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The trial began March 1, 1692, all but Tituba pleaded innocent. Tituba confessed and claimed there were other witches within the community. This cascaded a series of accusations, people like Martha Corey, Sarah Good's 4-year-old daughter, and eventually, Bridget Bishop. Bishop was known for her gossip and promiscuity and despite her pleas of innocence, she was found guilty and on June 10th, was the first person hanged on Gallows Hill (Roach, 2004). Several more people were hanged or executed after Bishop. The rate of executions caught the attention of minister Cotton Mather who wrote a letter to the court asking the court not to accept spectral evidence. Spectral evidence was testimony about dreams. Even Mather's father, Increase Mather, also spoke against spectral evidence. Governor Phipps, responding to Mather's request and his own wife's inquisition, ceased further arrests and released the accused witches. On January 14, 1697 a day of fasting was ordering for the misfortune of Salem (Roach, 2004). It was not until 1711, that Massachusetts passed a bill restoring the rights and good names of the accused (Roach, 2004).
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Also, it is important to note how many of the accused were poor members of the community, members who were probably straining the already limited resources of the village. It was not until the more affluent members of society intervened or were themselves accused, as in the case of Governor Phipps' wife, did the trials dwindle down. In spite of this, there is a certain level of pragmatism and sensibility in the leaders of colonial America. Cotton Mather realized the trials were wrong and acted upon his conscious. Gradually, other leaders within the community acknowledged their mistakes and were rightfully ashamed of them and did their best to rectify their actions.
References
Godbeer, R. (2011). The Salem witch hunt: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.
Roach, M.K. (2004). The Salem witch trials: a day-by-day chronicle of a community under siege. Lanham, Md.: Taylor Trade Pub..
Roach, M.K. (2013). Six women of Salem: the untold story of the accused and their accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. Boston: Da Capo Press.
In this sense, the only category of convicts which were burned to death was that of the so-called "satanic Blacks" as this was considered to be the only way of destroying their 'evilness.' In Puritan New England ideology, Blacks were associated with Satan. This belief was the remnant of an old European image of Satan as a black man which dated back to long before the contact between Africans
Salem Witch Trials The event of Salem witch trials happened in the year 1692 in the Suffolk and Middlesex counties of Massachusetts. The case was highlighted due to property disagreements, hysteria and jealousy. All because of personal vendettas, a dozen or more people were hanged even though there was no evidence but only stories and assumptions by the town's women and girls. The case was stretched for more than a year
The children described, each one of them separately, seeing Sarah and the other women flying as specters through the night. The children, despite the threats they must have received from the women, they were brave and told the truth about what had happened. Other townspeople came forward with evidence I hadn't even heard of -- milk and cheese going rotten after a visit from one of the witches; animals
And their could be other, more personal reasons for the accusations. For instance, John Westgate's testimony includes a tale of how Mary Parker came to a tavern and chastised her husband for drinking. When John Westgate called her unseemly for coming to the tavern, as he himself testified, "she came up to me and called me rogue and bid me mind my owne busines…." Late 17th century men were not
As the Puritan leadership took the stand that their decisions were made directly from the scripture (indeed there was an absolute marriage of Church and State within these communities) any challenge to their processes (such as a newcomer objecting to the financial controls placed upon them) could be then perceived as evidence of a person who is not in alignment with God. Newcomers were more likely to propose challenges
Salem Witch Trials In the months of June to September 1692, nineteen men and women were hung near Salem Village, Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft. One man, Giles Corey, close to eighty years of age at the time of the accusations, was crushed to death under heavy stones for refusing to be tried. Hundreds of other people also faced accusations of witchcraft, and a large proportion of the accused