Salem Witch Trials - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com Salem Witch Trials A+E Networks Introduction 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.

Google Context & Origins of the Salem Witch Trials 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 Trials: The Hysteria Spreads 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. Tags Salem Witch Museum - Salem, Massachusetts Salem Witch Museum Salem Witch Trials Sites The 1692 Salem Witch Trials In January of 1692, the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village became ill. When they failed to improve, the village doctor, William Griggs, was called in.

His diagnosis of bewitchment put into motion the forces that would ultimately result in the death by hanging of nineteen men and women. In addition, one man was crushed to death; seven others died in prison, and the lives of many were irrevocably changed. 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 Massachusetts Bay Colony. A strong belief in the devil, factions among Salem Village fanatics and rivalry with nearby Salem Town, 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. 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 time and apply our understanding to our own society. The parallels between the Salem witch trials and more modern examples of "witch hunting" like the McCarthy hearings of the 1950's, are remarkable.

The Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 An Account of Events in Salem by Douglas O. Linder (last update: 9/2009) From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft; dozens languished in jail for months without trials until the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts subsided. A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials | History | Smithsonian A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials One town's strange journey from paranoia to pardon A girl is accused during the Salem Witch Trials (Bettmann / CORBIS) By Jess Blumberg smithsonian.com October 23, 2007 The Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft—the Devil's magic—and 20 were executed.

Eventually, the colony admitted the trials were a mistake and compensated the families of those convicted. Since then, the story of the trials has become synonymous with paranoia and injustice, and it continues to beguile the popular imagination more than 300 years later. Related Books A Murder in Salem Salem Struggling Several centuries ago, many practicing Christians, and those of other religions, had a strong belief that the Devil could give certain people known as witches the power to harm others in return for their loyalty. A "witchcraft craze" rippled through Europe from the 1300s to the end of the 1600s. Tens of thousands of supposed witches—mostly women—were executed. Though the Salem trials came on just as the European craze was winding down, local circumstances explain their onset. In 1689, English rulers William and Mary started a war with France in the American colonies. Known as King William's War to colonists, it ravaged regions of upstate New York, Nova Scotia and Quebec, sending refugees into the county of Essex and, specifically, Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

(Salem Village is present-day Danvers, Massachusetts; colonial Salem Town became what's now Salem.) The displaced people created a strain on Salem's resources. This aggravated the existing rivalry between families with ties to the wealth of the port of Salem and those who still depended on agriculture. Controversy also brewed over Reverend Samuel Parris, who became Salem Village's first ordained minister in 1689, and was disliked because of his rigid ways and greedy nature. The Puritan villagers believed all the quarreling was the work of the Devil. In January of 1692, Reverend Parris' daughter Elizabeth, age 9, and niece Abigail Williams, age 11, started having "fits." They screamed, threw things, uttered peculiar sounds and contorted themselves into strange positions, and a local doctor blamed the supernatural. Another girl, Ann Putnam, age 11, experienced similar episodes. On February 29, under pressure from magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, the girls blamed three women for afflicting them: Tituba, the Parris' Caribbean slave; Sarah Good, a homeless beggar; and Sarah Osborne, an elderly impoverished woman. The witch no.

1 is a lithograph representation, created by Joseph E. Baker, ca. 1837-1914, of the story of the witchcraft accusations, trials and executions that captured the imagination of writers and artists in the ensuing centuries. ( Wikimedia Commons ) Abigail William's testimony against George Jacobs, Jr., during the Salem witches trial, now retained by the Massachusetts Historical Society. ( Wikimedia Commons ) In this 1876 engraving Witchcraft at Salem Village, the central figure of the courtroom is usually identified as Mary Walcott. ( Wikimedia Commons ) This map of Salem Village is a reconstruction of how Salem looked in 1692 at the start of the witch trials as created in 1866 from historical records by Charles W. Upham ( Wikimedia Commons ) Examination of a witch by Tompkins H. Matteson, whose paintings are known for their historical, patriotic, and religious themes. Dozens of people from Salem and other Massachusetts villages were brought in and put to varying levels of questioning. ( Wikimedia Commons ) "Petition for bail from accused witches" from the John Davis Batchelder Autograph Collection. ( Wikimedia Commons ) Witch Hill by Thomas Satterwhite.

A young woman is led to her execution during the Salem witchcraft trials. ( Smithsonian Institute ) Witch Hunt All three women were brought before the local magistrates and interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, 1692. Osborne claimed innocence, as did Good. But Tituba confessed, "The Devil came to me and bid me serve him." She described elaborate images of black dogs, red cats, yellow birds and a "black man" who wanted her to sign his book. She admitted that she signed the book and said there were several other witches looking to destroy the Puritans. All three women were put in jail. With the seed of paranoia planted, a stream of accusations followed for the next few months. Charges against Martha Corey, a loyal member of the Church in Salem Village, greatly concerned the community; if she could be a witch, then anyone could. Magistrates even questioned Sarah Good's 4-year-old daughter, Dorothy, and her timid answers were construed as a confession. The questioning got more serious in April when Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth and his assistants attended the hearings. Dozens of people from Salem and other Massachusetts villages were brought in for questioning.

On May 27, 1692, Governor William Phipps ordered the establishment of a Special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide) for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties. The first case brought to the special court was Bridget Bishop, an older woman known for her gossipy habits and promiscuity. When asked if she committed witchcraft, Bishop responded, "I am as innocent as the child unborn." The defense must not have been convincing, because she was found guilty and, on June 10, became the first person hanged on what was later called Gallows Hill. Five days later, respected minister Cotton Mather wrote a letter imploring the court not to allow spectral evidence—testimony about dreams and visions. The court largely ignored this request and five people were sentenced and hanged in July, five more in August and eight in September.

On October 3, following in his son's footsteps, Increase Mather, then president of Harvard, denounced the use of spectral evidence: "It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned." Governor Phipps, in response to Mather's plea and his own wife being questioned for witchcraft, prohibited further arrests, released many accused witches and dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer on October 29. Phipps replaced it with a Superior Court of Judicature, which disallowed spectral evidence and only condemned 3 out of 56 defendants. Phipps eventually pardoned all who were in prison on witchcraft charges by May 1693. But the damage had been done: 19 were hanged on Gallows Hill, a 71-year-old man was pressed to death with heavy stones, several people died in jail and nearly 200 people, overall, had been accused of practicing "the Devil's magic." Restoring Good Names Following the trials and executions, many involved, like judge Samuel Sewall, publicly confessed error and guilt.

