because supporters of Samuel Parris perceived their enemies as nothing less than evil, it was but a short step for them to become convinced that those aligned with the town and its interests were servants of Satan. (403)

Tensions increased further with the arrival of immigrants in the area who were members of minority Christian sects, such as the Quakers, who were considered threats to the Puritan vision of the Salem community. Perpetual fear of unseen and unexpected danger had been present in the communities since the outbreak of King Philip's War (1675-1678) when King Philip (also known as Metacomet, l. 1638-1676) of the Native American Wampanoag Confederacy launched an assault on the settlements of New England that killed hundreds and destroyed a number of settlements.

In the midst of these various tensions, in February 1692, Samuel Parris' daughter Betty and his niece Abigail Williams, began exhibiting strange behavior - crawling around the floor, hiding under furniture, contorting themselves, screaming, and hurling objects - which, lacking any other explanation after they were examined by a physician, was blamed on witchcraft. Shortly afterwards, Ann Putnam the Younger and Elizabeth Hubbard, then Mary Walcott, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Warren - all friends of Betty Parris and Abigail Williams - began exhibiting the same signs. When Samuel Parris asked his daughter and niece who had cast the spell that was tormenting them, they named three women - Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and the Parris' house-slave Tituba - and Salem Village was plunged into a witch-hunting frenzy.

Salem Witch Trials

Sarah Good was a homeless woman who often begged for charity and had been taken in by Samuel Parris for a short time until he threw her out for "malicious behavior" and ingratitude. Sarah Osborne was a wealthy landowner who had not attended church in over three years, claiming a recurring illness, making her as much of an outcast as Good. Tituba was possibly an Arawak of Caribbean origin who was kidnapped, enslaved, and sold to Samuel Parris in Barbados, where his family had a plantation. She was the family's house-slave and looked after the children, often entertaining them with ghost stories and tales of demons and magic.

The use of 'spectral evidence' was admissible in court as the concept had been addressed by the well-respected Puritan theologian Cotton Mather.

Tituba confessed (later revealing Samuel Parris had beaten the confession out of her) and supported the girls' accusation of Good and Osborne. Good, as noted, was already despised by the Parris family and Osborne, due to her land deals, had adversely affected the finances of Ann Putnam the Younger's father. Tituba popularized the concept of witches riding on broomsticks and conversing with 'familiars' - spirits in animal form - as well as associating with demonic figures and casting malicious spells. Osborne was hanged as a witch in May and Good in July of 1692, maintaining their innocence to the end; Tituba, since she had confessed, was left in jail because Parris refused to pay the fees which would have released her. She was finally sold for the price of the jail fees and disappears from history.

The accusations against the three marginalized women in February 1692 were only the beginning, however, as more people were accused in March. Two of them, Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse, were members in good standing in the church. Corey had questioned the validity of the girls' accusations, insinuating they were lying for personal reasons, and so was charged as a witch for denying the existence of witches. Nurse was accused by the Putnams who claimed her 'specter' was harassing them. The use of 'spectral evidence' was admissible in court as the concept had been addressed by the well-respected Puritan theologian Cotton Mather (l. 1663-1728) whose works were especially popular among the citizens of Massachusetts.

Spectral evidence was simply accepting the word of an accuser over that of the accused as in the case of Martha Corey where the girls cried out in court that her specter was tormenting them and a yellow bird, invisible to everyone but them, was feeding at her hand. Nurse and Corey, both in their early 70s, were hanged. Their convictions heightened the hysteria further in that, if two elderly church-going women in good standing could be witches, anyone could. Corey's husband, Giles, was accused when he defended her. He refused to stand trial and was executed by pressing - crushed to death by weights - in order to extract a confession of guilt. As he never confessed and was never convicted, his last will was honored and his lands went to his heirs, as he intended, instead of being taken by the Putnam family who had accused him.

