The Witch Trials in Salem (0)

Witchcraft

Witchcraft is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A  witch  (from Old English  wicca m. / wicce f.) is a practitioner of witchcraft. Historically, it was widely believed that witchcraft involved the use of these powers to inflict harm upon members of a community or their property, and that all witches were in league with the devil .  Since the mid 20th century , the term witchcraft has sometimes been used to distinguish between bad witchcraft and good witchcraft, with the latter often involving healing. Human misfortune was often blamed on a supernatural entity or a known person in the community.
Reasons for accusations of witchcraft fall into four general categories:

• A person was caught in the act of positive or negative sorcery
  
• A well- meaning sorcerer or healer lost their clients' or the authorities' trust
  
• A person did nothing more than gain the enmity of their neighbours
  
• A person was reputed to be a witch and surrounded with an aura of witch- beliefs
  

Éva Pócs in turn identifies three varieties of witch in popular belief :

• The "neighbourhood witch" or " social witch": a witch who curses a neighbour following some conflict.
  
• The "magical" or "sorcerer" witch: either a professional healer, sorcerer, seer or midwife, or a person who has through magic increased her fortune to the perceived detriment of a neighbouring household; due to neighbourly or community rivalries and the ambiguity between positive and negative magic, such individuals can become labelled as witches.
  
• The "supernatural" or " night " witch: portrayed as a demon appearing in visions and dreams.
  

The familiar witch of  folklore  and popular superstition is a combination of numerous influences . The characterization of the witch as an evil magic user developed over time.
The Protestant Christian explanation for witchcraft commonly involves adiabolical pact . The witches or wizards engaged to such practices were alleged to reject  Jesus  and the sacraments; observe "the witches' sabbath" (performing infernal rites which often parodied the sacraments of the Church ); pay Divine honour to the Prince of Darkness; and, in return , receive from him preternatural powers. It was a folkloric belief that a Devil's Mark, like the brand on cattle , was placed upon a witch's skin by the devil to signify that this pact had been made. Witches were most often characterized as women . It was believed that a witch often joined a pact with the devil to gain powers to deal with infertility, immense fear for her children 's well-being, or revenge against a lover.
The long-term result of amalgamation of distinct types of magic-worker into one is the considerable present -day confusion as to what witches actually did, whether they harmed or healed, what role they had in the community, whether they can be identified with the "witches" of other cultures and even whether they existed as anything other than a projection. Present-day beliefs about the witches of history attribute to them elements of the folklore witch, the charmer, the cunning man or wise woman , the diviner and the astrologer.
Powers typically attributed to European witches include turning food poisonous or inedible, flying on broomsticks or pitchforks, casting spells, cursing people, making livestock ill and crops fail, and creating fear and local chaos.

