Everything You Need To Know About The Salem Witch Trials
Witches are one of the most popular Halloween costumes and characters. Many fans of the holiday love a good scary or even comical witch story.
But perhaps one of the most well-known stories of witchcraft and witches is the history of the Salem Witch Trials. Here is everything you need to know about the trials, just in time for the Halloween season.
During colonial times in Massachusetts (1692-1693), more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft.
Twenty people were executed, the majority of them being women. How did this come to be?
All those years ago, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was filled with fear and suspicion. When they fell on hard times during the seventeenth century and were dealing with things like a smallpox epidemic, inflation, and the removal of their official charter in 1684, many believed that their sufferings were caused by the devil and black magic.
One of the earliest cases of women in Salem being accused of witchcraft happened in 1692. Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams, the 9 and 11-year-old daughter, and niece of local Reverend Samuel Parris, began acting strange.
They fell ill and began doing alarming things like having screaming fits, throwing things, making odd noises, and clutching their heads. Their neighbors and family feared for their health.
When no medicine could cure the girls of their behavior, their community began to believe that they were under the influence of witchcraft.
This caused a lot of gossip and fear throughout Massachusetts. Whenever young women had similar episodes, paranoia surrounding witchcraft would spread even further. Women lived in fear of being accused of witchcraft, as it had dire consequences.
kharchenkoirina – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
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Throughout the year 1692, those accused of practicing witchcraft were sent to trial, resulting in the imprisonment of around 200 people.
Of those charged, 19 people, mostly women, were executed. Five of those sent to prison died in custody and one farmer who was accused died by pressing.
It wasn’t until years later that many of those involved in the imprisonment and execution of those 25 people realized the terror that they inflicted after sending many innocent people to their death.
Judges came out to apologize publicly, and in 1702, the trials were officially deemed unlawful.
Although the trials were deemed unlawful centuries ago, victims of the trials have still not received total justice. In fact, Elizabeth Johnson Jr., a woman who was wrongfully accused of witchcraft in 1693, was not officially exonerated until July of 2022!
Hopefully, this gives you all the information you need on the Salem Witch Trials, a dark time in American history that is worth learning about in order to avoid any kind of repetition of these heinous events.
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