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Salem Witch Judge: Samuel Sewall's Life and Repentance
October 18, 2007
Eve LaPlante writer

Eve LaPlante discusses how, after years of internal struggle, Salem's condemning judge, Samuel Sewall, emerged as America's most surprising moral hero.

In 1692, Judge Samuel Sewall, a 40-year-old father of five, condemned to death more than 30 women and men accused of witchcraft, including two of his own friends. Nineteen people were hanged, and another man pressed under heavy stones, before public opinion turned and the governor halted the proceedings. A period of public atonement followed and Sewall himself repented in 1697, his speech read at Old South Meeting House as he stood silently in his pew.

History | Politics & Public Affairs
Biographies | judgement | repentance | salem witch trials | witchcraft | Non-Fiction | Law & Criminal Justice | North American | Christian
WGBH
Old South Meeting House
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