Witch-hunts

Among the Catholics, Protestants, and secularleadership of the European  Late   Medieval / Early Modern period (in the 14th and 18th century), fears about witchcraft rose to fever pitch, and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts, especially in Germanic Europe . Throughout this time, it was increasingly believed that Christianity was engaged in an apocalyptic battle against the Devil and his secret army of witches, who had entered into a  diabolical pact.
The Malleus Maleficarum, an infamous witch- hunting manual used by both Catholics and Protestants, outlines how to identify a witch, what makes a woman more likely than a man to be a witch, how to put a witch on trial , and how to punish a witch. In the modern Western world, witchcraft accusations have often accompanied the satanic ritual abuse moral panic . Such accusations are a counterpart to  blood libel  of various kinds, which may be found throughout history across the globe .
Though witch-craze took different forms at different times and places , but never lost its essential character : that of a ruling class campaign of terror directed against the female peasant population. Witches represented a political , religious and sexual threat to the Protestant and Catholic churches alike, as well as to the state. Many people were executed, and others were imprisoned, tortured, banished, and had lands and possessions confiscated. The majority of those accused were women.
Current scholarly estimates of the number of people executed for witchcraft vary between about 40,000 and 100,000. The total number of witch trials in Europe which are known for certain to have ended in executions is around 12,000. In Early Modern European tradition , witches have stereotypically, though not exclusively , been women. Witch-hunts  first appeared in large numbers in southern France and Switzerland during the 14th and 15th centuries . The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670. One writer has estimated the number of executions at an avarage of 600 a year for certain German cities – or two a day. Nine -hundred witches were put to deathh in a day. In the Bishopric of Trier, in 1585, two villages were left with only one female inhabitant each. Many writers have estimated the total number killed to have been in the millions . Women made up some 85 percent of Athose executed – old women, young women and children.
In locale and timing, the most virulent witch hunts were associated with periods of great social upheaval shaking feodalism at its roots – mass peasent uprising and conspiracies, the beginnings of capitalism, and the rise of Protestantism. There is fragmentary evidence – which feminists ought to follorw up – suggesting that in some areas witchcraft represented a female-led peasant rebellion. The history of the witches was recorded by the elite, so that today we know the witch only through the eyes of her persecutor.
Two of the most common theories of the witch hunts are basically medical interpretations, attributing the the witch witch craze to unexplainable outbreaks of mass hysteria. One version has it that the peasantry went mad. According to this, the witch-craze was an epidemic of mass hatred and panic cast in image of a blood-lusty peasant mob bearing flaming torches. Another psychiatric interpretation holds that witches themselves were isane . One authoritative psychiatric historian, Gregory Zilboorg, wrote that:
…millions of of witches, sorcereres, possessed and obsessed were an enormous mass of severe neurotics [and] psychotics … for many years the world looked like a veritable isane asylum..
But, in fact , the witch-craze was neither a lynching party nor a mass suicide by hysterical women. Rather , it followed well-ordered, legalistic procedures. The witch-hunts were well-organized campaigns, initiated, financed and executed by Church and State. To Catholic and Protestant witch-hunters alike, the unquestioned authority on how to conduct a witch huntes the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches, written in 1848 by the Reverends Kramer and Spregner (the „ beloved sons“ of Pope Innocent VIII.) For three centuries this sadistic book lay on the bench of every judge , every witch hunte. In a long section on judicial proceedings, the instructions make it clear how the „hysteria“ was set off:
The job of initiating a witch trial was to be performed by either the Vicar (priest) or Judge of the County , who was to post a notice to direct , command, require and admonish that within the space of twelve days …that they should reveal it into us if anyone us if anyone know, see or have heard that any person is reporter to be a herectic or a witch, or if any is suspected especially of such practices as cause injury to men, cattle, or the frits ofthe earth, to the loss of the State.Anyone failing to report a witch faced both excommunication and a long list of temporal punishments.
If this threatening notice exposed at least one witch, her treial could be used to unearth several more. Kramer and Sprenger gave detailed instructions. Commonly, the accused was stripped naked and shaved of all her body hair, then subjected to thumb-screws and the rack , spikes and bone-crushing „boots,“ starvation and beatings. The point is obvious: The witch-craze did not arise spontaneously in the peasantry. It was a calculated ruling class campaign of terrorization.
The Church and European society were not always so zealous in hunting witches or blaming them for bad occurrences. Saint Boniface declared in the 8th century that belief in the existence of witches was un-Christian. The emperor  Charlemagne decreed that the burning of supposed witches was a pagan custom that would be punished by the  death penalty. In 820 the Bishop of Lyon and others repudiated the belief that witches could make bad weather , fly in the night, and change their shape . This denial was accepted into  Canon law  until it was reversed in later centuries as the witch-hunt gained force . In 1307 the trial of the Knights Templar shows close parallels to accusations of witchcraft, maleficium, and sorcery and may have been the beginning of the great European witch-hunt. Other rulers such as  King Coloman of Hungary declared that witch-hunts should cease because witches do not exist .

