The northeastern U.S. state of Connecticut has acquitted 12 people convicted of witchcraft nearly 400 years ago during colonial times, a group that successfully carried out a campaign to clear their names has announced.
The CT Witch Trial Exoneration Project, a group that includes descendants of some of those executed, said in a statement that it was "ecstatic, pleased and grateful" by the decision of senators from the New England region, which includes Connecticut, who backed the measure by a vote of 33 to one.
Museum of Witches, Salem, United States, Halloween (Shutterstock).
Eleven of the defendants, nine women and two men, were hanged after trials in that state in the mid-seventeenth century and one more received a pardon.
New England lawmakers passed a resolution proclaiming the innocence of those people and denouncing the sentences pronounced against the nine women and two men, which they consider a "miscarriage of justice."
They noted that the decision was made on the eve of the 376th anniversary of the first hanging of witches in New England, that of Alice Young.
a reproduction from the time of the hangings (New York Public Library Digital Collections, Rare Book Division).
Dozens executed for witchcraft
"We thank the descendants, advocates, historians, legislators of both parties and many others who made this official resolution possible," the association's statement said.
Hundreds of people, predominantly women, were accused of witchcraft in New England in the seventeenth century, especially in Salem, Massachusetts, at a time when the area was dominated by fear, paranoia and superstition.
Dozens of them were eventually executed.
A record of witchcraft trials.
The Connecticut witch trials occurred between 1647 and 1663, and ended about 30 years before the famous Salem witch trials.
Some 34 people were accused of witchcraft in Connecticut, according to the CT project.
The group added that it will "continue to advocate for historical education and commemoration of the victims of witchcraft trials."
AFP Agency.
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