A Brief History
On June 2, 1692, the trial of Bridget Bishop began, starting a reign of terror in Salem, Massachusetts known as The Salem Witch Trials. The hysterical idiots responsible (unless you believe in witches) executed (by hanging) 20 people from 1692 to 1693 before the madness ended. Scores of others had been accused, many of whom confessed to avoid execution, and scores were imprisoned. At least five of those imprisoned died while in jail. Cracked fact: No “witch” was burned at the stake in these trials. Execution was by hanging.
Digging Deeper
Despite the common name of this mass hysteria, the trials and executions took place in several nearby settlements as well as Salem. Also, this incident was not the first case of people being accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts, as prior to 1692 at least 12 executions for witchcraft in New England had taken place, the majority in Massachusetts.
The backdrop of these trials was a colony where people just did not get along well. Disputes over property lines, debts, and religion were rampant, and tolerance was a virtue seemingly absent from the settlements. In addition to the tensions already present, rabble rousers like the preacher Cotton Mather stirred the pot by going on at length about “stupendous witchcraft,” writing pamphlets and a book about the subject. The already superstitious colonists were made paranoid by such warnings.
The dynamite was set and fused, and some young girls provided the match. Acting strange, throwing fits and convulsions, obviously (to the primitive minds of the colonists) the girls were victims of witchcraft. Suspects were rounded up, starting with women seen to be odd: the homeless or eccentric, and generally disliked, including a slave woman (Tituba, probably a Native American).
The floodgates were now open, and rival families began to accuse women of each other’s family of witchcraft, resulting in 72 people (mostly women) being arrested, interrogated, and held for trial. Other suspects, rightfully fearful of being falsely convicted, went into hiding or fled. Of course, fleeing then like now was seen as the action of a guilty person and warrants were issued for the arrest of fugitives.
The trials started with Bridget Bishop, tried and convicted on the same day, and executed by hanging a week later. Meanwhile, Cotton Mather continued to stir the pot with his anti-witch pronouncements and condemnation of those that would cavort with the devil. Witnesses testified that they had personally seen the accused engaged in a variety of satanic activities, and some of those accused gave colorful confessions of such activities themselves in an effort to avoid execution.
One of the key tests to prove witchcraft was to have the accused touch a victim while the victim was in the throes of a fit, and if the victim immediately recovered, the accused was obviously the person that had bewitched the victim. (Obviously. Could not possibly be framing the accused.)
When the trials finally ended, so did the madness, with many voices speaking out against the unjust trials and executions. Within just a few years the trials had gained notoriety as what we today would call a “witch hunt.” People today are not immune to hysteria over witches, and even a pastor of ex-Alaska governor Sarah Palin has engaged in persecution of witches in these supposedly modern times!
Question for students (and subscribers): Why have witches (or suspected witches) been persecuted in history? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Roach, Marilynne K. The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege. Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004.
The featured image in this article, Bishop, as depicted in a lithograph, is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1926.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="2449 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=2449">91 Comments
it is amazing what people will believe of others
I’ve never been the one to believe in witchcraft personally. It just seems a lot of mumbo jumbo!
Im with BM never really believed in it either.
I don’t believe it’s a real thing, people are gullible.
People Are so gullible & will believe almost anything. They need to be opinionated & realize these things. I personally don’t believe this
This is the silliest thing I have ever heard. I agree that the maggot’s who were killing these people were just idiots. They also have enough power to persuade others to act as idiots, and they are maybe megalo-idiots. A word I invented to describe people like Cotton Mather, and others who encourage stupidity.
I have never believed in witch craft and it amazing what people will believe.
These trials were just crazy. People will just believe in anything.
People will do anything to deal with their fears! — DAVID WARDLE
I had no idea that people still try to hunt down witches today!
Executed by hanging, well that’s gotta suck. Interesting to learn that places around Salem also were accusing people of being witches. Funny how we only remember Salem though.
It’s interesting that the people here who were accused were executed by hanging and not being burned like the people who were accused in Europe. I wonder which one was worse.
I find it interesting that people were executed by hanging and not by burning but I do not find it surprising just because there was a 300 year gap between the European witch hunts and the Salem witch trials.
As a Pagan and a practicing hereditary witch I find you very foolish. I also find it odd that one person is using several different “names” on here to try and discredit history.
I can’t believe people would kill their neighbors over property disputes. It’s crazy what people will do for personal gain.
