The Salem Witch Trials began in the spring of 1692 and represent a dark time in the history of Massachsusets. This period of time was marked by accusations and hysteria and many people were killed.
While there is little evidence to know exactly how the trials began, what many scholars believe is that it was a result of different disasters: smallpox had struck earlier in the year, Salem had seen its worst winter in decades, and the Indian attacks didn’t help. Emerson W. Baker said in his book “A Storm of Witchcraft”, “What happened in Salem likely had many causes, and as many responses to those causes…
While each book puts forward its own theories, most historians agree that there was no single cause for the witchcraft that started in Salem and spread across the region. To borrow a phrase from another tragic chapter of Essex County history, Salem offered a ‘perfect storm’, a unique convergence of conditions and events that produced what was by far the largest and most lethal witchcraft episode in American history.”
127 our experts are availableright now
The trials started when Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams started having fits of contortion, screaming, and violent shaking and moving. After a local doctor diagnosed them as bewitched, several other girls in the community began exhibiting these same symptoms. They accused a Carribean slave (Tituba), a local beggar (Sarah Good), and an elderly woman who very rarely went to church (Sarah Osborne). These three women were tried and two were hung. Within months, the hysteria was at full steam. During that time, people of Salem thought of witches as beings possessed by the devil. If the person were a witch, that meant that the person had either been possessed or made a deal with the devil.
Around 200 people, almost half the population of Salem, were accused of being witches. Of the 200 people accused, approximately 20-30 people were killed as well as two dogs. If a person would plead guilty, they believed that the devil had left the person, so they let the person go; but if the person insisted they were innocent, the person would almost surely be hanged. 19 people total were hanged on Gallows Hill, 14 women, and 5 men. Giles Corey, a 71 year old man who would not confess, was tied to 4 stakes in the ground, got a slab of wood laid on his abdomen. Everytime he denied practicing witchcraft, a boulder would be added to the wood. After 2 days, he was crushed to death. Another 5-10 deaths occured in jail. Getting put in jail in Salem in those days was brutal. Accused witches were chained to the wall of a wet, rat infested, cold, dark dungeon.
Some scholars think that the women of the town were so desperate for attention that they were willing to accuse each other of witchcraft. The youngest person to be in this dungeon was Dorothy Good, who was 4 years old. Many people who survived were psychologically scarred by the dungeon. Many died soon after this tragic event, and of the ones who survived, many of them had caretakers until death, because the emotional trauma of just the dungeon alone was too much.
Witch trials in the 1600s were far from fair, as only an accusation was needed for a trial. The trials were open and were often unfair. The judges were all men, most served in the militia, and while they may have been qualified, they were not fair. There were 10 judges for the witch trials: Chief Magistrate Lt. Gov. William Stoughton, Jonathan Corwin, Bartholomew Gedney, John Hathorne, John Richards, Nathaniel Saltonstal, Peter Sergeant, Samuel Sewell, and Wait Still Winthrop. Five forms of evidence were admitted into the trials.
The first was reciting the Lord’s Prayer. The people of Salem believed that witches could only recite the Lord’s prayer backwards, or would fall into fits when they tried to recite it. The second form of evidence was birthmarks, moles, warts, or blemishes. The people believed that these un-perfect marksy were ways that the devil could enter your body. They also used something called the “needle test”. It was a shameful experience for the women of Salem. They were stripped and prodded until the poker found a spot that solicited no reaction. Some pokers were just conmen that used dulled needles to speed up the process.
The third type of evidence was a witness testimony. This was if someone had seen the accused practicing magic, or if the accused had been acting strangely or done something suspicious. The fourth type was spectral evidence. The theory the people of Salem had was that the devil could not enter a willing person’s body. Therefore, if a ghost of the person was seen, then that person’s soul was said to have been kicked out of its own body and, therefore, was a witch. The last type of evidence was a confession. The odd part of this was, that none of the people who plead guilty were ever executed. These trials scarred men, women, children, and the whole community forever.
The Salem Witch Trials lasted for about a year. It started to wind down when spectral evidence (ghosts or dreams) was thrown out because it was easy to fake. The Court of Oyer and Terminal was dismissed and a new court was put together. Since spectral evidence was dismissed as evidence, most were found not guilty, and the ones that were found guilty were pardoned by the governor. The people of Salem were glad to end the hysteria, but the trials and executions left the colony ashamed and embarrassed. On January 15, 1967, the colony held a day known as the Day of Official Humiliation. However, the state went even further than that. On August 28, 1957, the governor signed a bill that formally apologized for the Salem Witch Trials.
However, it only named one of the victims. On October 31, 2001, the state amended that bill and named all of the victims of the trials. The Salem Witch Trials also brought about the need for the separation of church and state, trying to ensure that this would never happen again. The Salem Witch Trials caused the government to take a good look at its legal system. Now, courts have an unbiased jury, judges who have to abide by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the accused have the right to a lawyer. Some of these ideas originated from the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials, to ensure that nothing like this would ever happen again.
The Salem Witch Trials left a dark mark on the face of history. It showed that fear can make anyone believe anything. It showed that hysteria can cause neighbors to turn on neighbors, children turn on parents, friends turn on friends. However, it also taught us. It taught us that we need to safeguard and improve our justice system. Every generation has its hysteria. In the 1860s it was the Klu Klux Klan, in 1940 it was Hitler and the monstrosoties of his concentration camps, now it is terrorism; each generation tries to fix their mistakes.
Fear and mob mentality introduced a dark year in the history of Salem. 1692 proved that given the right set of circumstances, a large group of people could be led into turning on friends and neighbors, false accusation, cruel and unusual punishment and imprisonment, and murder. While technically, only around 200 people were accused, the reverberations to the community of Salem should serve as a reminder and warning that group opinion is not always the best ones.