On January 14, 1697, the General Court ordered a day of fasting and soul-searching for the tragedy of Salem. In 1702, the court declared the trials unlawful. And in 1711, the colony passed a bill restoring the rights and good names of those accused and granted £600 restitution to their heirs. However, it was not until 1957—more than 250 years later—that Massachusetts formally apologized for the events of 1692. In the 20th century, artists and scientists alike continued to be fascinated by the Salem witch trials. Playwright Arthur Miller resurrected the tale with his 1953 play The Crucible , using the trials as an allegory for the McCarthyism paranoia in the 1950s. Additionally, numerous hypotheses have been devised to explain the strange behavior that occurred in Salem in 1692. One of the most concrete studies, published in Science in 1976 by psychologist Linnda Caporael, blamed the abnormal habits of the accused on the fungus ergot, which can be found in rye, wheat and other cereal grasses.

Toxicologists say that eating ergot-contaminated foods can lead to muscle spasms, vomiting, delusions and hallucinations. Also, the fungus thrives in warm and damp climates—not too unlike the swampy meadows in Salem Village, where rye was the staple grain during the spring and summer months. In August 1992, to mark the 300th anniversary of the trials, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel dedicated the Witch Trials Memorial in Salem. Also in Salem, the Peabody Essex Museum houses the original court documents, and the town's most-visited attraction, the Salem Witch Museum, attests to the public's enthrallment with the 1692 hysteria. Editor's note - October 27, 2011: Thanks to Professor Darin Hayton for pointing out an error in this article. While the exact number of supposed witches killed in Europe isn't known, the best estimate is closer to tens of thousands of victims, not hundreds of thousands. We have fixed the text to address this issue. Like this article?

The Salem Witch Trials, 1692 The Salem Witch Trials, 1692 Printer Friendly Version >>> The seeds of the hysteria that afflicted Salem Village, Massachusetts were sown in January 1692 when a group of young girls began to display bizarre behavior. The tight-knit community was at a loss to explain the convulsive seizures, blasphemous screaming, and trance-like states that afflicted the youngsters. The physicians called in to examine the girls could find no natural cause of the disturbing behavior. If the source of the affliction The Salem Village Meeting House where the trials took place was not attributable to a physical malady, the community reasoned that it must be the work of Satan. Witches had invaded Salem. In February the village began praying and fasting in order to rid itself of the devil's influence. The girls were pressured to reveal who in the community controlled their behavior. Three women were identified and examined. One, Tituba (a slave), confessed to seeing the devil who appeared to her "sometimes like a hog and sometimes like a great dog." Even more troubling, Tituba confessed that a conspiracy of witches permeated Salem Village. In March the afflicted girls accused Martha Corey.

The three women previously denounced as colluding with the devil were marginal to the community. Martha Corey was different; she was an upstanding member of the Puritan congregation - her revelation as a witch demonstrated that Satan's influence reached to the very core of the community. Events snowballed as the accusatory atmosphere intensified and reached a fever pitch. During the period from March into the fall many were charged, examined, tried and condemned to death. The hangings started in June with the death of Bridget Bishop and continued through September. As winter approached, the hysteria played itself out as criticism of the procedures grew. In October, the colonial governor dissolved the local Court of inquiry. The convictions and condemnations for witchery stopped. Nineteen victims of the witch-hunt had been hanged, one crushed to death under the weight of stones and at least four died in prison awaiting trial. ADVERTISMENT The Trial of Martha Corey Friday March 11, 1692 was a day of fasting and prayer in Salem. During the day the community's minister, the Rev. Samuel Parris, asked the girls to reveal another witch.

They did, and the accusation shocked those who heard it for it implicated Martha Corey (Goodwife Corey) a new but upstanding member of the congregation. Immediately a delegation was sent to the Corey farm to interview the accused in the hope of clearing up this discrepancy. Martha Corey's sarcastic response to the accusation disheartened the delegation who immediately called for her arrest. Her trial was the scene of much agitation. In the courtroom Martha's accusers writhed in agony as they were forced by an unseen power to mimic the witch's every movement. When Martha shifted her feet the girls did also, when Martha bit her lip the girls were compelled to bit their own lips, crying out in pain. They saw the specter of a black man bending over the accused and heard the drum beat calling the witches to convene on the meetinghouse lawn. Deodat Lawson, a visiting minister, describes the scene: "On, Monday, the 21st. of March, the magistrates of Salem appointed to come to examination of Goodwife Corey. And about twelve of the clock they went into the meeting house, which was thronged with spectators. Mr.

Noyes began with a very pertinent and pathetic prayer, and Goodwife Corey being called to answer to what was alleged against her, she desired to go to prayer, which was much wondered at, in the presence of so many hundred people. The magistrates told her they would not admit it; they came not there to hear her pray, but to examine her in what was alleged against her. The worshipful Mr. Hathorne asked her why she afflicted those children. She said she did not afflict them. He asked her, 'Who did then?' She said, 'I do not know; how should I know?' The number of the afflicted persons were about that time ten, viz. four married women: Mrs. Pope, Mrs. Putnam, Goodwife Bibber, and an ancient woman named Goodall; three maids-. Mary Walcut, Mercy Lewes, at Thomas Putnam's, and a maid at Dr. Griggs's; there were three girls from nine to twelve years of age, each of them, or thereabouts, viz. Elizabeth Parris, Abigail Williams, and Ann Putnam.

These were most of them at Goodwife Corey's examination, and did vehemently accuse her in the assembly of afflicting them, by biting, pinching, strangling, etc.; and that they did in their fit see her likeness coming to them, and bringing a book to them. She said she had no book. They affirmed she had a yellow bird that used to suck betwixt her fingers; and being asked about it, if the had any familiar spirit that attended her, she said she had no familiarity with any such thing, she was a gospel woman, which title she called herself by. And the afflicted persons told her ah, she was a gospel witch. Ann Putnam did there affirm that one day when Lieutenant Fuller was at prayer at her father's house she saw the shape of Goodwife Corey and she thought Goodwife N, praying at the same time to the Devil. She was not sure it was Goodwife N., she thought it was, but very sure she saw the shape, of Goodwife Corey. The said Corey said they were poor, distracted children, and no heed to be given to what they said. Mr. Hathorne and Mr.

Noyes replied it was the judgment of all present they were bewitched, and only she, the accused person, said they were distracted. Peabody Essex Museum "The Trial of George Jacobs" a 19th century view of the witch trials It was observed several times that if she did but bite her underlip in time of examination, the persons afflicted were bitten on their arms and wrists and produced the marks before the magistrates, ministers, and others. And being watched for that, if she did but pinch her fingers, or grasp one hand hard in another, they were pinched, and produced the marks before the magistrates and spectators. After that, it was observed that if she did but lean her breast against the seat in the meeting house (being the bar at which she stood), they were afflicted. Particularly Mrs. Pope complained of grievous torment in her bowels as if they were, torn out. She vehemently accused said Corey as the instrument, and first threw her muff at her, but that not flying home, she got off her shoe, and hit Goodwife Corey on the head with it.

