Salem Witch Trials
a Knowledge Organization project
Study of the domain
Salem Witch Trials
The focus of the project is the Salem Witch Trials, a significant historical event that exemplifies mass hysteria, religious extremism, persecution, and injustice. Between 1692 and 1693, more than 200 individuals in colonial Massachusetts were accused of witchcraft, with twenty found guilty and executed.
These trials were part of a broader pattern of witchcraft paranoia that had affected Europe for centuries. From the medieval period through the early modern era, tens of thousands - mostly women - were accused and executed as witches across Europe, fostering a fear of the supernatural that eventually extended to the American colonies.
In Puritan New England, belief in the devil and witchcraft was deeply embedded in society. The Puritans viewed witchcraft as a real and dangerous threat to their religious and social order. This worldview, combined with already existing tensions - such as the arrival of refugees in Essex County and disputes within Salem Village - provided the conditions necessary for the trials to occur.
In January 1692, the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris began experiencing violent fits. A local doctor attributed their condition to supernatural causes. Pressured by magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, the girls accused three women: Tituba, an enslaved Caribbean woman; Sarah Good, a destitute beggar; and Sarah Osborne, an elderly impoverished woman. While Good and Osborne denied the charges, Tituba confessed, describing visions and encounters with the devil. Her confession spread panic and led to a rapid increase in accusations.
On May 27, 1692, Governor William Phips established a Special Court of Oyer, led by William Stoughton. Bridget Bishop was the first to stand trial and was executed on June 10, becoming the first to be hanged on Gallows Hill. Despite appeals by prominent minister Mather to exclude spectral evidence, the court admitted such evidence, leading to numerous executions throughout the summer and fall. Among other victims was Elizabeth Howe, a respected member of the Salem Village church. She was accused of witchcraft and executed in July 1692 despite her maintained innocence.
By May 1693, all remaining accused had been pardoned. Nevertheless, nineteen people were hanged and several others died in jail. More than 250 years later, in 1957, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts formally apologized for the injustices of the Salem Witch Trials. The events of the 1692 are a powerful reminder of how fear, intolerance, and abuse of power can lead to the failures of justice.
The project
Through the systematic collection and analysis of archival and cultural materials related to the Salem Witch Trials, the project aims to explore how historical memory is constructed, preserved and transmitted. By examining these materials, we seek to contribute to a deeper understanding of the ways in which the trials have been remembered and reinterpreted over time.
The team selected ten items that are representative of the project’s core idea, including court records, literary works, historical maps, fashion artifacts, and paintings. Each item offers a distinct perspective on the events, illustrating the multiplicity of narratives that surround this historical episode.
As a first step, the team identified and analyzed the metadata standards employed by the institutions that provide these materials. Starting from this investigation, a theoretical model was developed to describe each item using natural language. A conceptual model was then created to formally represent this framework; the team employed existing schemas, vocabularies and ontologies to contextualize the items not merely as isolated artefacts, but as integral components of an evolving historical discourse. To enhance interoperability, institutional descriptions were enriched with additional relevant information, and the selected items were semantically interlinked. Finally, structured data was produced, including csv tables describing each item and an RDF dataset based on the team’s ontology.
This approach allows for a multidimensional and interconnected representation of the Salem Witch Trials within a linked open data framework.
Selected items
Each of the selected items embodies the prevailing beliefs, fears, and social dynamics of the period, providing valuable insight into both the unfolding of the Salem Witch Trials and the ways in which they have been remembered, interpreted, and represented across history and culture.
Examination of a Witch by Tompkins Harrison Matteson
Painted in 1853 by Tompkins Harrison Matteson, this oil-on-canvas work dramatically depicts the Salem witch examinations. It portrays Mary Fisher and evokes the fear and injustice of the trials. The painting is held by the Peabody Essex Museum and connects visual art to the emotional and social landscape of 1692 Salem.
