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Witchcraft Past Present and Future


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Thank you for visiting my website, I hope that you will find everything that you are looking for. please feel free to coment on what ever you see or read through out this site. I am always open to sigestions on how to better this website for my readers. Of course if you are looking for anything in particular pease e-mail me at or you can let me know what yu ar looking for through my guestbook. Again thak youfoe visiting I will try to update my site as often as I can injoy.


Alittle about me


My name is Nicole I am a twenty two year old single female.
I graduated from high school two years ago, this new sence of freedom to me is great. However sometimes all this freedom can be overwelming.


What you want to know


During all four years of my high school experiance I was very fasanated with witchcraft. I urned for the knowledge to learn all that I could about this fasanating religion. At least once every year I would right up a report about the history of witchcraft in both america and other countries.
Each year that I researched Information on the history of witchcraft I always seemed to find some thing new that I missed the year before.


there is alot of miss conseptions and contraversey when it comes to the craft, it's not as bad as every one makes it out to be. If people would actually sit down and research all religions they would find that all of them are lenked to peganism.
Peganism was one of the first religions and meny religions today came from so aspect of peganism.


other miss conseptions when it comes to the craft is that any one who practices the craft must worship the devil. So not true pegins or sometimes called wiccans do not believe in the devil. In fact it's quite the opasite, wiccans believe in the lord and the lady. In there eyes it's alot simalier to christians believing in God and Jesus, and also like the like the cathlics they pray to the vergin Mary which comes from the wiccan religin who pray to the Lord and Lady.


Here is some infornation I have aquired I hope that it will help.


Who Were The Witches? Again the lack of evidence somewhat hampers the determination of who were the main victims of accusations of witchcraft. But some general attributes can be determined.


One of the most well-documented characterisitics of persons accused of witchcraft is sex. Most were female. In most areas of Europe about 75% of those accused were women.


Men Although women were the main victims, men were also accused. There were certain instances when were as likely as women to be accused of maleficium. The first of these were cases of witchcraft that had links to heresy. The other was when the crime involved political sorcery. It was not uncommon for men to use ritual magic to advance political careers. The final instance in which men were accused was when the hunts got out of control. In these circumstances the normal sterotype broke down when indiscriminate accusations were made. Thus, men became more likely to be named.


Women There were several reasons that women tended to be more susceptable to accusations to men, most of these related to current attitudes to women and the places and roles they held within society. Firstly, women were suspected because they were believed to be morally weaker than men. They were therefore more likely to succumb to the temptations of the Devil. This idea had its roots in the earliest of Christian teachings. Secondly, the idea that women were more carnal and sexually indulgent than men was also common. It was not until several centuries later that the idea of woman as sexually passive was to develop. This idea of women as sexual creatures was especially common amongst clerics, particularly monks. In relation to the charge of witchcraft this aspect is important was women were often thought to have made the pact with the Devil as the result of sexual temptation and they often took part in sexual activity as part of the pact. Thirdly, women, especially those from the lower sections of society were seen as having the opportunity to commit harmful acts. They were the cooks who worked with herbs, the healers who used herbs and ointments as their cures. The other most vulnerable group were the midwives. The main reason they were susceptable was that they were easily blamed for the death of infants. In a period of very high infant mortality and also occasional infanticide, to charge the midwife with causing the death of the child through magical means was both functional and plausible. It also offered the greiving family a target for revenge. Once accused of maleficia, demonological theory, which was more important to the judges, could easily be employed. Witches needed unbaptized babies so they could sacrifice them to the Devil, feast on them and use the remains in potions. As midwives, they were in the perfect positions to procure these infants. The final reason for the number of women accused was that they were weaker in every way. They did not have the physical or political power to defend themselves. As such, they were thought more likely to resort to magic to help themselves. Which also meant that once accused they had less to defend themselves with.


Age There are a number of reasons why witches tended to be old. Firstly, witches tended to be prosecuted after many years of suspicion. This tended to keep the age up. Also, they tended to be wise women and healers, titles which by definition involved age. A further explanation lies in the fact that older people, especially those who were senile, exhibited eccentric or anti-social behaviour that made people uncomfortable and tended to invite accusations. A final reason was that older people were less physically powerful and therefore more likely to resort to magic to defend themselves or to take revenge. Underlying the depiction of the old, sexually varocious was a deep male fear of sexually experienced, independent women. This is partly the reason that old widows were particularly susceptable to charges of witchcraft.


Marital Status There is no definate trend related to the marital status of witches when accused of witchcraft. However, the percentage of unmarried (widowed or never married) was higher than the percentage of those married. Among the unmarried the widow was most likely to be accused. In a partiarchal society, a women who was not under the control of a husband or father was a source of concern. The other cause for fear was that the number of unmarried women was increasing. These women were often considered a burden on society. For those who were married, there were two main sources of accusations. Firstly, from conflicts with spouse and children. One of the attractions of witchcraft accusations were that they allowed the expression of otherwise sociall unacceptable feelings, for example of a child against a parent. The second cause was when friction occured over property, often belonging to the husband. Although married women had no independent wealth or property, they often worked alongside their husbands. They therefore, often found themselves involved in disputes over rents, labour or even possession of land.


We can be fairly certain that most prosecuted from witchcraft came from the lower levels of society. Many accused lived at subsistance level and often had to resort to begging to survive. They were the least able to defend themselves. Being dependent on the community also meant that they generated feelings of guilt and resentment. Some economic changes in this period also made matters worse. The hunts occured at a time when the level of poverty was becoming more severe and more widespread. This was partly due to an increase in population. While these economic changes made people more likely to contemplate using magic to protect themselves, it also made people more likely to make accusations. As more people feared the economic decline, they became least tolerant in their dealings with the poor. Accusations against the poor were a way of maintaining their own tenuous position.


Accused witches often demonstrated certain behavioural traits that made them more susceptable to witchcraft accusations. Witches were often the village scold, the person who often had harsh words for people, who may have cursed alot. They were not people who others enjoyed having as neighbours. Secondly, witches were oftne old and may have exhibited signs of senility. They were often cranky and hard to get along with. It could also explain why witches were considered to be mentally unbalanced. Also many accused witches admitted to running the wild with Diana, goddess of the moon. These delusions may have been due to a mental problem. Another characteristic of witches was their reputation for forms of religious and moral deviance. Any past transgressions in these areas may have made them more susceptable to charges of witchcraft. While most were certainly not hardened criminals, some had been named in ecclesiastical courts for offences such as non-attendence of church, Sabbath-breaking fornication and even adultery. Some male witches had been suspected of homosexuality.


here is the sourse of my information
http;//www.geocities.com/Athens/2962/history/demografics.html


The persacutiion of wicthes was a long standing ritual. The killing of witches in calonial times was mainly done in fear. The fear of not knowing the fear of not understanding. People tend to fear what they don't understand. When people don't understand cretian things they adamadicly want to elimanate the problm. Because of this meny innocent people were put to death. In the colonial days they to held open trials. the only diffrance was that a person could be convicted and sentanced to death with no real tangable evidance. a freckle in there eyes would be a mark of the devil and that alone could convict a accused witch.


One of the most notorious documented event involving Witchcraft was the mass histaria that swept through Salem Mass. Here is some information that I picked up I hope that is is usefull.


In 1692, in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, 24 people were killed after being tried as witches. Hundreds others were accused of being witches and wizards, but managed to escape the gallows. Why did this travesty of justice occur? Why did it occur in Salem? Salem was a prime spot for this event, and it the witchcraft trials were a culmination of many factors. The unfortunate combination of economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692.


In 1688, John Putnam, one of the most influential elders of Salem Village, invited Samuel Parris, formerly a marginally successful planter and merchant in Barbados, to preach in the Village church. A year later, after negotiations over salary, inflation adjustments, and free firewood, Parris accepted the job as Village minister. He moved to Salem Village with his wife Elizabeth, his six-year-old daughter Betty, niece Abagail Williams, and slave Tituba, a West African native that Parris had acquired in Barbados. The Salem that became Parris's new home was in the midst of change: a mercantile elite was beginning to develop, prominent people were becoming less willing to assume positions as town leaders, the Putnams and the Porters were competing for control of the village and its pulpit, and a debate was raging over how independent Salem Village, tied more to the interior agricultural regions, should be from Salem, a center of sea trade.


Sometime during February of the exceptionally cold winter of 1692, young Betty Parris became strangely ill. She dashed about, dove under furniture, contorted in pain, and complained of fever. The cause of her symptoms may have been some combination of stress, asthma, guilt, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis, but there were other theories. Cotton Mather had recently published a popular book, "Memorable Providences," describing the suspected witchcraft of an Irish washerwoman in Boston, and Betty's behavior in some ways mirrored that of the afflicted person described in Mather's widely read and discussed book.


