The Witch Trials Were About Land, Not Demons
How Greed, Fear, and Government Collusion Fueled America’s Most Infamous Moral Panic
In 1692, nineteen men and women were hanged and one man was crushed to death in Salem, Massachusetts for the alleged crime of witchcraft. The conventional narrative still frames it as a tragic episode of religious hysteria—Puritan fanaticism run amok. But that’s a half-truth at best.
The deeper story is more damning: the Salem witch trials were a political and economic power play. Many of the accused were landowners or legal obstacles to someone else's gain. The Puritan elite, wrapped in a veil of moral righteousness, used fear and state authority to transfer property, eliminate rivals, and consolidate control.
It wasn’t just a mass delusion. It was legalized theft.
A Morality Play with Real Estate at Its Core
The myth of Salem centers on spiritual panic—demonic possession, spectral visions, and teenage girls caught in a web of fantasy. But historians who dig into the land records, probate filings, and town disputes uncover a much grittier reality: many of the accused witches had something worth taking.
Some, like Bridget Bishop and Sarah Osborne, were independent women or widows who had inherited property and operated outside the patriarchal norms of the time. Others, like John Proctor and Giles Corey, had long-running land disputes with their accusers or the town elite.
This wasn’t random chaos. It followed patterns of property, power, and proximity.
Thomas Putnam: Accuser, Opportunist, Beneficiary
No figure better illustrates the land motive than Thomas Putnam. A member of one of Salem Village’s wealthiest families, Putnam and his relatives filed over 120 accusations during the trials, many of them targeting property holders with whom they had personal or financial grievances. Putnam’s daughter, Ann Jr., was one of the most prolific “afflicted” girls claiming visions and spectral attacks.
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum’s seminal work, Salem Possessed, exposes the deeper structural tensions in Salem Village—particularly between the Putnams and the Porters, two rival clans whose feud over land, politics, and church leadership defined the town’s internal war. The authors found that “many of the witchcraft accusers lived in the western, poorer, more agrarian side of the village,” while the accused were often associated with the more prosperous, commercially-minded eastern side, aligned with the Porters.¹
In this light, witchcraft accusations functioned as a weapon in an ongoing class war. Not superstition—strategy.
Giles Corey: Crushed for Silence, Land, and Law
Giles Corey was pressed to death with heavy stones over three days after refusing to plead guilty or innocent. Why refuse? Because in Massachusetts at the time, entering a plea triggered forfeiture laws—conviction meant the state could seize your land. By remaining silent and dying under torture, Corey ensured that his estate would pass to his sons rather than be confiscated.²
Corey’s wife Martha had also been accused and executed. Their land was coveted by several neighboring families, and Corey had long-standing disputes with figures connected to the trials. His death wasn’t a spiritual verdict. It was legal leverage wrapped in blood and stones.
George Burroughs: A Political Enemy, Not a Witch
Reverend George Burroughs had once served as a minister in Salem Village and had ongoing financial conflicts with members of the community—including the Putnams. He was also connected to Maine frontier politics and Native American resistance, making him a political outsider.
Despite being a Harvard-educated minister, Burroughs was accused, arrested, and hanged. He famously recited the Lord’s Prayer perfectly on the gallows—something witches were supposedly incapable of doing. No matter. His land, influence, and unresolved debts made him useful to eliminate.³
Government by Court, Not Constitution
The court that prosecuted the witches—formally titled the Court of Oyer and Terminer—was a special tribunal established by newly arrived royal governor William Phips. It operated without precedent, safeguards, or any meaningful evidentiary standards. The court accepted “spectral evidence,” allowing the accuser’s dreams, visions, or feelings to serve as proof of guilt.
This effectively made the trials a legal free-for-all. Spectral evidence turned subjective fears into deadly force. Hearsay became fact. Dissent became deviance. As long as someone claimed a neighbor bewitched them, the court considered it valid.
The same state that oversaw land titles and property rights now oversaw executions and forfeiture. The convergence was not accidental—it was functional.
The Aftermath: Vacated Convictions, Retained Land
After the panic subsided, the Massachusetts General Court declared a day of fasting and repentance in 1697. In 1702, the trials were declared “unlawful,” and in 1711 the colony passed a bill restoring the rights and good names of some victims and providing limited financial restitution. But for many families, the land was never returned. Some descendants fought in court for decades trying to reclaim stolen property.⁴
The machinery of accusation and confiscation had done its job. The property was redistributed, the political enemies removed, and the event sanitized as a spiritual error—not a systemic one.
The Modern Parallels: Fear Still Justifies Theft
The lesson of Salem is not about witchcraft. It’s about what happens when the state sanctions punishment without evidence, and private actors use fear to gain public power.
Civil asset forfeiture laws in modern America allow police to seize property on mere suspicion of crime, with no need for conviction. Entire homes, vehicles, and bank accounts have been taken without due process.⁵
Eminent domain laws are used to push families off their land for private development—justified under the banner of public good. Regulatory fines and code enforcement can financially destroy property owners without trial.
Fear has always been profitable. The tools are just more sophisticated now.
Civilization Hangs on Property Rights
The Salem witch trials should not be remembered as a cautionary tale about superstition. They should be remembered as a case study in the failure of due process, the corruption of justice, and the fragility of property rights when fear is weaponized.
When the line between accusation and conviction disappears, no one is safe. When government power can be hijacked by private interests, freedom becomes a formality.
We did not evolve past Salem. We just gave it new language: misinformation, disinformation, extremism, domestic threat. The principle is the same: create a moral panic, suspend rights, and benefit from the fallout.
Footnotes
Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Harvard University Press, 1974.
Norton, Mary Beth. In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. Vintage, 2003.
Starkey, Marion L. The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Inquiry into the Salem Witch Trials. Anchor Books, 1989.
Baker, Emerson W. A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Institute for Justice. Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture. 3rd Edition, 2020.
Recommended Reading
Salem Possessed by Paul Boyer & Stephen Nissenbaum
The definitive work connecting Salem’s social divisions and land rivalries to the outbreak of accusations.A Storm of Witchcraft by Emerson W. Baker
Places Salem in the broader political and military context, showing how instability drove the crisis.In the Devil’s Snare by Mary Beth Norton
Documents the political and military fears (including Native attacks and frontier wars) that shaped the trials.The Devil in Massachusetts by Marion Starkey
Classic narrative history of the trials, with a psychological lens on accusers and motivations.Policing for Profit by Institute for Justice
A must-read on modern-day asset forfeiture abuses and their eerie resemblance to Salem-era tactics.The Law by Frédéric Bastiat
A timeless argument against legalized plunder through government force disguised as justice.