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The first person to be tried and executed during the Salem witch trials. [23] Elizabeth Howe: 1635–1692: Massachusetts Bay Colony: Hanged during the Salem witch trials. George Burroughs: c. 1650–1692: Massachusetts Bay Colony: Congregational pastor, executed as part of the Salem witch trials. [24] George Jacobs: 1620–1692: Massachusetts ...
The Salem witch trials followed in 1692–93. These witch trials were the most famous in British North America and took place in the coastal settlements near Salem, Massachusetts. Prior to the witch trials, nearly three hundred men and women had been suspected of partaking in witchcraft, and nineteen of these people were hanged, and one was ...
A witch hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the Middle East. In medieval Europe, witch-hunts often arose in connection to charges of heresy from
Frontispiece from Matthew Hopkins's The Discovery of Witches (1647), showing witches identifying their familiar spirits. Following the Lancaster Witch Trials (1612–1634), William Harvey, physician to King Charles I of England, had been ordered to examine the four women accused, [29] and from this there came a requirement to have material proof of being a witch. [30]
If the person was a witch, it was supposed that within twenty four hours an imp would appear to feed off the witch. An imp was a small creature, or familiar, who depended upon the witch for daily sustenance. The watching of Margaret Jones occurred on May 18, 1648 and Winthrop recorded an imp was seen "In the clear light of day." [3]
She remarks that the period the witch-hunts happened in the world history took place at the same time with the conquest of America, beginning of the slave trade, and expropriation of the peasantry; which all indicate the rise of capitalism. In her view, the witch-hunt was the forgotten piece of the historical puzzle of the emergence of capitalism.
Witch trials were most frequent in England in the first half of the 17th century. They reached their most intense phase during the English Civil War of the 1640s and the Puritan era of the 1650s. This was a period of intense witch hunts, known for witch hunters such as Matthew Hopkins.
The Path of the Devil: Early Modern Witch Hunts. Rowman & Littlefield 2006 Lanham ISBN 0-7425-4697-7; Notestein, Wallace, A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 Kessinger Publishing: U.S.A. 2003 ISBN 0-7661-7918-4; Discovery of the Beldam Witch Trials: The Examinations, Confessions and Information Taken; in 1645 Essex. USA, 2016.