It was easy to believe in 1692 in Salem, with an Indian war raging and the village in political turmoil, that the devil was close at hand. Talk of witchcraft increased when other of Betty's playmates, including eleven-year-old Ann Putnam, seventeen-year-old Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott, began to exhibit similar unusual behavior. William Griggs, a doctor called to examine the girls, suggested that the girls' problems might have a supernatural origin when his own nostrums failed to effect a cure. The widespread belief that witches targeted children made the doctor's diagnosis seem increasing likely.


A neighbor, Mary Sibley, proposed a form of counter magic. She told Tituba to bake a rye cake with the urine of the afflicted victim and feed the cake to a dog. ( Dogs were believed to be used by witches as agents to carry out their devilish commands.) By this time, suspicion had already begun to focus on Tituba, who had been known to tell the girls tales of omens, voodoo, and witchcraft from her native folklore. Her participation in the urine cake episode made her an even more obvious scapegoat for the inexplicable.


Meanwhile, the number of girls afflicted continued to grow, rising to seven with the addition of Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, and Mary Warren. According to historian Peter Hoffer, the girls "turned themselves from a circle of friends into a gang of juvenile delinquents." ( Many people of the period complained that young people lacked the piety and sense of purpose of the founders' generation.) The girls contorted into grotesque poses, fell down into frozen postures, and complained of biting and pinching sensations.


In a village where everyone believed that the devil was real, close at hand, and acted in the real world, the suspected affliction of the girls became an obsession. Sometime after February 25, when Tituba baked the witch cake, and February 29, when arrest warrants were issued against Tituba and two other women, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams named their afflictors and the witchhunt began.


The consistency of the two girls' accusations suggests strongly that the girls worked out their stories together. Soon Ann Putnam and Mercy Lewis were also reporting seeing "witches flying through the winter mist." The prominent Putnam family supported the girls' accusations, putting considerable impetus behind the prosecutions. The first three to be accused of witchcraft were Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn. Tituba was an obvious choice, because of both the color of her skin and her experience in voodoo. Good was a beggar and social misfit who lived wherever someone would house her, while Osborn was old, quarrelsome, and had not attended church for over a year. The Putnams brought their complaint against the three women to county magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, who scheduled examinations for the suspected witches for March 1, 1692 in a local tavern.


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 the seen the Devil? 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 who sometimes appeared as a dog or a hog (obviously the Devil) who asked her to sign in his book and to do his work. "Yes", Tituba declared, "I am a witch, and moreover four other witches, including Good and Osborn, had flown through the air on poles" Tituba has been rumored to say. 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. Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Cloyce, and Mary Easty were accused of witchcraft.


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!" Soon Ann's mother, Ann Putnam, Sr., would join the accusers. 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 Dorcas's specter. (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.") The girls' accusations and their ever more polished performances, including the new act of being struck dumb, played to large and believing audiences. 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, and Mather's advice was heeded. Judges also decided to allow the so-called "touching test" (defendants were asked to touch afflicted persons to see if their touch, as was generally assumed of the touch of witches, would stop their contortions) and examination of the bodies of accused for evidence of "witches' marks" (moles or the like upon which a witch's familiar might suck). 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. Almost sixty years old, owner of a house of ill repute, critical of her neighbors, and reluctant to pay her her bills, Bishop was a likely candidate for an accusation of witchcraft . 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, 1692, 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 clearly 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."


Several of the afflicted girls testified that Bishop's specter afflicted them. 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.


Chief Justice Stoughton signed Bishop's death warrant, and on June 10, 1692, Bishop was carted to Gallows Hill and hanged . As the summer of 1692 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. and Abagail Williams, attacked them in mid March of 1692 . Ann Putnam, Sr. added her complaint that Nurse demanded that she sign the Devil's book, then pinched her. 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, Benjamin died. The Nurse jury returned a verdict of not guilty, much to the displeasure of Chief Justice Stoughton, who told the jury to go back and consider again a statement of Nurse's that might be considered an admission of guilt (but more likely an indication of confusion about the question, as Nurse was old and nearly deaf).


