[Note: If you’d like to read “Today In Salem” from beginning to end, start at the first post. Read (or scroll) to the bottom, then click “Tomorrow in Salem.” Each post ends with the same “tomorrow” link and will take you sequentially through the story.]
Happy Halloween, and 253 thanks for following the story of “Today in Salem”! This story began with two girls in the minister’s family, afflicted by unseen forces. It ends 253 days later, after 20 executions, several deaths in prison, nearly 200 people arrested, and countless accusations.
Now the Governor has dissolved the Court and banned all arrests except in cases of “unavoidable necessity.”
Here’s the problem, though. Well over 100 people are still in jail. Several of them are children. Five women are condemned, and two of them are pregnant. But without a Court, there can be no trials. Without trials, those prisoners can’t be released. Executions are also on hold.
There needs to be some sort of official proceeding. So …
What happened next?
In November and December, the afflicted girls continued their fits and accusations, and five more people were arrested (despite the Governor’s ban). The other prisoners languished.
In early January, the Governor assigned all of the outstanding cases to the Superior Court. In two weeks they tried 51 cases. 30 of them were dismissed due to insufficient evidence. Of the other 21, eighteen were found not guilty. Three were found guilty and sentenced to hang (with the five who were already in jail waiting).
In late January, eight graves were dug for those who would be executed. The next day, the Governor granted reprieves to all eight of the condemned.
Five more cases were cleared by proclamation, and another five defendants were cleared after pleading not guilty. At that point Governor Phips, perhaps tired of the whole ordeal, reprieved all of the remaining prisoners. All of them were free to go, as soon as they paid their jail bills.
Several people remained in prison because they were too impoverished to pay their bill. The enslaved Tituba, who was one of the first arrested, was probably the last to be released when, in October, an unknown person paid her fees.
The Legacy of the Salem Witchcraft Trials
When the trials ended, it wasn’t because people stopped believing in witchcraft. Quite the contrary: Witches were real and witchcraft was ever-present. So what changed? Why did the trials end? The people stopped believing that their legal system could accurately find and stop witches.
That lack of confidence in the courts played a role in today’s guarantee of the right to legal representation, the right to cross-examine one’s accuser, and the presumption of innocence rather than of guilt.
Clearing the “Witches” Names
Five years after the trials, the General Court ordered a day of fasting and prayer about the witchcraft tragedy. Five years after that, the court declared the trials unlawful. And nearly two decades after the trials, the colony passed a bill restoring the rights and good names of those accused, granting £600 restitution to their heirs.
In the mid-1800s, many of the condemned “witches” were exonerated. In 1957, the Massachusetts State Legislature exonerated another six. In 2001 the act was amended to include five more.
Next summer, in July 2022, the last condemned witch will be exonerated.
If you’d like to read “Today In Salem” from beginning to end, start at the first post. Read (or scroll) to the bottom, then click “Tomorrow in Salem.” Each post ends with the same “tomorrow” link and will take you sequentially through the story.