A short history of the Salem village witchcraft trials by Perley Martin Van Buren
A Short History of the Salem Village Witchcraft Trials by Martin Van Buren Perley (1911) provides a detailed account of the Salem Witch Trials, including a verbatim report of Elizabeth Howe’s trial. Printed in Salem and held by the State Library of Massachusetts, it offers rich historical insights into witchcraft, legal practices, and public memory. The book is 76 pages long, printed in English, and mentions key figures like Bridget Bishop, Cotton Mather, William Stoughton, and Elizabeth Howe.
Look 45, dress of the Alexander McQueen's collection In memory of Elizabeth Howe, Salem 1692
This avant-garde dress from Alexander McQueen’s 2007–08 In memory of Elizabeth Howe collection blends fashion with commemoration. Made of viscose, rayon, silk, and plastic, and held by the National Gallery of Victoria, it reimagines witch trial memory through couture. The dress was inspired by Elizabeth Howe and links historical trauma with modern creative expression.
The Crucible playbill
This 1953 playbill for The Crucible by Arthur Miller represents one of the most influential theatrical works inspired by the Salem Witch Trials. Printed in paper and ink, it is preserved at the National Museum of American History. The play explores themes of hysteria and justice, resonating with both history and modern politics.
The Witch House postcard
The Witch House is one of Salem’s most iconic structures, preserved visually in this JPEG image from the Salem Public Library’s postcard collection. Depicting early architecture and domestic life, the image reflects the physical and symbolic presence of 17th-century witch trial settings.
Execution of Bridget Bishop at Salem, Transparency by Joseph Boggs Beale
A visual record titled Execution of Bridget Bishop at Salem, this transparency by Joseph Boggs Beale (c. 1885) captures the tragic moment of execution. Housed at the George Eastman Museum, it’s part of the American History: 1607–92 collection and highlights Bridget Bishop’s fate as an emblem of persecution during the trials.
Salem TV Series
Premiering in 2014, Salem is a historical fantasy series by Brannon Braga and Adam Simon. The show fictionalizes the witch trials, it is set in colonial Massachusetts and shot in Louisiana. The series, available via IMDb, spans three seasons. It modernizes historical elements for contemporary storytelling.
The Wonders of the Invisible World by Cotton Mather
Authored by Cotton Mather and published in 1693 in Boston, this book defends the Salem trials and the Puritan worldview of witchcraft. Held in the Library of Congress, it is part of the John Davis Batchelder Collection. The book captures the theological justification for the trials and remains a vital text for understanding colonial ideology.
Map of Salem village
Created in 1866 by Upham William Phineas, this map illustrates the layout of Salem Village during the time of the witch trials. Held by the Boston Public Library, it is part of the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center Collection. This digital facsimile reveals the spatial context of events and communities affected.
Warrant for the execution of Bridget Bishop
Dated June 1692, this court warrant orders the execution of Bridget Bishop, one of the first victims of the Salem Witch Trials. Created by the Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer and contributed to by William Stoughton, it is preserved by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives and the Peabody Essex Museum.
Metadata Analysis
Once the domain of study and the ten items were selected, our team started the Knowledge Organization process by collecting descriptive data from the respective institutions providing the materials.
Analyzing the metadata standards employed by the providers, the team observed that such standards are not consistently declared or unequivocal. Predominantly, libraries adhere to well-defined and structured metadata schemas; however, in some cases, a clear declaration is absent. In the table below, an asterisk (*) denotes these instances. In such cases, the team applied the prevailing metadata standard typically used within the respective institution type or, alternatively, a more generic standard inferred from the inspection of the relevant webpage section.
Theoretical model
To develop a theoretical model, the team began with a preliminary conceptual sketch on paper to explore the main relationships between the entities involved. This early visual mapping allowed us to identify recurring themes and connections - such as key people, concepts, time spans, and places - that helped to reveal the highly interconnected nature of our domain.
This worked as a foundation for building the theoretical model presented here, which graphically displays all the identified properties and relationships using natural language, offering a comprehensive overview of the domain and its internal logic.
To further enhance semantic clarity and ensure disambiguation, we incorporated authority control by linking relevant entities to authoritative identifiers from Wikidata and VIAF. This not only improves data quality but also promotes interoperability and reuse in broader Linked Data ecosystems.
