Salem Witch TrialsSeries of trials that took place near Salem, part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1692, in which more than 150 men and women were accused and 19 found guilty of practising witchcraft, then a crime punishable by death. In the summer of 1692 all of eastern Massachusetts trembled in fear as neighbors and kinfolk accused one another of practicing witchcraft. Hundreds were jailed, and in the first round of the ensuing trials from June 2 to September 21, 1692—the most extensive mass trials of suspected criminals in the colonial period of American history—all of the defendants were convicted.