The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and five of them men. The events in Salem Village began when a group of young girls claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. The accusations spread rapidly, and soon people from all walks of life were accused of practicing witchcraft. The accused were brought before the local magistrates and subjected to intense questioning and examinations. The trials were conducted according to a set of procedures that were supposed to be based on English common law.

Brief history of the Salem witch trials

The trials were conducted according to a set of procedures that were supposed to be based on English common law. However, these procedures often deviated from established legal norms. The accused were often denied legal representation and were subjected to coercive tactics to make them confess.

How fear of the evil one turned into mass hysteria that claimed many innocent victims

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," reads Exodus. And for more than four centuries, many obeyed this order, blindly believing in the existence of dark presences that acted on behalf of the devil and had, therefore, to be hunted down and killed. Thousands of women (as well as men and animals) were accused of serving the Evil One and immolated in the name of God, committing a senseless slaughter that lasted over four centuries and spanned the Old and New Continents. All that was needed to attract suspicion was to have a mole or a particular birthmark; to keep some milk or butter gone bad in the house; to be a beggar, an adulteress or simply to be unsociable. It soon became apparent that witchcraft had become the most practical expedient to eliminate outcasts and inconvenient women who, by transgressing the "natural" laws of marriage and their community, dared to question the socio-economic system.

Spells and curses were already forbidden in ancient Rome as well as in the medieval communes, but it was not until 1300, when the Church compared witchcraft to heresy, that the idea that those who practiced it were a threat to the world to be eradicated at all costs became widespread. Two important texts gave the final push: the letter Summis Desiderantes Affectibus of 1484, in which Pope Innocent VIII admitted the existence of witches, and the Malleus Maleficarum, a veritable manual on how to recognize, put on trial and put to death a witch, which was based on the belief that women were naturally inferior and naturally evil, and therefore much more susceptible to the temptations of the devil. The book written by the Dominican preachers Heinrich Institor Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, with its concentration of misogyny and homophobia, became the reference work used by Catholic and Protestant courts during witch hunts, even in the famous Salem witch trials.

A powder keg ready to explode

In 1692, more than two hundred people were accused of witchcraft in Salem. Quite an impressive number for a small New England village. But how did such mass hysteria come about? The causes are to be found in the socio-historical context. The rural community of Salem had arrived in New England for less than a century and was still considered by the natives as invaders, which generated constant clashes between the two factions. They were also dealing with the aftermath of a British war with France in the American colonies in 1689, a recent smallpox epidemic and a long-standing rivalry with the wealthier Salem Town community. Add widespread xenophobia and Puritanism's obsession with Satan's presence on earth and you have a powder keg ready to explode. The final spark was given in January 1692 by the bizarre behavior of Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams, respectively the daughter and granddaughter of Pastor Samuel Parris. The two girls, who were 9 and 11 years old, began to have seizures during which they would convulse, writhe, make strange noises and scream uncontrollably. The local doctor ruled that it was diabolic possession and the hunt for the culprit was on. Elizabeth and Abigail (along with other older members of the community) accused Tituba, a Caribbean slave owned by Parris himself; Sarah Osborne, an elderly and infirm woman; and Sarah Good, a homeless beggar woman who spoke to herself.

Witch hunt begins

Starting in March, the three women were brought before local magistrates and interrogated for several days. Despite pressure and torture, Osborne pleaded innocence, as did Good. But Tituba confessed. "The devil came to me and asked me to serve him". She said, giving extensive details of a "tall man with white hair and a dark coat" who wanted her to sign his book and ordered her to harm the girls or he would kill her. Hoping to be pardoned, the slave girl declared that Osborne and Good were her accomplices and that there were many other witches trying to destroy the Puritans. From that moment on it was chaos. The seed of paranoia spread throughout Massachusetts and in Salem, they continued to arrest alleged worshippers of the evil one. Not only marginalized people deemed "problematic", but also church and community members such as Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse or Sarah Good's four-year-old daughter. On 27 May 1692, Governor William Phips ordered the establishment of a special Court of Oyer and Terminer for the counties of Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex. The first accused of witchcraft brought before the special court was Bridget Bishop, an elderly woman known to be a gossip and for her promiscuity. Despite swearing that she was "as innocent as an unborn child", she became the first person hanged on what was later called Gallows Hill. Five others were hanged in July; five in August; eight in September and others died in prison. Between early 1692 and mid-1693, the period of the Salem witch trials, more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 were executed.

Conclusion and legacy

After the use of evidence based on dreams or visions lapsed, interest and support for witch hunts waned. Trials were discontinued and in May 1693 a pardon was issued for those still in prison. In January 1697, the Massachusetts General Court declared a day of fasting for the tragedy of the Salem witch trials, but the damage to the community was now irreversible. Beginning in 1700 and for the next ten years, family members of the persecuted petitioned the colonial government to have their good names restored, but it took more than 250 years for Massachusetts to formally apologize for the events of 1692 in 1957. The Salem Trials and the persecution of alleged witches have fascinated many artists over the years, such as Arthur Miller, who inspired the play The Crucible, and it has become ingrained in our imagination thanks to many books and films, from the TV series Salem to the Halloween cult hit Hocus Pocus to Sabrina Spellman's black cat. Even historians and scientists still wonder how a kind of mass psychosis could have been triggered. There are many theories. For some, the colonists were poisoned by the alkaloids synthesized by Claviceps purpurea that caused them to hallucinate; others claim it was an attempt to repress and control female sexuality; for others, it was the result of particular political, religious and social tensions.

