To understand the events of the Salem witch trials, it is necessary to examine
the times in which accusations of witchcraft occurred. There were the
ordinary stresses of 17th-century life in Massachusetts Bay Colony. A
strong belief in the devil, factions among Salem Village fanatics and
rivalry with nearby Salem Town, a recent small pox epidemic and the threat
of attack by warring tribes created a fertile ground for fear and suspicion.
Soon prisons were filled with more than 150 men and women from towns surrounding
Salem. Their names had been "cried out" by tormented young girls
as the cause of their pain. All would await trial for a crime punishable
by death in 17th-century New England, the practice of witchcraft.