Report on the salem witch trials

His incredibly valid concerns went unheeded during the trials in Salem. When public support for the trials dwindled, Governor Phips quietly dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer in October of and ruled that from now on, trials for witchcraft should disregard spectral evidence.

Trials continued with diminished fervor until the beginning of and by May, Governor Phips had pardoned and released those who awaited witchcraft charges in prison.

In January of , a day of fasting was declared by the Massachusetts General Court for the tragedy of the Salem witch trials. The trials were deemed unlawful and Samuel Sewall, the leading justice of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, publicly apologized for his role in the matter Schiff In , the Massachusetts Colony passed legislation restoring the names of the condemned and provided financial restitution to their heirs.

There are museums dedicated to preserving the history of the Salem Witch Trials and it continues to be a popular topic of. There are museums dedicated to preserving the history of the Salem Witch Trials and it continues to be a popular topic of early American political thought.

Even today, there is much debate on whether the accusers were really afflicted with any condition that caused them to act out the way they did or if they were simply bored children telling stories. Theories include such things as mental illness , stress, asthma, guilt, boredom, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis Linder. This condition is brought on by ingesting rye that has been infected with ergot, a fungus that invades developing kernels of rye grain, especially in the warm and damp conditions of the previous rye harvest in Salem Linder.

Convulsive ergotism can cause violent fits, hallucinations, choking, vomiting, and a crawling sensation on the skin of the afflicted. In fact, the drug LSD is a derivative of ergot. Another possible explanation is the power of suggestion. At the time, Cotton Mather has recently published the very popular Memorable Providences , a book describing an Irish washerwoman in Boston who was suspected of witchcraft.

It was easy for readers to believe that, with the turmoil of life in the colonies during this time, the devil was nearby, watching and waiting.

The well-documented hysteria of the Salem witch trials is an unflattering piece of American history that remains popular to this day. Men and women were wrongfully executed because some young girls accused them of practicing witchcraft, conversing with the devil, and possessing magical powers. Despite confessions by a number of the accused, it is clear that there was some other cause for the erratic and irrational behavior of the afflicted girls.

Whether it was boredom, infected rye grain, suggestion, or some other affliction, we may never truly know. It can be confidently said, though, that the frenzy of the Salem witch trials will remain a point of interest and mystery. Blumberg, Jess. Linder, Douglas. UMKC, n. Schiff, Stacy. The New Yorker, 7 Sept. Salem Witch Museum, Ibis Communications, Inc. Ultius, Inc. Ultius Blog, 15 Apr.

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Our next drawing will be held soon. Apply today for your chance to win! Claim Offer. Ultius New client? When hundreds showed up, the examinations were moved to the meeting house. At the examinations, the girls described attacks by the specters of the three women, and fell into their by then perfected pattern of contortions when in the presence of one of the suspects.

Other villagers came forward to offer stories of cheese and butter mysteriously gone bad or animals born with deformities after visits by one of the suspects. The magistrates, in the common practice of the time, asked the same questions of each suspect over and over: Were they witches?

Had they seen Satan? How, if they are were not witches, did they explain the contortions seemingly caused by their presence? The style and form of the questions indicates that the magistrates thought the women guilty. The matter might have ended with admonishments were it not for Tituba. After first adamantly denying any guilt, afraid perhaps of being made a scapegoat, Tituba claimed that she was approached by a tall man from Boston--obviously Satan--who sometimes appeared as a dog or a hog and who asked her to sign in his book and to do his work.

Yes, Tituba declared, she was a witch, and moreover she and four other witches, including Good and Osborn, had flown through the air on their poles. She had tried to run to Reverend Parris for counsel, she said, but the devil had blocked her path.

Tituba's confession succeeded in transforming her from a possible scapegoat to a central figure in the expanding prosecutions. Her confession also served to silence most skeptics, and Parris and other local ministers began witch hunting with zeal. Soon, according to their own reports, the spectral forms of other women began attacking the afflicted girls.

