Fourteen women and six men were executed for witchcraft, and five others died in prison during the trials. Large rocks and boulders were then laid on the planks, which slowly crushed him., After Governor Phips put an end to the witch trials, many involved in the proceedings expressed guilt and remorse about the events that occurred, including judge Samuel Sewall and the governor himself. Salem didn't burn witches at the stake; most of the accused witches were hanged. People thought that witches used demons to do magic. A period of less than a year caused such turmoil that Salem, Massachusetts, is still widely known for the trials. One particularly disturbing fact about the witch hunt in Salem is that animals could be found guilty of participating in witchcraft as well as humans, and they could be (and were) sentenced to death for it. List three facts about each and three opinions. The Crucible Act One: An Overture Flashcards | Quizlet Ever since those dark days ended, the trials have become synonymous with mass hysteria and scapegoating. The collective delusion of witchcraft took more than a year to loosen its grip on Salem and its surrounding towns. Now that Tituba had confirmed that satanic work was afootand that there were other witches aroundthere was no stopping until they were all found. Move over Montagues and Capulets: You might not be the most vengeful families out there. This series of prosecutions and hangings of those accused of practicing witchcraft provoked a major backlash, and the event still haunts us today. On March 1 two magistrates from Salem Town, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, went to the village to conduct a public inquiry. Here are 42 wicked facts about the Salem witch trials. In mid-January 1692, Elizabeth Betty Parris, the 9-year-old daughter of the local Reverend Samuel Parris, and Abigail Williams, the reverends 11-year-old niece, became the first to be diagnosed with being afflicted by witchcraft. Salem Witch Trials Of 1692 | Landmarks, Events, & More - Destination Salem Those people lived in quite a horrific time. The feud was over the fact that Kazan had named communist sympathizers during his testimony to Congress. Thanks for your help! Linder, Douglas O. Some scholars believe that they were of African heritage, while others think that they may have been of Caribbean Native American heritage.). 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. Even some members of his congregation at the time wanted to see him dismissed from his pew in response to his aggressive prosecuting role in the episode. As she did when she was accused of bewitching her second husband, Bishop once again claimed innocence during her trial. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. They found it by following clues in an accused witchs writings and through guesses on where prisoners would be transported. In 1689, through the influence of the Putnams, Samuel Parris, a merchant from Boston by way of Barbados, became the pastor of the villages Congregational church. Accessed May 6, 2021. https://salemwitchmuseum.com/locations/philip-and-mary-english-home-site-of/. Corrections? Please let us know if a fact weve published is inaccurate (or even if you just suspect its inaccurate) by reaching out to us at contribute@factinate.com. They began in 1692, a full 73 years before the start of the American Revolution and some 40 years before George Washington was even born. For example, the infamous Putnam family had been one of the earliest settler dynasties to come to the Massachusetts Bay colony and establish themselves there. Salem Witch Trial Research Paper .docx - 1 Gabriela Another reason why it sucked that these trials took place before the Bill of Rights existed? Children were also accused of witchcraft. His vocal support for his wifewho was also accused of witchcraftand claims that the accusers were lying were among the possible reasons why suspicion fell on him as well. Accusations followed, often escalating to convictions and executions. Full List, Photo Credits, and Sources: https://list25.com/25-disturbing-facts-about-the-salem-witch-trialsSUBSCRIBE - http://bit.ly/2uwq6BJCheck out our store: https://teespring.com/stores/list25-swagFollow us on: List25 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/list25List25 Instagram: https://instagram.com/list25/List25 Twitter - https://twitter.com/list25 List25 Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/list25/See more Top 25 lists on our website:http://list25.comThe Salem witch trials were BRUTAL, but did you know that a big reason for the craziness surrounding the town was the Salem smallpox outbreak shortly before? Years later, I was using her phone when I made an utterly chilling discovery. Because of Philip Englishs wealth, he was allowed his freedom during the day and could rent rooms in the home of his jailer for himself, his wife, and daughter. As the trials continued, accusations extended beyond Salem Village to surrounding communities. Dorothy Good, the 4-year-old daughter of the previously accused Sarah Good, was the youngest to be accused of witchcraft. 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. Eventually, the accusations ensnared even the most powerful people in Massachusetts. 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. There is little doubt that some individuals did worship the devil and attempt to practice sorcery with harmful intent. