Salem Witch Trials In 1692

The events in Salem in 1692, were but one chapter in a long story of witch hunts that began in Europe between 1300 and 1330 and ended in the late 18th century (britannica). In the Spring of 1692, paranoia broke out that is much too familiar to us today. Adolescent girls, in an effort to shift blame for their own delinquent behavior, used their current social climate to start a wave of mass hysteria and panic that involved multiple communities. Salem Village was half of the overall Salem community, and the other half was the more influential Salem Town (britannica). Salem Village leaders, that included the minister, the doctor, and the magistrates supported the girls unsubstantiated and otherwise false claims against villagers. Since

Two magistrates travelled from Salem Town, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, to the village to hold a public inquiry. The legal backgrounds of these two magistrates were as questionable as the doctor's. They engaged in brutal interrogation tactics. They allowed the use of absurd evidence, such as spectral visits, dreams/visions, birth marks and deformities, even though a very well respected minister Cotton Mather, recommended against it. Both Good and Osborn proclaimed their own innocence, even though Good accused Osborn. Initially, Tituba also claimed innocence, but after subjected to the brutality of interrogation and threatened, she told the magistrates there were other witches acting alongside her in the service of the devil against the Puritans. She claimed that the devil had visited her and she had made a deal with him. In three days of vivid testimony, she described encounters with Satan in the form of animals, and an encounter with a tall, dark man from Boston who had called upon her to sign the devil’s book. In that book she claimed to see the names of Good and Osborn, along with those of seven others that she could not read that

By the time that the trials for the those originally accused began, several more girls had become afflicted by witchcraft, the number of accused grown to over two hundred. By looking at maps of Salem village and the locations of the accusers and accused, an interesting observation can be made. Almost all of the accusers lived on the eastern side of the village (Putnam properties) and the accused lived on the western side (Porter properties). The plague became so out of hand, that the Governor's wife became one of the accused, at that point Governor Phibbs finally stepped in and took action to bring the hysteria to a halt