The Salem Witch Trials Were witches ever really a threat to humans or were they just a figment of our imagination? During the year of 1692 in a small village named Salem, approximately fifty people were hung and one pressed to death due to witchery. These people were all tried and convicted in a court of law, yet what court will allow these people to be convicted of something that is based only on spectral evidence? The Puritans were deeply religious and believed that the devil was among them, that the devil lived in the forest surrounding them. This belief clouded their judgment. Which allowed the church to be