todayinhistory:March 1st 1692: The Salem Witch Trials beginOn thisday in 1692, three women were brou
todayinhistory:March 1st 1692: The Salem Witch Trials beginOn thisday in 1692, three women were brought before local magistrates in SalemVillage, Massachusetts, thus beginning the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Thewomen were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba and all three had been accusedof witchcraft after local girls began experiencing strange fits. Given the lackof medical knowledge at the time and the preponderance of beliefs in thesupernatural, witchcraft was the only logical explanation for their condition.The accused women matched the description of the stereotypical witch: Good wasa beggar, Osborne rarely went to church and Tituba was a slave of differentethnicity. The women were interrogated by magistrates John Hathorne andJonathan Corwin and Tituba eventually confessed to witchcraft, claiming Goodand Osborne were her co-conspirators. The three were then sent to jail; Osbornedied in jail, Good was hanged and Tituba (as a useful confessor) was kept aliveand eventually released after the trials ended. The initial interrogation wasfollowed by many more accusations of witchcraft throughout the village and thesurrounding area, fueled perhaps by local rivalries, poisoned grain or justmass fear. The manhunt resulted in 19 ‘witches’ being hanged, one pressed todeath and hundreds more imprisoned in horrendous conditions. The event is afamous example of mass hysteria and has become a cautionary tale for religiousextremism and false accusations. -- source link