Witches used to be mostly punished with death for their study of the dark arts. One such punishment I am most familiar with is that the witch would be drown. This is because if the witch was actually a witch then they would theoretically be able to save themselves and if they could not then ( as all did ) they would drown. There were other ways as well but most had death as a finality.
normally old, ugly ladies with discoloured skin and birthmarks for their familiar to suck blood from. Puritans were the great believers in witchcraft so they were the ones to tell the witch hunter about the witches, most of the time poor people were accused of being a witch because they went around begging and the rich people felt threatened by them.
In the practice to weed out the witches from the non-witches, the people would tie cement to the accused woman's foot and throw her into a lake. If the woman drowned, she was not a witch, if she lived, then she was convicted of witchery. This method...as you can see was not very thorough, or smart. Others were just burned at the stake after being tried in court if they were lucky enough to receive the sentence.
There is no hard evidence to prove whether or not Elizabeth Southerns was a witch. She was accused of practicing witchcraft and faced trial in the Pendle Witch Trials in 1612. However, it is difficult to say for certain whether she actually practiced witchcraft or if she was falsely accused. It is ultimately a matter of historical interpretation.
Someone named tituba, the minister's slave, was the first to be accused and first to blame. basically anyone could accuse someone of being a witch and this was all too common. Some of it was simply paranoia because of harsh times and needing someone to blame or out right hate knowing that falsely accusing someone would lead to death or imprisonment just by being accused. Also at times the Church whether a organized one like Catholicism or at times even independent ones accused people of witch craft to create paranoia amongst the population causing the church to be the "answer" which gives them more power.
anyone who was accused even if they confessed were hung
Eisenhower's critics accused him of doing little to stop McCarthyism. This gave him the reputation of allowing a climate to flourish in which anyone with opinions different from the majority was attacked.
"Witches" did not really exist, but people were frightened by the thought of them. They would burn or hang witches. Citezens that nobody liked were usually accused of being witches in order do get rid of them. Others were accused because they did not fit in or were very strange, so they were suspects of practicing witchcraft.
Reverend hale told the accused witches to confess beecause, he lost all faith in the court and wanted to save them from getting hanged. The accused witches however refused to confess.
The accused were arrested, jailed, and tried. If they were convicted, they were hanged.
hung & burnt
No ^^
No - women accused of being witches were hunted tortured and killed.
'The swimming of witches' was when a women, accused of being a witch, was dragged down a river.
Mostly innocent women.
Christians
The scene between Herrick and the accused witches in The Crucible is meant to be humorous. Its significance is to illustrate how bad the conditions are.
1,678900 were accused and only 2,67840 were found "guilty"
they were accued of using what they call the dark arts which is using the power of demons and saiten and of saling their souls to the devil but most were non of that MOST did not do that