25 disturbing facts about the salem witch trials

The Salem witchcraft trials, which began in May of 1692 after months of rumors of Satanic influence, still grip the American imagination more than 300 years later. The feud was over the fact that Kazan had named communist sympathizers during his testimony to Congress. "Examination of a witch" by Tompkins Harrison Matteson (1853) Another more disturbing theory proposed by researchers like behavioral psychologist Linnda Caporael suggests that Salem suffered from ergot poisoning. Copyright 2023 by Factinate.com. The first accusations during the Salem Witch Trials were against people who were for various reasons marginalized by society. One of the most notorious periods of American history, the Salem witch trials of 1692 resulted in the execution by hanging of fourteen women and five men who were accused of being witches during a period of mass hysteria. Due to its association with the supernatural and the haunted, Salem is now a popular destination for Halloween festivities, which run throughout the month of October. In response, John found himself accused as well. The most famous witch trial in history happened in Salem, Massachusetts, during the winter and spring of 1692-1693. The Salem witch trials marked a seven-month period of mass hysteria in 1692 Colonial America. Witches were considered to be followers of Satan who had traded their souls for his assistance. Tituba ultimately survived the saga and was not hanged. The Enemy of My Enemy. William Good, who lost his wife Sarah and infant daughter Mercy, and whose daughter Dorothy was imprisoned, was one of the people who received the largest settlement. 02. Salem Witch Hunt begins - HISTORY The Putnams, a prominent family hed borrowed money from, sued Burroughs for unpaid debts and later accused him of witchcraft. Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? It seems that a shocking number of accusations were made by members of the Putnam family. The punishment for witchcraft was death. Even during the trials, there were many who objected to the whole procedure, even within the religious Puritan community. Salem didn't burn witches at the stake; most of the accused witches were hanged. The Salem Witch trials occupy a large space in the American imagination. (Salem Witch Trials "History" published on November 4, 2011 and updated on October 5, 2021). The collective delusion of witchcraft took more than a year to loosen its grip on Salem and its surrounding towns. The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: An Account. Famous Trials. As she did when she was accused of bewitching her second husband, Bishop once again claimed innocence during her trial. 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. It is not known why Abigail was living with the Parris family but many historians assume her parents . In these records you can find the year the accused stood trial, first and last name, town or village where the trial took place, and the outcome of the trial. Before she was hanged for witchcraft, Sarah Good gave birth to a daughter, Mercy Good, while detained. Witches have been the origin of many myths and legends. Between February 1692 and May 1693 in current day Massachusetts, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft. It was a time when Christianity was prominent and no one steered away from the biblical beliefs. Call them ignorant, call them malicious, the, Life, woman, life is Gods most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it., 20 Brave Facts About the House of Gryffindor, 25 Money-Making Facts About Hollywood Industry, Hero to Zero Facts About Robert Devereux, The Rebellious Earl of Essex. Bridget Bishop, a woman considered to have questionable morals, was the first to be tried and executed during the Salem witch trials. The Salem witch trials are considered one of Americas most noteworthy cases of mass hysteria. It involved a woman by the name of Tituba, a most likely South American slave from Barbados, who was the first victim of Salems witchcraft accusations. In June 1692, Governor Phips appointed Stoughton as chief judge and prosecutor in the Salem witch trials despite Stoughtons lack of legal experience. The litany of odd behaviour also mirrored that of the children of a Boston family who in 1688 were believed to have been bewitched, a description of which had been provided by Congregational minister Cotton Mather in his book Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions (1689) and which may have been known by the girls in Salem Village. This evidence was later banned bythe courts, leading to a sharp drop in accusations. The 1942 romantic comedy filmI Married a Witch, starring Veronica Lake and Frederic March, told the story of two witches from Salem placing a revenge curse on the descendants of their accuser. Husbands hiding things from wives, mothers from children, and generation from generation. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. 20 wereexecuted (generally hanged) by the prosecutors, and five died while serving prison time. The extraordinary series of events in 1692 led to the deaths of 25 innocent men, women and children. