The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than two hundred people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men).

The Salem witch trials and executions came about as the result of a combination of church politics, family feuds, and hysterical children, all of which unfolded in a vacuum of political authority.

The Salem Witch Trials were “unfair” throughout countless eyes of villagers that lived in Salem village during this ghastly era. The judges would then determine whether the witch would be announced innocent or would be given a punishment. This depended on the witch’s testimony that would be given to the judges.

The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft.

Most people accused of witchcraft in Wales, Scotland and England were poor, lonely, isolated and rather defenceless old ladies. These women were often blamed for anything that went wrong within the community – from crop failures, to sudden deaths and violent storms that caused damage and destruc,on.

There are lots of ways to test for a witch. A common way was to use a ducking stool, or just to tie them up, and duck the accused under water in a pond or river. If she floated, she was a witch. If she didn’t, she was innocent.

In 1542 Parliament passed the Witchcraft Act which defined witchcraft as a crime punishable by death. It was repealed five years later, but restored by a new Act in 1562.

The Witchcraft Act (9 Geo. 2 c. 5) was a law passed by the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1735 which made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft.

500 people

Janet Horne

Exeter

In Germany, an estimated 40,000 “witches” were burned alive.

From barbaric tortures and occult dessert dishes to unwinnable trials by ordeal, find out more about seven unusual tests once used as evidence of supernatural misconduct.

• Swimming Test.
• Prayer Test.
• Touch Test.
• Witch Cakes.
• Witch’s Marks.
• Pricking and Scratching Tests.
• Incantations.