Salem Witch Trials

Timeline

1. 1692Salem Village · Salem VillageGirls in the Parris household suffered fits and screaming, attributed by a doctor to witchcraft. After neighbors tested with a witch cake, Betty identified Tituba. Local magistrates issued warrants on February 29, and from March Tituba, Good, and Osborne were examined. Tituba confessed and named more accomplices, and the accusations spread rapidly to neighboring towns.
2. 1692Boston · BostonThe old charter had been revoked, leaving the colony long in a judicial vacuum. New governor Phips approved the court, with Stoughton as chief justice, to try witchcraft cases; previously only preliminary examinations existed, and by then over a hundred had been arrested.
3. 1692Salem Town gallows · Salem TownBridget Bishop was the first hanged on June 10; further executions followed on July 19, August 19, and September 22, including Rebecca Nurse and George Burroughs. On September 19 Giles Corey was pressed to death for refusing to plead. Cotton Mather defended the court's use of spectral evidence, while some judges, such as Saltonstall, resigned in protest. About twenty were executed, and others died in jail.
4. 1692–1693Boston · BostonPublic opinion and some ministers turned against spectral evidence. Phips dissolved the court in October, and the superior court, applying stricter evidentiary rules, saw convictions drop sharply; in spring 1693 he ordered the remaining prisoners released. Over the following decades Massachusetts gradually exonerated and compensated victims, and Salem became the symbolic end of witch trials in British North America.