Bill offers absolution, not exoneration for victims of Connecticut witch trials

By Mark Pazniolas Connecticut Mirror

The state House of Representatives offered absolution, though pointedly not exoneration, to the nine women and two men hanged for witchcraft in 17th-century Connecticut, a dark and overlooked chapter of its colonial history.

By a vote of 121-30 on May 17, the House approved a resolution that was rewritten to sidestep lawyerly concerns, most notably whether contemporary Connecticut has a right to overturn verdicts reached during British colonial rule.

“We have absolutely no power to exonerate someone who was convicted under a different government,” said Rep. Craig Fishbein, a lawyer and the ranking House Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

“Connecticut was a British colony,” said Rep. Doug Dubitsky, R-Chaplin, also a lawyer. “And all of these injustices that were carried out on these people were carried out by the British, and this amendment makes that clear.”

To mollify opponents and get the measure called for a vote, the resolution’s sponsor, Rep. Jane Garibay, took the deal: Among other tweaks, Connecticut would absolve, not exonerate, the condemned “of all crimes of witchcraft and familiarities with the devil.”

The resolution still would assert “misogyny played a large part in the trials and in denying defendants their rights and dignity” and that “Connecticut apologizes to

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William Schloat told lawmakers, “If I had a time machine, I would travel back to Hartford in the 1600s to help the people who are being accused of witchcraft.” Two rows behind him, at right, is Rep. Jane Garibay, sponsor of the exonerationresolution. Mark Pazniokas, The Connecticut Mirror the descendants of all those who were indicted, convicted and executed.”

The apology was galling to at least one lawmaker.

“I’m gonna say it. I’m really not sorry,” said Rep. Jason Perillo, R-Shelton. “Nobody from my family was here. And I’m looking at a lot of other folks. Nobody from your family was here.”

Garibay said the apology was important to descendants of the condemned witches who attended a public hearing of the Judiciary Committee in March.

“They’re not asking for money, ” Garibay said. “The only thing they’re asking is that as a community we say, ‘We are sorry this happened to you. ’”

Garibay is a Democrat from Windsor, a community settled by the English in 1633, just 14 years before the village turned on one of their own, hanging Alice Young.

Young was the mother of a daughter who escaped an epidemic that claimed neighboring children in 1647, a source of envy and suspicion ingredients in witchcraft accusations that persist, often directed at women.

The May issue of Scientific American reports that every year more than 1,000 people still are “tortured, expelled

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