The Crimes of the Witches

Undoubtedly, over the centuries of witch hunting, the charge of „witchcraft“ came to cover a multitude of sins ranging from political subversion and religious heresy to lewdness and blasphemy. But three central accusations emerge repeatedly in history of witchcraft throughout northern Europe: First, witches are accused of every conceivable sexual crime against men. Quite simply, they are „accused“ of female sexuality. Second, they are accused of being organized. Third, they are accused of häving magical powers affecting health – of harming, but also of healing. They were often charged specifically with posessing medical and obstetrical skills.
First, consider the charge of sexual crimes. The medievaal Catholic Church elevated sexism to a point of principle: The Malleus declares, „When a woman thinks alone , she thinks evil.“
The Church associated women with sex, and all pleasure in sex was condemned, because it could only come from the devil. Witches were supposed to have gotten pleasure from copulation with the devil and they in turn infected men. Lust in either man or wife , then, was blamed on the female. On the ohter hand , witchs were accused of making men impotent. As for female sexuality, witches were accused, in effect , of giving contraceptive aid and of performing abortions.
In the eyes of the Church, all the witches’ powers was ultimately derived from her sexuality. Her career began with sexual intercourse with the devil. Each witch was confirmed at a general meeting (the witches’ Sabbath) at witch the devil presided, often in the form of a goat, and had intercourse with the neophytes. In return for her powers, the witch pomised to serve him faithfully. (in the imagination of the Church even evil could be thought of as ultimately male -directed!) As the Malleus makes clear, the devil almost always acts through the female, just as he did in Eden .
Not only were the witches women – they were women who seemed to be organized into an enormous secret society. A witch who was a proved member of the „Devil’s party“ was more dreadful than one who had acted alone.
In fact, there is evidence that women accused of being witches did meet locally in small groups and that these groups came together in crowds of hundreds or thousands on festival days. Some writers speculate that the meetings were occasions for pagan religious worship. Undoubtedly the meetings were also occasions for trading erbal lore and passing on the news. We have little evidence about the political significance of the witches’ organizations, but it’s hard to imagine that they weren’t connected to the peasant rebellions of the time. Any peasant organization, just by being an organization, would attract dissidents, increase communicationn between villages, and build a spirit of collectivity and autonomy among peasants.

Witches as healers

The witch is accused not only of murdering and poisoning, sex crimes and conspiracy – but of helping and healing. Witch-healers were often the only general medical practioners for peole who had no doctors and no hospitals and who were bitterly afflicted with poverty and disease . In particular , the association of the witch and the midwife was strong .
The Church was not against medical care for upper class. Kings and nobless had their court physicians who were men, sometimes even priests. The real issue was control : Male upper class healing under the auspices of the Church was acceptable; female healing as part of a peasant subculture was not.
The witch-healers’s methods were seen as great a threat (to the Catholic Church, if not the Protestant) as her results , for the witch was an empiricist: She relied on her senses rather than on faith or doctrine, she believed in trial and error , cause and effect. She trusted her ability to find ways to deal with disease, pregnancy and childbirth – wheter through medications or charms. For the Church , however , the senses are the devil’s playground, the arena into which he will try to lure men away from Faith and into the conceits of the intellect or the delusions of carnality.
While witches practiced among the peole, the ruling classes were cultivating their own breed of secular healers: the university - trained physicians. In the century that preceded the beginning of the „witch-craze“ – 13th century – European medicine became firmly established as a secular science and a profession. The medical profession was actively engaged in the elimination of female healers – their exclusion from the universitiess, for example – long before the witch-hunts began.
There was nothing in late medieval medical training that conflicted with church doctrine. Medical students spent years studying Plato, Aristotle and Christian theology and a doctor rarely saw any patients at all, and no experimentation of any kind was taught. Medicine was sharply differentiated from surgery, which was almost everywhere considered a degrading, menial craft, and the dissection of bodies was almost unheard of. It was witches who developed an extensive understanding of bonnes and muscles, herbs and drugs.
By the 14th century,the medical profession’s campaign against urban , educated women healers was virtually complete throughout Europe. Male doctors had won a clear monopol over the practice of medicine among the upper classes. They were ready to take on a key role in the elmination of the great mass of female healers – the „witches.“
The partnership between Church, State and medical profession reached full bloom in the witch trials. The doctor was held up the medical „expert,“ giving an aura of science to the whole proceeding. He was asked to make judgements about whether certain women were witches and whether certain afflictions had been caused by witchcraft. In the witch-hunts, the Church explicitly legitimized the doctors’ professionalism, denouncing non-professional healing as equivalent the heresy: „If a woman dare to cure without having studied she is a witch and must die.“ Finally , the witch craze provided a handy excuse for the doctor’s failings in everyday practice: Anything he couldn’t cure was obviously the result of sorcery.
The distinction between „female“ superstition and „male“ medicine was made final by the very role of the doctor and the witch at the trial. The trial in one stroke established the male physician on a moral and intellectual plane vastly above the female healer he was called to judge. It placed him on the side of God and Law, a professional on par with lawyers and theologians, while it placed her on the side of darkness, evil and magic.

