The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a horrific and complicated time in America's history. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft! Twenty of those innocent people were hanged or “pressed” to death, while more died in jail or suffered for years after these events.
Though hard to believe, all these sufferings originated from two little girls, Betty Parris (age 9) and Abigail Williams (age 11-12). The girls were playing an innocent game that involved trying to figure out who would be their future husband by breaking an egg into a water-filled glass and seeing the shape that it settled in. However, when the egg whites took the shape of a coffin the girls were so terrified that they were driven into fits of hysteria. This hysteria continued, and started to spread to other girls of Salem Village, so Dr. William Griggs was called upon to figure out what was wrong with them. However the Doctor could find no physical problem, so he claimed that they were bewitched, that they had been taken under an “evil hand”.
After Dr. WIlliam Griggs diagnoses, the girls were urged to give names of the guilty “witches” that had bewitched them, so they could be arrested. The first name they gave was an enslaved woman, Tituba. They claimed she was invisibly pricking and pinching them. Not long after that they accused two more women, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. These women were already considered misfits in the Puritan society, so people had no problem accepting them as being guilty of witchcraft.
The villagers of Salem became fearful of being accused of practicing witchcraft, to the point that some turned against their own neighbors and accused them of witchcraft. Surprisingly, the next to be accused was a well respected woman of the Salem village, Martha Corey. Even her own husband, Giles Corey, became so weary of the accusation that he testified against her in the trials. He claimed she “bewitched” his horse saddle on the way to the hearing. Yet his efforts proved useless, because he was later accused of witchcraft himself. On September 22nd, he died after being “pressed” to death. He suffered for many days as huge stones were gradually piled onto his chest ultimately crushing him.
Salem had no experience with any type of witch trials before, but Boston had gone through their own witch trials a few years prior. Knowing this, the people of Salem went looking for help from Governor William Phips of Boston. Phips set up a court for Salem, even though no one knew at the time that it was fake. In this court, the accused “witch” would be examined by 1-2 magistrates, looking for anything that could resemble the mark of the devil. During the actual trial, the accused would be questioned by a judge, in front of a jury. If indicted, they were required to plead guilty or non-guilty and then would ultimately be scheduled for a date of hanging. The reason Giles Corey was pressed to death instead of a hanging was due to the fact that he refused to give a plea because he did not want his property to be taken away. His final words were famously, “more weight.”
The first Salem Witch Trial and hanging of innocent Bridget Bishop occurred on June 2nd and 10th, of 1692. Bridget Bishop was chosen to be the first person tried because she would be the least controversial due to the fact that she already had a long history of controversy against her. The place where the hangings occured is a small hill known as Proctor’s Ledge as of 2016. The executions went on until September 22nd, when the final eight victims were hanged. Many continued to die in prison after the hangings ended. Others were released, but forced to work to pay off their debt for the time they spent in prison. Even two dogs were shot and killed for being suspected of committing witchcraft.
These happenings went on for quite some time until the wife of Governor WIlliam Phips, Mary Spencer Hull, was accused of witchcraft. Since Phips was responsible for creating the fake court, he had the power to quickly put a stop to it. This was ultimately how the witch trials of 1692 quickly ended.
Salem Village continued to struggle many years after the trials finished due to shame and remorse of what happened. The colony even began to struggle with crop failure, droughts, smallpox outbreaks, and attacks. This led them to believe that God was punishing them for their mistakes. Even Ann Putnam, one of the afflicted girls, confessed to creating these lies for attention and issued a public letter, apologizing for how she contributed to the trials and hangings. In 1711, they passed a bill clearing the names of twenty-two convicted persons. More names would have been included, but some families did not want their relatives listed. In 1957, the state of Massachusetts finally made a public apology and cleared the names of all of the remaining victims. And in 1991, Salem created a memorial for the victims, where Arthur Miller himself read an act from his play, The Crucible. This helped and continues to help everyone remember the murders of innocent people and false imprisonments of 1692.
Sources:
Hill, Frances. Hunting for Witches, Second Edition. Applewood Books, 2019.
Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice. “History of the Salem Witch Trials.” History of Massachusetts, 18 August 2011, https://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-salem-witch-trials/.
“Bridget Bishop, Hanged, June 10, 1692 - Destination Salem.” Salem, Massachusetts, 10 June 2016, https://www.salem.org/blog/bridget-bishop-hanged-june-10-1692/.
“Procedures, Courts & Aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials – Page 4 – Legends of America.” Legends of America, https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ma-salemcourt/4/.
