In the history of witchcraft, one of the most notorious forms of punishment was burning at the stake. This cruel and barbaric method was used to execute individuals accused of practicing witchcraft, often based on flimsy evidence or even mere suspicion. The practice of burning witches at the stake reached its peak during the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, particularly in Europe. The act of burning a witch at the stake was typically preceded by a trial, often known as a witch trial, during which the accused witch would be subjected to various forms of torture to extract a confession. These trials were often highly biased, with the individuals presiding over them already preconceived notions about the guilt of the accused. In many cases, the accused witches were stripped of their rights and subjected to inhumane treatment, ensuring a predetermined outcome.

Opinion

Kali Nicole Gross is the national endowment for the humanities professor of African American studies at Emory University. Her forthcoming book is “Vengeance Feminism: Lessons from Lawless Black Women.”

Popular lore surrounding the Salem witch trials summons images of wrongly accused White women and girls bound to stakes and perched atop flaming pyres. But an accurate portrayal of U.S. history would look extremely different — and provide an ugly but all-too-familiar confirmation of what we know about the power of historical erasure.

So let’s talk about a part of our history almost no one knows. Of the approximately 25 women and girls convicted of witchcraft in the 13 colonies between 1648 and 1692, none met their end strapped to a stake; they were all hanged. And while it’s true that women of this period were burned at the stake as a form of capital punishment, most of them were not White — they were Black.

It’s not easy to absorb these events. But we need to. To illuminate them is to shine a light not only on long-standing racial biases in American justice but also to show that bigotry has been present from the beginning.

In his diary entry on Sept. 22, 1681, Increase Mather — father of the legendary clergyman Cotton Mather and later a president of Harvard College — wrote of “a negro woman who burnt 2 houses at Roxbury July 12.” The woman, Maria, described as a servant — often a euphemism for an enslaved person at the time ― of Joshua Lambe, was convicted of arson for using a hot coal to set fire to the house of a local doctor and Lambe’s home.

As punishment, Mather wrote, “the negro woman was burned to death.” He went on to explain that she was the first woman to suffer this fate in New England.

Maria was also the first woman to receive such a sentence in the 13 colonies. And her brutal death would prove to be the start of a grim pattern in American justice.

Beginning with Maria’s execution and ending with the last known woman burned at the stake — which, according to the Espy File on U.S. executions from 1608 to 2002, was a Black woman in North Carolina in 1805 — the overwhelming majority of women to face the fatal fires of justice, 87 percent, were Black.

Convicted of either arson or murder, Black women faced harsher sentences than did White women accused of the same crimes. White women were usually spared from the searing flames; if these women did receive capital sentences, they met their deaths dangling from a noose.

Maria’s case highlights other ominous legal legacies. Throughout much of the nation’s history, Black women constituted the lion’s share of female death penalty cases, especially during and after the Civil War. Black women also have the dubious distinction of setting several historic capital punishment “firsts.”

Just as Maria was the first woman burned at the stake, the first women to be executed in New York and New Jersey were Black. The youngest girl put to death via the electric chair was Virginia Christian, a 17-year-old African American, in 1912. Sentenced for killing her elderly White employer, the teenager could not be saved, even by the mass mobilization of Black folks on her behalf.

What little we know about these cases foreshadows harmful stereotypes perpetuated about Black women, particularly the notion that they were especially dangerous and homicidal. According to Mather, for instance, Maria was not just an arsonist but a killer. In one of the houses she set aflame, he wrote, “a child was burnt to death.” Yet court documents made no mention of any such victims.

In fairness to Mather, court records of the period are maddeningly sparse. In Maria’s case, missing is any mention of a motive, save that she lacked a fear of God and was instigated to wickedness “by the divil.” We also don’t know Maria’s age or origins. Had she been born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony or imported from the Caribbean or the African continent? And there is no satisfactory explanation for why other Black servants, cleared of wrongdoing, were nonetheless removed from the colony.

Maria’s case exists as an apt metaphor for the treatment of Black women in the historical record, illustrating a dynamic as tragic as it is timeless. Back then, White people didn’t bother to document the lives of Black women. Today, as evidenced by aggressive efforts to restrict the teaching of the United States’ racial history, many White people want even the limited remnants buried.

