“Connecticut Exonerates 12 Convicted of Witchcraft After Almost 400 Years – CT Witch Trial Exoneration Project Campaign”

It took almost 400 years for the State of Connecticut to recognize a “miscarriage of justice”. This American state on Thursday exonerated twelve people convicted of witchcraft at the time of colonial America.

Eleven of them had been hanged after trials for witchcraft in Connecticut (northeast of the country) in the middle of the XVII^e century. The twelfth had been spared.

Connecticut elected officials finally proclaimed their innocence on Thursday. They denounced the sentences imposed on the nine women and two men as a “miscarriage of justice”.

Posthumous Rehabilitation Campaign

An association of descendants, CT Witch Trial Exoneration Project, had campaigned for their posthumous rehabilitation. She welcomed the vote of the elected officials.

Connecticut’s decision came on the eve of 376^e anniversary of the very first hanging for witchcraft in New England, that of Alice Young.

Hundreds of people, mostly women, were accused of witchcraft in New England in the 17th^e century, notably during the famous trials of Salem, in Massachusetts, between 1692 and 1693, dominated by fear, paranoia and superstitions.