After these postures were watched, if said Corey did but stir her feet, they were afflicted in their feet, and stamped fearfully. The afflicted persons asked her why she did not go to the company of witches which were before the meeting house mustering. Did she not hear the drum beat? They accused her of having familiarity with the Devil, in the time of examination, in the shape of a black man whispering in her ear; they affirmed that her yellow bird sucked betwixt her fingers in the assembly; and, order being given to see if there were any sign, the, girl that saw it said it was too late now; she had removed a pin, and put it on her head, which was found there sticking upright. ... she denied all that was charged upon her, and said they could not prove her a witch.

She was that afternoon committed to Salem prison; and after she was in custody, she did not so appear to them and afflict them as before." References: Lawson, Deodat, A Brief and True Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages Relating to Sundry Persons Afflicted by Witchcraft at Salem Village(1692) [reprinted in Commager, Henry Steele, The Heritage of America (1949)]; Starkey, Marion, The Devil in Massachusetts (1989); Trask, Richard, "The Devil Hath Been Risen" (1997). How To Cite This Article: "The Salem Witch Trials, 1692," EyeWitness to History, (2000). It is estmated that Salem Village contained aproximately 550 residents at the time of the trials. After her examination, Martha Corey was tried and convicted of witchcraft. She was hanged on September 22, 1692. Martha's husband, Giles, was also accused of witchcraft. He refused to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty and under church law was tortured by having heavy rocks placed on him until a plea was obtained.

Giles refused to talk throughout the ordeal and died. This was on September 19, three days before his wife's execution. Before Salem, the First American Witch Hunt - History in the Headlines Before Salem, the First American Witch Hunt October 31, 2012 By Christopher Klein Share Get the real story behind witches, their hats and why they are said to ride on brooms. Share this: Before Salem, the First American Witch Hunt Author Before Salem, the First American Witch Hunt URL Google Thirty years before the infamous Salem witch trials, America’s first witch hunt hysteria swept through another colonial New England town. Find out about the accusations and trials that rattled Hartford, Connecticut, in 1662. In late March 1662, John and Bethia Kelly grieved over the body of their 8-year-old daughter inside their Hartford, Connecticut, home. Little Elizabeth had been fine just days before when she returned home with a neighbor, Goodwife Ayres. The distraught parents, grasping at any explanation for their loss, saw the hand of the devil at work. The parents were convinced that Elizabeth had been fatally possessed by Goody Ayres.

The Kellys testified that their daughter first took ill the night after she returned home with her neighbor, and that she exclaimed, “Father! Father! Help me, help me! Goodwife Ayres is upon me. She chokes me. She kneels on my belly. She will break my bowels. She pinches me. She will make me black and blue.” After Elizabeth’s death, accusations of bewitchment flew, and fingers were pointed at numerous townspeople. Hysteria gripped Hartford, a town that a generation before had witnessed the first execution of a suspected witch in the American colonies. Alse (Alice) Young of Windsor, Connecticut, was sent to the gallows erected in Hartford’s Meeting House Square, now the site of Connecticut’s Old State House, on May 26, 1647. Witchcraft was one of 12 capital crimes decreed by Connecticut’s colonial government in 1642.

The legal precedent cited by the devoutly Puritan colonists was of a divinely higher order: biblical passages such as Exodus 22:18 (“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”) and Leviticus 20:27 (“A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death”). After Young’s public hanging, at least five other Connecticut residents met a similar fate. However, it was in Hartford in 1662, 30 years before the infamous Salem witch trials, that a witch hunt hysteria took hold, resulting in seven trials and four executions. Shortly after Elizabeth Kelly’s death, the pious Ann Cole suddenly became “afflicted,” shaking violently and spouting blasphemy. According to one contemporary account, Cole was “taken with strange fits, wherein she (or rather the devil, as ‘tis judged, making use of her lips) held a discourse for a considerable time.” Cole blamed her bewitchment on neighbor Rebecca Greensmith, described by one townsperson as “a lewd, ignorant, considerably aged woman,” and others already suspected of witchcraft in the Kelly case.

The accused began to accuse others, and even their spouses, of being the true witches. In what became a vicious circle, neighbors began testifying against neighbors. Goody Ayres’ husband, perhaps in an attempt to save his wife, joined in the chorus of Greensmith’s accusers. The most damning testimony supposedly came from Greensmith herself, who reportedly admitted to having “familiarity with the devil” and said that “at Christmas they would have a merry meeting” to form a covenant. Greensmith implicated her husband and said she had met in the woods with seven other witches, including Goody Ayres, Mary Sanford and Elizabeth Seager. Neighbors testified that they saw Seager dancing with other women in the woods and cooking mysterious concoctions in black kettles. Two of the suspects, likely the Greensmiths, were subjected to the swimming test in which their hands and feet were bound and they were cast into the water to test the theory that witches are unable to sink.

After they were tried, the Greensmiths were indicted “for not having the fear of God before thine eyes; thou hast entertained familiarity with Satan the grand enemy of God and mankind and by his help hast acted things in a preternatural way.” The court’s verdict: “According to the law of God and the established law of this commonwealth, thou deserves to die.” Rebecca Greensmith had confessed in open court. Nathaniel Greensmith had protested his innocence. But they both met the same fate: the noose. Sanford was also sent to the gallows. After their executions, Cole reportedly was “restored to health.” Ayres fled Hartford, while Seager was finally convicted of witchcraft in 1665, although the governor reversed the verdict the following year. Mary Barnes of Farmington, Connecticut, was also swept up in the region’s witch hunt and executed alongside the Greensmiths. The four executions of suspected witches in Hartford were to be Connecticut’s last. Another hysteria broke out in Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1692, but none of those convicted met death. Connecticut held its final witch trial in 1697, a half century after Alse Young’s execution.

During that period, there were 46 prosecutions and at least 11 executions. Descendants of some of those 11 colonists are seeking posthumous pardons and apologies similar to those that occurred in Massachusetts for victims of the Salem witch trials. Previous resolutions in the Connecticut legislature, however, have not come out of committee, and the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles also has a policy of not granting posthumous pardons. The descendants are now pressing for a gubernatorial proclamation to clear the names of their ancestors. Tags An account of the Salem witchcraft investigations, trials, and aftermath. The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary by O Christian Martyr Who for Truth could die When all about thee Owned the hideous lie! The world, redeemed from superstition's sway, Is breathing freer for thy sake today. --Words written by John Greenleaf Whittier and inscribed on a monument marking the grave of Rebecca Nurse, one of the condemned "witches" of Salem. From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging.

Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. Dozens languished in jail for months without trials. Then, almost as soon as it had begun, the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts ended. Why did this travesty of justice occur? Why did it occur in Salem? Nothing about this tragedy was inevitable. Only an unfortunate combination of an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies can account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692. In 1688, John Putnam, one of the most influential elders of Salem Village, invited Samuel Parris , formerly a marginally successful planter and merchant in Barbados, to preach in the Village church. A year later, after negotiations over salary, inflation adjustments, and free firewood, Parris accepted the job as Village minister. He moved to Salem Village with his wife Elizabeth, his six-year-old daughter Betty, niece Abagail Williams, and his Indian slave Tituba , acquired by Parris in Barbados.

The Salem that became the new home of Parris was in the midst of change: a mercantile elite was beginning to develop, prominent people were becoming less willing to assume positions as town leaders, two clans (the Putnams and the Porters) were competing for control of the village and its pulpit, and a debate was raging over how independent Salem Village, tied more to the interior agricultural regions, should be from Salem, a center of sea trade. Sometime during February of the exceptionally cold winter of 1692, young Betty Parris became strangely ill. She dashed about, dove under furniture, contorted in pain, and complained of fever. The cause of her symptoms may have been some combination of stress, asthma, guilt, boredom, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis. The symptoms also could have been caused, as Linda Caporael argued in a 1976 article in Science magazine, by a disease called "convulsive ergotism" brought on by ingesting rye--eaten as a cereal and as a common ingredient of bread--infected with ergot.

(Ergot is caused by a fungus which invades developing kernels of rye grain, especially under warm and damp conditions such as existed at the time of the previous rye harvest in Salem. Convulsive ergotism causes violent fits, a crawling sensation on the skin, vomiting, choking, and--most interestingly--hallucinations. The hallucinogenic drug LSD is a derivative of ergot.) Many of the symptoms or convulsive ergotism seem to match those attributed to Betty Parris, but there is no way of knowing with any certainty if she in fact suffered from the disease--and the theory would not explain the afflictions suffered by others in Salem later in the year. At the time, however, there was another theory to explain the girls' symptoms. Cotton Mather had recently published a popular book, " Memorable Providences ," describing the suspected witchcraft of an Irish washerwoman in Boston, and Betty's behavior in some ways mirrored that of the afflicted person described in Mather's widely read and discussed book. It was easy to believe in 1692 in Salem, with an Indian war raging less than seventy miles away (and many refugees from the war in the area) that the devil was close at hand.

Sudden and violent death occupied minds. Talk of witchcraft increased when other playmates of Betty, including eleven-year-old Ann Putnam , seventeen-year-old Mercy Lewis , and Mary Walcott, began to exhibit similar unusual behavior. When his own nostrums failed to effect a cure, William Griggs, a doctor called to examine the girls, suggested that the girls' problems might have a supernatural origin. The widespread belief that witches targeted children made the doctor's diagnosis seem increasingly likely. A neighbor, Mary Sibley, proposed a form of counter magic. She told Tituba to bake a rye cake with the urine of the afflicted victim and feed the cake to a dog. ( Dogs were believed to be used by witches as agents to carry out their devilish commands.) By this time, suspicion had already begun to focus on Tituba, who had been known to tell the girls tales of omens, voodoo, and witchcraft from her native folklore. Her participation in the urine cake episode made her an even more obvious scapegoat for the inexplicable. Meanwhile, the number of girls afflicted continued to grow, rising to seven with the addition of Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, and Mary Warren.

According to historian Peter Hoffer, the girls "turned themselves from a circle of friends into a gang of juvenile delinquents." ( Many people of the period complained that young people lacked the piety and sense of purpose of the founders' generation.) The girls contorted into grotesque poses, fell down into frozen postures, and complained of biting and pinching sensations. In a village where everyone believed that the devil was real, close at hand, and acted in the real world, the suspected affliction of the girls became an obsession. Sometime after February 25, when Tituba baked the witch cake, and February 29, when arrest warrants were issued against Tituba and two other women, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams named their afflictors and the witch hunt began. The consistency of the two girls' accusations suggests strongly that the girls worked out their stories together. Soon Ann Putnam and Mercy Lewis were also reporting seeing "witches flying through the winter mist." The prominent Putnam family supported the girls' accusations, putting considerable impetus behind the prosecutions. The first three to be accused of witchcraft were Tituba, Sarah Good , and Sarah Osborn.

Tituba was an obvious choice (LINK TO TITUBA'S EXAMINATION) . Good was a beggar and social misfit who lived wherever someone would house her (LINK TO GOOD'S EXAMINATION) (LINK TO GOOD'S TRIAL) , and Osborn was old, quarrelsome, and had not attended church for over a year. The Putnams brought their complaint against the three women to county magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne , who scheduled examinations for the suspected witches for March 1, 1692 in Ingersoll's tavern. When hundreds showed up, the examinations were moved to the meeting house. At the examinations, the girls described attacks by the specters of the three women, and fell into their by then perfected pattern of contortions when in the presence of one of the suspects. Other villagers came forward to offer stories of cheese and butter mysteriously gone bad or animals born with deformities after visits by one of the suspects.The magistrates, in the common practice of the time, asked the same questions of each suspect over and over: Were they witches? Had they seen Satan? How, if they are were not witches, did they explain the contortions seemingly caused by their presence?

The style and form of the questions indicates that the magistrates thought the women guilty. The matter might have ended with admonishments were it not for Tituba. After first adamantly denying any guilt, afraid perhaps of being made a scapegoat, Tituba claimed that she was approached by a tall man from Boston--obviously Satan--who sometimes appeared as a dog or a hog and who asked her to sign in his book and to do his work. Yes, Tituba declared, she was a witch, and moreover she and four other witches, including Good and Osborn, had flown through the air on their poles. She had tried to run to Reverend Parris for counsel, she said, but the devil had blocked her path. Tituba's confession succeeded in transforming her from a possible scapegoat to a central figure in the expanding prosecutions. Her confession also served to silence most skeptics, and Parris and other local ministers began witch hunting with zeal. Soon, according to their own reports, the spectral forms of other women began attacking the afflicted girls.

Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse , Sarah Cloyce, and Mary Easty (LINK TO EASTY'S EXAMINATION) (LINK TO EASTY'S PETITION FOR MERCY) were accused of witchcraft. During a March 20 church service, Ann Putnam suddenly shouted, "Look where Goodwife Cloyce sits on the beam suckling her yellow bird between her fingers!" Soon Ann's mother, Ann Putnam, Sr., would join the accusers. Dorcas Good, four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good, became the first child to be accused of witchcraft when three of the girls complained that they were bitten by the specter of Dorcas. (The four-year-old was arrested, kept in jail for eight months, watched her mother get carried off to the gallows, and would "cry her heart out, and go insane.") The girls accusations and their ever more polished performances, including the new act of being struck dumb, played to large and believing audiences. Stuck in jail with the damning testimony of the afflicted girls widely accepted, suspects began to see confession as a way to avoid the gallows.

Deliverance Hobbs became the second witch to confess, admitting to pinching three of the girls at the Devil's command and flying on a pole to attend a witches' Sabbath in an open field. Jails approached capacity and the colony "teetered on the brink of chaos" when Governor Phips returned from England. Fast action, he decided, was required. Phips created a new court, the "court of oyer and terminer," to hear the witchcraft cases. Five judges, including three close friends of Cotton Mather, were appointed to the court. Chief Justice, and most influential member of the court, was a gung-ho witch hunter named William Stoughton . Mather urged Stoughton and the other judges to credit confessions and admit "spectral evidence" (testimony by afflicted persons that they had been visited by a suspect's specter). Ministers were looked to for guidance by the judges, who were generally without legal training, on matters pertaining to witchcraft. Mather's advice was heeded.

the judges also decided to allow the so-called "touching test" (defendants were asked to touch afflicted persons to see if their touch, as was generally assumed of the touch of witches, would stop their contortions) and examination of the bodies of accused for evidence of "witches' marks" (moles or the like upon which a witch's familiar might suck) (SCENE DEPICTING EXAMINATION FOR MARKS) . Evidence that would be excluded from modern courtrooms-- hearsay, gossip, stories, unsupported assertions, surmises-- was also generally admitted. Many protections that modern defendants take for granted were lacking in Salem: accused witches had no legal counsel, could not have witnesses testify under oath on their behalf, and had no formal avenues of appeal. Defendants could, however, speak for themselves, produce evidence, and cross-examine their accusers. The degree to which defendants in Salem were able to take advantage of their modest protections varied considerably, depending on their own acuteness and their influence in the community. The first accused witch to be brought to trial was Bridget Bishop .

Almost sixty years old, owner of a tavern where patrons could drink cider ale and play shuffleboard (even on the Sabbath), critical of her neighbors, and reluctant to pay her her bills, Bishop was a likely candidate for an accusation of witchcraft (LINK TO EXAMINATION OF BISHOP) . The fact that Thomas Newton, special prosecutor, selected Bishop for his first prosecution suggests that he believed the stronger case could be made against her than any of the other suspect witches. At Bishop's trial on June 2, 1692, a field hand testified that he saw Bishop's image stealing eggs and then saw her transform herself into a cat. Deliverance Hobbs, by then probably insane, and Mary Warren, both confessed witches, testified that Bishop was one of them. A villager named Samuel Grey told the court that Bishop visited his bed at night and tormented him. A jury of matrons assigned to examine Bishop's body reported that they found an "excrescence of flesh." Several of the afflicted girls testified that Bishop's specter afflicted them. Numerous other villagers described why they thought Bishop was responsible for various bits of bad luck that had befallen them.

There was even testimony that while being transported under guard past the Salem meeting house, she looked at the building and caused a part of it to fall to the ground. Bishop's jury returned a verdict of guilty . One of the judges, Nathaniel Saltonstall, aghast at the conduct of the trial, resigned from the court. Chief Justice Stoughton signed Bishop's death warrant, and on June 10, 1692, Bishop was carted to Gallows Hill and hanged (LINK TO IMAGE OF BISHOP'S HANGING) . As the summer of 1692 warmed, the pace of trials picked up. Not all defendants were as disreputable as Bridget Bishop. Rebecca Nurse was a pious, respected woman whose specter, according to Ann Putnam, Jr. and Abagail Williams, attacked them in mid March of 1692 (LINK TO EXAMINATION OF NURSE) . Ann Putnam, Sr. added her complaint that Nurse demanded that she sign the Devil's book, then pinched her.

Nurse was one of three Towne sisters , all identified as witches, who were members of a Topsfield family that had a long-standing quarrel with the Putnam family. Apart from the evidence of Putnam family members, the major piece of evidence against Nurse appeared to be testimony indicating that soon after Nurse lectured Benjamin Houlton for allowing his pig to root in her garden, Houlton died. The Nurse jury returned a verdict of not guilty, much to the displeasure of Chief Justice Stoughton, who told the jury to go back and consider again a statement of Nurse's that might be considered an admission of guilt (but more likely an indication of confusion about the question, as Nurse was old and nearly deaf). The jury reconvened, this time coming back with a verdict of guilty (LINK TO NURSE TRIAL) . On July 19, 1692, Nurse rode with four other convicted witches to Gallows Hill. Persons who scoffed at accusations of witchcraft risked becoming targets of accusations themselves. One man who was openly critical of the trials paid for his skepticism with his life.

John Proctor , a central figure in Arthur Miller's fictionalized account of the Salem witchhunt, The Crucible , was an opinionated tavern owner who openly denounced the witch hunt. Testifying against Proctor were Ann Putnam, Abagail Williams, Indian John (a slave of Samuel Parris who worked in a competing tavern), and eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Booth, who testified that ghosts had come to her and accused Proctor of serial murder. Proctor fought back, accusing confessed witches of lying, complaining of torture, and demanding that his trial be moved to Boston. The efforts proved futile. Proctor was hanged. His wife Elizabeth, who was also convicted of witchcraft, was spared execution because of her pregnancy (reprieved "for the belly"). No execution caused more unease in Salem than that of the village's ex-minister, George Burroughs . Burroughs, who was living in Maine in 1692, was identified by several of his accusers as the ringleader of the witches.

