Salem witch trials

The Salem witch trials are a series of hearings before local magistrates followed by county court of trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex counties of colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693.

Despite being generally known as the "Salem" witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 are conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village, Ipswich, Andover and Salem Town.

The best-known trials are conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town.

Over 150 people are arrested and imprisoned, with even more accused but not formally pursued by the authorities.

At least five more of the accused die in prison.

All twenty-six who go to trial before this court are convicted.

The four sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, held in Salem Village, but also in Ipswich, Boston and Charlestown, produce only three convictions in the thirty-one witchcraft trials it conducts.

The two courts convict twenty-nine people of the capital felony of witchcraft.

Nineteen of the accused, fourteen women and five men, are hanged.

One man (Giles Corey) who refuses to enter a plea is crushed to death under heavy stones in an attempt to force him to do so.