Although spectral evidence was allowed in court primarily on the weight of Mather's reputation, even he began to recognize that it was going too far and wrote to one of the judges in May of 1692 that they should not give more credence to spectral evidence than was reasonable. In accordance with the biblical book of I John 4:1, all spirits needed to be tested to see whether they were of God or the devil and it was possible that evil spirits were influencing accusers to convict innocent Christians. Many who were accused confessed to being witches in hopes of leniency in accordance with James 5:16, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other that you may be healed," but those who were not hanged or did not die in jail later recanted, explaining they had only confessed for this purpose and had never really been witches. Levack notes:

Once spectral testimony came under attack and once confessors began to recant, the court found itself in an extremely awkward position...As the eagerness of the court to convict collided with a growing chorus of opposition to its proceedings, the governor felt that he had no choice but to suspend the trials and reassess the situation. (407)

The trials were stopped and pardons issued for those still in jail in May 1693. Although it is well-documented that 19 people were hanged and Giles Corey crushed to death, others died in jail awaiting trial, and over 200 had their reputations damaged if not irreparably ruined. The accusers were never called to account because no one involved doubted the reality of witches and their power to harm nor of Satan and his ability to deceive in order to destroy. After the hysteria died down, the accusers went on with their lives as before.

Conclusion

Those who had been accused and pardoned, as noted, were not as lucky and lived on with the stigma of the event or moved elsewhere. Three years later, in 1696, the General Court mandated a day of fasting and repentance for the trials on 14 January 1697. Judges who had taken part in the trials publicly repented and asked forgiveness of the community. Beginning in 1700, petitions were filed by family members with the colonial government of Massachusetts to have the convictions overturned, and in 1711, 22 people were exonerated and financial compensation authorized. This pattern continued over the next ten years but not all who had been convicted were cleared even then. The names of all the people convicted were not cleared, in fact, until 2001.

The Salem Witch Trials, as the most infamous event of its kind, has generated a number of myths from the time people began writing about it c. 1700 to the present. Among the most persistent is that "witches" were burned at Salem even though there is no evidence to support this claim. No "witches" were burned at Salem; they were all hanged. Until recently, those convicted were thought to have been hanged on Gallows Hill, conjuring images of a somber death march up the hill to the place of execution, but the Gallows Hill Project of 2017 debunked this myth, establishing that the hangings took place at the bottom of the hill at the far less dramatic area known as Proctor's Ledge.

It has also been claimed that the majority of those accused were poor, marginalized women, but this has also been challenged and debunked. People of all social classes were accused and convicted, women and men - and, actually, two dogs - for any reason at all. George Burroughs, the second minister to resign at Salem Village, was accused and convicted because he seemed to possess unnatural strength, another woman was convicted because she was able to walk the dusty streets of Salem Village without dirtying her clothing, and Martha Corey, as noted, was executed as a witch for denying witchcraft even existed.

Over the years, many theories have been suggested to explain the Salem witch hysteria and trials. One theory, popularized in the 1970s, is that the colonists were poisoned by ergot fungus on their rye crop in 1692 which caused them to hallucinate, but this does not explain the continuing hysteria throughout 1693 nor the fact that there were many who still believed in witches and the justice of the trials afterwards. Witch trials had been conducted prior to 1692 and would be afterwards throughout the colonies. Class frictions between Salem Village and Salem Town have also been cited as a possible cause, but, although these added to the tensions of the time, they did not actually cause the hysteria. Of the first people accused, only Osborne had connections to Salem Town, the other two were firmly of Salem Village.

The most likely cause of the witch hysteria of 1692-1693 at Salem was religious belief coupled with societal tensions. No one will ever know what caused the girls to make the accusations which started the panic, but once made, they confirmed what was already believed by the colonists. American playwright Arthur Miller's The Crucible cast the Salem Witch Trials as an allegory of the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s which sought to root out communism in the United States. In this play, Miller was drawing attention to the dangers of ideologies which depend on confirmation bias in order to thrive. In both cases, the accusers were operating on a belief in threatening agents in their midst they needed to defend themselves against. The people of Massachusetts already believed in witches because religion in Colonial America encouraged it - they did not need ergot or anything else - all that was required was a physical manifestation of what they feared to confirm what they already knew to be true and act upon it.

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The Salem Witch Trials were a series of legal proceedings in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692-1693 resulting in the deaths of 20 innocent people accused of witchcraft and the vilification of over 200 others based, initially, on the reports of young girls who claimed to have been harmed by the spells of certain women they accused of witchcraft.

