Parris’s orthodox Puritan theology and preaching also divided the congregation, a split that became demonstrably visible when he routinely insisted that nonmembers of the congregation leave before communion was celebrated. Parris had shrewdly negotiated his contract with the congregation, but relatively early in his tenure he sought greater compensation, including ownership of the parsonage, which did not sit well with many members of the congregation. Other girls and young women began experiencing fits, among them Ann Putnam, Jr.; her mother; her cousin, Mary Walcott; and the Putnams’s servant, Mercy Lewis. Additionally, a man was pressed beneath heavy stones until he died. Though the respected minister Cotton Mather had warned of the dubious value of spectral evidence (or testimony about dreams and visions), his concerns went largely unheeded during the Salem witch trials. 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. Given the subsequent spread of the strange behaviour to other girls and young women in the community and the timing of its display, however, those physiological and psychological explanations are not very convincing. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a dark time in American history. Weegy: The Salem Witch trial began after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. Presided over by judges including Hathorne, Samuel Sewall and William Stoughton, the court handed down its first conviction, against Bridget Bishop, on June 2; she was hanged eight days later on what would become known as Gallows Hill in Salem Town. Though the Massachusetts General Court later annulled guilty verdicts against accused witches and granted indemnities to their families, bitterness lingered in the community, and the painful legacy of the Salem witch trials would endure for centuries. The villagers called these people who were accused of showing abnormal behavior, witches. Context & Origins of the Salem Witch Trials, Salem Witch Trials: Conclusion and Legacy, 5 Notable Women Hanged in the Salem Witch Trials. No one was burned at the stake in the Salem witch trials. Conant serves as the settlement’s governor. The three women were thrown in jail to await trial for practicing witchcraft. 1628: John Endicott and a group of settlers from the New England Company arrive with a patent from England that gives them legal rights to Naumkeag. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 were killed during the hysteria. This was a dark time in history as more than 200 prosecutions took place and at least 20 people were killed. Some three-fourths of those European witch hunts took place in western Germany, the Low Countries, France, northern Italy, and Switzerland. In 1689, through the influence of the Putnams, Samuel Parris, a merchant from Boston by way of Barbados, became the pastor of the village’s Congregational church. Presided over by Chief Justice William Stoughton, the court was made up of magistrates and jurors. Images of witches have appeared in various forms throughout history—from evil, wart-nosed women huddling over a cauldron of boiling liquid to hag-faced, cackling beings ...read more, In January 1692, a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts became consumed by disturbing “fits” accompanied by seizures, violent contortions and bloodcurdling screams. 1. Suddenly, two girls got a strange illness. The events in Salem in 1692 were but one chapter in a long story of witch hunts that began in Europe between 1300 and 1330 and ended in the late 18th century (with the last known execution for witchcraft taking place in Switzerland in 1782). By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. In three days of vivid testimony, she described encounters with Satan’s animal familiars and with a tall, dark man from Boston who had called upon her to sign the devil’s book, in which she saw the names of Good and Osborn along with those of seven others that she could not read. He was the great-great-grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who changed the spelling of the family name to get distance from the Salem witch trial history. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The Salem Witch Trials began in February 1692 and concluded in May 1693. 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 Samuel Sewall publicly apologized for his role in the process. Salem Village and Salem Town were politically a single unit, but socially as well as economically the two were diverse and because of this it caused a rivalry. In an effort to explain by scientific means the strange afflictions suffered by those "bewitched" Salem residents in 1692, a study published in Science magazine in 1976 cited the fungus ergot (found in rye, wheat and other cereals), which toxicologists say can cause symptoms such as delusions, vomiting and muscle spasms. The Salem Witch Trials were “unfair” throughout countless eyes of villagers that lived in Salem village during this ghastly era. Corrections? The Salem Witch Trials began in January of 1692, after a group of girls began behaving strangely and a local doctor ruled that they were bewitched. Accusations followed, often escalating to convictions and executions. During the Salem witch trials of 1692, twenty-four accused witches died, 19 were hanged, one was pressed to death, and four died in prison. Score 1 User: What happened after a few girls were accused of being witches? The first to be tried was Bridget Bishop of Salem. 