- [Narrator] 300 years ago,
a frenzy swept through the small village of Salem.
Townsfolk believed that there were witches in their midst.
Women were accused.
Trials were held, and people were executed.
So, how did this happen?
What really caused the spine-chilling Salem witch trials?
Let's find out in today's episode of--
- [Announcer] "Colossal Mysteries."
- [Narrator] The infamous Salem witch trials took place
in colonial Massachusetts all the way back in 1692.
During the hysteria,
more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft,
and 20 of those poor souls were put to death.
Fear of witches certainly didn't start at Salem.
A witchcraft craze spread all across Europe in the 1300s,
and by the late 1600s,
tens of thousands of people had been executed.
The Salem witch trials officially began in 1692,
but the fuse was really lit three years earlier
when England and France went to war
in the American colonies.
The war destroyed large parts of upstate New York
and southern Quebec,
sending refugees south in search of safety.
One of the most popular places for refugees to head
was the village of Salem.
The influx of new faces put strain
on Salem's limited resources,
and before long, tensions were high.
They soon reached a boiling point
when a not-so-well-liked reverend named Samuel Parris
was elected as the first minister of Salem.
Tensions bubbled over in January of 1692,
when the reverend's nine-year-old daughter
and 11-year-old niece
started having violent, frightful fits.
The girls were screaming, chanting, throwing things,
speaking in unknown languages,
and curling themselves into strange positions.
When a local doctor examined the two children,
he decided it had to be the work of the devil.
Before long, a third girl had similar symptoms.
The wild news of witchcraft was the talk of the town,
and all three girls were brought in for questioning
by authorities.
Eventually, under extreme pressure from the community,
the girls named names.
They accused three women of being witches
who possessed them,
a poor elderly woman, a homeless beggar girl,
and a Caribbean woman named Tituba,
who was a slave owned by Reverend Parris's family.
All three women were arrested and interrogated.
The elderly woman and beggar proclaimed their innocence,
but strangely, Tituba eventually chose to confess.
Many today believe Tituba was likely forced to confess
by authorities, but it didn't matter to the townsfolk.
All three women were jailed for witchcraft.
It was May of 1692 that the first witchcraft case was heard.
A poor woman named Bridget Bishop was found guilty
and executed.
Over the next few months, more and more people were accused,
arrested, and tried for witchcraft.
The cases against them were based on something
called spectral evidence,
which was evidence based on someone's dreams or visions.
It's far from scientific evidence.
And in October of that year,
after hundreds of arrests and dozens of deaths,
the governor finally agreed that things were out of hand,
only after his own wife was accused.
He halted arrests, released droves of people
who'd been held on witchcraft charges, and by May of 1693,
the Salem witch trials were finally over.
The frenzy had finished, but the community was in shambles.
200 people were accused, 20 were executed,
and many more died in jail while awaiting their trials.
So what happened?
Why did the village of Salem
seem to have a mass case of hysteria 300 years ago?
One of the most popular theories
involves what the villagers were eating.
A 1976 study blames Salem's brutal hysterical behavior
on their bread.
Studies show that the town's supply of rye and wheat
was likely contaminated with a fungus called ergot.
Eating bread that's tainted with ergot
leads to some familiar symptoms,
extreme pain, muscle spasms, vomiting, and hallucinations,
the same exact symptoms
that started the whole panic in Salem
all those years ago.
So the most famous witch hunt in American history
can likely be chalked up
to a simple of case of eating bad bread,
and in some ways, that might be even more terrifying.