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Linder, Douglas O. There have been many other instances of this kind of phenomenon sincemost recently in an outbreak of alleged evil clown sightings across the continent and beyond in 2016. The Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between early 1692 and mid-1693. My mom never told me how her best friend died. Having an angry witch killing your children made sense. He attempted to save himself by writing to clergy in Boston that mass hysteria had taken over the village, but they acted too slowly to save him: He was executed on August 19, 1692. As the trials continued, accusations extended beyond Salem Village to surrounding communities. Move over Montagues and Capulets: You might not be the most vengeful families out there. Life, woman, life is Gods most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it.Arthur Miller, in The Crucible. Please submit feedback to [email protected]. The Salem Witch Trials (1692) Cartoon - YouTube (2:10) https://youtu.be/jJJLy5_DlqY Its time for a Halloween special! 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. To save his wife, the governor stepped in to stop the trials and disband the court of Oyer and Terminer. An important minister in Boston named Increase Mather was one of these objectors, stating that It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than that one innocent person should be condemned.. Today, witchcraftis recognized by the government as a protected and legitimate religion under the First Amendment. Around the same time, in Salem Village, village girls accused a man of tormenting a different dog with his evil spirit. In addition to the twenty people convicted and executed for witchcraft, two dogs were also accused of and executed for the same crime. She went as far as to say that she did not even know what a witch was. Besides their descendants, the accused witches of Salem leave another legacy: a rich and fascinating history for us to explore today. They thought that when witches baked cakes, that they were casting a spell in it. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a dark time in American history. The magistrates then had not only a confession but also what they accepted as evidence of the presence of more witches in the community, and hysteria mounted. It was believed that witches had animal helpers that could take almost any animal form and do their dirty work for them. Image of The Salem Witch Trials. One of the people. Tituba initially denied the claim that she was a witch, but notoriously later decided to confess that it was true and accused two other women as well in the process. Did you know this unbelievable witch trial fact: dogs were also major targets of the trials? Dont feel too embarrassed if you happen to be from Massachusetts, you guys were not the first to do something like this. Omissions? The death warrant, signed on June 8, 1692, ordered for her death to take place by hanging on Friday, June 10, 1692, between 8 a.m. and noon. He was the first to suggest the girls may be under the evil influence of witchcraft. No, it doesnt sound that romantic or comic to me either. But not just adult women and men were impacted by the trials. So if you celebrate Christmas and live in Massachusetts today, be happy you were born when you were! His diagnosis of bewitchment put into motion the forces that would ultimately result in the hanging deaths of 19 men and women. Unfortunately for Bishop, that allegation of witchcraft would not be her last. And the first person executed for witchcraft during the trials was also a woman. Log in or try Ancestry 14 days free to start finding the survivors, the outspoken, or the ones who did things differently in your family tree. Almost 150 people were accused of being witches and 20 were killed. At the suggestion of a neighbour, a witch cake (made with the urine of the victims) was baked by Tituba to try to ferret out the supernatural perpetrator of the girls illness. Tituba, an enslaved person born to a South American indigenous tribe, became the first person accused of witchcraft in Salem after Betty, the daughter of Salems minister, Samuel Parris, began acting erratically. Villagers killed that second dog and sent the man fleeing for his life. (There is uncertainty regarding the relationship between the slaves and their ethnic origins. In January 1692 Bettys and Abigails increasingly strange behaviour (described by at least one historian as juvenile deliquency) came to include fits. This resulted in him being accused as well, and in the end it was he who was executed while Elizabeth was instead sentenced to prison so that her unborn baby would not have to die. However, witch trials are not a thing of the past. Perhaps some training in the law would have constrained Stoughtons more extreme actions. William Stoughton, who presided over the Salem witch trials, studied theology at Harvard College and Oxford, but never became a minister and chose to enter politics instead.