The more land you owned, the more likely you were a witch

A guilty verdict could turn your farm into the county’s farm.

The popular image of a Salem victim is a poor, marginal outsider. The record tells a more uncomfortable story: a conviction opened the door for the condemned's estate to be seized, and that incentive shaped who got accused. Landowners — and especially women positioned to inherit or already holding land outside the usual male chain of ownership — turn up disproportionately in the accusation records.

Philip English, one of Salem's wealthiest merchants, fled with his wife to New York rather than stand trial — a decision that, in hindsight, almost certainly saved both their lives. Even the colony's governor wasn't fully insulated from the climate: Lady Mary Phips, the governor's own wife, was named by an accuser, though the case never proceeded to trial once word reached her husband.

Giles Corey saw the mechanism clearly enough to route around it. Before his own arrest, he legally transferred his land to his sons — a conviction voids a defendant's estate, but you cannot seize what the accused no longer owns. It's very likely part of why he chose silence over a plea when he was eventually arrested himself: a completed trial, even an acquittal, still exposed assets to challenge, while an unresolved case protected the transfer entirely.

This is also why presenting legal paperwork as a defense could backfire so completely. Producing a deed to prove you were a settled, legitimate property holder simultaneously told the court exactly how much was on the table — and just how much could be gained from a guilty verdict.