During a March 20 church service, Ann Putnam suddenly shouted, "Look where Goodwife Cloyce sits on the beam suckling her yellow bird between her fingers! Dorcas Good, four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good, became the first child to be accused of witchcraft when three of the girls complained that they were bitten by the specter of Dorcas.

The four-year-old was arrested, kept in jail for eight months, watched her mother get carried off to the gallows, and would "cry her heart out, and go insane. Stuck in jail with the damning testimony of the afflicted girls widely accepted, suspects began to see confession as a way 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. Fast action, he decided, was required. Phips created a new court, the "court of oyer and terminer," to hear the witchcraft cases. Five judges, including three close friends of Cotton Mather, were appointed to the court. Chief Justice, and most influential member of the court, was a gung-ho witch hunter named William Stoughton.

Mather urged Stoughton and the other judges to credit confessions and admit "spectral evidence" testimony by afflicted persons that they had been visited by a suspect's specter. Ministers were looked to for guidance by the judges, who were generally without legal training, on matters pertaining to witchcraft. Mather's advice was heeded. Evidence that would be excluded from modern courtrooms-- hearsay, gossip, stories, unsupported assertions, surmises-- was also generally admitted.

Many protections that modern defendants take for granted were lacking in Salem: accused witches had no legal counsel, could not have witnesses testify under oath on their behalf, and had no formal avenues of appeal.

Defendants could, however, speak for themselves, produce evidence, and cross-examine their accusers. The degree to which defendants in Salem were able to take advantage of their modest protections varied considerably, depending on their own acuteness and their influence in the community. The first accused witch to be brought to trial was Bridget Bishop.

The fact that Thomas Newton, special prosecutor, selected Bishop for his first prosecution suggests that he believed the stronger case could be made against her than any of the other suspect witches. At Bishop's trial on June 2, , a field hand testified that he saw Bishop's image stealing eggs and then saw her transform herself into a cat.

Deliverance Hobbs, by then probably insane, and Mary Warren, both confessed witches, testified that Bishop was one of them. A villager named Samuel Grey told the court that Bishop visited his bed at night and tormented him.

A jury of matrons assigned to examine Bishop's body reported that they found an "excrescence of flesh. Numerous other villagers described why they thought Bishop was responsible for various bits of bad luck that had befallen them.

There was even testimony that while being transported under guard past the Salem meeting house, she looked at the building and caused a part of it to fall to the ground. Bishop's jury returned a verdict of guilty. One of the judges, Nathaniel Saltonstall, aghast at the conduct of the trial, resigned from the court. As the summer of warmed, the pace of trials picked up. Not all defendants were as disreputable as Bridget Bishop. Rebecca Nurse was a pious, respected woman whose specter, according to Ann Putnam, Jr.

Ann Putnam, Sr. Nurse was one of three Towne sisters , all identified as witches, who were members of a Topsfield family that had a long-standing quarrel with the Putnam family.

Apart from the evidence of Putnam family members, the major piece of evidence against Nurse appeared to be testimony indicating that soon after Nurse lectured Benjamin Houlton for allowing his pig to root in her garden, Houlton died. Smithsonian Magazine reports 19 of those sentenced to death were hanged on Gallows Hill and one was "pressed to death with heavy stones.

However, contrary to some rumors, nobody was burned to death as a result of the Salem witch trials. At the time, the colony had been operating without any charter, and therefore did not have an established court system. However, as reported by History , the newly appointed royal governor of Massachusetts Bay Province, William Phips, provided the colony with a new royal charter, which gave the legislature permission to establish a court structure.

Unfortunately, it would take time to develop and implement a fair and just system. When Gov. Phips arrived in the colony, the jails were already crowded with people accused of practicing witchcraft. In an attempt to expedite the process, he formed a special Court of Oyer and Terminer to hear the cases. In modern courts, the accused are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty.