Nope. Actually, of the 150 who were tried as witches in the Salem witch-trials (which lasted two years, 1692-1693), only 20 were convicted. Six men and fourteen women – a 13% conviction rate.
There was a seventh man, who died during judicial torture.
None of those convicted were burned at the stake. They were all hung hanged [thanks Saffia]. Not that that probably gave a whole lot of comfort to the 20 people who were executed.
The last person to be burned at the stake, was Edward Wightman in England who had a divergence of doctrinal opinions about the status of the soul. He was burned at the stake in 1612 at the order of King James I.
Unfortunately, assorted (and horrific) extra-judicial burnings still occur, though none of them are for witchcraft, or performed at the stake.
Actually, technically speaking, they were hanged …
::: resolves to stop being a pedant and go to bed
Ah, you left out the best part–how that seventh man was crushed to death by having rocks piled on his chest. He refused to answer the court’s questions, replying “more weight.”
(just subscribing to the comments)
I have seen an analysis that indicated it was a persecution of folks from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ and possibly a property grab.
This is quite interesting though – http://www.salemwitchtrials.com/salemwitchcraft.html
this – http://www.squidoo.com/salem-witch-trials – is a prettier version
When I was at Uni there was a history teacher whose lectures were very popular due to his entertaining style and which regularly got visited by non-history students (like myself). His favourite subject were in fact witches and he could elaborate for hours on end about the various misconceptions we have of the witch hunt nowadays. So most of what you wrote was no surprise to me. In fact not only the Salem witches got hanged, most witches got hanged, closely followed by drowning in the vicious “dunking” trial.
He had no factual explanation why the “burning at the stake” seems so closely associated with with trials nowadays since it was rather the exception. The best guess was that it was due to the spectacularity of the execution (most burned heretics actually got discreetly strangled shortly before the flames consumed them). However he had a very interesting explanation why burnings were not more frequent: they were too costly, and too dangerous.
Burning at the stake was used in parts of England and Europe as the punishment for heresy, based on a notion that circulated for a few centuries that if the body was burned, the soul was irrevocably destroyed and that the person was therefore denied judgment by god.
Technically, that means that burning someone at the stake based on that notion is far more serious than heresy itself, and actually would constitute defiance of the creator.