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 in 1692, although dated 1693, with an introductory letter of endorsement by William Stoughton, the Chief Magistrate. The book included accounts of five trials, with much of the material copied directly from the court records, which were supplied to Mather by Stephen Sewall, his friend and Clerk of the Court. Mather's father, Increase Mather, published "Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits", dated October 3, 1692, after the last trials by the Court of Oyer and Terminer. (The title page mistakenly lists the publication year as "1693".) In it, Increase Mather repeated his caution about the reliance on spectral evidence, stating