The Trials

In many parts of Europe people accused of witchcraft were tortured until they 'confessed'. Obviously if you were tortured you would probably 'confess' to anything to stop the torture . However torture was not used in England and after 1594 it was not used in Holland, (which is probably one reason why there were fewer executions for witchcraft there). In England witches were hanged not burned. In the rest of Europe witches were usually burned but normally they were strangled first.
Some people confessed without torture but that does not mean they were guilty. In recent years a number of people have falsely confessed to murder. Vulnerable people may confess to serious crimes. By no means all people tried and executed for witchcraft were women. The majority were female but a significant minority were men.

The Decline of the Witch Hunts

Witch-hunts sometimes ended because many people feared they were going too far and innocent people were being executed. Witch trials became more rigorous and higher standards of evidence were demanded. More and more people in the 17th century and early 18th century opposed the use of torture to obtain confessions, not necessarily because it was cruel but because it was not a reliable way of gaining information. Increasingly judges, would not accept confessions unless they were voluntary and not obtained by torture.
People also became sceptical about so-called spectral evidence. Some supposed victims of witchcraft claimed they were being tormented by the 'spectres' of the people who bewitched them. That happened at Salem in 1692 but the authorities decided that spectral evidence was not enough to obtain a conviction. As a result the witch hunt collapsed.Some Protestant scholars also pointed out that popular beliefs about witches had no support from the Bible . Many people believed witches existed but did not believe the more ludicrous stories about them.
Furthermore most people also became sceptical about cases where witches were supposed to have used magic to kill people. Increasingly people realised that the deaths might have been due to natural causes and they required proof they that were not. People did not necessarily stop believing in witches, at least not at first, but they became much more cautious about accepting 'evidence' of witchcraft realising that many maladies and mishaps have natural causes.
Eventually however educated people gradually stopped believing in witches and magic. During the 18th century it became fashionable to regard witchcraft as just a superstition. In England the last execution for witchcraft was in 1684 . By 1736 attitudes had changed so much that laws against witchcraft were repealed in England. They were replaced by a law that made it illegal to pretend to cast spells or tell fortunes.
The last legal execution for witchcraft in Europe was in Switzerland in 1782.

