By: Pooja
• Salem was settled in
1626 by the Puritans
of Massachusetts Bay
Colony.
• The witch trials started
66 years later.
The Beginning (continued)
• In February 1692 a few girls in Salem
Village (present day Danvers) began to
experiment with magic.
• Afterwards, these girls developed a mental
illness called hysteria. They began to have
unusual fits by falling on the floor and
screaming.
Bewitched
• Their parents brought them to many doctors
and the only answer the doctors had was
that the girls were bewitched.
• People began to call these girls the
“afflicted girls.”
• Soon they said they were being tortured by
witches. And the Salem witch trials
started…
• In the 1600s witchcraft was put in three
categories.
• When a white witch was experimenting with
magic, it was for harmless purposes.
• When a black witch was experimenting with
magic, it was to commit hardships and injury.
• Contact with the Devil was the most extreme form
of witchcraft.
The Touch Test
• There were two ways to find out who was a
witch and who wasn’t.
• The touch test was one way to see if a
person was a witch.
• The accused would touch the accuser and if
her fits stopped, which usually happened,
the person was proven guilty.
The Water Test
• The water test was the
second way to find out if a
person was a witch. This
test was widely used in
Europe, but not much in
Salem.
• The water test was that the
accused would be thrown
into the water. If he or she
drowned, they were
innocent. If they floated,
he or she was guilty.
A ducking stool.
Spectral Evidence
• Spectral Evidence was when the accuser
claimed to see the shape of the accused who
was locked up in prison.
• This was considered evidence. Usually the
accused attacked the girls who claimed to
see them.
• The accusers were the
girls of Salem Village.
• These girls were lying,
and once they started
lying about witches;
they could not stop.
• Probably because of
their fear of being
punished because of
experimenting with
magic.
• The trials were
basically quite simple.
• It was based on
whether the jury
believed the word of
the accused or the
accuser.
The trial of Sir George Jacobs
• Punishment was severe
during the witch trials.
• You could be hanged or
put in prison.
• About 150 people were
put in prison.
• They thought witches
could not do magic if he
or she wore heavy leg
irons.
A hanging of four witches on Gallows Hill
Gravestone of Sarah Good.
• In the end 24 people
died.
• Nineteen were
executed, one was
crushed under rocks
and four died in
prison.
• Even two dogs were
killed.
• Those who did not confess were put to
death.
• Giles Corey, was one victim who refused to
confess, so he was crushed under heavy
rocks.
• Tituba was a West
Indian slave.
• She was from
Barbados.
• Reverend Samuel
Parris of Salem village
brought her and her
husband, John Indian
to Salem as his
servants.
Tituba
• Betty, Parris’s daughter
and Abigail Williams her
cousin had begun to have
strange fits. Soon, other
girls were too.
• Doctors could think of
nothing else but that the
girls were bewitched.
• Parris tried asking them
who was bewitching them,
but they would not speak.
• Afterwards, they said that
Tituba was bewitching
them.
Reverend Samuel Parris
• At Tituba’s trial she confessed that she saw the
Devil and that she was a witch. She was to sign
the Devil’s book which will mean she is now a
servant of the Devil.
• Tituba also said she saw the signatures of Sarah
Good and Sarah Osborne and claimed they were
witches too.
• A few days before her trial Tituba’s husband, John,
began to have fits and he too became afflicted.
• Tituba spent 13 months in jail until and
unknown person paid seven pounds to free
her and then bought her.
• Most likely the same person bought John.
• It is unknown what her life was like with
her new master.
The Two Sarahs
• Sarah Good
• Sarah Good was bad
tempered and she was
a beggar.
• Good asked for
handouts and cursed
those who refused her.
• Sarah Osborn
• Sarah Osborn was an
elderly woman who
had not gone to church
in 14 months, a sin in
Puritan Massachusetts.
• She was also bad
tempered and often
got into fights with her
neighbors.
• Increase Mather was born in
1639 and died in 1723.
• Mather was a minister of
Boston’s Second
Congregational Church.
• He, like others, believed in
witches; but he cautioned
against unproved accusations
at the Salem Witch Trials.
• Mather also helped end the
Salem executions.
• Afterwards, he became
president of Harvard College
through 1685-1701.
• Cotton Mather was the son
of Increase Mather.
• He was the most respected
clergyman in Puritan
Massachusetts.
• Mather was highly
educated and he wrote
about social and religious
issues.
• He also believed certain
people used witchcraft to
help the Devil.
The End of the Trials
• In October 1692,
Governor William Phipps
of Massachusetts was
disgusted with the trials,
so he put an end to it.
• Samuel Sewall, one of the
judges during the witch
trials later apologized
publicly of all the deaths.
• Soon, the court cleared the
names of those who died.
Samuel Sewall
Acknowledgements to…
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The History Magazine for Young People Cobblestone:
Witchcraft
by: Beth Irwin Kane and Jane Scherer
Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia
Making Thirteen Colonies
by: Joy Hakim
www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/ASAL_HTM
Salem, Massachusetts
by: Deborah Kent
Kaleidoscope The Salem Witch Trials
• by: Edward F. Dolan
•
•
•
World History Series The Salem Witch Trials
by: Stuart A. Kallen
www.google.com
Salem Witch Hunt Deaths
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June 10, 1692- Bridget Bishop
July 19, 1692- Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin,
Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Wild
August 19, 1692- George Burroughs, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs,
John Procter, John Willard
September 19, 1692- Giles Corey
September 22, 1692- Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Mary
Parker, Ann Pudeater, Margaret Scoot, Wilmont Redd, Samuel
Wardwell
THOSE WHO DIED IN JAIL:
May 10, 1692- Sarah Osborne
June 16, 1692- Roger Toothaker
December 3, 1692- Ann Foster