The Salem Witch Hunt: A Brief History With Documents

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Title: The Salem Witch Hunt: A Brief History With .

Publisher: Bedford

Publication Date: 2011

Binding: Softcover

Condition: Very Good

About this title

The Salem witch trials stand as one of the infamous moments in colonial American history. More than 150 people -- primarily women -- from 24 communities were charged with witchcraft; 19 were hanged and others died in prison. In his introduction to this compact yet comprehensive volume, Richard Godbeer explores the beliefs, fears, and historical context that fueled the witch panic of 1692. The documents in this collection illuminate how the Puritans' worldview led them to seek a supernatural explanation for the problems vexing their community. Presented as case studies, the carefully chosen records from several specific trials offer a clear picture of the gender norms and social tensions that underlie the witchcraft accusations. The final documents cover recantations of confessions, the aftermath of the witch hunt, and statements of regret. A chronology of the witchcraft crisis, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography round out the book's pedagogical support.

RICHARD GODBEER (Ph.D., Brandeis University) is professor of history at the University of Miami. Godbeer's research and teaching interests center on colonial and revolutionary America, with an emphasis on religious culture, gender studies, and the history of sexuality. His first book, The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (1992) won the American Historical Association Pacific Coast Branch Award for the Best First Book. He is also the author of Sexual Revolution in Early America (2002), Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 (2004), and The Overflowing of Friendship: Love Between Men and the Creation of the American Republic (2009).

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III - LEGAL PROCEDURES USED DURING THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PUBLISHED VERSIONS OF THE RECORDS

The story of the 1692 Salem Village witchcraft outbreak is a fairly minor, though well-recorded, topic in world history. Its popular fascination continues to be out of proportion to its relative historical importance and remains the subject of innumerable scholarly as well as popular books and articles.

Unlike most of the previous witchcraft cases in old and New England, a significant number of the legal papers of the 1692/93 Massachusetts proceedings have survived. Today, preserved within judicial archives and various manuscript repositories, are around 950 of these legal and court papers representing more than 140 individually named witchcraft cases. Included among these documents are complaints, warrants and returns, mittimuses, depositions, preliminary examinations, indictments, summonses, recognizances, petitions, letters, and confessions. The Salem witchcraft cases have always afforded researchers a fairly extensive accumulation of primary source documents representing a diversity of people, yet combined into a body of knowledge that is manageable enough to be examined by authors and historians in microcosm. In popular culture the topic also possesses both the mysterious quality of the occult and a “Who dunnit?” mystique, factors that have combined to keep Salem witchcraft an active subject of popular history and university presses.

Many of these researchers into the Salem witchcraft events have, however, relied heavily upon printed transcripts of the original documents replicated in seventeenth-century writings of Cotton Mather, Robert Calef, and John Hale, as well as later transcriptions of the documents produced during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Unfortunately such a reliance upon gathered transcripts, with their various inherent transcription weaknesses, including misread words, deletion of words and lines of text and other similar mistakes creeping into the transcripts, has resulted in minor and even major mistakes becoming accepted as part of the traditional body of facts. It was the realization of this imprecision of previous transcription projects and the complexity of creating a new, more accurate edition that led this new work's editorin-chief Bernard Rosenthal to ask others to join him as Associate Editors to create a new, more accurate and comprehensive edition. The project has required retranscribing all extant manuscripts.

Spectral evidence, or testimony about dreams and visions, was also allowed, despite being considered highly unreliable. The trials resulted in the conviction and execution of many innocent people. The accused were often sentenced to be hanged, and their bodies were then disposed of in unmarked graves. The hysteria surrounding the trials eventually subsided, and the people of Salem began to question the validity of the convictions. In the aftermath of the trials, the Massachusetts colonial government recognized the injustice that had been done. In 1711, the colony passed a resolution that those convicted during the witch trials were innocent, and their names were cleared. In 1957, a memorial was erected in Salem to honor the victims of the trials and remind people of the dangers of witch hunts. The Salem witch trials remain one of the darkest chapters in American history. They serve as a reminder of the power of fear and the danger of mass hysteria. The events in Salem have been the subject of countless books, plays, and films, highlighting their enduring impact on popular culture..

Reviews for "The impact of fear and panic on the Salem witch trials"

- Emily - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with "A brief history of the salem witch trials". I was expecting a more in-depth exploration of the topic, but instead, it felt like a superficial overview. The author barely scratched the surface of the events and didn't provide any new insights or perspectives. Overall, I found the book to be uninformative and lacking in substance. I would not recommend it to anyone looking to learn more about the Salem witch trials.

- David - 2 stars - I found "A brief history of the salem witch trials" to be extremely dry and dull. The writing style was monotonous and didn't capture my attention at all. The author failed to make the topic interesting or engaging, which is a shame considering the fascinating nature of the Salem witch trials. Moreover, the book was disorganized, jumping back and forth between different time periods and characters without providing a clear narrative. I struggled to finish it and would not recommend it to others.

- Sarah - 1 star - I was eager to learn about the Salem witch trials, but "A brief history of the salem witch trials" left me feeling incredibly frustrated. The author seemed more interested in listing the names of accused witches and their fates rather than providing any meaningful analysis or context. The book lacked critical analysis and failed to delve into the societal, religious, and cultural factors that led to the hysteria. It was incredibly disappointing and a missed opportunity to provide a comprehensive understanding of this significant historical event. I would not recommend it to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the Salem witch trials.

The role of women in the Salem witch trials