Ann Putnam claimed that Burroughs bewitched soldiers during a failed military campaign against Wabanakis in 1688-89, the first of a string of military disasters that could be blamed on an Indian-Devil alliance. In her interesting book, In the Devil's Snare, historian Mary Beth Norton argues that the large number of accusations against Burroughs, and his linkage to the frontier war, is the key to understanding the Salem trials. Norton contends that the enthusiasm of the Salem court in prosecuting the witchcraft cases owed in no small measure to the judges' desire to shift the "blame for their own inadequate defense of the frontier." Many of the judges, Norton points out, played lead roles in a war effort that had been markedly unsuccessful. Among the thirty accusers of Burroughs was nineteen-year-old Mercy Lewis, a refugee of the frontier wars. Lewis, the most imaginative and forceful of the young accusers, offered unusually vivid testimony against Burroughs. Lewis told the court that Burroughs flew her to the top of a mountain and, pointing toward the surrounding land, promised her all the kingdoms if only she would sign in his book (a story very similar to that found in Matthew 4:8).

Lewis said, "I would not writ if he had throwed me down on one hundred pitchforks." At an execution, a defendant in the Puritan colonies was expected to confess, and thus to save his soul. When Burroughs on Gallows Hill continued to insist on his innocence and then recited the Lord's Prayer perfectly (something witches were thought incapable of doing), the crowd reportedly was "greatly moved." The agitation of the crowd caused Cotton Mather to intervene and remind the crowd that Burroughs had had his day in court and lost. One victim of the Salem witch hunt was not hanged, but rather pressed under heavy stones until his death. Such was the fate of octogenarian Giles Corey who, after spending five months in chains in a Salem jail with his also accused wife, had nothing but contempt for the proceedings. Seeing the futility of a trial and hoping that by avoiding a conviction his farm, that would otherwise go the state, might go to his two sons-in-law, Corey refused to stand for trial. The penalty for such a refusal was peine et fort, or pressing.

Three days after Corey's death, on September 22, 1692, eight more convicted witches, including Giles' wife Martha, were hanged. They were the last victims of the witch hunt. By early autumn of 1692, Salem's lust for blood was ebbing. Doubts were developing as to how so many respectable people could be guilty. Reverend John Hale said, " It cannot be imagined that in a place of so much knowledge, so many in so small compass of land should abominably leap into the Devil's lap at once." The educated elite of the colony began efforts to end the witch-hunting hysteria that had enveloped Salem. Increase Mather , the father of Cotton, published what has been called "America's first tract on evidence," a work entitled Cases of Conscience, which argued that it "were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned." Increase Mather urged the court to exclude spectral evidence. Samuel Willard, a highly regarded Boston minister, circulated Some Miscellany Observations, which suggested that the Devil might create the specter of an innocent person. Mather's and Willard's works were given to Governor Phips.

The writings most likely influenced the decision of Phips to order the court to exclude spectral evidence and touching tests and to require proof of guilt by clear and convincing evidence. With spectral evidence not admitted, twenty-eight of the last thirty-three witchcraft trials ended in acquittals. The three convicted witches were later pardoned. In May of 1693, Phips released from prison all remaining accused or convicted witches. By the time the witch hunt ended, nineteen convicted witches were executed (LINK TO LIST OF DEAD) , at least four accused witches had died in prison, and one man, Giles Corey, had been pressed to death. About one to two hundred other persons were arrested and imprisoned on witchcraft charges. Two dogs were executed as suspected accomplices of witches. Scholars have noted potentially telling differences between the accused and the accusers in Salem. Most of the accused lived to the south of, and were generally better off financially, than most of the accusers. In a number of cases, accusing families stood to gain property from the convictions of accused witches. Also, the accused and the accusers generally took opposite sides in a congregational schism that had split the Salem community before the outbreak of hysteria.

While many of the accused witches supported former minister George Burroughs, the families that included the accusers had--for the most part--played leading roles in forcing Burroughs to leave Salem. The conclusion that many scholars draw from these patterns is that property disputes and congregational feuds played a major role in determining who lived, and who died, in 1692. A period of atonement began in the colony following the release of the surviving accused witches. Samuel Sewall , one of the judges, issued a public confession of guilt and an apology. Several jurors came forward to say that they were "sadly deluded and mistaken" in their judgments. Reverend Samuel Parris conceded errors of judgment, but mostly shifted blame to others. Parris was replaced as minister of Salem village by Thomas Green, who devoted his career to putting his torn congregation back together. Governor Phips blamed the entire affair on William Stoughton. Stoughton, clearly more to blame than anyone for the tragic episode, refused to apologize or explain himself. He criticized Phips for interfering just when he was about to "clear the land" of witches. Stoughton became the next governor of Massachusetts.

The witches disappeared, but witchhunting in America did not. Each generation must learn the lessons of history or risk repeating its mistakes. Salem should warn us to think hard about how to best safeguard and improve our system of justice. Salem Witch Trails (America, 1692 - 1693) - Witchcraft The Witch Trials - Salem Witch Trails (America, 1692 - 1693) Salem Witch Trails (America, 1692 - 1693) on a map of America Possibly the best known and best documented of all witch trials, the Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings before local magistrates followed by county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in a variety of towns across Massachusetts Bay Colony, between February 1692 and May 1693. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with many more accused but not formally pursued by the authorities, and 19 were eventually hanged. The best known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town.

The trials took place against the background of a largely Puritan British colony riven by attacks by disgruntled indigenous tribes and plagued by rampant petty (as well as more major) crime and land disputes. The Puritans had established a kind of theocracy in which the church ruled in all civil matters, including that of administering capital punishment for violations of a spiritual nature. They believed fervently in the existence of an invisible world inhabited by God and the angels, including the fallen angel known as the Devil and his fellow demons . They also believed that women should be totally subservient to men, and were lustful by nature and therefore more likely to enlist in the Devil's service than was a man. Children were very much at the bottom of the social ladder, toys and games were seen as idle pursuits and playing was discouraged (girls had additional restrictions). In a more specifically local context, Salem Village had finally been allowed by the church in nearby Salem Town to form their own separate covenanted church congregation in 1689, after much discussion, although the ordained minister, Reverend Samuel Parris, was the subject of continuing internal dispute between neighbours.

In Salem Village in early 1692, nine-year-old Betty Parris (the minister�s daughter) and her cousin, eleven-year-old Abigail Williams, began to be afflicted with strange fits, involving screaming and other strange sounds, contortions and complaints of being pinched and pricked with pins, for which the local doctor, William Griggs, could find no physical evidence of any ailment. Soon, other young women in the village, including the precocious twelve-year-old Ann Putnam and two seventeen-year-olds, Mercy Lewis and Mary Walcott, began to exhibit similar behaviours, and became some of the most vociferous and dramatic accusers (especially Ann Putnam, who was probably influenced by the personal vendettas of her mother, Ann Putnam Sr). The first three people accused of witchcraft, and arrested for allegedly afflicting these fits, were Sarah Good (a poor beggar woman), Sarah Osborne (who had married her servant and rarely attended church meetings) and Tituba (a slave of native or African ancestry). On examination, Tituba admitted to being a witch, and to flying through the air on a broom or pole, accompanied by Good and Osborn among others.