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraftthe devil's magic and 20 were executed.. 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.. Please reach out to us to let us know what youre interested in reading. One of the turning points in ending public support and enthusiasm for the trials was the conviction and execution of one of the towns former minsters, George Burroughs, who publicly recited the Lords Prayer at the gallows, which was believed to be impossible for witches to do. The community, beleaguered with hardships already, then overreacted. So if witchcraft wasnt really happening in Salem, what actually caused those girls to have the fits? The Salem Witch Trials: A case of mass hysteria The Salem Witch Trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 was most defiantly a time when one could attribute "moral panic" to the deaths of 20 people who were hung for being what society deemed as witches. Madame de Pompadour didn't just share King Louis XV's bed, she also shared his power. By May 1693 everyone in custody under conviction or suspicion of witchcraft had been pardoned by Phips. It was actually the local doctor, likely William Griggs, who first diagnosed the girls as having been bewitched when he couldnt find anything medically wrong with them to explain the strange behavior. Legends and curious facts about witches - MSN One was pressed to death by heavy stones. They were also used for identifying witches in Salem, using the Witch Cake test. Villagers shot the dog immediately. The girls contorted their bodies into odd positions, made strange noises and spoke gibberish, and seemed to be having fits. So if you celebrate Christmas and live in Massachusetts today, be happy you were born when you were! 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. One of the turning points in ending public support and enthusiasm for the trials was the conviction and execution of one of the towns former minsters, George Burroughs, who publicly recited the Lords Prayer at the gallows, which was believed to be impossible for witches to do. The crisis in Salem, Massachusetts took place partly because the community lived under an ominous cloud of suspicion. 10 Unsettling Facts About The Witch Trials - TheTravel She was an enslaved woman believed to have been from Central America, captured as a child from Barbados, and brought to Massachusetts in 1680 by Reverend Parris. Back in the 17th - century there was a great amount of stress caused by many different things in that era. Take, Salvador Dali was a man of contradictions. 25 DISTURBING Facts About The Salem Witch Trials 429,208 views Sep 12, 2018 6.3K Dislike Share Save List 25 2.51M subscribers Get ready to pull out your history books as we bring you the most. Three presidents William Howard Taft, Chester Arthur, and Gerald Ford have been said to descend from one of Salems executed witches or their siblings. Salem Witch Trials | The First Amendment Encyclopedia The Salem Witch Trials were a series of trial that took place in 1692, when it was believed "witches" were casting spells on people in the village of Salem. The salem witch trials hysteria of 1692 was caused by the Puritans strict religious standards and intolerance of anything not accepted with their scripture. Rather, as Salem archivist and historian Richard Trask observes, they also included "second-hand rumors" and "fits of fancy." See Richard B. Trask, Legal Procedures Used During the Salem Witch Trials and a Brief History of the Published Versions of the Records, in Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt (Bernard Rosenthal ed., 2009). It was a time of hysteria, when courts believed in the devil, spectral evidence and teenage girls. Seven more died in jail. The first witch trial occurred because the daughter (Betty Parris) and niece (Abigail Williams) of the local Salem Reverend had become violently ill. Salem Witch Trials Facts, Worksheets & Information For Kids - KidsKonnect In January 1692, two little girls living in Salem began acting strangely. Despite being known as the Salem witch trials, some of the trials actually took place in Ipswich and Andover in addition to Salem itself. Although Massachusetts has given up its fight against witchcraft, there are still places in the world where witchcraft is legitimately feared by the public, sometimes even leading to real modern day witch hunts. To save his wife, the governor stepped in to stop the trials and disband the court of Oyer and Terminer. But men were accused (and executed) as well. The feud was over the fact that Kazan had named communist sympathizers during his testimony to Congress. Ann Putnam, for example, used spectral evidence to accuse Rebecca Nurse,said, I saw the Apperishtion of [Rebecca Nurse] and she did immediatly afflect me. Such evidence was also used against Bridget Bishop, with many men claiming she had visited them in spectral form in the middle of the night. Ms Mades-Byrd said there were many misconceptions about the Salem witch trials and the truth had been lost in stories told over the centuries. The Salem witch trials of the late 17th century were a formative episode in America's early history, and have remained at the forefront of the national consciousness ever since. Many citizens believed that they way witches will get you is by baking a cake. The Multitude of Salem Witch Trials Descendants. New England Historical Society. The Evil Justice William Stoughton Was the Ultimate Hanging Judge at the Salem Witch Trials and Heres Why. HistoryCollection.com, January 29, 2018. https://historycollection.com/william-stoughton-ultimate-hanging-judge-salem-witch-trials/. In fact, there was fear in Europe that an entire group of evil witches were consciously attacking Europeans in order to destroy Christendom. This series of prosecutions and hangings of those accused of practicing witchcraft provoked a major backlash, andthe event still haunts us today. