What were the Salem witch trials and what happened?
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused, nineteen of whom were found guilty and executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men).
Who were the judges in the Salem witch trials?
(chapt. VII) More people were accused, arrested and examined, but now in Salem Town, by former local magistrates John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin, and Bartholomew Gedney, who had become judges of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Suspect Roger Toothaker died in prison on June 16, 1692.
How many people did Elizabeth Lewis accuse of witchcraft in Salem?
She eventually accused nine people of witchcraft and testified in 16 cases, including that of Rev. George Burroughs, a former minister of Salem Village who had relocated to Casco Bay, where Lewis had briefly worked for him as a servant.
What was the cause of the New England witch trials?
New England Witchcraft Trials: It Wasn’t Just Salem Plenty of people in early New England were persecuted for witchcraft, and not just in Salem, Mass. Witches had troubled the European colonists from the get-go. In 1635, Plymouth Colony made it a crime to “form a solemn compact with the devil by way of witchcraft.”
How many people were killed by Salem Witch Trials?
According to The Boston Globe, 25 people were killed during the witch trials in Salem. "All 19 who were executed through a hanging died at Proctor's Ledge. Five others died in jail, and one was crushed to death," the paper reports.
Who were the accused witches of Salem?
Abigail Johnson, age 11- mother and older sister were accused and confessed. Margaret Toothaker, age 10- cousin of Sarah & Thomas Carrier, older sister was also accused. Dorothy & Abigail Faulkner, age 10 & 8- cousins of Abigail Johnson, mother was accused and confessed.
Who was the youngest person accused of witchcraft in Salem?
Dorothy GoodDorothy was in custody from March 24, 1692, when she was arrested until she was released on bond for £50 on December 10, 1692. She was never indicted or tried....Dorothy GoodBornca. 1687/1688Diedafter 1721Other namesDorcas GoodKnown forYoungest accused of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials2 more rows
How many witches hung in Salem?
TwentyDuring the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft. Twenty of those people were executed, most by hanging.
Who was accused of being a witch?
Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin and Sarah Wildes, along with Rebecca Nurse, went to trial at this time, where they were found guilty. All five women were executed by hanging on July 19, 1692.
Who was accused of witchcraft in The Crucible?
Elizabeth Proctor is accused of witchcraft by Abigail Williams because Abigail wants to marry Elizabeth's husband, John, with whom she had an affair while serving in the Proctor household.
Who was the first witch accused of witchcraft?
The first to be tried was Bridget Bishop of Salem, who was accused of witchcraft by more individuals than any other defendant. Bishop, known around town for her dubious moral character, frequented taverns, dressed flamboyantly (by Puritan standards), and was married three times.
Who was the first accused of witchcraft?
The first three to be accused of witchcraft were Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn.
How many people were executed for witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials?
Twenty people were executed for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials … but many more people were accused. At least 150 more supposed “witches” were held in custody, waiting for their own trial. But there wasn’t much hope for them… not a single person who testified before that court was ever found innocent.
What happened to the accused witches after the Salem Witch Trials?
Then, one individual dared to accuse the wife of Governor Phips, the current Massachusetts governor. Upon hearing of the charges, Phips decided enough was enough. He ordered an end to the arrests and dissolved the court which had been conducting the trials. When Governor Phips ended the Salem witch trials, those who were held in custody were unceremoniously let go. Nobody seemed concerned about witches in their midst anymore; most of the accused successfully obtained formal pardons.
What was the Salem Witch Trials?
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.
Where did the Salem Witch Trials take place?
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.
What did Cotton Mather say about 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.
Who led the witch hunts in Salem?
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.
What is the fungus in Salem?
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.
When was the Salem witch trial?
A scene in the courtroom during The Salem witch trials of 1692.
Who was the woman who was accused of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials?
Betty later married a shoemaker and had five children; she died in 1760. Abigail, on the other hand, played a prominent role in the Salem witch trials, accusing a total of 57 people of witchcraft. She gave her last testimony before the court in early June 1692, and no record exists of her life after the trials.
What were the causes of the Salem murders?
Historians have offered numerous possible explanations for the Salem accusers’ actions, including economic hardship, deliberate fraud, mass hysteria, mental illness or convulsive ergotism, a condition caused by a fungus that grows on rye and other grains. But the truth is undoubtedly more complex, and impossible to know.
Who was Mary Walcott's step-cousin?
The 16-year-old daughter of Captain Jonathan Walcott, leader of the Salem Village militia, was related to the Putnam family by marriage; Ann Jr. was her step-cousin. The Walcotts lived next door to the Parrises, and Mary’s other aunt, Mary Sibley, had encouraged the baking of the “witch cake” that led to Betty and Abigail’s accusations against Tituba. Perhaps predictably, Mary Walcott joined the core group of accusers by March 1692, and went on to see numerous visions and suffer apparent afflictions at the hands of accused witches. Other times, she sat in the courtroom and knitted calmly while other afflicted girls had fits around her.
Who was Samuel Parris' daughter?
In January 1692, a doctor was called to the home of Reverend Samuel Parris, the Puritan minister of Salem Village (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts), after his nine-year-old daughter, Betty , and her 11-year-old cousin, Abigail Williams, began exhibiting strange symptoms, such as convulsing, barking and speaking unintelligible words. Betty and Abigail soon accused Tituba, the enslaved woman owned by Samuel Parris, whose subsequent confession launched a full-blown witchcraft crisis in Salem.
How many people died in the Salem Witch Trials?