Reverend Parris and other local ministers then began witch-hunting with zeal. Other accusations followed in March: Martha Corey (a respected member of the Salem Village Church, who drew attention to herself when she voiced skepticism about the credibility of the girls' accusations), four-year-old Dorothy (or Dorcas) Good (whose �confession� implicated her mother) and Rebecca Nurse (a fully covenanted member of the Church in Salem Town), as well as Rachel Clinton in nearby Ipswich (who was arrested for witchcraft on charges unrelated to the afflictions of the girls in Salem Village). The hysteria gained momentum and took on a life of its own when several more were arrested and examined in April and May, and Abigail Hobbs, Mary Warren and Deliverance Hobbs all confessed and began naming additional people as accomplices. At the end of May 1692, warrants were issued for yet more people, and the jails were approaching capacity.

After Sarah Osborne (one of the original three accused) had died in jail, the recently appointed governor of Massachusetts, William Phips, ordered the establishment of a Special Court of Oyer and Terminer for Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex counties, under the leadership of Chief Justice and ardent witch-hunter William Stoughton, to prosecute the cases of those in jail (which by this time numbered over 60). Trial of George Jacobs for witchcraft at the Essex Institute in Salem, Mass. (1692) (from salemwitch/salemwitch.html ) Bridget Bishop (a sixty-year-old tavern owner) was the first case to be brought before the grand jury and, in June1692, she became the first to be executed (by hanging on Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village). For the trial of the next batch of accused witches - Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth How, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes (or Wild) and Susanna Martin - the court moved from Salem Village to nearby Salem Town.

All the accused pleaded innocent, but all were hanged in July 1692, followed by George Jacobs, Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, John Proctor and John Willard in August, and then Martha Corey, Mary Eastey (or Esty), Alice Parker (or Park), Mary Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Redd and Samuel Wardwell in September. Much of the evidence used against the accused was �spectral evidence� (testimony of the afflicted who claimed to see the apparition or the shape of the person who was allegedly afflicting them), despite its suspect status in law. Other evidence used in the convictions included the confessions of the accused themselves, the testimony of another confessed �witch�, the existence of so-called �witch's teats� or �Devil�s marks� on the body of the accused, and the discovery of �poppets� (dolls made to represent a person, used for casting spells on that person), books of palmistry and horoscopes, or pots of ointments in the possession or home of the accused. Evidence that would be excluded from modern courtroom (e.g.

hearsay, gossip, stories, unsupported assertions, surmises, etc) was also generally admitted, largely on the precendent of other witch trials in Europe such as those at Bury St. Edmunds and Bideford . �Witch cakes� were used at one point early in the persecution, purportedly to discover the identity of the witch who was afflicting the girls. This was based on traditional English white magic in which a cake made from rye meal and urine from the afflicted girls was fed to a dog, and the effect on the accused observed. The infamous �touch test� was also used in Andover, whereby if a blindfolded accused witch calmed the fits of an afflicted person by laying on her hands, then she was marked as guilty. Over the next few months and into early 1693, the primary source of accusations moved from Salem Village to nearby Andover and, as more arrests were made, the court system gradually moved through case after case with many (although by no means all) resulting in guilty verdicts and some in subsequent hangings.

Dozens still languished in jail for months without trial, and the Court moved from Salem, Essex County to Charlestown, Middlesex County and then to Boston, Suffolk County. William Phips, Governor of Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials (portrait c.1687-1694) (from wiki/William_Phips ) Gradually, doubts developed as to how so many respectable people could suddenly be guilty of such lurid crimes. It began to be clear that most of the accused lived to the south of, and were generally better off financially, than most of the accusers, and that in a number of cases, the accusing families stood to gain property from the convictions of accused witches.

Throughout the trials, various accounts and opinions about the proceedings began to appear in print, some in defence of the trials (such as Cotton Mather�s �Wonders of the Invisible World�, written at the request of Governor Phips, and based in large part on Joseph Glanvill�s 1691 book �Saducismus Triumphatus, or Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions�), and some challenging the use of �spectral evidence� (such as �Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits�, by Cotton Mather's father, Increase Mather, in which he repeated his caution that �It were better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned�). Governor Phips ordered the court to exclude spectral evidence and touching tests, and to require proof of guilt by clear and convincing evidence. A public letter by Thomas Brattle, a wealthy Boston businessman and scholar, against the trials was also influential. As 1693 progressed, more and more defendants were found not guilty (twenty-eight of the last thirty-three witchcraft trials ended in acquittals), until the whole episode gradually ground to a halt.

The Court of Oyer and Terminer was dissolved at the end of October 1692, and a Superior Court created to try the remaining cases. The last trial was held in May 1693 and Phips then released from prison all remaining accused or convicted witches. Almost as soon as it had begun, the hysteria that had swept through Puritan Massachusetts ended. In all, twenty-nine people were convicted of the capital felony of witchcraft, and nineteen of those (fourteen women and five men) were hanged: Bridget Bishop, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Wildes (or Wild), Susannah Martin, George Burroughs, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs, John Proctor, John Willard, Martha Corey, Mary Eastey (or Esty), Alice Parker (or Park), Mary Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Redd and Samuel Wardwell.

The pressing to death of Giles Corey (from book/sep19.html ) One man (eighty-year-old Giles Cory) who refused to enter a plea (so that he could not be found guilty, and his possessions could therefore not be impounded) was crushed to death under heavy stones in an attempt to force him to do so. Several women, including Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail Faulkner, were convicted but given temporary reprieves because they were pregnant. At least five more of the accused died in prison. Two dogs were executed as suspected accomplices of witches. The bodies of the hanged were cut down from the trees and thrown into a shallow grave, and the families of the dead had to reclaim their bodies after dark and bury them in unmarked graves on family property. As time went by, more and more reports of irregularities during the trials came to light. Samuel Sewall, one of the judges, issued a public confession of guilt and an apology, and several jurors came forward to say that they were �sadly deluded and mistaken� in their judgments. Many of the relatives of the accused brought court cases in an attempt to clear the family name, and many petitions were brought to formally reverse convictions.