The Salem witch trials

The witch hysteria

The witch hysteria in Salem began in January 1692. It led to the deaths of more than 20. Altogether 19 people were executed by hanging . (In most of Europe witches were burned but in England and the North American colonies the punishment was hanging). Another man, 80 year old Giles Corey was pressed to death. He was accused of being a witch but before the trial could proceed he had to plead guilty or not guilty. Corey bravely refused to plead. To try and force him heavy weights were placed on him. The unfortunate man eventually died from this torture. (At one point his tongue was forced out of his mouth and the sheriff, George Corwin, pushed it back in with a cane). Furthermore four people died in prison while awaiting trial (Lyndia Dustin, Ann Foster , Sarah Osborne and Roger Toothaker).
The witch mania began when two girls , 9 year old Betty Parris and her 11 year old cousin Abigail Williams tried fortune telling. The two were staying with Betty’s father , Reverend Samuel Parris. During the winter they and their friends dabbled with fortune telling by cracking eggs into a glass and interpreting the shapes that were formed.
The family owned a slave called Tituba. She was an Arawak Indian . (Tituba is often described as a ‘ black slave’. In fact, there is no evidence that she was black. She was actually Native American). She may have been present when the fortune telling took place . It has also been suggested that Tituba told the girls tales about witchcraft and so influenced them.
Whatever exactly happened by 20 January 1692 the two girls were having strange fits. A doctor called William Griggs was called but he was unable to explain the fits. He claimed the girls were bewitched. Unfortunately he started a chain of events .
Later several other girls began to have fits, 18 year old Elizabeth Booth, 20 year old Sarah Churchill, 17 year old Elizabeth Hubbard, 19 year old Mercy Lewis, 12 year old Ann Putnam , 18 year old Susan Sheldon, 16 year old Mary Walcott, 20 year old Mary Warren. (So the youngest of the 'afflicted' girls were children while the oldest were young women).
There were cases in England of girls having fits and then accusing people of witchcraft but what was unusual in Salem was the sheer scale of the accusations.
Meanwhile on 25 February a woman named Mary Sibley persuaded Tituba and her husband John to bake a ‘witch cake ’. It was made from rye and the urine of the two original girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams. In those days people believed that if you suspected a person was bewitched, you could make a witch cake and feed it to a dog. If the dog then behaved like the afflicted person it was proof that witchcraft was the cause. In this case a dog was given the cake and its behaviour afterwards was said to be like that of the afflicted girls. This was taken as evidence that witchcraft was indeed responsible .
The girls then ‘identified’ those responsible. They blamed three women, Tituba, the slave, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. Significantly all three women had low status . If the girls had accused respected members of the community they might not have been believed. Tituba was looked down upon because she was only a slave. Sarah Good was poor and sometimes begged for food. Sarah Osborne had not been to church for a year. That earned her disapproval from many of her neighbours.
On 29 February 1692 the three were arrested. On 1 March Judge John Hathorne and Judge Jonathan Corwin examined them. Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne denied the charges but Tituba confessed. Perhaps she felt that if she denied the charge she would not be believed, after all she was only a slave. She may also have hoped that if she confessed she would be spared. If so she was correct . Tituba was imprisoned for a while but she was not executed. Once the witch hysteria was over Tituba withdrew her confession.
One of the most horrific aspects of the witch hysteria was that if you were accused and you confessed your life was spared. However if you were accused and you denied the charge but where then convicted you were hanged. Furthermore if you expressed scepticism about the witch trials you put yourself in danger. You might be accused to being a witch.
The two other women steadfastly continued to deny any involvement in witchcraft. Sarah Osborne died in prison on May 10 while awaiting trial.
Meanwhile more and more people were arrested. Firstly, In her confession Tituba claimed that she met a ‘ tall man from Boston ’ (the authorities believed he must have been Satan). She said she was forced to sing a book, which had other named written in it. That convinced the authorities that there must be other witches in Salem apart from those originally arrested. Furthermore in Mid-March Ann Putnam accused a woman named Martha Corey of being a witch. Then an old woman named Rebecca Nurse was accused.
Soon so many people were arrested that on 27 May 1692 the governor, Sir William Phips ( 1651 -1695), set up a special court of ‘oyer and terminer’ to deal with them all.

