Civil magistrates in massachussetts set up a special court in 1692 to

Civil magistrates in Massachusetts set up a special court in 1692 to try people accused of witchcraft.

Civil magistrates in Massachusetts set up a special court in 1692 to carry out prosecutions of people accused of practicing witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. Witchcraft trials resulted in the imprisonment and execution of several people and many women were hanged.

It all started because in 1692, a group of white women were found in Salem (Massachusetts) at night dancing naked in a forest next to a bonfire. They were accompanied by Tituba, a slave who had recently been brought from the Island of Barbados in the Caribbean.  This evidence was later confirmed by other people, who in the middle of public interrogations say they had dreams or visions in which the accused were seen communing with the devil.

In 1957 the Massachusetts General Court declared that these procedures were the "result of fear and popular hysteria that produced the figure of the devil." Therefore, the State recognized its responsibility in the death of innocent people.

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