Samuel Sewall

Sewall, Samuel (1652–1730), colonial American politician and jurist best known as one of the judges in the Salem, Mass., witchcraft trials (1692). He was also justice of the colony superior court (1692–1718) and chief justice of the province (1718–25). A liberal, Sewall later publicly repented his part in the witchcraft trials, in which 19 people were condemned to death. His writings include an early antislavery tract The Selling of Joseph (1700), A Memorial Relating to the Kennebeck Indians (1721), and his 3-volume Diary (1878–82).

See also: Salem witchcraft trials.