The executions

The first person to be executed was called Bridget Bishop. She was a controversial figure in the community. She had been married three times and she ran two taverns. Worse, she had been tried for witchcraft before, in 1680. Yet the evidence against her was feeble . It was said that dolls with pins in them were found in her house. Despite the flimsiness of the evidence the unfortunate woman was convicted on 2 June . She was hanged on 10 June.
If the evidence against Bishop was, at best , circumstantial, the evidence against other people was absurd ! The afflicted girls claimed that they could see the accused person’s ‘spectre’ attacking them even when the accused was not physically present. (Naturally only they could see the ‘spectres’). Even for the 17th century spectral evidence was very unusual. Unfortunately the judge William Stoughton 1631-1701 insisted on admitting spectral evidence.
Another form of 'evidence' was provided by touching. People believed that if a girl had a fit and if the accused person touched her and the fits stopped that was evidence that the accused person was a witch!. It did not seem to occur to them that it is easy to fake a fit and just as easy to fake it stopping.
Yet another form of 'evidence' sought was the Devil's mark or witch mark. People believed that when a person agreed to serve the Devil he kissed or bit them. That left a mark on the person's body. Any mole , birthmark or abnormal growth could be seen as a witch mark. Obviously most people have a mole or birthmark somewhere. Anyone accused of being a witch was likely to be stripped and examined. People believed that if any unusual mark or growth was pricked but did not bleed it was evidence you were a witch. (Unlike 'spectral evidence', which was highly unusual looking for witch marks was common in the 17th century). As you can see if you were accused to witchcraft you had very little chance of being found not guilty.
On 29 June Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Sarah Wilds and Rebecca Nurse, were tried. They were hanged on 19 July .
The trial of Rebecca Nurse was a travesty. She was an old lady of good character and the jury acquitted her. However the girls who accused her of being a witch had fits or fainted. Incredibly the judge, William Stoughton, 'invited' the jury to ‘reconsider’ their verdict. This time they found her guilty. (Perhaps the jurors were afraid  they would be accused of being witches unless they brought the 'right' verdict).
However many people were having increasing doubts about the guilt of the accused. On 5 August, George Burroughs, Martha Carrier , George Jacobs, John and Elizabeth Proctor, and John Willard were tired and found guilty.
John Proctor was a farmer aged about 60. He was an outspoken man who was openly sceptical about the witch trials. Nevertheless it was his wife Elizabeth who was accused first. John Proctor bravely defended her and as a result he was accused of being a witch. John Proctor wrote a letter to the Boston clergy denouncing the unfairness of the trials. His letter probably did have some effect but unfortunately it did not save his life.
Elizabeth Proctor was spared because she was pregnant but the others were hanged on August 19. Before John Proctor died he said the Lords Prayer (the ‘Our Father)’, without making any mistakes. Witches were not supposed to be able to do that and he sowed seeds of doubt in many people’s minds. Some people demanded that Burroughs should be set free but Cotton Mather managed to persuade the people to go ahead and hang him.
Giles Corey was pressed to death on 19 September. Finally on 22 September Martha Corey, Mary East , Alice Parker , Mary Parker, Ann Updater, Wilmot Reed , Margaret Scott and Samuel Waddell were hanged.

The end

However public opinion was now turning against the witch trials. So many people were being accused of witchcraft it started to seem absurd. People could not believe that so many of their neighbours were witches. Furthermore people were increasingly worried that innocent people were being executed. There were also increasing doubts about the value of ‘spectral’ evidence. Finally on 8 October 1692 Sir William Phips eventually forbade the court to allow ‘spectral’ evidence. Also on 29 October he dissolved the special court he had set up to try ‘witches’.
However the trials continued in an 'ordinary’ court, which formed in November 1692. The last trials for witchcraft were held in January 1693. Three more people were convicted but were reprieved by the governor. Unfortunately judge William Stoughton at first, presided over the court. He was a zealous believer in witchcraft was determined to root out any remaining 'witches'. Thankfully he left in early January 1693. Finally in May 1693 Governor Phips pardoned all those in prison (either convicted or awaiting trial).
In 1696 some jurors admitted they had made a terrible mistake.
In 1697 a day of fasting and praying for forgiveness was held. It was called the Day of Official Humiliation. One of the judges who presided over the witch trials, Samuel Sewall, publicly apologised.

Why did it happen?

