Massachusetts 8^th Graders Push to Exonerate Woman Sentenced to Death in 1693 in Salem Witchcraft Hysteria

A group of 8^th graders from North Andover Middle School in North Andover, Massachusetts are cham­pi­oning efforts to posthu­mous­ly par­don a young woman who was sen­tenced to death for witch­craft in 1693 dur­ing the height of the Salem witchcraft hysteria. 

The stu­dents in Carrie LaPierre​’s civics class spent a year research­ing the case of Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who they dis­cov­ered was the only remain­ing per­son wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of witch­craft in the colony who had not been exon­er­at­ed. They reviewed orig­i­nal his­tor­i­cal sources, learn­ing that Johnson was tar­get­ed because she belonged to a polit­i­cal­ly dis­fa­vored fam­i­ly, devi­at­ed from accept­ed gen­der norms, and may have been intellectually disabled. 

After gath­er­ing their research, the stu­dents began a let­ter-writ­ing cam­paign to clear Johnson’s name and per­suad­ed their state sen­a­tor, Diana DiZoglio (pic­tured) to intro­duce leg­is­la­tion to exon­er­ate Johnson. The stu­dents helped draft the bill, which DiZoglio intro­duced in March 2021 and which received a hear­ing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 27.

Twenty-eight mem­bers of Johnson’s fam­i­ly were per­se­cut­ed on super­sti­tion-backed claims of witch­craft. She was unmar­ried, and was described by con­tem­po­raries as ​“sim­plish at the best,” ​“sense­less,” and ​“igno­rant.” After con­fess­ing to being a witch, she was sen­tenced to be hanged, but received a reprieve and was nev­er exe­cut­ed. Johnson was 22 years old at the time of her tri­al and lived into her 70s. “[B]ecause Elizabeth was not hanged for her alleged crime, she was over­looked.” DiZoglio said in writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny sub­mit­ted to the Senate com­mit­tee. ​“Because she nev­er had chil­dren, there is no group of descen­dants act­ing on her behalf.” 

“It is impor­tant that we work to cor­rect his­to­ry,” she said. ​“We will nev­er be able to change what hap­pened to these vic­tims, but at the very least, we can set the record straight.”

“Part of our intro­duc­tion to the civics class over­all is based on the idea of iden­ti­ty, val­ues, stereo­types and civ­il dis­course,” LaPierre told the inter­na­tion­al news ser­vice Agence France Press. “[T]he kids’ efforts right­ed a long-stand­ing wrong, and I want them to be proud of that.”

Exonerating Wrongfully Accused ​‘Witches’

There have been mul­ti­ple efforts to posthu­mous­ly par­don those wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of witch­craft in the Salem hys­te­ria. However, Johnson’s case was over­looked or remained unde­tect­ed on each occasion. 

In 1711, the colo­nial leg­is­la­ture reversed 22 of the con­vic­tions, act­ing on peti­tions from some of the accused and the chil­dren of those who were exe­cut­ed (see image, right). After Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, drew atten­tion to the witch tri­als as an alle­go­ry for the polit­i­cal witch hunts of the 1950s, Massachusetts enact­ed leg­is­la­tion in 1957 to exon­er­ate more of the accused. The leg­is­la­ture passed anoth­er bill in 2001 to exon­er­ate the false­ly accused, but again failed to iden­ti­fy Johnson’s case.

DiZoglio said the stu­dents’ research had deter­mined that Johnson is the only per­son con­demned for witch­craft at the time who has yet to be formally pardoned.

The History of Witchcraft Executions in the U.S.

According to the Espy file of his­toric exe­cu­tions in the United States, 26 women and 9 men were exe­cut­ed for witch­craft in U.S. colonies or ter­ri­to­ries. The out­comes of the tri­als were large­ly pre­or­dained. Those who assert­ed their inno­cence were con­demned; those who false­ly con­fessed were spared execution. 

Nearly all the witch­craft exe­cu­tions took place in Puritan New England. In the years 1647 through 1662, Connecticut hanged sev­en peo­ple false­ly accused of witch­craft. Most of the witch­craft exe­cu­tions were in neigh­bor­ing Massachusetts, where, begin­ning in 1648, 26 were exe­cut­ed. The witch­craft killings cul­mi­nat­ed in 1692, when false charges of witch­craft claimed 20 inno­cent vic­tims. The Espy file reports one colo­nial-era witch­craft exe­cu­tion out­side of New England: Rebecca Fowler was exe­cut­ed in Maryland in 1685. The last witch­craft exe­cu­tion occurred near­ly a cen­tu­ry lat­er, when an enslaved Black man named Manuel was burned at the stake on witch­craft charges in Illinois in 1779.

The witch­craft exe­cu­tions are regard­ed as an illus­tra­tion of how cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has been applied to harsh­ly pun­ish women from dis­fa­vored groups or whose lifestyles or beliefs devi­ate from social­ly dom­i­nant norms. In cap­i­tal cas­es, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions Agnes Callamard said in 2018, ​“courts judge women not just for their alleged offens­es, but also for what are per­ceived to be their moral fail­ings as women.”

Woman account for approx­i­mate­ly 2% of all peo­ple sen­tenced to death in the United States since colo­nial times but com­prised three-quar­ters of those exe­cut­ed for witch­craft. In dis­cussing the effort to posthu­mous­ly par­don Johnson, Jane Swift — who issued the par­dons in 2001 and is the only woman to serve as Governor of Massachusetts — said, ​“What has always res­onat­ed with me is that these are some of the ear­li­est his­tor­i­cal exam­ples in the U.S. of women being vil­i­fied for act­ing out­side of their accepted role.”