The Salem Witch Trials: Nobody Who Was Executed Was a Witch
Quick Answer
What were the Salem Witch Trials? The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions in colonial Massachusetts in 1692 during which more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft. Nineteen were hanged, one man was crushed to death under heavy stones, and at least five others died in prison awaiting trial. None of the executed were witches. The trials were driven by a combination of mass hysteria, political instability, economic anxiety, land disputes, and a legal system that admitted spectral evidence, meaning a person could be convicted based on a dream someone else had about them.
In the spring of 1692, a small group of girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts began having fits. They screamed, contorted, complained of being bitten and pinched by invisible forces, and named their tormentors. The community responded by arresting the people they named. By September, nineteen people had been hanged on Gallows Hill. One man had been pressed to death under heavy stones over the course of two days. The Salem Witch Trials were underway, and none of the people who died in them were witches.
How It Started
The initial accusations came from Betty Parris, the nine-year-old daughter of Salem Village's minister Samuel Parris, and her eleven-year-old cousin Abigail Williams. Their fits were soon joined by other young women in the community. A local doctor, unable to find a physical explanation, diagnosed bewitchment. The girls were pressed to name who had afflicted them.
The first three people accused were easy targets. Tituba was an enslaved woman from Barbados who worked in the Parris household. Sarah Good was a homeless beggar widely disliked in the community. Sarah Osborne was an elderly woman who had stopped attending church. Tituba, who may have understood that confession was her only path away from execution, gave a detailed confession describing a tall man who made her sign his book, spectral animals, and red cats. Her confession gave the proceedings a narrative structure and legitimized the accusations against everyone who came after.
The accusations spread rapidly. Over the following months, more than 200 people were accused. They included four-year-old Dorcas Good, the daughter of Sarah Good, who was imprisoned for months. They included former Salem Village minister George Burroughs, a Harvard graduate. They included Rebecca Nurse, a 71-year-old grandmother who was initially found not guilty by the jury before the judge sent them back to reconsider. They reconsidered. She was hanged.
The Legal Machinery That Made It Possible
The trials were conducted by a special court called the Court of Oyer and Terminer, established by Massachusetts Governor William Phips specifically to address the witchcraft crisis. The court's fatal flaw was its acceptance of spectral evidence: testimony that the accused person's spirit or specter had appeared to the witness in a dream or vision and committed harm. Under this standard, the only defense against accusation was to prove that God would not allow the devil to use the shape of an innocent person. This was, practically speaking, impossible to prove.
Most of the accused who confessed were not executed. Most of those who maintained their innocence were. This created a grim incentive structure that the accused understood clearly. Giles Corey, an 81-year-old farmer, refused to enter a plea at all. Under English law, refusing to plead meant the court could not proceed to trial, which meant his estate could not be seized. He was subjected to peine forte et dure: progressively heavier stones were piled on his chest over the course of two days to compel a plea. His reported last words were "more weight." He died without pleading. His estate passed to his heirs.
The pattern here is not subtle. Women who owned property, women who challenged authority, women who simply existed inconveniently were disproportionately targeted. The accusation of witchcraft was a tool for neutralizing people the community found threatening or inconvenient. It did not require proof. It required accusation. If the name of the Hex The Patriarchy Crop Top resonates differently after reading that paragraph, that's the correct response.
Who Was Really Responsible
The Salem trials had no single cause, but the contributing factors are well documented. Samuel Parris, whose household started the accusations, was deeply unpopular and had been in a prolonged salary dispute with the community. Many of the accusers and accused were on opposite sides of existing property disputes. Salem Village had recently been separated from Salem Town, creating political uncertainty about who held authority. Massachusetts had just received a new royal charter that unsettled land ownership across the colony. King William's War with French Canada was ongoing, and refugees from frontier raids were flooding into Essex County with stories of massacre and destruction. The community was afraid of a lot of things before the first accusation was ever made.
The ministers of the colony played a significant role in both the acceleration and the eventual end of the trials. Cotton Mather, one of the most prominent Puritan ministers in New England, attended hangings and wrote approvingly of the proceedings. His father Increase Mather eventually published a treatise arguing that it was better for ten suspected witches to escape than for one innocent person to be condemned, and that spectral evidence was insufficient grounds for execution. The Court of Oyer and Terminer was dissolved in October 1692. Governor Phips had, among other motivating factors, recently received a letter informing him that his own wife had been accused.