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Facts: -"At the time of these events Parris was in his middle forties." -"They did not celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer." -"The edge of the wilderness was close by. This series of prosecutions and hangings of those accused of practicing witchcraft provoked a major backlash, and the event still haunts us today. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 were killed during the hysteria. 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. Several episodes of the original Bewitched TV series were actually filmed on location in Salem. She went as far as to say that she did not even know what a witch was. Looking back with the perspective provided by modern science, some scholars have speculated that the strange behaviour may have resulted from some combination of asthma, encephalitis, Lyme disease, epilepsy, child abuse, delusional psychosis, or convulsive ergotismthe last a disease caused by eating bread or cereal made of rye that has been infected with the fungus ergot, which can elicit vomiting, choking, fits, hallucinations, and the sense of something crawling on ones skin. Sir William Phips. Famous Trials. The First Amendment has generally served to protect individuals for opinions that they have expressed, albeit not for violent or illegal conduct. 02. From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to Hocus Pocus, Arthur Miller to American Horror Story, American pop culture is saturated in retellings of this horrifying episode in colonial history. For instance, after being accused of witchcraft, Philip and Mary English were held for trial in a Boston jail. According to the warrant for her apprehension, she was called for trial on March 23, 1692, under suspicion of witchcraft after being accused by Edward Putnam. Descendants of the Salem community have made constant efforts to clear the names of those ancestors and relatives who were falsely accused and convicted back in the 1690s, with some being officially recognized as innocent by the Massachusetts government as recently as the beginning of the 21st-century. There was a social divide between the leading families as well as a split between factions that were for and against the villages new pastor, Samuel Parris. One of the people. Instead, in 1692, hanging was the preferred form of punishment. All Rights Reserved. Parriss 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. One man, Giles Corey, was killed over three days as increasingly heavier rocks were set atop his body. One of the people who perished in prison was only an infant. Learn about U.S. history, ancient Egypt, the deadliest wars, historical photos, and so much more. Despite the horrible and senseless loss of life and community divisions that the witch trials caused, some historians believe that the traumatic incident had a silver lining. By late February 1692, when traditional medicines and prayers failed to cure the girls, the reverend called upon a local doctor, William Griggs. They had seizures, hid under chairs, talked in gibberish, and ran fevers. They thought that when witches baked cakes, that they were casting a spell in it. Salem Witch Trials 1692 Exhibition & Virtual Tour | PEM At the end of the 17th century, after years of mostly resisting witch hunts and witch trial prosecutions, Puritans in New England suddenly found themselves facing a conspiracy of witches in a war against Satan and his minions. The first accusations during the Salem Witch Trials were against people who were for various reasons marginalized by society. Alexander, Mary Jane. Of the 20 people executed during the trials, six of them were men: Giles Corey, George Burroughs, George Jacobs Sr., John Proctor, John Willard, and Samuel Wardwell Sr. John Proctor was the first man accused of witchcraft. On March 23, 1692, a warrant was issued for the arrest of four-year-old Dorothy Good of Salem Village on "suspition of acts of Witchcraft.". Did you know this unbelievable witch trial fact: dogs were also major targets of the trials? The next time Giles wanted to attend, Martha objected and prevented him from going. 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. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. The phrase witch hunt, commonly used to refer to an unjustified or falsely conjured-up prosecution, is thought to originate as a reference to this time period in American history. According to her death warrant, through her witchcraft, Bishop had caused bodily harm to five women, including Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and Elizabeth Hubbard. Arthur Miller, the famous playwright who authored Death of a Salesman, responded to the McCarthy hysteria by writing The Crucible, a play about the Salem witch trials, as a metaphor for what the country was going through in the 1950s. 