Salem Witch Trials

Belief in the supernatural—and specifically in the Devil and his practice of giving certain humans the power to harm others in return for their loyalty—was common throughout Europe since the Middle Ages, 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) included the aftermath of King Philip's War, a 1689 British war against France in the American colonies, a recent smallpox epidemic, fears of attacks from Native American tribes and a longstanding fued with the more affluent community of Salem Town (present-day Salem).

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

In January 1692, 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams—the daughter and niece of minister Samuel Parris—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—Sarah Good and the elderly Sarah Osborne—whom the young girls accused of bewitching them.

The three accused witches were questioned before magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, even as their accusers appeared in the courtroom in a grand display of spasms, contortions, screaming and writhing. Though Good and Osborne 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.

Hysteria spread rapidly through the community and into the rest of Massachusetts. A number of other people were accused, including Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse—both regarded as upstanding members of the church and community—and the four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good.

Accusations of witchcraft were mostly hurled at people—about three-quarters of whom were women—who didn't strictly conform to the rigid standards of Puritan society. Good, for example, was a destitute beggar who allegedly failed to practice self-discipline and was short-tempered with local children.

Corey had expressed some doubt about the testimonies of the young girls who initially accused other women of witchcraft; this expression of doubt made her a target of suspicion. Even people with moles or other birthmarks were accused of witchcraft, as any skin pigmentations were supposedly the marks of Satan.

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 on June 2 against Bridget Bishop; she was hanged eight days later on what would soon become known as Gallows Hill in Salem Town.

Five more people were hanged in July; five additional hangings occurred in August and eight more in September. In addition, five other people died under miserable conditions in jail—including two infant girls—while 81-year-old Giles Corey (Martha’s husband) was crushed to death by large stones after he defiantly refused to enter a plea at his arraignment. A total of 25 people died as a result of the Salem witch trials.

Though the respected minister Cotton Mather had warned of the dubious value of spectral evidence (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 be better that ten suspected witches may escape than one innocent person be condemned.”

Amid waning public support for the trials, Governor Phips dissolved the Courts 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 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.

The vivid and painful legacy of the Salem witch trials endured well into the 20th century, when playwright Arthur Miller dramatized the events of 1692 in his play “The Crucible” (1953), using them as an allegory for the anti-Communist “witch hunts” led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

A memorial to the victims of the Salem witch trials now stands near the Salem Witch Museum. The memorial was dedicated on August 5, 1992, by author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.