Nobody is certain but a number of theories have been put forward . It has been suggested that the people of Salem felt insecure and this was a contributing factor to the hysteria. They were afraid of Indian attacks and afraid of smallpox. Furthermore in 1684 King Charles II revoked the Massachusetts Bay charter . Although he gave another charter in 1691 this may have increased the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. The winter of 1692-93 was also harsh adding to people's anxiety . Perhaps that made the people more susceptible to outbreaks of hysteria than usual.
Furthermore there were conflicts between the wealthy families in Salem village . There was also conflict between Salem village and Salem town. It has been suggested that the witch hysteria was really an excuse for one group to attack another.
Or perhaps there was some psychological explanation. Perhaps some psychological condition caused the girl’s symptoms. Perhaps the girls enjoyed the attention and power they received and perhaps the whole thing got out of hand. Maybe once the girls had started they felt they could not stop.
There is also a theory that a fungus called ergot caused the hysteria. It grows on rye and caused hallucinations and bizarre and erratic behaviour. It has been blamed for the ‘dancing crazes’ in Europe in the Middle Ages when loads of people started ‘dancing’ uncontrollably.
We will probably never know exactly what happened but the Salem witch trials passed into legend. They formed the basis of Arthur Miller ’s play The Crucible, which was written in 1953 at the McCarthy’s ‘witch hunts’. After Salem nobody else was executed for witchcraft in America. However in 1706 a woman named Grace Sherwood from Virginia was convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to 8 years in prison. The same year, 1706, one of the 'afflicted' girls, Ann Putnam, apologised to the congregation of her church. She claimed that 'It was a great delusion of Satan that deceived me at that sad time'. So she blamed the Devil for the deaths of many innocent people rather than accepting responsibility.
In 1702 the General Court ( legislature ) of Massachusetts overturned the convictions for witchcraft and in 1711 they granted compensation to the relatives of the victims bringing the whole sorry episode to an end.
In the early 18th century belief in witches died out.
Finally in 1992 a memorial was erected to those who were wrongly executed at Salem.

’The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller

The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller (1915–2005). It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials. It was first staged in 1953, it was widely acclaimed as a metaphor for the recklessness of Joseph McCarthy and his spurious crusade against communism.
After a group of young women is accused of witchcraft in the Puritan community of Salem, Mass. in 1692, Abigail Williams is held in suspicion of practicing magic. Abigail in turn levels charges against John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth. Abigail has a private grudge against the Proctors; while working as their servant, she had an affair with John, and when John ended the relationship and returned to his wife, Abigail was fired . Now the Reverend Parris is hearing accusations and counter -accusations of misdeeds from all sides of the community in the wake of Abigail's charges, so he brings in Judge Danforth to determine who is guilty or innocent. However, given the moral climate of the time, it seems someone has to be found guilty of witchcraft, even though firm evidence of wrongdoing is becoming hard to come by. 

Metaphorical usage

In modern terminology 'witch-hunt' has acquired usage referring to the act of seeking and persecuting any perceived enemy, particularly when the search is conducted using extreme measures and with little regard to actual guilt or innocence. It is used whether or not it is sanctioned by the government , or merely occurs within the "court of public opinion".
The first such use reported by the  Oxford English Dictionary dates to 1932. Another early instance is George Orwell 's Homage to Catalonia (1938). The term is used by Orwell to describe how, in the  Spanish Civil War, political persecutions became a regular occurrence.
The term is used when a hunt for wrongdoers becomes abused, and a defendant can be convicted merely on an accusation. For example, in the History Channel  documentary  America: The Story of Us, narrator Liev Schreiberexplains that "the search for runaway slaves becomes a witch hunt. A black man can be convicted with merely an accusation. Unlike white people, they do not have the right to trial by jury. Judges are paid ten dollars to rule them as slaves, five to set them free."
Use of the term was popularized in the United States in the context of the McCarthyist search for communists during the  Cold War, which was discredited partly through being compared to the Salem witch trials.
From the 1960s , the term was in wide use and could also be applied to isolated incidents or scandals, specifically public smear-campaigns against individuals. The McMartin preschool trial of 1984 to 1990 is another iconic example of a moral panic which saw day care providers accused of what was dubbed "satanic ritual abuse", i.e. the charge ofphysical and sexual child abuse out of an alleged Satanist  motivation . The case and the associated media coverage was frequently termed a witch-hunt by commentators.
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