“We cannot look to superstition in this. The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone, and I must tell you all that I shall not proceed unless you are prepared to believe me if I should find no bruise of Hell upon her.”
From The Crucible by Arthur Miller
I’ve asked quite a few people how many people burned at the stake during the Salem Witch Trials. Most get it wrong, as it’s a trick question. No one has ever burned at the stake in North America – for being a witch. A dozen or so (the records aren’t clear) people were executed for witchcraft in Connecticut. And an additional nineteen men and women were hung during the infamous Salem Witch Trials, along with one man who was pressed to death and at least five who died in prison.
It’s a much worse picture for the rest of the world, with the European Witch-Hunts perhaps being the worst. Interestingly, the worst witch hunts didn’t start in the Medieval Age, as many people believe, but rather in the early years of the Renaissance. A combination of factors, including the invention of the printing press, the early stirrings of the Reformation, and the publication of Malleus Maleficarum in 1486, combined to drive the hysteria that caused between 50,000 and 200,000 people to be executed for being a witch, many of whom were burned at the stake. These numbers do not include those who died in prison or who suffered from the fallout of the accusations.
Most witch hunt victims are women (an estimated 70-80%), older, and poor. One of the most shocking victims was William Tyndale. Authorities in the Catholic Church deemed him a heretic and executed him because he translated the New Testament from Latin into English so more people could read it. His work became the basis for the standard bible of the English-speaking world – the King James Bible.
In my research, I was surprised to learn that secular authorities, not the churches, ordered most of the trials and subsequent executions. However, you can make a strong argument that the churches shaped the environment in which these horrible events happened. Oftentimes, authorities would take away the properties of the accused, as the Catholic Church did with the Templars, and the Salem authorities did with many of the accused there. There is a lot of confusing and misleading information out there. The most unbiased, simple explanation I’ve found is Witch Hunts.
Sadly, fear and ignorance continue to run rampant, and people are still dying after being accused of witchcraft.
I share this information because I include the ghosts of the Salem Witch Trials victims in my book and because the witch hunts drastically shaped the choices of one of the groups in my series.
There’s one more fascinating piece of information about the Salem Witch Trials. Did you know that the surest way to avoid execution for the accused was to plead guilty? No one who did was executed in Salem. The only ones who died were those who pled innocent.
Below is a picture of the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, just outside of Old Burying Point Cemetery. This is where some of the action in chapter 5, ‘A Hung Jury,’ occurs.
Comments