The Salem witch trials are ended by a letter from Province of Massachusetts Bay Governor William Phips.

Salem witch trials

Legal proceedings in Massachusetts (1692–93)

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. One…

Province of Massachusetts Bay

British colony in North America from 1691 to 1776

The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in New England which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and was…

List of colonial governors of Massachusetts

The territory of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the fifty United States, was settled in the 17th century by several different English colonies. The territories claimed or administered by these colonies encompassed a much larger area than that of the modern state, and…

William Phips

17th-century royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay

Sir William Phips was the first royally appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and the first native-born person from New England to be knighted. Phips was famous in his lifetime for recovering a large treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon but is perhaps best…