Salem Witch Trails Fact

Unhade2 those convicted and sentenced to death for witchcraft in Salam were hung not burned.

Did you mean to say that in a past lifetime you lived in Salem? Or did you mean to say you lived somewhere else but in the 1600's?

Because if you meant the first then you need to know that no Witches were burned in Salem. All of the accused/convicted Witches there were hanged with the exception of Giles Corey, who was pressed to death with stones.

It is now pretty well established that none of those accused in Salem actually practiced Witchcraft. Rather it was a case of greed, money, and property and those who accused neighbors of Witchcraft for monetary gain.

As lark said the accused we're falsely accused for a sprew of propaganda and to gain for ruining another kife and sentencing innocent lives.

And the accused were hung and only one was pressed to death by snones and rocks

^ Life*

was the illness ever found out

There was no illness. The two things that were thought might have caused the problem were ruled out. It was a simple case of greed and dislike of certain members of the community

I have an ancestor, Martha Carrier that was hung in Salem on 1692. Three of her children were spared because they were tortured until they agreed to testify against her. Her husband took their children and fled, the cause of their "marks of the devil" were small pox. A variety of illness were considered "witchcraft" seizures, measles, chicken pox, ect. Neighbors turned on neighbors for various reasons money, power & greed were only a few. Women that were outspoken were seen as a threat to the church therefore they were accused. Also these people's families were charged room and board for their imprisionment. This was a dark time in history.

I would recommend reading or watching “The Crucible” if your interested in this. The author did his research extensively for the story, and it explains it really well. He mentions the only thing he changes is one of the characters ages, from 13 to 17 (for good reason).

Arthur Miller used the Salem Witch Trials as an allegory for the McCarthyism at the time he wrote the Crucible. The majority of the people executed were elderly. The first woman to be hung was 60 years old, the last was a 71-year old man who was pressed to death.

I’ve attached several links below. I’m from that area and I am related to Sarah Good.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-salem-witch-trials-175162489/

https://salemwitchmuseum.com/history-education

http://historyofmassachusetts.org/salem-witch-trials-victims/

https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/witch.htm

You might enjoy the Aaron Mahnke podcast Unobscured, this seasons [first season technically] is all about the Salem trials, he interviews experts and goes into the society and history of the area before the trials.

As for the trials themselves, I've read a number of books and watched several documentaries so I know it's a little more complicated than 'girls go mad with power' but I quite like the theory that it was a poor grain harvest, and the hallucinations were the result of this bactera that grows on damp grain. But, overall, it was a number of social factors that snowballed. And despite what some claim, the only 'witch' was maybe the slave Tituba, who was possibly doing some form of folk magick [and who may of been actually native] as well as this other man [name escapes me] who had a knowledge of herbal remedies. Everything else was basically one family vs. another family, undesirable members, and religious piety [there was two churches, one was slightly less lenient]