Were the Convicted "Witches" Really Burned at the Salem Witch Trials?

We've all heard of the tragic Salem witch trials. But do you know what really happened? How'd the trials start? Why were these people accused of being witches? How were they really executed? Learn about this event in this episode.

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Transcript

Tzeela: Hi, I’m Tzeela! 

Rina: Hi, I am Rina! 

Dalia: Hi, I’m Dalia! 

Penina: Hi, I’m Penina!

All: And this is Things You Thought You Knew About History!

Tzeela: Where we tell you the real story behind historical misconceptions.

Rina: The Salem witch trials started in colonial Massachusetts in the spring of 1692. 

Dalia: A few young girls started experiencing strange symptoms such as “convulsing, barking and speaking unintelligible words.” and a doctor said this was because they had been bewitched. Following this, other girls in the community also experienced similar symptoms. 

Tzeela: Tituba, an enslaved woman, Sarah Good, a homeless woman and Sarah Osborne, a poor elderly woman, were accused of bewitching them. Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne denied these accusations but Tituba confessed (most likely to avoid being beaten to death) and said there were other witches as well. This would lead to accusations of witchcraft against many and to wave of hysteria that spread throughout colonial Massachusetts

Rina: To address the many accusations, Governor William Phips established the Court of Oyer and Terminer. On June 2, Bridget Bishop was the first person convicted. She was hanged on what is now known as Gallow Hill in Salem Town.

Tzeela: She was hanged? I thought the people accused of being witches were burned.

Rina: That’s actually not true. Not in Salem, in Salem, most of the witches were hung

Tzeela: So why do people often say they were burned?

Rina: Between the 15th and 18th centuries in Europe many people were burned because (medieval law) codes in some places required this punishment. In some places where accused witches were hung or beheaded their bodies would be burnt after because of fears that they could still perform sorcery once they died but that wasn’t the case in Salem.

Tzeela: Following Bridget Bishop’s execution, eighteen more people were hanged from July to September and some of the accused died in jail before they were convicted. 

Rina: These trials often use spectral evidence which is testimony about visions and dreams to help convict the accused. Cotton Mather, a respected Minister, expressed his dislike for the use of spectral evidence and thought it wasn’t reliable but he was mostly ignored. Then a couple months later in October 1692, his father Increase Mather, then President of Harvard, also expressed his concern for this type of evidence.

Tzeela: When did these trials stop?

Rina: Public support for the trials was waning and the Governor William Phip’s own wife faced questioning so he dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer and replaced it with a court that didn’t accept spectral evidence, the Superior Court of. This new court only condemned 3 out of the 56 people accused

Tzeela: Following the trials judge Samel Swall and accuser Ann Putnam would publicly admit there had been mistakes and in 1697 the "Massachusetts’ General Court ordered a day of fasting and soul-searching” because of the tragedy of Salem.

Dalia: The trials were declared unlawful in 1702 and in 1711 the Massachusetts Colony legislature pardoned most of the accused and compensated their families. However, it wasn’t until July 2022 that the last convicted so-called witch, Elizabath Jonson Jr. was officially exonerated.

Tzeela: These women weren't witches so why did so many people get accused and executed? 

Rina: Witch trials and belief in the supernatural and the devil giving people powers had been very prevalent for some time and the witch trials in Salem came just as the European witch craze was winding down

Dalia: At the time life was hard in Salem Village. The residents feared the neighboring Native American tribes and had just faced a smallpox outbreak. 

Rina: Because of the war between Britain and France in the colonies, displaced people were straining their resources which worsened the existing rivalry between the wealthier people with ties to the port of Salem and the people who depended on agriculture. 

Tzeela: Additionally in 1689, Reverend Samuel Parris became Salem Village's first ordained minister. He was thought of as strict and greedy which led to tension and the Puritan villagers believed the quarreling was the work of the devil. 

Rina: They also were suspicious and resentful of their neighbors and feared outsiders. These factors helped make the Salem witch trials possible.

Dalia: Okay, that makes sense but why did these girls have the strange symptoms? Do we know what caused them?

Tzeela: That’s not so clear but there are a few different theories, some more widely accepted than others.

Dalia: One more well-known theory, first suggested in 1979, is that a fungus called ergot in the bread in Salem caused many of the symptoms the girls experienced. These symptoms that were at the time attributed to a witch’s curse match with some of ergotism symptoms. 

Rina: Those who support this theory such as Linnda Caporael and later Mary Matossian say that this theory is also supported by the agricultural conditions in Salem which would have been prime for ergot to grow and spread on the rye there. 

Dalia: Furthermore they point out that some of the first girls to experience these symptoms also likely would have eaten food with grain from the western part of town which is where ergot would have likely flourished.

Tzeela: There are other cases of mass ergotism outbreaks. It is thought that there was an outbreak of ergotism caused mass poisoning in 1951 in Pont-Saint-Esprit France and some scholars have attributed cases of mass hysteria, like the Dancing Plague of 1518 to ergotism.

Rina: Some even think egotism may have also contributed to the witch craze in Europe. There were known ergotism outbreaks in medieval and early modern Europe now known as Saint Anthony Fire because of the monks who treated the disease. However, in these cases, the people are thought to have experienced less of the convulsive symptoms and instead, the gangrenous ergotism which results in rotting and loss of limbs.

Tzeela: However the ergotism theory isn’t accepted by everyone and is often considered a fringe theory, especially in historical circles. Those who disagree, including Nicholas Spanos and Alan Woolf say certain symptoms of ergotism such as bruised skin aren’t mentioned in any records from Salem. They also take issue with Caporael’s “claims this was an isolated event” because other neighboring villages had similar smaller witch trials. 

Rina: They also point out that within the same families most people were probably eating the same bread so would have experienced those same symptoms if it was caused by ergot in the bread and this wasn’t the case.

Dalia: Many people who disagree with the ergot theory instead explain that these symptoms and fits were most likely caused by "mass hysteria"

Rina: In 1943, before the theory of ergotism was introduced, pediatrician and amateur historian Ernest Caulfield argued that the girls suffered from hysteria, a psychological illness of excess emotion with various physical manifestations. This could be what caused the girls to have convulsions and hallucinations. The American Psychiatric Association now refers to hysteria as conversion disorder.  

Tzeela: Some also blame the social situation at the time and even go as far as to say the girls were faking their illness. Still others blame other medical conditions such as jimsonweed poisoning or the possibility of a neurological autoimmune disorder called anti-NMDAR encephalitis.

Rina: Ultimately we don’t really have a way to know for sure what caused these strange symptoms.

Tzeela: Now it’s time for some Massachusetts trivia! How well do you know the state of MA?

Penina: How big is Massachusetts?  

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8,257 square miles

Rina: What’s Massachusetts’ state nickname? 

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The Bay State 

Tzeela: What’s the state flower? 

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The mayflower

Rina: What’s the official state dessert? 

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Boston cream pie

Penina: When did Massachusetts become a state? 

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February 6, 1788