Conceptual model
At this stage, we moved from the theoretical model to a formal abstraction, adopting an ontological approach. This process involved refactoring the terms and relationships from our natural-language mapping into classes and properties derived from existing schema, vocabularies and ontologies. The result is the conceptual model provided here, which offers a semantically coherent representation of our domain. For the graphical representation of this formalization, we used the Graphical Framework for OWL Ontologies, Graffoo.
In order to model the domain of the Salem Witch Trials in the most accurate way, we adopted a multi-ontological approach, reusing established vocabularies across the model while preserving internal consistency wherever possible.
- LODE An ontology for Linking Open Descriptions of Events - chosen to describe the Salem Witch Trials as the central historical event of our domain. We found that the class lode:Event was particularly well suited to our needs, as it supports the modeling of real-world occurrences with both temporal and spatial properties.
- CRM-CIDOC (Conceptual Reference Model) - chosen for many properties due to its ability to describe cultural heritage objects across different domains, even though it was originally developed for museum documentation. CRM concepts enabled us to align with established museum and archival modeling practices, providing a robust and semantically rich framework for describing physical items and their contextual relationships.
- Schema.org - used as our backbone ontology due to its flexibility in modeling diverse entities which were included in our domain (books, paintings, maps, photography, tv series, etc.).
To fill in gaps where other ontologies did not provide sufficient coverage, the team also integrated additional ontologies and vocabularies:FABIO (FRBR-aligned Bibliographic Ontology) was used to describe bibliographic resources with greater specificity; FOAF (Friend of a Friend) was adopted for modeling persons and their characteristics, due to its widespread use in the LOD community; Dublin Core Terms were employed for general-purpose properties; SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) was used to represent abstract concepts such as witchcraft and XSD (XML Schema Datatypes) ensured consistent representation of literal values.
Items description
The following tables are generated from manually created CSV files, using natural language. Each table corresponds to a specific item and each row represents a subject-predicate-object triple, describing semantic properties such as title, creator, material, date, and relationships between items.
CSV files of the following tables can be downloaded here.
- Painting
- Book
- Garment
- Playbill
- Postcard
- Transparency
- TV Series
- Book
- Map
- Court Report
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Examination of a Witch painting | has title | Examination of a Witch |
| Examination of a Witch painting | has author | Tompkins Harrison Matteson |
| Examination of a Witch painting | has type | painting |
| Examination of a Witch painting | has date of production | 1853 |
| Examination of a Witch painting | is held by | Peabody Essex Museum |
| Examination of a Witch painting | has location | Salem |
| Examination of a Witch painting | has technique | oil on canvas |
| Examination of a Witch painting | has height | 38 1/2 inches |
| Examination of a Witch painting | has width | 54 inches |
| Examination of a Witch painting | depicts | Mary Fisher |
| Examination of a Witch painting | depicts | Salem Witch Trials |
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has title | A Short History of the Salem Village Witchcraft Trials. Illustrated by a verbatim report of the trial of Mrs. Elizabeth Howe, a memorial of her |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has author | Martin Van Buren Perley |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has type | book |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has date of publication | 1911 |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has place of publication | Salem |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | is held by | State Library of Massachusetts |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has book format | |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has language | English |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has number of pages | 76 |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has subject | Witchcraft |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | has subject | Salem Witch Trials |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | mentions | Bridget Bishop |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | mentions | Elizabeth Jackson Howe |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | mentions | William Stoughton |
| A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials | mentions | Cotton Mather |
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Court Warrant Document | has title | Warrant for the execution of Bridget Bishop, and officer's return |
| Court Warrant Document | has creator | Massachusetts. Court of Oyer and Terminer (Essex County) |
| Court Warrant Document | has contributor | William Stoughton |
| Court Warrant Document | has type | trial report |
| Court Warrant Document | has date of production | 1692-06 |
| Court Warrant Document | has place of production | Massachusetts |
| Court Warrant Document | is held by | Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives |
| Court Warrant Document | has provider | Philips Library, Peabody Essex Museum |
| Court Warrant Document | is part of | Massachusetts Court of Oyer and Terminer records (DEP 01) |
| Court Warrant Document | has dimension | 21.1 x 34.6 cm |
| Court Warrant Document | has language | English |
| Court Warrant Document | has subject | Salem Witch Trials |
| Court Warrant Document | has subject | Bridget Bishop |