If we are to effectively work toward equal justice in this country, we must know this history and understand its impact on Black women’s lives. In the present, we cannot allow racist tyranny to silence the past. The testimonies exist. We must hear them.

Were any 'witches' burned at Salem?

Nearly 20 "witches" were executed in the English colony.

Between 1692 and 1693, accusations of witchcraft were made in and around the town of Salem in Massachusetts, leading to the arrests of about 150 people. These charges were taken seriously, and the ensuing trials resulted in the executions of 19 people.

But how were these "witches" executed? Were any burned alive at the stake, a common punishment for convicted witches in Europe? After all, at the time Salem was part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, an English colony.

The answer is no; witches in England’s American colonies were killed another way.

"At Salem no one was burned. Instead, they hanged them," said Elizabeth Reis, a professor at Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York and author of the book "Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England" (Cornell University Press, 1999).

England and its American colonies were an anomaly during that period, at least when it came to burning those accused of witchcraft. "Burning at the stake was not used as a method of execution for convicted witches in Salem or anywhere in the American colonies or England," said Emerson Baker, a history professor at Salem State University who wrote the book "A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience" (Oxford University Press, 2014).

"In England and her colonies, witchcraft was tried in criminal courts, like any other capital crime. And the punishment for capital crimes was death by hanging," Baker told Live Science in an email. "Meanwhile, on the European continent, witch cases tended to be tried by ecclesiastical courts [a court run by the church]. When people were accused of witchcraft before an ecclesiastical court, it was treated as heresy. The punishment for someone convicted of heresy was burning at the stake," Baker said.

The ecclesiastical courts in continental Europe saw burning at the stake as a way to purify the soul. "Burning was supposedly a way to purify the convict, and also as a threat to uncover conspiracies," said Peter Hoffer, a distinguished research professor of history at the University of Georgia and author of the book "The Salem Witchcraft Trials: A Legal History" (University Press of Kansas, 1997). Church authorities in Europe sometimes feared that people would make conspiracies with the devil against them.

In many cases, the accused witches were stripped of their rights and subjected to inhumane treatment, ensuring a predetermined outcome. The actual act of burning at the stake was a gruesome spectacle, often carried out in public squares or marketplaces to intimidate the local population. The accused witch would be tied to a stake with ropes or chains, surrounded by piles of wood or other flammable materials.

Burial and memorial

Recent historical research has identified a site now called "Proctor's Ledge" as being the place where the convicted were hanged at Salem. In 2017, Salem erected a memorial for the people who were executed at the site.

The bodies of those hanged were dumped in a location near Proctor's Ledge. "An eye witness account says the bodies were dumped into shallow rocky crevices in the ledge under the shallow soil. There are references to several bodies being removed at night by family members and buried at their homes," said Benjamin Ray, a professor emeritus of religious studies at the University of Virginia who wrote the book "Satan and Salem: The Witch-Hunt Crisis of 1692" (University of Virginia Press, 2015).

Ray noted that attempts have been made to find the bodies of those hanged, but so far they have been unsuccessful. "Ground penetrating radar indicates there are only these crevices, little space for bodies, and none have been discovered," Ray told Live Science in an email.

Originally published on Live Science.

Once in place, the executioners would set the pyre ablaze, causing an excruciating death for the witch. The primary purpose of burning a witch at the stake was not only to end their life but also to send a message to others, reinforcing the fear and superstitions associated with witchcraft. It was a brutal act meant to warn potential practitioners and deter them from engaging in any form of unorthodox or non-religious practices. The public nature of these executions served to instill fear and reinforce the power and authority of the ruling classes. The exact number of witches burned at the stake throughout history is difficult to determine, but it is believed to be in the tens of thousands. This practice was particularly prevalent in countries like England, Scotland, France, and Germany, where witch-hunting was rampant and deeply rooted in society. The hysteria surrounding witchcraft and the subsequent burnings eventually declined during the Enlightenment period, as rationality and skepticism began to replace superstition and fear. Today, the practice of burning witches at the stake stands as a dark chapter in human history, a symbol of the irrationality and cruelty of certain periods and societies. It serves as a reminder of the dangers of unchecked power, mass hysteria, and the devastating consequences of prejudice and discrimination..

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