The Aftermath
The colony recognized fairly quickly that something had gone badly wrong. Samuel Sewall, one of the judges, stood in his church in 1697 and read a public apology, accepting personal blame and shame for his role. Ann Putnam Jr., one of the primary accusers, made a public apology in 1706. The Massachusetts General Court passed legislation in 1711 restoring the reputations of many of the condemned and providing financial compensation to survivors and heirs. The last official condemnation was not reversed until 1957.
The word "witch hunt" has since been used so frequently as a political metaphor that it has lost most of its meaning, but the original is worth keeping in mind. It describes a community that convinced itself it was under existential threat from an invisible enemy, prosecuted people based on accusation and confession rather than evidence, and executed innocent people with the full endorsement of its legal and religious institutions. The people running the trials were not rogue actors. They were the establishment.
The same fear of women who know things, the same reflexive reach for authority to neutralize them, has not gone anywhere. The Witchy Vibes collection exists in that tradition: the long history of women being called dangerous for knowing things, and wearing it anyway.
If you're interested in how the American religious establishment has consistently used fear as a tool of social control, the history of televangelism covers the more recent version: The History of Televangelism: God Told Me to Ask You for Money. The tactics are different. The structure is the same.
And if you've ever wondered why the symbol most associated with rebellion against religious authority keeps showing up on shirts and in courtrooms, the history of Baphomet covers that too: What Is the Baphomet? The Real History Behind the Most Misunderstood Symbol in America.
Murder Apparel is an independent, husband-and-wife brand making spooky, political gear for people who give a damn. We donate to fight injustice and support communities in need. 500,000+ weirdos on Instagram. Come find your people.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people were killed in the Salem Witch Trials?
Nineteen people were executed by hanging during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. One man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death under heavy stones after refusing to enter a plea to the court. At least five more people died in prison while awaiting trial, including Sarah Osborne and Ann Foster. More than 200 people were accused in total, and many spent months imprisoned under harsh conditions before the court was dissolved in October 1692.
Why did the Salem Witch Trials happen?
The Salem Witch Trials resulted from a combination of overlapping factors rather than a single cause. These included mass hysteria triggered by unexplained illness in the Parris household, political instability following Massachusetts's new royal charter, ongoing frontier warfare creating widespread anxiety, property and salary disputes that shaped who was accused, a legal system that accepted spectral evidence, and religious leaders who initially endorsed the proceedings. The accusations also followed existing social fault lines: the accused were disproportionately women, the elderly, the poor, and people who had already made enemies in the community.
Who were the main accusers in Salem?
The initial accusers were Betty Parris (age 9), Abigail Williams (age 11), Ann Putnam Jr. (age 12), and several other young women in the community. Ann Putnam Jr. was one of the most prolific accusers, eventually naming 62 people. In 1706, she was the only accuser to make a formal public apology, stating that she had been deluded by Satan into making false accusations. The social and psychological dynamics that led a group of young women to make and sustain accusations of this scale have been analyzed by historians for over three centuries without a definitive consensus.
What is spectral evidence?
Spectral evidence was testimony that the accused person's spirit or specter had appeared to the witness in a dream or vision and committed some harm against them. The Court of Oyer and Terminer admitted this as evidence in the Salem trials, meaning a person could be convicted of witchcraft based solely on someone else's reported dream. Increase Mather and other ministers eventually argued that spectral evidence was theologically unreliable, since the devil could presumably assume any shape he chose. The rejection of spectral evidence was a significant factor in ending the trials.
Were any of the Salem accused actually practicing witchcraft?
No. None of the people executed in Salem were practicing witchcraft in any functional sense. Some of the accused, including Tituba, confessed, but these confessions were extracted under duress and within a framework where confession was the primary path to avoiding execution. Several historians have noted that the confessions followed a remarkably consistent narrative template, suggesting they described what accusers wanted to hear rather than actual events. The people who maintained their innocence and were executed included a Harvard-educated minister, a 71-year-old grandmother, and a man who died under heavy stones rather than participate in proceedings he considered unjust.
What ended the Salem Witch Trials?
The Salem Witch Trials ended for several reasons converging in late 1692. Increase Mather published a treatise arguing against spectral evidence. The accusations had expanded to include prominent community members whose guilt was harder to accept. Governor Phips's wife was accused. Public doubt about the proceedings grew as respected people continued to be named. Governor Phips dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer in October 1692 and established a new court with stricter evidence standards. No one convicted under the new standards was executed. The remaining prisoners were released in 1693, though many could not afford the jail fees required for their release and remained imprisoned for months longer.
