Massachusetts has an opportunity to make history, and you can be a part of it.

Welcome to the Thing about Salem.

I'm Josh Hutchinson.

And I'm Sarah Jack.

And November 25th, 2025, Bill H 1927 goes before the Massachusetts General Court.

If the Joint Committee on the Judiciary moves it forward, it would go to the House of Representatives for a vote.

Otherwise, this bill dies.

This bill will exonerate the eight people convicted of witchcraft in Boston and recognize everyone else who suffered accusations across Massachusetts.

Between 1648 and 1693, more than 200 people were formally charged with witchcraft in Massachusetts.

Only 31 from Salem have been cleared, the rest forgotten until now.

And you do have the power to act.

Age 1927, an act exonerating certain individuals accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, needs your support.

So what is Age 1927?

This bill proposed by Representative Steven Owens, whose district includes parts of Watertown and Cambridge, would exonerate eight people convicted of witchcraft in Boston, not Salem in Boston, between 1648 and 1688, and would provide for a general clearing of everyone who was ever accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts.

That's over 200 people.

So you have the power to get this to happen, and we're really looking forward to working with you.

There's some steps this bill has to go through to survive, to pass and exonerate these innocent people.

First it needs to go through this joint committee and the judiciary, then to the House, then to the Senate.

Why do we need H 1927?

Well, there's a long history of exoneration in Massachusetts, going back to the early 18th century.

Through various bills passed by the Massachusetts General Court over the last several centuries, the Salem convicted have been cleared, as well as Giles Quarry, who was pressed to death with stones for not agreeing to stand trial.

So they've all been cleared, but the Boston have not.

Not one of them has had their name cleared yet.

We have resources for you on all of this history that we're talking about, our websites, our podcast episodes, and the petition at change.org/witch Trials has lots of information for you, so go check that out today.

Let's for a minute about what a witch was In the 17th century.

A witch was somebody who was in a diabolical covenant.

They had signed a pact with the devil to serve him, usually for a period of some number of years, though he would trick them into staying for life basically, and so.

Allegedly, all of this is alleged.

It's.

Allegedly, nobody ever produced Satan's little book that he recorded the names in, or, you know, showed hoof prints in the snow or anything that Satan would have left behind.

But a witch was tied to this diabolical covenant.

And since we know that people weren't covenanting with the devil, we know that everybody accused of witchcraft back then was actually innocent of what they were accused of.

It was just neighbors accusing neighbors of causing their misfortunes and failures.

So you said there is a history of legislation in Massachusetts?

Yeah, this legislation to clear the Salem accused, it's taken over 300 years to get everyone cleared up.

Back in 17 O3, three women had their names cleared, but then in 171120, some more men and women and children, Abigail Hobbs, who was a 15 year old girl, they got cleared.

So that seemed at the time to cover everybody who needed it.

Fast forward from 1711.

We're now in the 20th century, clearly in the middle of the 20th century.

And about 1945, a man, a descendant of Anne Pudiator, brought some legislation before the Massachusetts General Court to clear her name and certain other persons who were convicted of witchcraft in Salem but were not named in the bill, which didn't pass until 1957.

So 12 years, this descendant LED this effort and kept, you know, going back to the general's court.

Will you pass this?

Will you pass this?

Will you pass this?

And then they did, and that.

It sounds like there is a pattern of them not taking these bills up.

Not initially, it seems people have had to go back to the well on it, but you should have seen how much trouble it was in the 18th century to get the initial reversals of a tender past that took a lot of people's voices coming in to make it happen.

And then in the 20th century, it's similar obstacles.

And even in the 21st, turning to the 21st century, those certain other persons got named.

In 2001, five more women were named and cleared, exonerated.

This effort was led by a college student at Salem State University.

And then in 2022, the last person convicted in Salem was finally cleared.

That's Elizabeth Johnson, junior.

She was in the news a lot that year, so you may have heard about this.

This effort was led by a teacher and her classes at North Andover Middle School.

So here are these last two ones.

You've got a college student and then middle school students doing the effort.

I do want to mention that you can read the 1957 resolution and age 1927 at our website massachusettswitchchannels.org.

Again point you to that for a lot of resources about the Massachusetts witch trials.

So as I was saying, this bill adds 8 individuals to the 1957 resolution by name.

Margaret Jones.

Elizabeth Kendall, Alice.

Lake.

You, Parsons.

Eunice Cole.

Anne Hibbens.

Elizabeth Morse.

Goody, Glover, other than 31 who've had their names cleared it for Salem.

There's all these people accused of witchcraft who've not been acknowledged in legislation yet.

So this provides for the clearing of those more than 200 people.

We don't necessarily know the exact number because the records aren't entirely intact from the 17th century, but this would clear anybody who was accused in Massachusetts at any point in time.

But these ate by name.

But ate by name, and these by general stroke of the brush.

Yeah.

So that general stroke would include titaba.

She served months and months in prison and received no acknowledgement for that injustice.

This would cover that.

And another person who unfortunately stuck in jail for about 7 months and really had a hard time with it because she was four years old, was Dorothy good?

She's just a little baby girl stuck in a dungeon in chains for seven months.

Tiny little chains.

They would have had chains on her.

They made, you know, special shackles for her wrists and ankles so that they could chain her and hopefully keep her specter from roaming and doing harm to people.

I'd really like to see Dorothy receive this acknowledgement.

Dorothy really needs it.

Let's do this for her.

When I'm out giving presentations in the community about historical witch trials and modern witch trials, I inevitably always get this question, well, why do they need exonerated?

So I think we should talk about some of those reasons.

Yeah, Let's talk first about generational and familial trauma.

This injustice didn't just harm the people that were directly accused.

It harmed everybody in their orbit because you're taking somebody out of that circle at least for a period of time while they're in jail permanently if they're executed.

Which accusations are real colonial heritage?

This was unjust.

This was a miscarriage of justice.

And the Boston convicted really experienced this, uttering this dehumanization, the scapegoating.

Those women themselves told us they were innocent and that they wanted justice and there was no good evidence used in the courts for these witch trials.

There was no physical proof except for witch's Marks and puppets, and witch's marks could have been any kind of a blemish on anywhere on your body, and a puppet is just a little doll that anybody could have had for any purpose.

Fear drives witch hunts.

Fear drove these witch hunts.

We need to remind people to not act dangerously in fear towards the vulnerable and to seek out true reasons for misfortune and success.

So why should you support age 1927?

You can honor the innocent victims.

They were real people.

They have real stories.

You can get to know them through their real stories.

We can recognize the injustice of the witch trials and move forward from there through education and discussion of what lessons can we learn from these witch trials and how do we avoid having them.

Again, this is so relevant in today's world because there are modern victims of witch trials.

There are modern victims of all kinds of injustice all around the world.

We see this every day.

Somebody is on the receiving end of injustice.

They're being scapegoated, they're being other, they're being prosecuted with little evidence.

All these things we need to stop doing.

Yeah, this effort is to take a stand against that Injustice 2.

There's also an opportunity here to take a stand against misogyny.

It was clearly a problem in the witch trials of the past.

All five of the five people executed for witchcraft in Boston were women, and 75% of the people accused in the sandwich trials were women.

Overall, something like 80 plus percent of Massachusetts victims were women.

So women, women, women and girls.

There's some great ways for you to participate.

First, sign the petition.

We're at almost 3000 names right now, and I would love to see it hit 3000 and just keep ticking past that because I believe there's more than 3000 people in this world who want to see Margaret Jones, the first woman in Massachusetts, hang for witchcraft.

Get an apology.

You can do that at change.org/witchtrials.

So from anywhere in the world you can sign that petition, and from anywhere in the world you can submit written testimony.

We know of people in other countries who have submitted testimony to the General Court for this bill, and you can put that in.

It could be very simple.

Keep it pretty short.

Maybe two or three paragraphs talk about what this bill means to you and why it's important to you specifically.

You don't have to use any of our reasons.

You can use any reason that occurs to you that makes it important.

And if you can say that in two sentences or 6 sentences, that's enough.

Your support of the bill and your signature is going to make a difference and we are going to have the information for how you submit written testimony in our show notes.

Another thing that you can do right now is write or call your own legislator if you're in Massachusetts to ask them to support the bill and ask them to Co sponsor it.

Yeah, there's room for more Co sponsors.

So Massachusetts residents, e-mail your representative, e-mail your senator.

I know it's easy.

Jump on their website, send them a comment, ask them to sponsor this bill and go to our Zazzle shop and order a button.

Order 5 and pass them out.

Shop for these victims.

Sign the petition at change.org/witchtrials.

Together, we can bring justice to Massachusetts witch trial victims.

Visit massachusettswitchtrials.org to learn more and get involved.

Because history isn't just something we study, it's something we can respond to.

Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow, and thank you for all of your support for H 1927.

We love working with you.

Thank you.