This paper examines the Salem witch trials of 1692, tracing the outbreak of witchcraft hysteria from its origins in Puritan religious culture, economic grievances, and social tensions to the arrests, trials, and executions that followed. Beginning with the mysterious illness of Betty Parris and the early accusations against Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn, the paper follows the escalating hysteria through the creation of a new court, the admission of dubious spectral evidence, and the hanging of nineteen people. It concludes with the gradual subsidence of the panic, the responses of key figures such as Judge Samuel Sewall and Governor William Phips, and a New England historical timeline providing broader colonial context.
The Salem witch trials are commonly believed to represent one of the darkest chapters in American history. In the months of June through September 1692, nineteen men and women were hanged near Salem Village, Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft. One man, Giles Corey, who was close to eighty years of age at the time of the accusations, was crushed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to trial. Hundreds of other people also faced accusations of witchcraft, and a large proportion of the accused spent many months in jail without the benefit of trial.
The hysteria that led to the Salem witch trials has its roots in the strict Puritan religion of the colony of Massachusetts. However, economic conditions, personal jealousies, discontent within a congregation, and teenage boredom all played an important role in the events that swept Salem that summer.1
Salem's hysteria over witchcraft was sparked by the strange illness of Betty Parris, the daughter of the Salem minister. She exhibited a variety of alarming symptoms, including contorting in pain, ducking under furniture, and complaints of fever. Talk of witchcraft increased as several of Betty's playmates — including Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott — began to show similar symptoms.
Salem's easy acceptance of the idea of witchcraft came partly from the ideas put forward in Cotton Mather's book Memorable Providences. This book, which was popular just before the trials, described the suspected witchcraft of an Irish servant in Boston. The behavior of the woman in the book was eerily similar to that of young Betty Parris, who ultimately claimed that her afflictions were the result of witchcraft.
The Parris family's slave Tituba, a West African native, soon became implicated in the growing hysteria. Her exotic origin and the tales of voodoo and omens from her folklore made her an easy scapegoat. The number of young girls reporting the strange symptoms continued to grow.
Soon, the accusations of witchcraft turned to the courts. The slave Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn were the first to be formally accused. All three were socially disempowered: Tituba was a slave, Good was a beggar, and Osborn was elderly, irritable, and did not often attend church.
County magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne scheduled examinations for the three women on March 1, 1692. The afflicted girls performed their contortions when presented with the accused women. Villagers offered stories of cheese and butter that had turned sour, and of animals born with deformities after a visit by one of the three women.
Tituba's testimony brought the proceedings to a fevered pitch. She declared that she was a witch and that she and four other witches — including the other accused women — had flown through the air. Her confession helped to silence the skeptics, and local ministers, including Parris, soon pursued the witch hunt with renewed zeal.
The afflicted girls quickly named additional women as witches. These included Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Cloyce, and Mary Easty. The four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good, Dorcas, soon became accused of witchcraft after the girls accused her specter of biting them. The child spent eight months in jail and watched her own mother be carried off to the gallows to be hanged.
Stuck in jail with the damning testimony of the afflicted girls widely accepted, suspects began to see confession as a means to avoid the gallows. Deliverance Hobbs became the second witch to confess, admitting to pinching three of the girls at the Devil's command and flying on a pole to attend a witches' Sabbath in an open field. Jails approached capacity and the colony "teetered on the brink of chaos" when Governor Phips returned from England. He decided that fast action was required.
A new court was created to try all the witchcraft cases. Five judges were appointed, and they worked to extract confessions. The judges soon allowed the examination of the bodies of the accused for "witches' marks" — moles or marks that were said to allow a witch's familiar to feed. Hearsay, gossip, and assumptions were admitted as legal evidence. The accused had no legal counsel and no formal avenues of appeal.
The first woman convicted of witchcraft, Bridget Bishop, was hanged on June 10, 1692. The trials proceeded at a fevered pace, and even well-respected, pious women like Rebecca Nurse were convicted. Nurse was one of three Towne sisters, all members of a family that had a longstanding feud with the Putnam family. Nurse and four other convicted witches were hanged on July 19, 1692.
People like John Proctor, a local tavern owner who had laughed at the accusations of witchcraft, soon became targets of the continuing hysteria in Salem. The outspoken Proctor was quickly hanged, but his wife languished in jail and was spared execution because she was pregnant.
Even Salem's former minister, George Burroughs, was accused of witchcraft. The afflicted girls accused him of being the witches' ringleader, and he was hanged despite continued protestations of his innocence.
Eight more convicted witches were hanged on September 22, 1692. During the Salem witch trials, approximately one to two hundred people were arrested and charged with witchcraft.2
After the trials, Salem began to slowly rebuild. Soon after the September hangings, the hysteria and fear in Salem began to subside. Members of Salem's educated elite began to speak out against the trials, and spectral evidence was no longer admitted in court. No more accused witches went to the gallows that summer.
One of the judges, Samuel Sewall, publicly apologized for his role in the proceedings. Even Reverend Samuel Parris made some small admissions of errors in judgment, though he quickly shifted blame to others. William Stoughton refused any blame for the trials and roundly criticized then-Governor Phips for interfering. Stoughton was subsequently elected the next governor of Massachusetts.
The following timeline places the Salem witch trials within the broader context of New England colonial history, adapted from the Gilder Lehrman History Online chronology.
May 13, 1607 — The first permanent English colony is founded in Jamestown, Virginia.
"New court, hangings, escalating accusations"
"Hysteria subsides, judges respond, rebuilding"
"Colonial New England chronology 1607–1776"
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