The jury reconvened, this time coming back with a verdict of guilty . On July 19, 1692, Nurse rode with four other convicted witches to Gallows Hill. Persons who scoffed at accusations of witchcraft risked becoming targets of accusations themselves. One man who was openly critical of the trials paid for his skepticism with his life. John Proctor, a central figure in Arthur Miller's somewhat fictionalized account of the Salem witchhunt "The Crucible," was an opinionated tavern owner who openly denounced the witchhunt. Testifying against Proctor were Ann Putnam, Abagail Williams, Indian John (a slave of Samuel Parris who worked in a competing tavern), and eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Booth, who testified that ghosts had come to her and accused Proctor of serial murder.


Proctor fought back, accusing confessed witches of lying, complaining of torture, and demanding that his trial be moved to Boston. The efforts proved futile, of course, and Proctor was hanged. His wife Elizabeth, who was also convicted of witchcraft, was spared execution because of her pregnancy (reprieved "for the belly"). No execution caused more unease in Salem than that of the village's ex-minister, George Burroughs. Burroughs, who was living in Maine in 1692, was identified by several of his accusers as the ringleader of the witches. Mercy Lewis, the most imaginative and forceful of the young accusers, offered unusually vivid testimony against Burroughs. Lewis told the court that Burroughs flew her to the top of a mountain and, pointing toward the surrounding land, promised her all the kingdoms if only she would sign in his book. Lewis said, "I would not writ if he had throwed me down on one hundred pitchforks."


At an execution, a defendant in the Puritan colonies was expected to confess, and thus to save his soul. When Burroughs on Gallows Hill continued to insist on his innocence and then recited the Lord's Prayer perfectly (something witches were thought incapable of doing), the crowd was reportedly "greatly moved," forcing Cotton Mather, who was in attendance, to intervene and remind the crowd that Burroughs had had his day in court and lost.


One victim of the Salem witchhunt was not hanged, but rather pressed under heavy stones for two days until his death. Such was the fate of octogenarian Giles Corey who, after spending five months in chains in a Salem jail with his also accused wife, had nothing but contempt for the proceedings. Seeing the futility of a trial and hoping that by avoiding a conviction his farm, that would otherwise go the state, might go to his two sons-in-law, Corey refused to stand for trial. The penalty for such a refusal was peine et fort, or pressing. Three days after Corey's death, on September 22, 1692, eight more convicted witches, including Giles' wife Martha, were hanged. They were the last victims of the witchhunt.


By early autumn of 1692, Salem's lust for blood was ebbing. Doubts were developing as to how so many respectable people could be guilty. Reverend John Hale said, " It cannot be imagined that in a place of so much knowledge, so many in so small compass of land should abominably leap into the Devil's lap at once." The educated elite of the colony began efforts to end the witch-hunting hysteria that had enveloped Salem. Increase Mather, the father of Cotton, published what has been called "America's first tract on evidence," a work entitled "Cases of Conscience," which argued that it "were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned." Increase Mather urged the court to exclude spectral evidence. Samuel Willard, a highly regarded Boston minister, circulated "Some Miscellany Observations," which suggested that the Devil might create the specter of an innocent person. Mather's and Willard's works were given to Governor Phips, and most likely influenced his decision to order the court to exclude spectral evidence and touching tests, and to require proof of guilt by clear and convincing evidence.


With spectral evidence not admitted, twenty-eight of the last thirty-three witchcraft trials ended in acquittals. The three convicted witches were later pardoned. In May of 1693, Phips released from prison all remaining accused or convicted witches. By the time the witchhunt ended, nineteen convicted witches were executed, at least four accused witches had died in prison, and one man, Giles Corey, had been pressed to death. About one to two hundred other persons were arrested and imprisoned on witchcraft charges.


Two dogs were executed as suspected accomplices of witches. A period of atonement began in the colony. Samuel Sewall, one of the judges, issued a public confession of guilt and an apology. Several jurors came forward to say that they were "sadly deluded and mistaken" in their judgments. Reverend Samuel Parris conceded errors of judgment, but mostly shifted blame to others. Parris was replaced as minister of Salem village by Thomas Green, who devoted his career to putting his torn congregation back together. Governor Phips blamed the entire affair on William Stroughton. Stroughton, clearly more to blame than anyone for the tragic episode, refused to apologize or explain himself, He criticized Phips for interfering just when he was about to "clear the land" of witches. Stoughton became the next governor of Massachusetts.


