COO of the New England Genealogical Society D. Brenton Simons explores the criminal history of colonial Boston. He examines such issues as murders and murderers, including a serial murderer; con men; and witch trials. His presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Historian Eve LaPlante examines the life of Judge Samuel Sewall, who condemned over 30 people to death for witchcraft in 1692 and publicly apologized in 1697, spending the rest of his life in penitence and social action. The presentation includes slides.
In this lecture, historian Mary Beth Norton examines the original court documents from the Salem witchcraft trials; she places these well-known events in the context of the Indian wars and other witch trials in New England. The trials, she concludes, were driven more by politics than by superstition.
Author Carson Hudson discusses the perception of witchcraft in colonial America, including superstitions regarding witches and tests used in witch trials. Click here to watch a short vodcast about witches in colonial America.
This website presents a valuable collection of resources for examining the Salem Witch trials of 1692. There are full-text versions of the three-volume, verbatim Salem Witch trial transcripts, an extensive 17th-century narrative of the trials, and full-text pamphlets and excerpts of sermons by Cotton Mather, Robert Calef, and Thomas Maule. The site also offers four full-text rare books written in the late 17th and early 18th centuries about the witchcraft scare. Descriptions and images of key players in the trials are presented as well.
Access is provided to more than 500 documents from the collections of the Essex County Court Archives and the Essex Institute Collection, and roughly 100 primary documents housed in other archives. There are also seven maps of Salem and nearby villages. Basic information on the history of Salem/Danvers is complemented by eight related images and a brief description of 14 historical sites in Danvers.
The Jonathan Corwin House, also known as The Witch House, served as the residence of Jonathan Corwin (1640-1718), magistrate and judge in the Salem Witch Trials. The court in which he worked issued the death sentence to 19 individuals, none of which would admit to the crime of witchcraft. The home itself dates to before 1675, and is the only residence in Salem with a direct connection to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Topic covered include the trials and the daily life, decorative arts, and architecture of the period.
The house offers period rooms, guided tours, and self-guided tours.
The story of the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692 has served as a dramatic moral tale in American culture since the late 17th century. Narrated in history textbooks since the early 18th century and fictionalized in later works of literature, the Salem witch trials tragedy has been interpreted in different ways, suited to changing social and cultural circumstances over time.
Dr. Benjamin Ray of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia explores the role of religion in early America through this iconic narrative. This talk focuses on the most recent historical research and indicates the new shape the story is taking. It discusses the changing nature of historical accounts and shows how students can directly engage the primary source documents and develop their own conclusions.
How has U.S. history changed in the telling? Examine each history textbook passage on the Salem Witch Trials and connect it to the year of publication.
1. The severely religious trend of thought, the barrenness of life, and the dangers from Indian attacks that impended about the year 1691, account for the occurrence in Massachusetts of the witchcraft troubles. The theory of Satanic manifestations was commonly held in European countries, and there claimed its thousands of victims. In Salem and surrounding towns, two or three hundred persons, some of them being of the highest character, were accused of having allowed themselves to become possessed by the devil. Of these, nineteen were judicially condemned and were put to death. The comparative brevity and mildness of this outburst of religious fanaticism testifies to the real sadness of the Puritan mind. Nowhere in the world at this time was life more pure or thought more elevated.
1912
2. Early in the year [1692], two children of the family of a clergyman in Salem village, the one eleven, the other nine years of age, having been for some time indisposed, and no relief being obtained from medical aid, the attending physician suggested the probability of their being bewitched. The children, informed of their supposed situation, complained of an Indian woman, and declared they were "pinched, pricked, and, tormented" by her. Other persons, soon after, afflicted with various complaints, attributed their sickness to the same cause; and several of the imagined witches were put in prison. In the month of June eleven persons were tried, condemned, and executed. The awful mania increased. In September, nine more received sentence of death. Each became suspicious of his neighbor. The charges of witchcraft, commencing with the lower part of society, extended to all ranks; even a clergyman, among others, having been executed. A confession of guilt became the only security for life; such not being condemned. In October, the number of persons accused was so great, and their standing in society so respectable, that by general consent, all persons were released, and all prosecutions dropped.
1823
3. The most plausible explanation may lie in the uncertainty of life in late seventeenth-century New England. Salem Village, a farming town on the edge of a commercial center, was torn between old and new styles of life. Some families were abandoning agriculture for trade, while others were struggling to maintain traditional ways. The villagers who exploited the new economic opportunities were improving their status relative to their neighbors. Most people were uncertain about their destiny, but none more so than adolescent girls. As children their fate lay in the hands of their parents, yet their ultimate destiny would depend on their husbands. But would their husbands be farmers or artisans or merchants? What would their future lives be like? No one knew. By lashing out and in effect seizing command of the entire town, the girls gave their lives a certainty previously lacking. At the same time, they afforded their fellow townspeople an opportunity to vent their frustrations at the unsettling changes in their lives. The accused witches were scapegoats for the shattered dream of an isolated Bible Commonwealth.
1982
4. In 1692, the supposed witchcraft broke out in Salem and Danvers. Here the first subjects of it were children. The disorder, whatever its character may have been, … [at first] affected the lower classes only; but at length it pervaded all ranks and conditions. Two daughters of a minister, in Salem, were strangely affected. Before this they had been quiet, happy children but now they began to look wild, shriek, tell strange stories, sit barefoot among the ashes, or go abroad with their clothes and hair in great disorder, looking like insane people. Sometimes they were dumb; at others they would complain of being pricked severely with pins. The madness continuing to spread… Those who confessed the crime of witchcraft, however, were not executed. It was indeed a fearful time. Multitudes were suspected and accused, and at one period no less than one hundred and fifty were in prison for witchcraft…. The excitement at length passed away; and the more rapidly in proportion as the criminals were treated with clemency. Multitudes owned, at length, that they confessed their guilt to save their lives! For a century past little has been said of witchcraft in the United States, and few believe in its existence. The events we have narrated are supposed to have been the result of delusion.
1866
"The seminar will explore the lived experience of ordinary Americans during the colonial period of history. Topics will include: family and household, community organization, making a living, religious belief and practice, witchcraft and magic, and shared patterns of human psychology. Material culture will also receive considerable emphasis: domestic architecture, furnishings, the natural environment. Mornings will be devoted to lectures and discussion; afternoons to field trips and library work."
Professor Monica Fitzgerald examines popular memory and understanding of the Salem witchcraft trials and the actual historical facts concerning the trials. She looks particularly at the social and religious context within which the trials took place.
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