Shows how messed up and fallen we are relationally. These people were accusing others out of fear or petty disputes. GW
I have been fascinated by the Salem Witchcraft Trials ever since seventh grade when my teacher told us all about it. It’s terrible how most of the accusing was done just because people didn’t like each other, I would not of wanted to live there during these times.
The Witch Trials have always been an interesting topic to me. Learning that there are still serious accusations of witches being made today is astonishing. Come on people, that’s so 1690. Sorry, had to.
It is pretty sickening to think about how cruel people can be! The Salem Witch Trials have always interested me, but I can’t say that I really believe there were actual witches/demons taking over the town.
The Salem Witch Trials have always intrigued me, as has the topic of witches in general. I did not know that accusations are still being made today. That’s crazy to me! It would be terrifying to be accused.
Its really crazy how one little girl caused such chaos for so many people of Salem.
Once again, this was a story of people not being able to set aside their differences and get along. I understand that there are differences (and maybe the differences were stronger back then) but literally KILLING each other over differences is so absurd to me.
It sounds to me that Salem let some personal vendettas get a little out of hand and people ended up dying over completely false witnesses
I enjoyed reading The Crucible, which also shed great light on these trials. An interesting story but horrifying it was real life.
I really enjoyed The Crucible and ever since then, the Salem Witch Trials have been interesting to me. Despite the fact that they were so silly, it is interesting to read and learn about. Especially since the hysteria came on so suddenly. After one accusation of witches, the entire town began to panic. It is sad that people lost their lives of such a silly concept of witches.
After reading this article and doing my paper on this subject, I can say this event was different than what I grew up knowing. Everything about it is interesting. From how the accusations first started, too the reason on why a certain area made accusations. The reasons were much deeper than religion and actually believing that someone was a witch.
Its surprising that there are still witch accusations going on today, and to think that the Salem Witch trials were all caused by neighbors.
The Salem Witch Trials is one of my favorite topics in history and The Crucible was one of my favorite books in high school so I was not surprised by the information in this article, however, I am surprised about Sarah Palin’s minister persecuting witches…
I enjoy the Salem Witch Trials. It’s a weird part of our history that can sometimes be pushed aside. It was neighbors accusing neighbors, friends accusing friends, and sometimes family accusing family. The paranoia was very embedded in Salem.
The Salem Witch trials will always be an interesting subject that teaches us to not be greedy. The people that accused others wanted what that person had, so they used paranoia as a means to an end. Not unlike how people act today.
I once had the opportunity to see a reenactment of a witch trial. The proceedings were very charged and the methods of proving guilt fairly illogical. One of the final pieces of “evidence” was asking the accused woman to recite the Lord’s Prayer, which she fainted before she could complete, supposedly proving her guilt. The proceedings at the reenactment closely follow accounts of other with trials. Personally, I found the experience very interesting, but I also had a friend with me who had trouble sleeping that night. Being exposed to that kind of paranoia and chaos over a prolonged period couldn’t have done much good for anyone’s rational thinking, and I wonder how much of the trials was influenced by heightening between a fantastic situation an already confused and scared populace.
It’s crazy that no witches were actually burned at the stake like the movies portray.
The Salem witch trials are a dark time of intense paranoia that I think several people in the town took advantage of to improve their standings
Think of how much easier life would have been if everyone who was convicted as a witch said the lords prayer. It is said that the witches could not say the prayer. So test them that way !!!
The Salem Witch trials are so interesting to read about. It seems so ignorant that people could believe in such a thing but times were much different back then. Sad that so many innocent people were killed.
It is so hard to believe that society at one time was this superstitious. It is hard to believe that science was not yet the authority on our logical reasoning. It is upsetting to think of how many people were killed for this unjustified blame.
Once again, charges of witchcraft were motivated by something other than sorcery. This time it’s personal grudges, which is disturbing that a land dispute could result in a hanging.
Its obvious that women were persecuted more than men due to their lower class status in society at the time. It would be interesting to see how these witch-hunts would have played out if female equality had been achieved years prior.
I always find it amazing that these young girls had such a powerful role in history
It is interesting to see that there were trails before the Salem witch trails and that people still are afraid of it!
I remember reading somewhere else that there was so much witchcraft and trials that have to do with it going on around the New England/Salem era. The first paragraph of this article states that and I find it interesting and I wonder why Salem got all of the fame.
I think it was a way to gain attention, due to their lack of power.
it is interesting to me that so many people were killed off of accusations
It’s insane to think that people were killing other people
based off the accusations of children from something they had no way of
proving.
