Salem witch trials

The Salem witch trials of Colonial America resulted in a number of convictions and executions for witchcraft in 1692 in Massachusetts, the result of a period of factional infighting and Puritan paranoia which led to the deaths of at least 25 people and the imprisonment of scores more.

Background

The first victims were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. Good, orphaned as a teenager at the death of her mother, a French innkeeper, was the town beggar, noted for her strange "muttering." Osborne was a bedridden elderly woman who had gotten on the wrong side of the Putnams when she cheated her first husband's children out of their inheritance, giving it to her new husband. Tituba was the Carib Native American slave of Samuel Parris; though she is very often referred to as black in modern historical and fictional interpretations of the trials, there is no evidence that she was anything but Native American.

Related Topics:
Sarah Good - Sarah Osborne - Tituba - French - Carib - Samuel Parris

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These women were charged with witchcraft on March 1 and put in prison. Other accusations followed: Dorcas Good (four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good), Rebecca Nurse (a bedridden grandmother of saintly disposition), Abigail Hobbs, Deliverance Hobbs, Martha Corey, and Elizabeth and John Proctor. As the number of accusations grew, the jail populations of Salem, Boston, and surrounding areas swelled, and a new problem surfaced: Without a legitimate form of government, there was no way to try these women. None of them were tried until late May, when Governor Phips arrived and instituted a Court of Oyer and Terminer (to "hear and determine"). By then, Sarah Osborne had died in jail after confessing to witchcraft, as had Sarah Good's newborn baby girl, and many others were ill; there were perhaps 80 people in jail awaiting trial.

Related Topics:
March 1 - Rebecca Nurse - John Proctor - Court of Oyer and Terminer

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Over the summer, the Court heard cases approximately once per month, at mid-month. Of the accused, only one was released when the girls recanted their identification of him. All cases that were heard ended with the accused being condemned to death for witchcraft; no one was found innocent. Only those who pleaded guilty to witchcraft and supplied other names to the court were spared execution. Elizabeth Proctor and at least one other woman were given respite "for the belly," because they were pregnant. Though convicted, they would not be hanged until they had given birth. A series of four executions over the summer saw nineteen people hanged, including a respected minister, a former constable who refused to arrest more accused witches, and at least three people of some wealth. Six of the nineteen were men; most of the rest were impoverished women beyond childbearing age.

Related Topics:
Elizabeth Proctor - Pregnant

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Only one execution was not by hanging. Giles Corey, an 80-year-old farmer from the southeast end of Salem, refused to enter a plea. The law provided for the application of a form of torture called peine fort et dure, in which the victim was slowly crushed by piling stones on him; after two days of excruciating pain, Corey died without entering a plea. Though his refusal to plead is often explained as a way of preventing his possessions from being confiscated by the state, this is not true; the possessions of convicted witches were often confiscated, and possessions of persons accused but not convicted were confiscated before a trial, as in the case of Corey's neighbor John Proctor and the wealthy English's of Salem Town. Some historians hypothesize that his personal character, a stubborn and lawsuit-prone old man who knew he was going to be convicted regardless, led to his recalcitrance.

Related Topics:
Giles Corey - Peine fort et dure - Salem Town

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The land suffered along with the people. Crops went untended, cattle uncared for. Often, accused people who had not yet been arrested gathered up their most portable belongings and fled to New York or beyond. Sawmills, their owners missing or distracted, their workers arrested or gawking at the spectacles at the jails or in the meetinghouses, sat idle. Commerce ground to, if not a halt, at least a snail's pace. And there was news of further Indian unrest to the west.

Related Topics:
New York - Sawmill

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