Alse Young was killed at the gallows in Connecticut, becoming the first person on record to be executed in the American colonies for witchcraft. Now, more than 375 years later, amateur historians, researchers and descendants of the accused witches hope Connecticut lawmakers will finally offer posthumous exonerations.
In this Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023 photo, Beth Caruso, author and co-founder of the CT Witch Trial Exoneration Project, which was created to clear the names of the accused, stands on the old town green in Windsor, Conn., where in 1651, an accident during a local militiamen training exercise led to the accusation of witchcraft and hanging of Lydia Gilbert.
While such requests aren't new, they have become louder as many genealogy buffs discover they have distant relatives involved in the lesser-known Connecticut witch trials. In 2022, Massachusetts lawmakers formally exonerated Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who was convicted of witchcraft in 1693 and sentenced to death at the height of the Salem Witch Trials. Johnson is believed to be the last accused Salem witch to have her conviction set aside by legislators.
Many historians believe fear and anxiety among the religiously strict English settlers led to the witch trials, noting how life was very difficult, given epidemics, floods, cold winters and starvation. Often, accusations started as a quarrel, or the death of a child or a cow, or even butter that couldn't be churned.Such was the case of Mary Johnson, a servant in Wethersfield, Connecticut, who was accused of "familiarity with the Devil.
He noted that even in recent decades people have been killed in multiple countries because they were suspected of being witches or sorcerers.
المملكة العربية السعودية أحدث الأخبار, المملكة العربية السعودية عناوين
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