Salem witch trials 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 (fourteen women and five men). One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death for refusing to plead, and at least five people died in jail. It was the deadliest witch hunt in the history of the United States. Twelve other women had previously been executed in Massachusetts and Connecticut during the 17th century. Despite being
Witch trials in the early modern period Europe and in the American Colonies. In the Nordic countries, the late 17th century saw the peak of the trials in a number of areas: the Torsåker witch trials of Sweden (1674), where 71 people were executed for witchcraft in a single day, the peak of witch hunting in Swedish Finland, and the Salzburg witch trials in Austria (where 139 people were executed from 1675–1690). The 1692 Salem witch trials were a brief outburst of witch-phobia in the New World while the practice was waning in Europe. In the 1690s Winifred King Benham and her daughter Winifred were thrice tried