I guess I should have read this one before the other one as it mentions the disputes of land and debts. I have also mentioned this in prior comments but the fact that one man, Cotton Matther, is able to stir the pot and pray on peoples fears is shocking. Frankly, I bet he didn’t even believe in witches but enjoyed the fame he received and money his was probably making from his book.
The movies obviously exaggerated some of the witch hunts but It sounds like they are mostly accurate
Whenever I think of the Salem Witch Trials, Nathaniel Hawthorne comes to mind. He was born many years later but he was always haunted by the fact that one of his ancestors was one of the judges during the Trials. He wrote The Scarlet Letter, which is set in near Salem and deals with superstition and persecution. Other works of his allude to the Trials, but this story is considered his greatest work and one of the great pieces of American literature.
i find it crazy people would kill others they didnt like and have these kids act like they were victims so that person would go away and die. also i never knew this happened earlier in new england and that it was just not salem this happened in but other places around them
I think it’s funny that there had already been multiple accusations in that town about witchcraft long before, the actual Salem Witch Trials. And the fact that these things happened in a town where the people never got along really did not help the “actuality” claim that these people made
Seems that most of the witch hunts were accurate
Sad that the killing was stemmed from disputes over property lines and debt.
For some reason I have always found the Salem Witch Trials interesting. Reading this article gave me a completely new perspective over the situation.
I loved learning about eh Salem Witch Trials in high school I found it all so interesting. this article helped put it a new spin on what we learned in school, never realized peopled did not like each other in the town of Salem.
I remember watching movies about this kind of stuff, they seem to exaggerate the “hunts” more.
More about witches…really? Why are they so important to find and kill? How did this even become a thing? I feel like people were just super bored and were like “hey lets go hunt down a bunch of random people and accuse them of being some evil entity and kill them”. You could basically get away with murder if you just accuse whoever is pissing you off of witchcraft. That’s some serious BS!!
It is rather unfortunate that so many innocent people were killed and had their reputations ruined over these false claims that stemmed from religious power struggles.
All someone had to do if they wanted someone gone was play the witch card and there’s almost nothing they could do to prove themselves innocent.
My grandmother was from Massachusetts, and growing up as a child i heard the old stories of the witches who “roamed Salem”. It is funny how that whole event is a bunch of people, probably influenced by their strict religion, killed innocent others for doing nothing wrong. Their means of conviction was being “A Witch”.
Its crazy how many people were killed off of accusations, when many where most likely innocent!
Why were people just allowed to accuse whoever they wanted? This system was so flawed.
Any person could easily frame someone of their choosing when in the midst of a “fit” by stopping when that person touches them. Such a messed up time.
The Salem Witch Trials is a fascinating topic, as it is hard to believe that people were extremely superstitious at one point in time. These people were paranoid, and the trials were proof of that. It is also shocking how easy it was to accuse someone of witchcraft. I feel terrible for all the people killed for something that was entirely made up. I also did not realize that a main source of accusations actually came from people not getting along.
The false accusations probably made it a scary time to live through because anybody could have been found guilty of it. It is interesting that they had the accused touch the victims to see if they were guilty or not.
Although the Salem Witch Trials have no been glamorized by Hollywood and the movie industry, it really sounded like a very dark time in the colonies. The trials seemed ridiculous and the ways they tested witches made zero sense.
When you remember that these colonies have just been established and that they were still beginning to learn how to survive in this new environment, it makes me wonder if psychological duress and fear in the new land have on the effect of peoples’ minds. It obviously created a serious paranoia and persecution. Anyone could frame anyone and anyone could be accused, even by simply having a dislike for the person. It was a scary time for sure.
Cotton Mather is another example of someone using peoples’ fear to gain personal power. he gained followers by using the peoples’ paranoia of such things as witches. Already knowing that the people were superstitious, Cotton Mather knew it was going to work in his favor.
The Salem Witch Trials were brought about by fear and ignorance. The trials were unfair, and women were confessing to being witches just to avoid being hanged to death. Salem and the surrounding towns were full of fear and hysteria during this time period.
No one was safe at this time in Salem especially the women. People were confessing to being a witch so that they would not get hung. It was a time of huge fear and Cotton Mather was a focal point to all of it. He brought false claims to people that he may not like to get them killed because he knew he had such power.
Cotton Mather, along with others I’m sure, is just another example of how one person or group can spread mass hysteria. It is terrible that so many women died because of these ludicrous falsified charges.
Women are the ones to be accused again because they are the “weaker” sex. It is so sad that most of them confessed to being something that they were not just so that was would not be killed because of some people’s superstitions. It is so frustrating seeing that the word of only one person can create a rumor big enough to actually destroy lives.