here is the site in witch I got my information. http://hometexoma.net/~adwignall/


The account of events that went on in Salem tell the tale of what happened when it happened. here is a cronalogical list of the events the happened in Salemm Village Mass


1641: English law makes witchcraft a capital crime. 1684: England declares that the colonies may not self-govern. 1688: Following an argument with laundress Goody Glover, Martha Goodwin, 13, begins exhibiting bizarre behavior. Days later her younger brother and two sisters exhibit similar behavior. Glover is arrested and tried for bewitching the Goodwin children. Reverend Cotton Mather meets twice with Glover following her arrest in an attempt to persuade her to repent her witchcraft. Glover is hanged. Mather takes Martha Goodwin into his house. Her bizarre behavior continues and worsens. 1688: Mather publishes Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions November, 1689: Samuel Parris is named the new minister of Salem. Parris moves to Salem from Boston, where Memorable Providence was published. October 16, 1691: Villagers vow to drive Parris out of Salem and stop contributing to his salary. January 20, 1692: Eleven-year old Abigail Williams and nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris begin behaving much as the Goodwin children acted four years earlier. Soon Ann Putnam Jr. and other Salem girls begin acting similarly. Mid-February, 1692: Doctor Griggs, who attends to the "afflicted" girls, suggests that witchcraft may be the cause of their strange behavior. February 25, 1692: Tituba, at the request of neighbor Mary Sibley, bakes a "witch cake" and feeds it to a dog. According to an English folk remedy, feeding a dog this kind of cake, which contained the urine of the afflicted, would counteract the spell put on Elizabeth and Abigail. The reason the cake is fed to a dog is because the dog is believed a "familiar" of the Devil. Late-February, 1692: Pressured by ministers and townspeople to say who caused her odd behavior, Elizabeth identifies Tituba. The girls later accuse Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne of witchcraft. February 29, 1692: Arrest warrants are issued for Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. March 1, 1692: Magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin examine Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne for "witches teats." Tituba confesses to practicing witchcraft and confirms Good and Osborne are her co- conspirators. March 11, 1692: Ann Putnam Jr. shows symptoms of affliction by witchcraft. Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and Mary Warren later allege affliction as well. March 12, 1692: Ann Putnam Jr. accuses Martha Cory of witchcraft. March 19. 1692: Abigail Williams denounces Rebecca Nurse as a witch. March 21, 1692: Magistrates Hathorne and Corwin examine Martha Cory. March 23, 1692: Salem Marshal Deputy Samuel Brabrook arrests four-year-old Dorcas Good. March 24, 1692: Corwin and Hathorne examine Rebecca Nurse. March 26, 1692: Hathorne and Corwin interrogate Dorcas. March 28, 1692: Elizabeth Proctor is accused of witchcraft. April 3, 1692: Sarah Cloyce, after defending her sister, Rebecca Nurse, is accused of witchcraft. April 11, 1692: Hathorne and Corwin examine Sarah Cloyce and Elizabeth Proctor. On the same day Elizabeth's husband, John, who protested the examination of his wife, becomes the first man accused of witchcraft and is incarcerated. Early April, 1692: The Proctors' servant and accuser, Mary Warren, admits lying and accuses the other accusing girls of lying. April 13, 1692: Ann Putnam Jr. accuses Giles Cory of witchcraft and alleges that a man who died at Cory's house also haunts her. April 19, 1692: Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Giles Cory and Mary Warren are examined. Deliverance Hobbs confesses to practicing witchcraft. Mary Warren reverses her statement made in early April and rejoins the accusers. April 22, 1692: Mary Easty, another of Rebecca Nurse's sisters who defended her, is examined by Hathorne and Corwin. Hathorne and Corwin also examine Nehemiah Abbott, William and Deliverance Hobbs, Edward and Sarah Bishop, Mary Black, Sarah Wildes, and Mary English. April 30, 1692: Several girls accuse former Salem minister George Burroughs of witchcraft. May 2, 1692: Hathorne and Corwin examine Sarah Morey, Lyndia Dustin, Susannah Martin and Dorcas Hoar. May 4, 1692: George Burroughs is arrested in Maine. May 7, 1692: George Burroughs is returned to Salem and placed in jail. May 9, 1692: Corwin and Hathorne examine Burroughs and Sarah Churchill. Burroughs is moved to a Boston jail. May 10, 1692: Corwin and Hathorne examine George Jacobs, Sr. and his granddaughter Margaret Jacobs. Sarah Osborne dies in prison. May 14, 1692: Increase