By the end of the Salem witch trials, 19 people had been hanged and 5 others had died in custody. Additionally, a man was pressed beneath heavy stones until he died.
How did the Salem Witch Trials happen?
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.
What was the significance of the Salem Witch Trials?
The haphazard fashion in which the Salem witch trials were conducted contributed to changes in U.S. court procedures, including rights to legal representation and cross-examination of accusers as well as the presumption that one is innocent until proven guilty. The Salem trials also went on to become a powerful metaphor for the anticommunist hearings led by U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare of the 1950s, famously in the form of Arthur Miller ’s allegorical play The Crucible (1953).
How many Salems were there in the 17th century?
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.
What was the Salem village?
In the late 1600s the Salem Village community in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Danvers, Massachusetts) was fairly small and undergoing a period of turmoil with little political guidance. There was a social divide between the leading families as well as a split between factions that were for and against the village’s new pastor, Samuel Parris.
What was the purpose of witchhunts?
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.
Where did the witch hunts take place?
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.
Who were the first two girls to experience the Salem Witch Trials?
Their condition was so bizarre, William Griggs, the uneducated village doctor, had no explanation for it other than witchcraft. Elizabeth “Betty” Parris and her cousin Abigail Williams were the first two girls to experience this hell-birthed disease.
Where was the witch trial?
This was Salem, Massachusetts during the witch trials. Neighbor turned against neighbor, husband against wife, daughter against mother in a frenzy of accusations and repercussions. The scattered occurrences soon multiplied until Salem was enveloped in a putrid blanket of deceit.
What would the accusers claim about the specter?
The accusers would also claim that the specter was in court causing them distress. They would then proceed to enact an Oscar-worthy performance by suffering fits that only ceased when they were touched by their “tormentor”. The admittance of spectral evidence in court made it virtually impossible for someone to prove their innocence during the witch trials.
How old was Osborne when he was sentencing?
Osborne was forty-nine years old and terminally ill at the time of the trials. The first three women accused were social deviants; a slave, a scandalized widow, and a long-term beggar. Neither Good or Osborne attended church, something that proved to be a determining factor during their sentencing.
How old was Sarah Osborne when she was accused of murder?
Although she had wealth, she was still an outcast, shunned for her questionable and immoral choices. Osborne was forty-nine years old and terminally ill at the time of the trials.
What happened after being accused of witchcraft?
After being accused, suspected witches were brought into court and questioned. Each trial was fairly similar . The accusers would use spectral evidence to demonstrate the person’s involvement in the occult. They would claim that the “specter” of the witch had appeared to them, biting, pinching and choking them until they signed the Devil’s book.
How old was Rebecca Nurse when she was accused?
Seventy-one-year-old Rebecca Nurse was among the unfortunate group of accused. Unlike the others tried and convicted before her, she was considered to be an exceptional member of the community. She was kind and respected. Upon being accused, many of her acquaintances came forward to petition her release.
How many people died in the Salem Witch Trials?
Twenty-four people died during the Salem witch trials, though many more were accused of witchcraft. Please be respectful of copyright.
Who were the two women accused of witchcraft?
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. An elderly woman accused of witchcraft is taken to the courthouse by an officer of the law. Bettmann, Getty Images.
What happened in 1692?
Find out what started the witch hunt of 1692. 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, ...
What did Betty and Abigail do to the Parris girls?
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.
Why did the witch craze spread?
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.
What is a witness in witchcraft?
A witness testifies against an accused witch during one of the many witchcraft trials of the 1690s.
When were the accused of witchcraft pardoned?
All of the accused were finally pardoned in 1711.
How many people died in the Salem murders?
Two hundred (perhaps a few more) were charged in what historians now believe was a massive case of petty jealousies and score settling. Nineteen died by hanging, one man was crushed to death and five people died in jail. The Salem bloodlust.
How many people were executed for witchcraft in Connecticut?
In Connecticut, witch hysteria took hold 45 years before Salem began its mass executions. The colony formally tried 43 people for witchcraft (Massachusetts tried 50.) Most were acquitted or escaped, but nine men and two women were executed as witches between 1647 and 1663. The first, a woman from Windsor named Alse Young, died, as the others would, on the basis of flimsy evidence. She went to the gallows on the site of the Old State House.
When did witchcraft become a capital offense?
By 1715, the law making witchcraft a capital offense was off the books, and the witchcraft hysteria died down. (Click here for more about the Hartford Witch Panic.) The Witch No. 1, lithograph, J.E. Baker.
Who ordered the Court of Oyer and Terminer?
Court of Oyer and Terminer. In Salem and nearby towns, officials began rounding up suspected witches even before Gov. William Phips ordered the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened. William Phips. As the storm gathered, Philip English may have been a target because of his wealth.
Where were people persecuted for witchcraft?
Plenty of people in early New England were persecuted for witchcraft, and not just in Salem, Mass.
Who was the witch after the trials?
Witchcraft After the Trials. That didn’t mean people stopped believing in witches. Rhoda Dustin was known as the Witch of Weare, N.H., but lived in an era when witchcraft prosecutions had died down. She was born in 1736, and with her husband ran an inn.
Who was the half-happened Mary?
She survived, and spent the rest of her life known as ‘Half-Hanged Mary.’. Mary Webster was lucky compared to Susannah Martin of Amesbury, Mass. A neighbor first accused her of witchcraft in 1669. Susannah’s husband sued the neighbor for slander, and ultimately she was cleared of the charges.