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. Over 150 people were arrested for allegedly using witchcraft to inflict harm on their fellow townspeople, resulting in the executions of 20 people and the prison deaths of five more. 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. Our credibility is the turbo-charged engine of our success. Colonial America for Kids: Salem Witch Trials - Ducksters Hoffer, who has written extensively on the Salem witch trials, is one of those who believes the girls who accused their neighbors of witchcraft were carrying out a prank. The Salem Witch Trials, 1692 - EyeWitness To History Today, witchcraftis recognized by the government as a protected and legitimate religion under the First Amendment. One person was even executed for refusing to testify at the hearings. The dog was also supposed to then point to the people who had bewitched the victim. Music Credit: Spirit of the Dead by Aakash Gandhi#List25 #Didyouknow #WitchTrials Many possible answers have been proposed, but one likely explanation is that they were suffering from some kind of natural medical afflictions. Although it provided no answers, its baking outraged Parris, who saw it as a blasphemous act. Salem Witch Trials Facts for Kids - History For Kids The story goes that Corey and her husband, Giles, sat in on the trials early on, causing Martha to express scepticism about the legitimacy of the proceedings. While there was no need to provide evidence for accusing someone of witchcraftjust pointing fingers was enoughspectral evidence was often used during the trials. What gave witches away were body marks, such as scars and moles. At the time of the Salem Witch Trials, Abigail was living with her uncle, Reverend Samuel Parris, his daughter Betty Parris and Parris' slaves Tituba and John Indian. 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). 10 The Symptoms That Gave Witches Away Make No Sense At All All witches are women, but not every woman is a witch. The Salem Witch Trials: A Story of Patriarchy, Persecution and Misogyny Some of the families now only remembered for their connection to the trials had actually been important and well-known people before that. Make sure to watch this video all the way to the end to see which crazy witchcraft fact made our top 10! In January of 1692, the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village became ill. William Griggs, the village doctor, was called in when they failed to improve. Here are 10 things you need to know about the notorious witch trials. She was taken into custody the next day and jailed with her mother, Sarah, who had been accused of the same capital crime three weeks earlier. 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 Millers allegorical play The Crucible (1953). By the end of the Salem witch trials, 19 people had been hanged and 5 others had died in custody. Dont feel too embarrassed if you happen to be from Massachusetts, you guys were not the first to do something like this. 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. When Millers The Crucible was produced, it was in the aftermath of his feud with Elia Kazan, the man who had directed his two earlier hit plays All My Sons and Death of a Salesman. Their initial accusations gave way to trials, hysteria, and a frenzy that resulted in further accusations, often between the differing factions. Witchcraft was considered a crime against the church and the state. Gallows Hill was discovered on a rocky outcropping now located, very unfittingly, near a Walgreens in Salem. The Salem Witch Trials (1692) Cartoon - YouTube (2:10) https://youtu.be/jJJLy5_DlqY Its time for a Halloween special! The trials came to an abrupt halt when the Governors wife was accused of witchcraft, causing him to immediately order an end to the trials. The Salem witch trials marked a seven-month period of mass hysteria in 1692 Colonial America. Good was imprisoned from March 24, 1692, to December 10, 1692. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. (The hallucinogen LSD is a derivative of ergot.) Thomas Maule, a Quaker who found himself at odds with the Puritan community at times, was beaten and imprisoned for speaking out against the trials, despite the fact that he himself believed in witches. She added a hog, a great black dog, a red rat, a black rat, and a yellow bird, among other animals, to her storys cast. Twenty people were put to death in Salem for the crime of witchcraft. 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. Copyright 2023 by Factinate.com. It was carried out as such by Sheriff George Corwin. There were complex political, religious, and racial issues under the crisis. We've compiled over 4375 history facts in one place, just for you. 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. The most famous witch trial in history happened in Salem, Massachusetts, during the winter and spring of 1692-1693. Tituba was not the only one who thought animals were capable of engaging in the devils work. Arthur Millers play The Crucible played a large role in popularizing many of the details of the Salem witch trials and dramatizing facts that he uncovered in historical records. The Enemy of My Enemy. Business Case: Negligence: Multiple Choice Questions