After the Witch Trials died down in Europe it traveled to the New World where it was most popular in Salem, Massachusetts. Starting in June 1692 and ending in October of the same year the most known of the American witch hunts. This period is known to most as the Salem Witch Trials. This time of panic began when a man named Reverend Samuel Parris moved his family to Salem. When Samuel's daughter and
niece, Betty and Abigail, got strangely
sick plagued with hyperactivity, fever,
and pain. When more kids got sick with
this strange disease they started to point
fingers. One person that the town of Salem
blamed was Samuel Parris’ Native American Slave, Titula, for bewitching the children. The town of Salem instituted a court to put these witches on trial, The Court of Oyer and Terminer. Governor William Phipps disbanded the court of Oyer and Terminer in October of 1692. In the end eighteen people were executed for practicing witchcraft, one man being pressed to death.
The European Witch Trials ended around the sixteenth and seventeenth century. In 1563 the English Parliament passed a law against witch hunts. The last legal execution was in Switzerland in 1782. In Europe 110,000 were in trial, and 60,000 were killed and around 95% were women. In the Salem witch trials 234 underwent trial and 36 were killed (Bentley 635).
This was important in the impact of history because the witch trials in Europe transferred to the New World and Salem, Massachusetts. This gave people a long fear of witches and worshipping the devil through the generations. The belief of witches, is now almost non existent, it is still recognised as a fear known as wiccaphobia.
Samuel Parris
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