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Witch Trials Memorial

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Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Witch Trials Memorial
Address:
176 Hobart St, Danvers, MA 01923-1808

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 . 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 generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in several towns: Salem Village , Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover. The most infamous trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. The episode is one of Colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria. It has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process. It was not unique, but a Colonial American example of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period, which took place also in Europe. Many historians consider the lasting effects of the trials to have been highly influential in subsequent United States history. According to historian George Lincoln Burr, the Salem witchcraft was the rock on which the theocracy shattered.At the 300th anniversary events in 1992 to commemorate the victims of the trials, a park was dedicated in Salem and a memorial in Danvers. In November 2001, an act passed by the Massachusetts legislature exonerated 5 people, while another one, passed in 1957, had previously exonerated 6 other victims. As of 2004 there was still talk about exonerating all the victims, though some think that happened in the 19th century as the Massachusetts colonial legislature was asked to reverse the attainders of George Burroughs and others. In January 2016, the University of Virginia announced its Gallows Hill Project team had determined the execution site in Salem, where the nineteen witches had been hanged. The city owns the site and is planning to establish a memorial to the victims.
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