Twelve people convicted of witchcraft more than 370 years ago have been formally exonerated by legislators in the US state of Connecticut.
Eleven of the 12 were hanged after trials that the state Senate now acknowledges were a ‘miscarriage of justice’, the BBC reports.
Connecticut’s Senate voted 33-1 to exonerate those convicted in trials that took place in the state in the mid-to-late 1600s.
The senator who voted against the move, Rob Sampson, said that he believed it was wrong to ‘dictate what was right or wrong about periods in the past that we have no knowledge of’.
The exoneration of the 12 follows a long-running campaign by descendants to clear the names of those wrongfully accused of being witches.
The CT Witch Trial Exoneration Project, a group set up in 2005 by descendants of the accused, said it was ‘ecstatic, pleased, and appreciative’, especially as the decision came on the eve of the 376th anniversary of the first witch-hanging in New England, that of Alice Young.
The BBC reports that the family members and their supporters argue that the exonerations are an important step to learning from the mistakes of the past.
At least 45 people were accused of witchcraft in colonial Connecticut, although the Witch Trial Exoneration Project believes the record is likely incomplete.
In the more widely known Salem Witch Trials in nearby Massachusetts, about 200 people were accused, leading to the deaths of 25 people.
[Image: Examination of a Witch (1853) by T. H. Matteson, inspired by the Salem trials, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=102590955]