Spectral evidence was only deemed inadmissible when it was used to accuse Governor William Phipss wife, Mary. Accessed May 6, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_of_the_Salem_witch_trials. Years later, I was using her phone when I made an utterly chilling discovery. At the suggestion of a neighbour, a witch cake (made with the urine of the victims) was baked by Tituba to try to ferret out the supernatural perpetrator of the girls illness. Millers famous play about the Salem witch trials is called The Cruciblebut what is a crucible anyway? In response, John found himself accused as well. Witches could change from human to animal form or from one human form to another. Accessed May 6, 2021. https://famous-trials.com/salem/2078-sal-acct. 9 Things You Might Not Know About the Salem Witch Trials, The world's largest online family history resource - Start now, New England, Salem Witches and Others Tried for Witchcraft, 1647-1697, 6 Unusual Last Names You Wont Believe Exist, The Experience of an Ancestral Home Visit, Discovering African American Heroes in My Family Tree. Life, woman, life is Gods most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it.. Music Credit: Spirit of the Dead by Aakash Gandhi#List25 #Didyouknow #WitchTrials A crucible is a kind of container used for heating substances at very high temperatures, and the term is often used to describe high pressure situationssuch as the onethe witch trials creates for the accused. Here's what we know about the original witch hunt: 1. Despite being known as the Salem witch trials, some of the trials actually took place in Ipswich and Andover in addition to Salem itself. Between February 1692 and May 1693 in current day Massachusetts, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft. Philip and Mary English Home, Site Of. Salem Witch Museum. The governor pardoned the rest of the accused witches and they were released from jail. The Salem witch trials were also the subject of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, written in the 1950s. As the weeks passed, many of the accused proved to be enemies of the Putnams, and Putnam family members and in-laws would end up being the accusers in dozens of cases. Another famous incident from the trials was the case of John Proctor. So if you are a witch, no need to worry about this ever happening again! The infant died shortly after her birth, likely due to malnutrition. They began in 1692, a full 73 years before the start of the American Revolution and some 40 years before George Washington was even born. Over the following year many trials were held and many people imprisoned. Salem witch trials, (June 1692May 1693), in American history, a series of investigations and persecutions that caused 19 convicted witches to be hanged and many other suspects to be imprisoned in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Danvers, Massachusetts). Some have suggested that the man who was truly responsible for initiating the witch trial debacle was Reverend Samuel Parris, the father and uncle of the afflicted girls. The Salem witch trials of the late 17thcentury were a formative episode in Americas early history, and have remained at the forefront of the national consciousness ever since. It was carried out as such by Sheriff George Corwin. This series of prosecutions and hangings of those accused of practicing witchcraft provoked a major backlash, andthe event still haunts us today. Both Good and Osborn protested their own innocence, though Good accused Osborn. Despite their obvious Christian commitment, the early American Puritans actually banned Christmas in the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1659, deeming it a sacrilege. The Salem Witch trials occupy a large space in the American imagination. In the late 1600s the Salem Village community in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Danvers, Massachusetts) was fairly small and undergoing a period of turmoil with little political guidance. Learn about the Salem witch trials and their legacy. Two of the casualties were babies. Thomas Maule, a Quaker who found himself at odds with the Puritan community at times, was beaten and imprisoned for speaking out against the trials, despite the fact that he himself believed in witches. On March 23, 1692, a warrant was issued for the arrest of four-year-old Dorothy Good of Salem Village on "suspition of acts of Witchcraft.". Far more women than men were among the accused, convicted and executed. The largest account of witch trials as well as deaths by witch trials occurred in Salem, a village heavily populated with the Puritans. Because most of the trials were occurring in Salem . The witchcraft trials even targeted animals. An important minister in Boston named Increase Mather was one of these objectors, stating that It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than that one innocent person should be condemned.. The feud was over the fact that Kazan had named communist sympathizers during his testimony to Congress. Learn about U.S. history, ancient Egypt, the deadliest wars, historical photos, and so much more. There have been many other instances of this kind of phenomenon sincemost recently in an outbreak of alleged evil clown sightings across the continent and beyond in 2016. The Salem witch trials marked a seven-month period of mass hysteria in 1692 Colonial America. The dog was also supposed to then point to the people who had bewitched the victim. When Millers The Crucible was produced, it was in the aftermath of his feud with Elia Kazan, the man who had directed his two earlier hit plays All My Sons and Death of a Salesman. Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, These Jerks Had No Idea Who They Were Messing With, Stabbed In The Back: These Real-Life Betrayals Are Straight Up Brutal, "The Bride Kissed The Best Man" And Other Real-Life Wedding Disasters, Everyone Has A Limit: These Moments Made People Say Enough Is Enough, Bloody Facts About Ivan the Terrible, The Mad Tsar Of Russia. As the most commanding mistress in the French court, she bettered the lives of many and became a beloved figure. The Salem trials also went on to become a powerful metaphor for the anticommunist hearings led by U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare of the 1950s, famously in the form of Arthur Millers allegorical play The Crucible (1953). For more than 300 years, the complex drama of the 1692 Salem witch trials and its themes of injustice and the frailties of human nature have captivated and fascinated the public imagination. Witches were considered to be followers of Satan who had traded their souls for his assistance. Some scholars believe that they were of African heritage, while others think that they may have been of Caribbean Native American heritage.). Omissions? Because of Philip Englishs wealth, he was allowed his freedom during the day and could rent rooms in the home of his jailer for himself, his wife, and daughter. While there was no need to provide evidence for accusing someone of witchcraftjust pointing fingers was enoughspectral evidence was often used during the trials. One of the people. Salem didn't burn witches at the stake; most of the accused witches were hanged. This database contains information on more than 200 individuals formally accused and put on trial for witchcraft in New England between 1647 and 1697, including those accused in the Salem witch trials. It was actually the local doctor, likely William Griggs, who first diagnosed the girls as having been bewitched when he couldnt find anything medically wrong with them to explain the strange behavior. But men were accused (and executed) as well. The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: An Account. Famous Trials. She crafted a tale detailing how the devil had come to her and asked her to do his bidding. With Abigail Spencer, Matt Lanter, Malcolm Barrett, Paterson Joseph. Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton served as its chief magistrate and Thomas Newton as the Crowns Prosecuting Attorney. Apparently they felt that giving gifts took away from ones ability to focus on serious religious thought, and they did not like the pagan origins of some aspects of the holiday. You . The Salem trials occurred late in the sequence, after the abatement of the European witch-hunt fervour, which peaked from the 1580s and 90s to the 1630s and 40s. The effects of the Salem Village witch trials were devastating: 141 people imprisoned, 19 people executed, and two more died from other causes directly related to the investigations.1 The Salem witch trials would account for a quarter of all people executed for the crime of witchcraft in the history of New England,2 and would furthermore prove It seems that a shocking number of accusations were made by members of the Putnam family. Kyle Climans has been a published writer since 2011. A complicated and long-lasting feud between the Putnam and Porter families of Salem may have been a motivating factor in some of the witchcraft accusations. In addition, one man was pressed to death by giant stones for refusing to even plea innocent. "Examination of a witch" by Tompkins Harrison Matteson (1853) Although Salem Village was at the heart of the witch trials of 1692, the accused were from a couple dozen towns. Well, many workers and service providers will, Being a nurse isnt easy or ordinarybut these nurses had more difficult, and more bizarre,, Sometimes, you hear a story so wild that you heave a sigh of relief when, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex was the darling of Elizabeths old ageuntil he wasnt., Lets face it: Some people are just rude. One dog was shot after a girl suffering from convulsions accused the dog of trying to bewitch her. Significantly, those that they began identifying as other witches were no longer just outsiders and outcasts but rather upstanding members of the community, beginning with Rebecca Nurse, a mature woman of some prominence. She was an enslaved woman believed to have been from Central America, captured as a child from Barbados, and brought to Massachusetts in 1680 by Reverend Parris. In January 1692, two little girls living in Salem began acting strangely. Arthur Miller, the famous playwright who authored Death of a Salesman, responded to the McCarthy hysteria by writing The Crucible, a play about the Salem witch trials, as a metaphor for what the country was going through in the 1950s. They were also used for identifying witches in Salem, using the Witch Cake test. Although Massachusetts has given up its fight against witchcraft, there are still places in the world where witchcraft is legitimately feared by the public, sometimes even leading to real modern day witch hunts. Take, Salvador Dali was a man of contradictions. The phrase witch hunt, commonly used to refer to an unjustified or falsely conjured-up prosecution, is thought to originate as a reference to this time period in American history. Even more interesting, the summer of 1692 was a dry one, and coincided with the apparent end of the bewitchments. One of the most famous victims of the trials was a prominent woman in the local community named Martha Corey. Even some members of his congregation at the time wanted to see him dismissed from his pew in response to his aggressive prosecuting role in the episode. 