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50 free Salem Witch Trials trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Between February 1692 and May 1693 more than 200 people in colonial Massachusetts were accused of witchcraft, nineteen were hanged and one man was pressed to death under stones. This quiz covers the whole story: the afflicted girls of Salem Village, the first three women accused, the Court of Oyer and Terminer and its reliance on spectral evidence, the executions on Proctor's Ledge, the ministers who fanned and then doused the panic, and the slow work of apology, reversal and exoneration that ran all the way to 2022. Easy questions ask which year it happened and who said "more weight"; harder ones cover the witch cake, the touch test, the £578 compensation and which judge publicly repented. It suits history students, readers of The Crucible, anyone planning a Halloween trip to Salem, and quiz nights that want an American history round with real bite. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the trials and the individual people involved, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Salem witch trials began in February 1692 and ended in which month of 1693?
May
More than 200 people were accused, and it remains the deadliest witch hunt in the history of colonial North America.
Q 02How many people were executed by hanging during the Salem witch trials?
Nineteen
Fourteen were women and five were men; thirty in all were found guilty.
Q 03The accusations began in Salem Village, which is known today by what name?
Danvers
Salem Village had a strained relationship with Salem Town, where the trials and hangings actually took place.
Q 04Which two colonial courts conducted the Salem trials, in 1692 and 1693 respectively?
A Court of Oyer and Terminer, then a Superior Court of Judicature
Both sat in Salem Town, and the second court refused to accept the spectral evidence that had condemned so many before it.
Q 05The trials began after local women were accused by four young girls. Which of these was one of them?
Elizabeth Hubbard
The others were Betty Parris, aged 9, her cousin Abigail Williams, 11, and a 12-year-old who publicly repented years later.
Q 06Which of the first three women accused was marked out partly because she rarely attended church meetings?
Sarah Osborne
The other two of the first three were a destitute woman with a bad reputation and an enslaved Indigenous woman in the minister's household.
Q 07Tituba was enslaved by which Salem Village minister, whose daughter and niece were first afflicted?
Samuel Parris
Her confession under examination gave credence to the accusations; what became of her after a grand jury dismissed her case in 1693 is unknown.
Q 08Why was Tituba pivotal to the trials?
She confessed to witchcraft when examined
The critic Robert Calef later noted that those who confessed were not brought to trial at all.
Q 09The 1692 Salem Village 'witch cake' was made from rye meal and what, then fed to a dog?
Urine from the afflicted girls
Mary Sibley directed John Indian, a man enslaved by the minister, to make it as "a means to discover witchcraft".
Q 10Who was the first person executed in the Salem witch trials, hanged on 10 June 1692?
Bridget Bishop
Her case was the first heard by the new court on 2 June, and she was dead barely a week later.
Q 11How did Giles Corey die in September 1692?
He was pressed to death under heavy stones
He refused to enter a plea, so the court used peine forte et dure to try to force one out of him.
Q 12What two words did Giles Corey reply each time he was asked to plead under torture?
More weight
Sheriff George Corwin sometimes stood on the stones himself; Corey did not cry out over two days.
Q 13Which frail 71-year-old was hanged on 19 July 1692 despite a jury first finding her not guilty?
Rebecca Nurse
The judges sent the jury back after renewed fits from the afflicted, and the verdict was reversed.
Q 21Who served as chief magistrate of the Court of Oyer and Terminer?
William Stoughton
The new lieutenant governor also headed the Superior Court that took over in 1693.
Q 22How many people were executed on 22 September 1692, the largest group and last executions of the trials?
Eight
Reverend Noyes reportedly called them "eight firebrands of hell" hanging there.
Q 23On what grounds was Elizabeth Proctor spared execution after being convicted alongside her husband John?
She was pregnant
John Proctor had been arrested for objecting at his wife's examination and was hanged on 19 August 1692.
Q 14Which former Salem minister was hanged in 1692 after reciting the Lord's Prayer flawlessly?
George Burroughs
Witches were supposedly unable to recite it; a Boston minister on horseback reminded the crowd the devil could appear as an angel of light.
Q 15Who was the youngest person jailed during the trials, arrested at age four?
Dorothy Good
Her answers under questioning were construed as a confession implicating her mother, and she watched her mother led away to be hanged.
Q 16Why did Martha Corey draw the attention of the accusers in March 1692?
She had expressed scepticism about the girls' accusations
Her arrest troubled the village because she was a full covenanted member of the church.
Q 17What was "spectral evidence"?
Testimony that the accused's apparition had afflicted the witness
The 1693 court refused to admit it, and the conviction rate collapsed.
Q 18Which Boston minister, author of Wonders of the Invisible World, published pamphlets asserting his belief in witchcraft?
Cotton Mather
He also cautioned a judge not to "lay more stress on pure spectral evidence than it will bear", advice that went unheeded.
Q 19What was the letter from Increase Mather and other clergy urging the court not to convict on spectral evidence called?
The Return of Several Ministers Consulted
A copy was printed in his 1693 book Cases of Conscience.
Q 20Which governor, sworn in on 16 May 1692, created the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer days later?
William Phips
He had spent the previous months in London helping Increase Mather secure the colony's new charter.
Q 24Which examining magistrate, notably unrepentant, was an ancestor of the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, who may have altered his surname to distance himself?
John Hathorne
The author of The Scarlet Letter was his great-great-grandson.
Q 25Which of the three people convicted in 1693 was not exonerated until 2022?
Elizabeth Johnson Jr.
She was cleared 329 years after her conviction, the last convicted Salem witch to be officially exonerated.
Q 26The Salem witch trials came to an end largely because leading clergymen began to doubt what?
The validity of spectral evidence
The sheer number of accused, including several prominent citizens, also helped bring the panic to a halt.
Q 27Which judge had his apology for the trials read to his Boston congregation on 14 January 1697?
Samuel Sewall
He asked to "take the blame and shame" of the court, and later wrote one of America's first anti-slavery tracts, The Selling of Joseph.
Q 28Which afflicted Salem accuser publicly asked forgiveness on joining the church in 1706?
Ann Putnam Jr.
Some historians think her family's feuds may have been a major driver of the accusations.
Q 29In which year did Massachusetts legislators reverse the convictions of 22 named individuals?
1711
Governor Dudley then authorised monetary compensation to be divided among survivors and relatives.
Q 30How much compensation did Governor Dudley authorise for survivors and relatives of the accused after the reversal?
£578 12s
Most claims were settled within a year, but Philip English's extensive claims dragged on until 1718.