| Court Warrant Document | has subject | Witchcraft |
| Court Warrant Document | is depicted by | Execution of Bridget Bishop |
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | has title | Execution of Bridget Bishop at Salem, 1692 |
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | has author | Joseph Boggs Beale |
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | has type | transparency |
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | has date of production | c. 1885 |
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | is held by | George Eastman Museum |
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | is part of | American History: 1607-92 |
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | has format | collodion silver transparency |
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | has dimension | 8.3 × 10.2 cm |
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | has subject | Bridget Bishop |
| Execution of Bridget Bishop | has subject | Salem Witch Trials |
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Look 45 dress | has title | Look 45, dress |
| Look 45 dress | has creator | Alexander McQueen |
| Look 45 dress | has type | creative work |
| Look 45 dress | has date of production | 2007 |
| Look 45 dress | is held by | National Gallery of Victoria |
| Look 45 dress | has location | Melbourne |
| Look 45 dress | is part of | In memory of Elizabeth Howe, Salem 1692 collection, autumn-winter 2007-2008 |
| Look 45 dress | has place of production | Italy |
| Look 45 dress | has material | viscose |
| Look 45 dress | has material | rayon |
| Look 45 dress | has material | silk |
| Look 45 dress | has material | plastic |
| Look 45 dress | has back measurement | 208 cm |
| Look 45 dress | has waist measurement | 34 cm |
| Look 45 dress | has donor | Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family |
| Look 45 dress | inspired by | Elizabeth Jackson Howe |
| Look 45 dress | has subject | Salem Witch Trials |
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Map of Salem Village | has title | Map of Salem Village 1692 |
| Map of Salem Village | has creator | Upham William Phineas |
| Map of Salem Village | has type | map |
| Map of Salem Village | has date of production | 1866 |
| Map of Salem Village | is held by | Boston Public Library |
| Map of Salem Village | is part of | Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center Collection |
| Map of Salem Village | has format | digital facsimile |
| Map of Salem Village | has dimension | 11 x 17 cm |
| Map of Salem Village | has language | English |
| Map of Salem Village | has content location | Salem |
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Salem TV Series | has title | Salem |
| Salem TV Series | has author | Brannons Braga |
| Salem TV Series | has author | Adam Simon |
| Salem TV Series | has type | TV Series |
| Salem TV Series | has date of release | 2014-04-20 |
| Salem TV Series | has place of production | Louisiana (USA) |
| Salem TV Series | has production company | Beetlecod Productions, Prospect Park, Fox 21 |
| Salem TV Series | has provider | IMDb |
| Salem TV Series | has language | English |
| Salem TV Series | has number of seasons | 3 |
| Salem TV Series | has genre | horror, drama, thriller |
| Salem TV Series | has actor | Seth Gabel |
| Salem TV Series | has subject | Salem Witch Trials |
| Salem TV Series | has content location | Salem |
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Playbill: The Crucible | has title | The Crucible |
| Playbill: The Crucible | has author | Arthur Miller |
| Playbill: The Crucible | has type | poster |
| Playbill: The Crucible | has date of production | 1953 |
| Playbill: The Crucible | has place of production | New York (USA) |
| Playbill: The Crucible | is held by | National Museum of American History |
| Playbill: The Crucible | has material | paper and ink |
| Playbill: The Crucible | has measurement | 9 in x 6 5/8 in |
| Playbill: The Crucible | has subject | Salem Witch Trials |
| Playbill: The Crucible | has subject | Theater |
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| The Witch House | has title | The Witch House |
| The Witch House | has type | image |
| The Witch House | is held by | Salem Public Library |
| The Witch House | has format | jpeg |
| The Witch House | has original format | postcard |
| The Witch House | has place of production | Salem |
| The Witch House | is part of | Salem Postcards |
| The Witch House | has language | English |
| The Witch House | has subject | Salem |
| The Witch House | has subject | Architecture |
| The Witch House | depicts | house |
| Subject | Predicate | Object |
|---|---|---|
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has title | The Wonders of the Invisible World |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has author | Cotton Mather |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has type | book |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has date of publication | 1693 |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has place of publication | Boston |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has publisher | Benjamin Harris for Samuel Phillips |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has provider | Library of Congress |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | is part of | John Davis Batchelder Collection (Rare Book Collection) |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has book format | |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has language | English |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has subject | Witchcraft |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | has subject | Salem Witch Trials |
| The Wonders of the Invisible World | is related to | William Stoughton |
Text transformations
The team selected A Short History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials by M. V. B. Perley as the full-text document required for structured data production.
