Salem Witch Trials

The Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft—the Devil's magic—and 20 were executed. Eventually, the colony admitted the trials were a mistake and compensated the families of those convicted. Since then, the story of the trials has become synonymous with paranoia and injustice, and it continues to beguile the popular imagination more than 300 years later.

This map of Salem Village is a reconstruction of how Salem looked in 1692 at the start of the witch trials as created in 1866 from historical records by Charles W. Upham

Petition for bail from accused witches" from the John Davis Batchelder Autograph Collection