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History of the Salem Witch Trials - History of Massachusetts Blog

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The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a dark time in American history. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 were killed during the hysteria. Ever since those dark days ended, the trials have become synonymous with mass hysteria and scapegoating. The following are some facts…

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One freezing day in January of 1692, something strange happened inside the Parris household of Salem Village, Massachusetts. As sleet and snow heaped higher outside their door, Betty Parris and her cousin Abigail began to twitch and twist their bodies into strange shapes, speaking in words that made no sense. Betty's alarmed father, the Reverend Parris, immediately called on a doctor to examine the girls. The doctor's diagnosis? The pair had been bewitched.

WITCH HUNT

At the time, Salem Village was a small New England town populated mostly by Puritans, or religious individuals with a belief in the devil. The Puritan way of life was strict, and even small differences in behavior made people suspicious. Upon hearing about the Parris girls' behavior, much of the Puritan community agreed that the duo had been victims of witchcraft.

When asked who had done this to them, Betty and Abigail blamed three townswomen, including Tituba, a Native American slave who worked in the Parris household. Tituba was known to have played fortune-telling games, which were strictly forbidden by the Puritans. The other two accused women, Sarah Good and Sarah Osbourne, weren't well liked by the community either.

ON TRIAL

The three women were thrown in jail to await trial for practicing witchcraft. During the trial, Tituba confessed to having seen the devil and also stated that there was a coven, or group, of witches in the Salem Village area. Good and Osbourne insisted they were innocent. The court didn't believe them, and found all three women guilty of practicing witchcraft. The punishment was hanging.

As the weeks passed, other young girls claimed to have been infected by witchcraft too. They accused other townspeople of torturing them, and a few of the so-called witches on trial even named others as witches.

Women were not the only ones believed to be witches-men and children were accused too. By the end of the trials in 1693, 24 people had died, some in jail but most by hanging.

THE HYSTERIA FADES

Eventually, after seeming to realize how unfair the trials were to the accused, the court refused to hear any more charges of witchcraft. All of the accused were finally pardoned in 1711.

No one's really sure why the witch craze spread the way it did, but it brought lasting changes to the United States legal system and the way evidence and witnesses were treated. The Salem Village hangings were the last executions of accused witches in the United States.

Text adapted from the National Geographic book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schnauzer.

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Find out what started the witch hunt of 1692.

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Salem witch trials, (June 1692-May 1693), in American history, a series of investigations and persecutions that caused 19 convicted "witches" to be hanged and many other suspects to be imprisoned in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Danvers, Massachusetts).

The events in Salem in 1692 were but one chapter in a long story of witch hunts that began in Europe between 1300 and 1330 and ended in the late 18th century (with the last known execution for witchcraft taking place in Switzerland in 1782). The Salem trials occurred late in the sequence, after the abatement of the European witch-hunt fervour, which peaked from the 1580s and '90s to the 1630s and '40s. Some three-fourths of those European witch hunts took place in western Germany, the Low Countries, France, northern Italy, and Switzerland. The number of trials and executions varied according to time and place, but it is generally believed that some 110,000 persons in total were tried for witchcraft and between 40,000 to 60,000 were executed.

The "hunts" were efforts to identify witches rather than pursuits of individuals who were already thought to be witches. Witches were considered to be followers of Satan who had traded their souls for his assistance. It was believed that they employed demons to accomplish magical deeds, that they changed from human to animal form or from one human form to another, that animals acted as their "familiar spirits," and that they rode through the air at night to secret meetings and orgies. There is little doubt that some individuals did worship the devil and attempt to practice sorcery with harmful intent. However, no one ever embodied the concept of a "witch" as previously described.

The process of identifying witches began with suspicions or rumours. Accusations followed, often escalating to convictions and executions. The Salem witch trials and executions came about as the result of a combination of church politics, family feuds, and hysterical children, all of which unfolded in a vacuum of political authority.

Setting the scene

There were two Salems in the late 17th century: a bustling commerce-oriented port community on Massachusetts Bay known as Salem Town, which would evolve into modern Salem, and, roughly 10 miles (16 km) inland from it, a smaller, poorer farming community of some 500 persons known as Salem Village. The village itself had a noticeable social divide that was exacerbated by a rivalry between its two leading families-the well-heeled Porters, who had strong connections with Salem Town's wealthy merchants, and the Putnams, who sought greater autonomy for the village and were the standard-bearers for the less-prosperous farm families. Squabbles over property were commonplace, and litigiousness was rampant.