Mather and Sir William Phipps, the newly elected governor of the colony, arrive in Boston. They bring with them a charter ending the 1684 prohibition of self-governance within the colony. May 18, 1692: Mary Easty is released from prison. Following protest by her accusers, she is again arrested. Roger Toothaker is also arrested on charges of witchcraft. May 27, 1692: Phipps issues a commission for a Court of Oyer and Terminer and appoints as judges John Hathorne, Nathaniel Saltonstall, Bartholomew Gedney, Peter Sergeant, Samuel Sewall, Wait Still Winthrop, and Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton. May 31, 1692: Hathorne, Corwin and Gednew examine Martha Carrier, John Alden, Wilmott Redd, Elizabeth Howe and Phillip English. English and Alden later escape prison and do not return to Salem until after the trials end. June 2, 1692: Bridget Bishop is the first to be tried and convicted of witchcraft. She is sentenced to die. June 8, 1692: Eighteen year old Elizabeth Booth shows symptoms of affliction by witchcraft. June 10, 1692: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill. Following the hanging Nathaniel Saltonstall resigns from the court and is replaced by Corwin. June 15, 1692: Cotton Mather writes a letter requesting the court not use spectral evidence as a standard and urging that the trials be speedy. The Court of Oyer and Terminer pays more attention to the request for speed and less attention to the criticism of spectral evidence. June 16, 1692: Roger Toothaker dies in prison. June 29-30, 1692: Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Sarah Wildes, Sarah Good, and Elizabeth Howe are tried, pronounced guilty and sentenced to hang. July 19, 1692: Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Good and Sarah Wildes are hanged at Gallows Hill. August 5, 1692: George Jacobs Sr., Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, John Willard and John and Elizabeth Proctor are pronounced guilty and sentenced to hang. August 19, 1692: George Jacobs Sr., Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, John Willard and John Proctor are hanged on Gallows Hill. Elizabeth Proctor is not hanged because she is pregnant. August 20, 1692: Margaret Jacobs recants the testimony that led to the execution of her grandfather George Jacobs Sr. and Burroughs. September 9, 1692: Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Dorcas Hoar and Mary Bradbury are pronounced guilty and sentenced to hang. Mid-September, 1692: Giles Cory is indicted. September 17, 1692: Margaret Scott, Wilmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Abigail Faulkner, Rebecca Earnes, Mary Lacy, Ann Foster and Abigail Hobbs are tried and sentenced to hang. September 19, 1692: Sheriffs administer Piene Forte Et Dure (pressing) to Giles Cory after he refuses to enter a plea to the charges of witchcraft against him. After two days under the weight, Cory dies. September 22, 1692: Martha Cory, Margaret Scott, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Willmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, and Mary Parker are hanged. Hoar escapes execution by confessing. October 3, 1692: The Reverend Increase Mather, President of Harvard College and father to Cotton Mather, denounces the use of spectral evidence. October 8, 1692: Governor Phipps orders that spectral evidence no longer be admitted in witchcraft trials. October 29, 1692: Phipps prohibits further arrests, releases many accused witches, and dissolves the Court of Oyer and Terminer. November 25, 1692: The General Court establishes a Superior Court to try remaining witches. January 3, 1693: Judge Stoughton orders execution of all suspected witches who were exempted by their pregnancy. Phipps denied enforcement of the order causing Stoughton to leave the bench. January 1693: 49 of the 52 surviving people brought into court on witchcraft charges are released because their arrests were based on spectral evidence. 1693: Tituba is released from jail and sold to a new master. May 1693: Phipps pardons those still in prison on witchcraft charges. January 14, 1697: The General Court orders a day of fasting and soul-searching for the tragedy at Salem. Moved, Samuel Sewall publicly confesses error and guilt. 1697: Minister Samuel Parris is ousted as minister in Salem and replaced by Joseph Green. 1702: The General Court declares the 1692 trials unlawful. 1706: Ann Putnam Jr., one of the leading accusers, publicly apologizes for her actions in 1692. 1711: The colony passes a legislative bill restoring the rights and good names of those accused of witchcraft and grants 600 pounds in restitution to their heirs. 1752: Salem Village is renamed Danvers. 1957: Massachusetts formally apologizes for the events of 1692.
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