1 Most of the accused were women but men were accusedand executedtoo. Seven more died in jail. He attempted to save himself by writing to clergy in Boston that mass hysteria had taken over the village, but they acted too slowly to save him: He was executed on August 19, 1692. The trials came to an abrupt halt when the Governors wife was accused of witchcraft, causing him to immediately order an end to the trials. Although most of the accused witches were women, some men were also accused. After weeks of informal hearings, Sir William Phips, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, interceded to add some formality to the proceedings. Photo Credit: https://bit.ly/39AhFc2 After Governor Phipss wife was accused, he again interceded and ordered that a new court be established that would not allow so-called spectral evidence. Additionally, he is an accomplished scriptwriter, having written the successful AA Meeting series for the stage and the award-winning film Depth of Pyaar. The girls were having a type of epileptic fit and would scream out . No, it doesnt sound that romantic or comic to me either. Even during the trials, there were many who objected to the whole procedure, even within the religious Puritan community. In January 1692 Bettys and Abigails increasingly strange behaviour (described by at least one historian as juvenile deliquency) came to include fits. Dont feel too embarrassed if you happen to be from Massachusetts, you guys were not the first to do something like this. During 1692, in the city of Salem, a little colony in Massachusetts, US, a horrifying trial started against several neighbors accused of witchcraft. Family History Proves Bewitching to Descendants of Salem Witches : Colonial America: Three Presidents, Clara Barton, Walt Disney, Joan Kennedy and One Unborn Child Are among Those Whose Ancestors Were Accused of Consorting with the Devil 300 Years Ago. Los Angeles Times. The Salem Witch Trials (1692) Cartoon - YouTube (2:10) https://youtu.be/jJJLy5_DlqY Its time for a Halloween special! Witch hunts Upon interrogation, the girls named Tituba (an Indian woman enslaved by the Parris family), Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne as witches. In 1702, the court declared the trials unlawful. This is the event that Salem is most known for, in only three months' time 19 innocent people, 14 women and 5 men, were hanged, and one man was pressed to death. Children were also accused of witchcraft. Facts: -"At the time of these events Parris was in his middle forties." -"They did not celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer." -"The edge of the wilderness was close by. The next time Giles wanted to attend, Martha objected and prevented him from going. There were two Salems in the late 17th century: a bustling commerce-oriented port community on Massachusetts Bay known as Salem Town, which would evolve into modern Salem, and, roughly 10 miles (16 km) inland from it, a smaller, poorer farming community of some 500 persons known as Salem Village. They found it by following clues in an accused witchs writings and through guesses on where prisoners would be transported. For example, the infamous Putnam family had been one of the earliest settler dynasties to come to the Massachusetts Bay colony and establish themselves there. Because he refused to comply with the court, he was given the sentence of being pressed to death. They thought that when witches baked cakes, that they were casting a spell in it. Accessed May 6, 2021. https://famous-trials.com/salem/2035-sal-bphi. The Salem witch trials are considered one of Americas most noteworthy cases of mass hysteria. Not that Salem didnt have its problems to begin with, but the community never fully recovered from the witch trials saga, and the divisions and setbacks to the towns development continued in the years following the trials. To identify witches, authorities used the "touching test", in which victims of witchcraft would become calm upon touching the culprit. Abigail Williams and Betty Parris, the two girls at the very center of the trials, made sure to use every trick in the book to accuse others in the town, leading to people not only being tested, but also pressed to death! While Miller maintained that he kept everything historically accurate, some have noted that he made changes to the real record for the sake of the play. Directed by Guy Ferland. The crisis in Salem, Massachusetts took place partly because the community lived under an ominous cloud of suspicion. The Salem witch trials of the late 17th century were a formative episode in America's early history, and have remained at the forefront of the national consciousness ever since. The panic and fear over witches hiding amongst the colony began when two young girls, Abigail Williams and Betty Parris, developed strange symptoms including having fits and screaming in pain at mysterious moments. Ancestry has made a home for a piece of that history in its online collection, New England, Salem Witches and Others Tried for Witchcraft, 1647-1697. Some of the families now only remembered for their connection to the trials had actually been important and well-known people before that. One particularly disturbing fact about the witch hunt in Salem is that animals could be found guilty of participating in witchcraft as well as humans, and they could be (and were) sentenced to death for it. The Salem witchcraft trials, which began in May of 1692 after months of rumors of Satanic influence, still grip the American imagination more than 300 years later. Little is known about Tituba besides her role in the witch trials. Back in the 17th - century there was a great amount of stress caused by many different things in that era. Not even ministers could escape. Move over Montagues and Capulets: You might not be the most vengeful families out there. History. His wife, Elizabeth, had been accused of witchcraft and John tried to step in to defend her. The Salem witch trials have gripped American imaginations ever since they occurred in 1692. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. The First Amendment has generally served to protect individuals for opinions that they have expressed, albeit not for violent or illegal conduct.