Salem witch trials in 1692. Faulkner admitted she was “angry at what folk said,” and the Devil may have temporarily overtaken her, causing harm to her neighbors. Women who did not conform to the norms of Puritan society were more likely to be the target of an accusation, especially those who were unmarried or did not have children. General: Salem witch trials The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused, nineteen of whom were found guilty and executed by hanging
Salem witch trials physician and author Thomas Browne, to be used in the Bury St Edmunds witch trial and the accusations against two Lowestoft women, the colonial magistrates also accepted its validity and their trials proceeded. Sometime in February 1692, likely after the afflictions began but before specific names were mentioned, a neighbor of Rev. Parris, Mary Sibly (or Sibley; aunt of Mary Walcott), instructed John Indian, one of the minister's slaves, to make a "witch cake." She intended to use traditional English white magic to discover the identity of the witch who was afflicting the girls. The cake, made from rye meal