How many people have died because accused of being a witch?
During the period of the witch hunts (from the 1400s to the 1700s) an estimated 40,000 people are thought to have been exectuted for witchcraft in western Europe. The first known witch trial in Europe was in Ireland in 1324, the last in Switzerland in 1782. In the American colonies, witchcraft trials were infrequent and usually involved only one or two defendents. Before the Salem trials in 1792, there were only 93 defendents in witchcraft trials in New England, of whom only 16 were executed. The Salem trials were unusually large, involving a very large number of defendents, and resulting in 20 executions (19 hanged, one man pressed to death for refusing to plead). The peak period for witch trials was the late 1500s/early 1600s. The figure of 9-11 million suggested by an answer above is a wild exaggeration, no modern historian of witchcraft suggests a figure anywhere near this number. However, not everyone who was accused of witchcraft was executed, witchcraft was a difficult charge to