In 1711, 22 people listed in a 1709 petition were granted a reversal of judgment and, later, monetary compensation. As late as 1957, the last six who had been wrongly convicted and executed were publicly exonerated. There was also evidence of repentance within the Salem Village Church and, in 1703, the members of the church voted to reverse some of the excommunications they had imposed at the height of the hysteria. In 1706, Ann Putnam, one of the most active accusers, joined the Salem Village church and publicly asked forgiveness, claiming that she had not acted out of malice, but that she had been deluded by Satan into denouncing innocent people like Rebecca Nurse. She was accepted for full membership. The Chief Justice William Stoughton, however, who was arguably as much to blame as anyone for the tragic episode, refused to apologize or explain himself, and even criticized Phips for interfering just when he was about to �clear the land� of witches. Stoughton became the next governor of Massachusetts.

Salem Witch Trials Facts – Witchcraft Accusations from 1692-1693 World History Salem Witch Trials The Salem witch trials took place between February of 1692 and May of 1693. By the end of the trials, hundreds were accused of witchcraft, nineteen were executed and several more died in prison awaiting either trial or execution. While these events are referred to as the Salem witch trials, several counties in Massachusetts were involved, including Salem Village, Ipswich, Salem Town and Andover. 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. Puritan Superstitions One of the primary contributing factors to the Salem witch trials was the superstitions prevalent in Puritan society. The belief that Satan was present and active was widely held in Europe and eventually spread to Colonial America. A common precept of this belief revolved around the necessity of believing in demons and evil spirits in order to confirm the belief of the existence of God and angels.

This, combined with daily superstitions where all misfortunes were blamed on the supernatural, created a perfect environment for the mass hysteria leading to the Salem witch trials. Village Relationships Another factor likely contributing to the volume of witchcraft accusations revolved around the relationships within and between the various villages and towns. Numerous disputes occurred in Salem Village around items such as grazing rights, church privileges, and property lines. Many of the neighboring towns viewed Salem Village as problematic as evidenced by decisions such as hiring independent ministers to serve the village instead of supporting the larger Salem Town. The Influence of the Church In Puritan society, life revolved around the church. Most of the colonists in New England immigrated to the colonies due to religious strife in England and disagreement with the Protestant Church of England. Seeking a new home where they could build a society based on common religious beliefs, the Puritan settlers formed somewhat closed societies built around the church and related activities. In the New England Puritan villages and settlements, all aspects of life revolved around the church.

Residents were expected to adhere to the teachings of the church, such as attending lengthy sermons twice per week and avoiding activities deemed sinful, such as dancing, non-religious music, and celebrations of events or holidays rooted in Paganism, including traditionally religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter. Even children were affected by the restrictions of the church. Toys such as dolls were forbidden and all education revolved around the Bible and religious doctrine. Evidence of Witchcraft When it came to proving allegations of witchcraft, several types of evidence were considered during the trials. One type of evidence consisted of spectral evidence which encompassed the testimony of those who claimed to see an apparition or shape of the person afflicting them. While some argued that Satan could afflict anyone, others argued that Satan needed the permission of the person whose shape was assumed. Based on precedence in other cases, the courts ruled spectral evidence admissible in witchcraft trials. Effluvia also provided a significant source of evidence in witchcraft trials. The basis of this theory revolved around the concept that a witch would be affected by tests conducted on their victims. One common test was the witch cake where a cake was produced using specific ingredients including the urine of suspected victims.

When the cake was fed to a dog, the person guilty of afflicting someone would cry out in pain, indicating guilt. Another common test based on effluvia was the touch test where a victim in the throes of a witchcraft induced fit would cease suffering when touched by the witch causing the affliction. Other types of evidence included confessions of those accused and the direct testimony of an accused naming others as guilty of witchcraft. The presence of poppits, ointments or books on palm reading or astrology was also considered evidence of guilt. Finally, physical traits such as a mole or blemish, known as a “witch’s teat,” on the body also factored into decisions of guilt. Early Accusations The combination of superstition, religious doctrine and subjective evidence all combined to produce an environment where accusations of witchcraft were easy to make and prove. In 1692, two young girls living in Salem Village began to experience fits where they screamed, threw things, contorted themselves into unusual physical positions and made strange sounds. They also complained of feeling pinches and pin pricks. Medical examinations found no evidence of physical illness or ailment. Soon after the first two girls showed symptoms, additional young women began showing similar signs.

As more young women exhibited signs of affliction, the first three accusations of witchcraft emerged. Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba were accused of performing witchcraft by those afflicted. Good was a homeless beggar likely accused because of her reputation. Osborne did not adhere to expected religious expectations such as regularly attending church meetings and sermons. Tituba was a slave of differing ethnicity. All three of the accused had significant differences from the rest of the villagers, making them easy targets for accusations. Beginning March 1, 1692, the three accused were brought before local magistrates and questioned for several days before being jailed. After the initial accusations, additional ones flooded in, including accusations against upstanding church members who spoke out against the original accusations. This led to further worry and upheaval among the citizenry who had viewed their adherence to religious tenants as protection against evil. Membership and participation in church did not offer protection against accusations of witchcraft. Once the accusations started, they quickly gained momentum. Over the course of a few months, the numbers continued to rise and more examinations began. At this point, accusations led to investigations and incarceration but no trial.

It was not until May 27, 1692 when William Phips ordered the establishment of a Special Court charged with prosecution of the cases that further legal activity took place. The Trials On June 2, 1692, the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened in Salem Town to begin hearing the cases of those accused of witchcraft. William Stoughton, Lieutenant Governor, served as Chief Magistrate. Thomas Newton served as the Crown’s Attorney charged with prosecuting the cases. Stephen Sewall served as the clerk for the proceedings. Beginning immediately, the court issued indictments and began trial proceedings. The first case brought before the court was that of Bridget Bishop. She was accused of witchcraft for not living the Puritan lifestyle and wearing appropriate clothing. Bishop was found guilty and executed by hanging on June 10, 1692. Following Bishop’s trial, other proceedings followed quickly. Over the course of five months, 22 additional guilty verdicts were returned. Of the 22, 18 were executed following their trial and conviction. Several more perished in prison either awaiting trial or execution.

In October 1692, this court was dismissed by Governor Phips although many of the accused or indicted remained in prison. In January 1693, the Superior Court of Judicature convened and began hearing the remaining cases. Between January and May of 1693, many were found innocent and released or had charges dropped. Of those found guilty by jury trial, the majority was pardoned and no more executions took place. The Salem witch trials continue to be a subject of interest in many different ways. Influences affecting the trials are numerous, including the political climate, religious beliefs, and commonly held superstitions. Causes continue to be debated such as mass hysteria or biological explanations. Regardless of the cause of individual accusations, the Salem witch trials serve as an example of the impact of extremism, isolationism, and lapses in due process. 24 responses to “Salem Witch Trials” david

Question: Where in the U.S.A were the witch trials of 1692 held
Answer: Salem