We see scapegoats throughout history. People will always find a way to blame a certain group of people and cause a terrible outbreak. In the case of the Salem with trials, people made up that group of people (women who were called witches) to get rid of those they did not want around. This was a truly terrible outbreak.
This is probably one topic that will always be pasted down from generation to generation. This was a case of mass hysteria and is shocking that the people would believer there was witchcraft in the town since there was not concrete evidence. Just going off of the girls having strange behaviors is no reason to believe someone is a witch. Innocent lives were lost during this time.
something that stands out to me when I read this article were the reasons women were accused of witchcraft. for example, Bridget Bishop was accused of a witch because of her extravagant outfits and relations with men. it seems to me that the accusations against women during the witch trials come down on women who do not fit the norm of that time. women who were old and single, young and brazen, un-modest, and just not liked, seem to be the ones accused. It is also apparent that men used the accusation of witchcraft against rival men’s wives as a means to destroy those men’s livelihoods and families.
The Puritans were paranoid to begin with, given their new environment and their religious views. I’m not sure if people like Cotton Mather who “stirred the pot” honestly believed in the dangers of witchcraft and just wanted to warn his people or if he just needed an excuse to gain more power in the society. I think it’s extremely important to make this distinction. Making it will determine if he’s justified or not… honestly making a false claim doesn’t make you a bad person, but making a false claim to gain something out of it obviously does. Whatever way you slice it, these trials were a series of unfortunate events that could’ve been stopped if the townspeople would have used rational thinking and put community above personal gain.
I think people were hysterical and afraid of something so they had the belief people were witches. It is stupid to me people would just claim someone is a witch, I do not think people actually thought that others were witches it was more of a get rid of those who have done you wrong.
20 out of 72 people arrested for being accused of witchcraft were executed. This is actually not as high a percentage as I would have guessed, but none the less its high enough. I think in the beginning this was a real fear that people had. Members of the community started having these fits, made up or not, and people didn’t know what to think of them. But after awhile people in funding families started accusing one another of being witches when none of them truly believed it to be true. This is where the whole thing seems to have gotten very out of hand.
I can imagine that these cases were difficult to hear in court because the only evidence is personal accusations. Once rival families began accusing each other of witchcraft it grew slightly out of control. It was not possible to escape being accused by running away either, because fleeing the scene was the same as being found guilty and arrest warrants were issued for those the fled the scene.
It is shocking to me that people were actually executed for something like this. Some of the reasoning behind the people accused was a little ridiculous and it just seemed that people were hysterical and afraid of something so they accused these individuals of being witches. It is crazy to think that there was a time when people were executed for things like witchcraft.
The Salem Witch Trials really seem to bother me. I can not believe there was a time where people were hanged because they were accused of witchcraft. The trials were all based off of accusations and no act had ever been proven. It seemed to be impossible to prove yourself to be not guilty because it was your word against theirs. Many innocent people lost their lives due to an unjust system.
It is surprising that the Salem Witch Trials is something we talk about today. These people were almost put into an impossible situation to get out, if they were one to be accused of witchcraft.
This is one of my favorite topics to discuss. Not only were these trials held because of “witchcraft” they were done out of fear.It is a disgrace that so many people were killed because of false accusations.
(Sidetone: Sarah Palin is crazy.. I mean.. she can see Russia from her house!)
This must have been a suffocating environment to live in. If you were to rub someone the wrong way, or act a little out of the ordinary, you could be accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death.
I would be extremely cautious of any interaction with my neighbors.
It would have been very intimidating to live during this time period. It’s sad to see so many people killed because of some accusations from young children.
It is crazy to believe people were executed because of pure speculation! I still do not understand how people could kill someone with no proof.
I always wonder why the accused didn’t just turn the tables on the afflicted girls. If I were Bridget Bishop, I would have simply started acting out convulsions and blaming those girls. If I remember correctly, one of those girls was related to Cotton Mather, so I would start with her.
Its sad to think of all the people who were wrongfully killed.
It is crazy how no witches were actually killed by the stake as the movie portrays but actually by hanging.
I’ve always heard of the burning at the stake i did not know that it was mainly execution
A lot of needless death, but its interesting to think if any of the accusations had credibility.
it almost sounds as if it were the Holocaust with all the round ups, interrogation, hiding, and deaths.
I love the Salem Witch Trials, everything about witches intrigues me . Hate that this was all based off of rumors though. Hey even back then a rumor could really ruin someones life. Be careful what you say kids!!