In 1689, through the influence of the Putnams, Samuel Parris, a merchant from Boston by way of Barbados, became the pastor of the village's Congregational church. Parris, whose largely theological studies at Harvard College (now Harvard University) had been interrupted before he could graduate, was in the process of changing careers from business to the ministry. He brought to Salem Village his wife, their three children, a niece, and two slaves who were originally from Barbados-John Indian, a man, and Tituba, a woman. (There is uncertainty regarding the relationship between the slaves and their ethnic origins. Some scholars believe that they were of African heritage, while others think that they may have been of Caribbean Native American heritage.)

Parris had shrewdly negotiated his contract with the congregation, but relatively early in his tenure he sought greater compensation, including ownership of the parsonage, which did not sit well with many members of the congregation. Parris's orthodox Puritan theology and preaching also divided the congregation, a split that became demonstrably visible when he routinely insisted that nonmembers of the congregation leave before communion was celebrated. In the process Salem divided into pro- and anti-Parris factions.

Fits and contortions

Probably stimulated by voodoo tales told to them by Tituba, Parris's daughter Betty (age 9), his niece Abigail Williams (age 11), and their friend Ann Putnam, Jr. (about age 12), began indulging in fortune-telling. In January 1692 Betty's and Abigail's increasingly strange behaviour (described by at least one historian as juvenile deliquency) came to include fits. They screamed, made odd sounds, threw things, contorted their bodies, and complained of biting and pinching sensations.

Looking back with the perspective provided by modern science, some scholars have speculated that the strange behaviour may have resulted from some combination of asthma, encephalitis, Lyme disease, epilepsy, child abuse, delusional psychosis, or convulsive ergotism-the last a disease caused by eating bread or cereal made of rye that has been infected with the fungus ergot, which can elicit vomiting, choking, fits, hallucinations, and the sense of something crawling on one's skin. (The hallucinogen LSD is a derivative of ergot.) Given the subsequent spread of the strange behaviour to other girls and young women in the community and the timing of its display, however, those physiological and psychological explanations are not very convincing. The litany of odd behaviour also mirrored that of the children of a Boston family who in 1688 were believed to have been bewitched, a description of which had been provided by Congregational minister Cotton Mather in his book Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions (1689) and which may have been known by the girls in Salem Village. In February, unable to account for their behaviour medically, the local doctor, William Griggs, put the blame on the supernatural. At the suggestion of a neighbour, a "witch cake" (made with the urine of the victims) was baked by Tituba to try to ferret out the supernatural perpetrator of the girls' illness. Although it provided no answers, its baking outraged Parris, who saw it as a blasphemous act.

Three witches

Pressured by Parris to identify their tormentor, Betty and Abigail claimed to have been bewitched by Tituba and two other marginalized members of the community, neither of whom attended church regularly: Sarah Good, an irascible beggar, and Sarah Osborn (also spelled Osborne), an elderly bed-ridden woman who was scorned for her romantic involvement with an indentured servant. On March 1 two magistrates from Salem Town, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, went to the village to conduct a public inquiry. Both Good and Osborn protested their own innocence, though Good accused Osborn. Initially, Tituba also claimed to be blameless, but after being repeatedly badgered (and undoubtedly fearful owing to her vulnerable status as a slave), she told the magistrates what they apparently wanted to hear-that she had been visited by the devil and made a deal with him. In three days of vivid testimony, she described encounters with Satan's animal familiars and with a tall, dark man from Boston who had called upon her to sign the devil's book, in which she saw the names of Good and Osborn along with those of seven others that she could not read.

The magistrates then had not only a confession but also what they accepted as evidence of the presence of more witches in the community, and hysteria mounted. Other girls and young women began experiencing fits, among them Ann Putnam, Jr.; her mother; her cousin, Mary Walcott; and the Putnams's servant, Mercy Lewis. Significantly, those that they began identifying as other witches were no longer just outsiders and outcasts but rather upstanding members of the community, beginning with Rebecca Nurse, a mature woman of some prominence. As the weeks passed, many of the accused proved to be enemies of the Putnams, and Putnam family members and in-laws would end up being the accusers in dozens of cases.

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Salem witch trials | History, Summary, Location, Causes, Victims, & Facts

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The Salem witch trials (1692-93) were a series of investigations and persecutions that caused 19 convicted 'witches' to be hanged and many other suspects to be imprisoned in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were part of a long story of witch hunts that began in Europe in the 14th century.

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A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials

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One town’s strange journey from paranoia to pardon