In the following section, all the documents created are presented and available for consultation.
XML/TEI document
Link to the codeThe first step in the text transformation was to create an XML/TEI document containing a sample of the book. The literary text was annotated in accordance with the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines, and the markup was subsequently validated. Additionally, the text was semantically enriched with references to persons, places, and events.
Since there is no single correct way to annotate a text, all encoding decisions were made based on specific project needs. The underlying approach was to encode the text in a manner that faithfully reflects the structure of the source book from which the text was derived.
XML to HTML transformation
Link to the codeIn order to facilitate the dissemination of the previously created XML/TEI document, it has been transformed into an HTML document. This process enables the consideration of presentational aspects, as such features can be effectively displayed within a web environment.
To accomplish this transformation, eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) were employed. Through the use of XPath, XML nodes within the source document were identified and subsequently manipulated to generate a new file. For the majority of the code, the templating rules were externalized. This approach was adopted as it appeared more practical to manipulate small portions of the text, which could then be rendered in a manner closely resembling the original book.
The XSLT forms the structural basis of the HTML document, specifically concerning the arrangement and presentation of the text on a web page. In order to approximate the visual appearance of the source text, a CSS file was created, containing the relevant stylistic rules. The HTML document includes a reference to this CSS file, which provides the necessary instructions for styling the various elements.
XML/TEI to RDF transformation
Link to the codeThe RDF dataset was created using Python, specifically through the use of RDFLib, which enables the manipulation of RDF data, and the lxml.etree library, which provides enhanced flexibility for handling XML documents. This transformation facilitates data exchange and promotes semantic interoperability.
Initially, the relevant sections of the XML/TEI document required for the transformation were identified and extracted. The process subsequently involved data normalization and data type mapping to ensure consistency and alignment with semantic web standards. This methodology not only supports data exchange but also enable the availability of both data and metadata regarding relationships between entities on the web. Furthermore, it allows for the description of the semantics associated with the data through a formalism that is machine-readable.
In particular, entities such as people, places and events encoded in the XML/TEI document were transformed into RDF data. Additionally, persistent and unique URIs were defined for each entity to ensure stable identification across datasets.
Established ontologies were employed to semantically enrich data. For example, the FOAF ontology was used to describe people. This approach enhances the interoperability and reusability of the dataset within the broader Linked Open Data ecosystem.
HTML Representation
The XML to HTML transformation was carried out via a command-line process. The result is presented below.
RDF dataset
Using Python, the team produced an RDF dataset that semantically connects all the CSV files representing the ten selected cultural items. This process involved structuring the data to establish meaningful relationships between entities, aligning them with Linked Open Data principles to enhance interoperability and contextual understanding.
The following ontology was generated from the transformation of CSV files into Turtle format. It represents the relationships between the selected items and the key concepts of our project.
Turtle files can be downloaded here.
Team
Sara Roggiani
sara.roggiani2@studio.unibo.it
Maryam Dadras
maryam.dadrasrazi@studio.unibo.it
Miriana Pinto
miriana.pinto@studio.unibo.it