Salem Witch Trials

Salem had been thrown off-kilter in 1692. Puritan control of Massachusetts Bay was waning so the social structure based on strict religious homogeneity could no longer be trusted to maintain order as more and more people prioritizing economic success over religious devotion. The Puritan religious and social elite could not be certain of their continued social dominance, leading them to be incredibly reactionary and paranoid in order to preserve whatever control they had over the community. Salem's status as a port had declined as other cities like Boston grew in prominence. Massachusetts Bay lacked a secure government in early 1692 following the Glorious Revolution in England and the short-lived Dominion of New England. Colonial envoys had not yet returned from England with a new charter when the trials began, meaning Massachusetts's essentially did not have a basis for government. The divide between the two halves of Salem, Salem Town and Salem Village, was still contentious. Despite having its own meetinghouse, the Village church was still connected to and superseded by the Town church. The two halves were demographic opposite with the Village being agricultural and poor and the Town industrial and more affluent. The persistent fear of attacks by and war with the Native Americans on the colonial border had Essex County on edge. A number of participants in the trials had been directly affected by the Indian Wars of preceding years, something that can be seen in the descriptions of Salem witchcraft, and those direction connection to violence convinced the townsfolk that the same divine disfavor that had lead to the wars on the border had come to Salem. With social anxieties and without a functioning code of law, Salem was susceptible to internal conflict, especially of a religious nature, and had no firm colonial law to keep their legal process in check.

During the Trials, many people either ignored their fields or were taken away from them so no one did much work. The forests around the area grew thicker as nobody spent time clearing them out.

It depends on where they lived and which Puritans specifically. The Boston and Salem port Puritans lived in sizeable, well-funished homes and were on the line between being Puritan and not being Puritan. In Salem Village, the conditions weren;t that good, but they were livible.

6 months and 22 days. I'm a U.S. History teacher for 15 years. Can't be wrong lol.

Salem, Massachusetts... and I think they were burned actually.

EDIT:

The Salem Witches were hanged, not burned. The graves of the victims are very scarce, seeing as the bodies were thrown off of Gallows Hill after execution.

Bench trials are when the judge is the decider of fact. A jury trial is where a jury plays that role and determines the verdict.

The last Salem witch trial was in may of 1693.

The last witch trial was in Germany in the earky 1800s.

there wasnt one, they were still under colony rule from England

Mary Walcott accused Bridget to be a witch during the Salem witch trials.

There was only ONE person pressed to death during the Salem Witch Trials. His name was Giles Corey.

I like this question, if only because it proves my point that the Crucible has corrupted the public knowledge of the Salem trials. Ruth Putnam is a creation of Arthur Miller for his play. I figure that Ruth is actually Ann Putnam the younger and Miller renamed her to lessen the confusion of having two Ann Putnams, mother and daughter, in the dialogue.

because they were well solid doctors!

Her name was Betty Parris and she was nine-years-old.

142 people were legally accused of witchcraft during the Salem Hysteria.

This count does not include people who were rumored by neighbors or relatives of being involved with witchcraft. Only a handful of these people were executed, 16 I think, a few with the money or influence to do so escaped town, charges were dropped against some and the remainder served time in prison but were released.

No, they did not. Witches were only burned in England, not in North America.

During the Salem witch trials nineteen people were executed by hanging, one died in the interrogation.

^^^^This makes it sound like witches were burned a lot in England, when in fact this form of excution was extremely rare for witches and more reserved for Protestants, who where burned by Catholics. The more favored way of dealing with witches in England was beheading, drowning, and breaking on the wheel. Witches were rarely burned at the stake, buried alive, boiled alive, impaled, sawed in two, flayed, drawn and quartered, or disemboweled, as other contemporary criminals were. Other punishments inflicted on convicted witches included mutilating (cutting off of a hand or ear for example), branding, whipping, dunking, locking in the the stocks, jailing, fining, banishing, or selling into slavery.

To improve on this answer. The people that were executed were not witches at all. They were Puritans who had a case of ergot poisoning. Ergot is a fungus that attacks rye. Rye being one of the main crops of these people. The rye was used to make bread a staple of the Puritan diet of that time.

Ergot fungus is the very same fungus that the modern drug LSD comes from. People exposed to high levels of ergot fungus have the same symptoms as a person on LSD... dementia, hallucinations, etc.

Of course during those times, no one knew or had the means to know what was causing people within their community to act the way they were... the most "logical" answer was witchcraft.

To improve all these answers let me first correct them... ergot poising had nothing to do with this the people who were executed were not witches some had only agreed to admit that so that they would be let free. 19 people were hanged 18 were Innocent 1 man was killed during interrogation they were told to pile rocks on top of him he died 2 or 3 days later.

one woman named Lisa said with out being interrogated that she practiced witch craft.

No. Burning was the method of execution for witches on the Continent. In America and the England, witches were hanged.

This latest "answer" is not an improvement, as it is based on opinion and not proven historical fact. Correcting already correct answers.. It is a proven fact that ergot poisoning had everything to do with what people were experiencing in Salem, I actually live very close to Salem, have been there many times, and have heard the history countless times. The ergot was linked to the hallucinations and strange visions people were experiencing. Since they (at the time) had no clue about ergot and its effects on the neurological passages, they thought it was witchcraft and pointed blame at the one person that was "not like them".. but it later spread to blaming people throughout the colony. Ergot poisoning started it all, fear and lack of knowledge finished it with deaths of innocent people.

Nineteen out of somewhere near 160 were hanged.

They both deal with the community turning on each other due to false accusations, in the Salem Witch trails, Abigail is the one accusing other towns people of there witchcraft, in almost all case's she does not have any evidence, except the play she puts on for the community, she starts to use fear to keep people who know the truth from speaking out, and she accuses anyone she hasn't already if they challenger her and say she's lying. Joseph McCarthyism, happened when Joseph McCarthy started falsely accusing people of being a communist, a lot of them lost there jobs and ruined there reputations for the rest of there life's. Most of the accusations had no proof to back them up and yet got such main stream publicity by the media that most of the people accused names where never fully cleared.

John Indian was Reverend Parris's blackamoor (slave) also Tituba's husband.

1691 through 1692

Edit:

Actually it began in 1692 and ended in 1693.

they thing that some people are around the fire it is a witch

Like wild fire. [obvious but apt]

A witched pot over boils? silly I know]

Flammable are the roots of all evil?

If the jury won't agree, try and fry again.

And, seriously, chalk it up to "sermantics" and "Mass malaria."

EDIT:

Salem wasn't in the middle of nowhere. It shared borders with other towns. News of the affliction and witches in Salem crossed the borders easily. Those towns that spread it to their other neighbors and so on and so forth.

Well any abnormality to the body mostly a 3rd nipple

They were rough and spartan but not bad. The only theory that the living conditions would affect is the Ergot poisoning theory. The afflicted would have ingested the Ergot fungus along with the wheat or rye from the previous harvest after a long enough time for the fungus to really grow. If the ergot really is the culprit and the living conditions allotted for better storage or fresher food, the witch panic may not have happened.