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. Finally in 1697, the Massachusetts General Court declared a day of fasting for the victims of the Salem witch trials and they were later deemed unlawful. Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The start up began in 1692 and lasted through 1693, not a very long time, but caused massive devastation in the Boston Bay Colony and throughout. The Salem Witch Trials stands as one of the greatest WTF moments in all of American history. In addition, the harsh realities of life in the rural Puritan community of Salem Village (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts) at the time included the after-effects of a British war with France in the American colonies in 1689, a recent smallpox epidemic, fears of attacks from neighboring Native American tribes and a longstanding rivalry with the more affluent community of Salem Town (present-day Salem). One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death for refusing to plead, and at least five people died in jail. Witch trouble! They screamed, made odd sounds, threw things, contorted their bodies, and complained of biting and pinching sensations. By May 1693 everyone in custody under conviction or suspicion of witchcraft had been pardoned by Phips. There was not one town of Salem, but rather Salem Town and Salem Village. Something wicked was brewing in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Parris, whose largely theological studies at Harvard College (now Harvard University) had been interrupted before he could graduate, was in the process of changing careers from business to the ministry. Omissions? As hysteria spread through the community and beyond into the rest of Massachusetts, a number of others were accused, including Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse–both regarded as upstanding members of church and community–and the four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good. The Salem Witch Trials were a series of prosecutions of people who were accused of acts of witchcraft or of being a witch in Salem, Massachusetts through the time period of February 1692 through May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, most of whom were women. After some young girls of the village (two of them relatives of Parris) started demonstrating strange behaviours and fits, they were urged to identify the person who had bewitched them. During the Salem Witch Trials twenty innocent people were put to death. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The Salem Witch Trials began in spring 1692 and lasted for seven months, during which more than 150 people where arrested, 19 were hanged and one was tortured to death. 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. 20 men and women were condemned to death during the trials, and a number of others underwent jail terms and separation from their families. 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. Suddenly, two girls got a strange illness. The Salem witch trials were a regretable episode in colonial American history. Surnames in parentheses preceded by "née" indicate birth family maiden names of married women, who upon … © 2021 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Nige Tassell explains how hysteria in the village of Salem, Massachusets, gave … The daughter and niece of the local minister, Samuel Parris, claimed to be afflicted by invisible forces who bit and pinched them, ...read more, In late March 1662, John and Bethia Kelly grieved over the body of their 8-year-old daughter inside their Hartford, Connecticut, home. What Were the Salem Witch Trials? Watching his wife withstand the heated examination was bad enough, but suddenly the ...read more, “I was taken very ill again all over & felt a great pricking in ye soles of my feet, and after a while I saw apparently the shape of Margret Scott, who, as I was sitting in a chair by ye fire pulled me with ye chair, down backward to ye ground, and tormented and pinched me very ...read more, 1. Paranoia was sweeping Salem, and Elizabeth was being examined by a local judge on suspicion of witchcraft. Updates? The trials themselves were a farce, including the submission of 'evidence' such as a fondness for cats or the pressence of a wart. What Were the Salem Witch Trials? A witch and her familiars, illustration from a discourse on witchcraft, 1621; in the British Library (MS. Add. The infamous Salem witch trials were a series of prosecutions for witchcraft starting in 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. The Salem witch trials were a series of prosecutions in which over 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft. Their bodies twitched and shuddered. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. All Rights Reserved. In January 1692, 9-year-old Elizabeth (Betty) Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams (the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, minister of Salem Village) began having fits, including violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. Jeff Wallenfeldt, manager of Geography and History, has worked as an editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica since 1992. This image is a fanciful representation of the Salem witch trials. The Salem trials occurred late in the sequence, after the abatement of the European witch-hunt fervour, which peaked from the 1580s and ’90s to the 1630s and ’40s. By the end of the Salem witch trials, 19 people had been hanged and 5 others had died in custody. 2. In 1692, a few girls fell ill, and one year later, 25 people were … Swimming Test The notorious Salem Witch Trials began in 1692 after several teenage girls claimed to be possessed by the devil. They spoke nonsense and seemed to be choking. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. 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. 32496, f. 53). In addition, seven other accused witches died in jail, while the elderly Giles Corey (Martha’s husband) was pressed to death by stones after he refused to enter a plea at his arraignment. User: How did the Salem Witch trials begin? They said they were being pinched and poked by something invisible. Historians believe the accused witches were victims of mob mentality, mass hysteria and scapegoating. They used this false belief to accuse several innocent women of witchcraft. (The hallucinogen LSD is a derivative of ergot.) The haphazard fashion in which the Salem witch trials were conducted contributed to changes in U.S. court procedures, including rights to legal representation and cross-examination of accusers as well as the presumption that one is innocent until proven guilty. Witch Mark – A practice that came from England in the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries, looking for witch marks, or devil’s marks was also utilized during the Salem witch trials.The common belief was that a “witch teat,” or extra nipple on a witch’s body, permitted a … It was the deadliest witch hunt in the history of colonial North America and Titbua’s false confession started it all. READ MORE: 5 Notable Women Hanged in the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials were one of the darkest times in American history. In the winter of 1692, trouble came to the village of Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As the trials continued, accusations extended beyond Salem Village to surrounding communities. Salem witch trials, (June 1692–May 1693), in American history, a series of investigations and persecutions that caused 19 convicted “witches” to be hanged and many other suspects to be imprisoned in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Danvers, Massachusetts). Probably stimulated by voodoo tales told to them by Tituba, Parris’s daughter Betty (age 9), his niece Abigail Williams (age 11), and their friend Ann Putnam, Jr. (about age 12), began indulging in fortune-telling. As part of the infamous “swimming test,” accused witches were dragged to the nearest body of water, stripped to their undergarments, bound and then tossed in to to see if they would sink or float. Soon after, other local … Questions and answers about the Salem witch trials. https://www.history.com/topics/colonial-america/salem-witch-trials. Centuries before the Salem trials, many people, both Christians and other religions, believed that there existed a powerful supernatural being (the devil) who gave people evil powers, such as the powers of witchcraft to hurt others in return for being loyal to him. The Salem trials also went on to become a powerful metaphor for the anticommunist hearings led by U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare of the 1950s, famously in the form of Arthur Miller’s allegorical play The Crucible (1953). After weeks of informal hearings, Sir William Phips, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, interceded to add some formality to the proceedings. The number of trials and executions varied according to time and place, but it is generally believed that some 110,000 persons in total were tried for witchcraft and between 40,000 to 60,000 were executed. Witches were considered to be followers of Satan who had traded their souls for his assistance. 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. Significantly, those that they began identifying as other witches were no longer just outsiders and outcasts but rather upstanding members of the community, beginning with Rebecca Nurse, a mature woman of some prominence. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The distraught parents, grasping at any ...read more, Witches were perceived as evil beings by early Christians in Europe, inspiring the iconic Halloween figure. The family home, the Gedney House, is still standing in Salem. Like Tituba, several accused “witches” confessed and named still others, and the trials soon began to overwhelm the local justice system. Over the following year many trials were held and many people imprisoned. In effect, the Salem Witch Trials were over. 1626: Salem founded by original group of settlers led by Roger Conant, after abandoning their original settlement in Gloucester. But, how did all this come into play? They said they were being pinched and poked by something invisible. In total, 30 people were found guilty of witchcraft and 19 people were executed by hanging.

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