Salem witch trials

The Salem Witch Trials took place in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. During the Trials, over 150 people were arrested and put in jail after being accused of practicing witchcraft. Even more people were accused, but were never formally charged by the authorities.

The central figure in this 1876 illustration is usually identified as Mary Walcott

20 people were executed as a result of the Salem Witch Trials, fourteen of them women. All but one of those deemed to be witches were killed by hanging, the other was pressed to death with heavy stones. Five others (including two infant children) died in prison. Two dogs were executed for the crime of witchcraft as well.

Bridget Bishop's case was the first brought to the grand jury. Bishop was accused of not living a Puritan lifestyle, for she dressed differently and owned a tavern in her home, where shuffleboard was played and minors were served. Her odd costumes and "immoral" lifestyle, affirmed that she was a witch. She went to trial the same day and was convicted. On June 10, 1692, Bishop was the first witch in the Salem trials to be executed by hanging.

Bridget Bishop, as depicted in a lithograph

Another suspected witch was Martha Corey, who was accused of witchcraft by two emotionally aroused young girls. Refusing to confess, she was hanged and her husband was slowly pressed to death under heavy stones.

Elizabeth Proctor, one of the convicted witches of Salem, was pregnant and "plead her belly", delaying the execution until after giving birth. She was never executed afterwards.

Giles Corey was a wealthy farmer who was respected in the community. He was accused of witchcraft by several young women, and he was arrested and imprisoned. At his trial, Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. The court ordered that Corey be subjected to peine forte et dure, a form of torture that was used to coerce defendants into entering a plea. Corey was placed on his back on the ground, and a heavy board was placed on his chest. Weights were then added to the board, one by one.

Corey endured the torture for three days, but he refused to enter a plea. On the fourth day, he died from the pressure on his chest.  He was the only person to be executed in this way in the Salem trials, and it is the only known instance of this form of execution in American history. Corey's death was a shocking event, and it helped to turn public opinion against the witch trials. 

On January 15, 1697, Salem and the Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaimed a day of fasting and repentance before God for the tragic error and folly of the Salem witch trials. Among the reasons for the day of fasting given by the resolution were, "so all of God's people may offer up fervent supplications unto him, that all iniquity may be put away, which hath stirred God's holy jealousy against this land; that he would show us what we know not, and help us, wherein we have done amiss, to do so no more."

Samuel Sewall (1652-1730), one of the three presiding judges involved in the Salem witchcraft trials, admitted in 1697 that the convictions were a mistake. He accepted the "blame and shame" for them and for the next 33 years until his death the judge annually spent a day of repentance in fasting and prayer.

Samuel Sewall 1729, by John Smibert

Within a decade, the local court had declared the trials unlawful, passed a bill restoring the good names of the accused and granted £600 restitution to their heirs.

There were two witchcraft trials in Plymouth Colony 50 years before the Salem Trials. Unlike the later, more infamous trials, the accused were found Not Guilty and their accusers were fined for giving false statements.

Writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ray Bradbury, actors Christopher Reeve, actress Linda Hamilton, and astronaut Alan Shepard are all descendants of Mary Bradbury, a woman tried and sentenced in the Salem Witch Trials who escaped death and lived to age 85.

The actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who played a witch convicted in the Salem witch trials in the Disney movie Hocus Pocus, later discovered that her great grandmother, Esther Elwell, was accused of witchcraft during the Salem Trials, because a 17-year-old girl had claimed to have seen her among 'three spectres' pressing down on a woman who died. Esther escaped trial when the prosecution for witchcraft was abolished.

Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials, in which he compares McCarthyism to a witch-hunt. The play was first performed at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway on January 22, 1953 in the midst of a period when senator Joseph McCarthy was the visible public face of the government ostracizing people for being communists.

In Salem today, police cars are adorned with witch logos, a school is known as the Witchcraft Heights Elementary School and the Salem High School athlete team is the Witches.

Source Christianity.com