It was February 1698, and illness was sweeping by means of Leonardtown, a small village in southern Maryland. Locals knew whom accountable: They set hearth to the hut of Moll Dyer, a single lady residing alone on the sting of city who had been deemed a witch.
She escaped the enraged residents, solely to die within the frozen wilderness. Her physique was discovered clinging to a rock, on which her knees and palms supposedly left impressions.
Ms. Dyer, arguably, impressed one of the well-known fictional witches in American popular culture: the one on the middle of the 1999 horror movie “The Blair Witch Venture.” Though the movie by no means explicitly talked about Ms. Dyer’s destiny, it’s extensively believed to have been primarily based on her story. Ingeniously marketed as discovered footage, the hit movie additionally endowed Maryland with a haunted status.
Ms. Dyer is certainly one of seven individuals who have been tried and convicted of witchcraft in Maryland within the seventeenth and 18th centuries. Just one was executed: Rebecca Fowler, a widow who was hanged in 1685 after a servant accused her of witchcraft. However all had their reputations sullied for hundreds of years.
Now, the Maryland delegate Heather A. Bagnall, who represents a patch of the state north of Annapolis, has launched a decision within the common meeting to exonerate all of them. The proposed decision, which had an preliminary committee listening to on March 10, has been criticized as out of step with Marylanders’ priorities, however Ms. Bagnall bristled at any suggestion that the measure was frivolous. In an interview, she mentioned she was partly motivated by the demise of Roe v. Wade, which was struck down by the Supreme Courtroom in 2022, and by the anti-abortion measures handed in states like Texas.
“I’ve acquired an actual urge for food for it, and the extra I speak about it, the extra individuals understand, ‘No, that is critical,’” Ms. Bagnall mentioned. “This isn’t identical to a flight of fancy. It’s related at present.”
She in contrast the campaigns in opposition to witches to these in opposition to transgender rights and racial variety initiatives, which have not too long ago come underneath sustained assault.
On the preliminary listening to final week, Ms. Bagnall was joined by witch exoneration advocates, together with an Episcopalian priest. Afterward, her employees was thrilled however not sure of simply when the measure may come up for a full vote. It might be months, even years.
Daniel Myrick, who co-directed “The Blair Witch Venture,” mentioned he supported her effort. “We’re a flawed nation, and have been born out of doing a little extremely merciless issues,” he mentioned in an interview. Higher “symbolic” reckoning, as he put it, than none in any respect — and higher late than by no means.
“It’s a social justice concern,” mentioned Elizabeth Pugliese-Shaw, a household regulation legal professional within the Washington, D.C., suburbs. “These individuals ought to by no means have been accused.” She turned fascinated with witch exoneration after studying that different states had carried out so: In 2022, Massachusetts cleared Elizabeth Johnson Jr., whose conviction was the final to stay standing from the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Connecticut adopted with its personal witch exonerations in 2023.
Maybe most notably, Scotland apologized for its witchcraft trials that led to the torture and execution of 1000’s of ladies from the sixteenth to the 18th centuries. “Anybody who didn’t match the mould of what individuals anticipated could be focused,” mentioned Marlisa Ross, who not too long ago staged a play in regards to the victims of the Scottish witch hunt in Glasgow. Very like Ms. Bagnall, Dr. Ross mentioned she noticed a parallel between the witchcraft panic and the rising social animosities at present. “It was a technique to make everyone have a standard enemy,” she mentioned.
Within the Puritan colonies of New England, witchcraft was a catchall accusation leveled in opposition to girls for quite a lot of causes: lack of a husband, persona quirks, an curiosity in natural drugs or childbirth.
“The accusations are often in opposition to outsiders inside the group,” mentioned Daniel T. Howlett, who’s finishing his doctoral research in faith and incapacity within the American colonies at George Mason College in Virginia. Mr. Howlett is said to Mary Bradbury, who was convicted of witchcraft within the Salem trials. “Being a witch meant that you simply’d signed a covenant with the satan in most European traditions,” he mentioned.
Usually, girls have been merely handy scapegoats. Beth M. Caruso, who led the exoneration effort in Connecticut, has written three novels in regards to the state’s witch trials. Her curiosity was piqued after she discovered of the plight of Alse Younger, believed to be the primary lady hanged for witchcraft within the American colonies in 1647. Very like Ms. Dyer, Ms. Younger was blamed for a illness outbreak. “The place she lived was proper subsequent door to a cluster of kid deaths,” Ms. Caruso mentioned. “So then it made complete sense as to why she was accused.”
The present cultural second could also be significantly auspicious. Witches have been having fun with one thing of a revival, and never solely due to “Depraved,” the hit musical movie starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. The “witchtok” hashtag on TikTok has thousands and thousands of posts, as customers flock to witchcraft’s moody aesthetic, in addition to to its emphasis on various therapeutic and nature-centered spirituality.
“A part of the draw for us to witchcraft is the acceptance and celebration of our private identities, our bodies, bodily autonomy, a love of our planet and, in lots of instances, therapeutic from previous spiritual traumas,” Devin Hunter, who runs the web site Fashionable Witch, wrote in an e mail. “For instance, many people are girls, members of the LGBTQIA+ group, and are members of different underserved communities. Like us, these convicted and tried for witchcraft have been typically susceptible individuals residing on the fringes of society.”
(In some nations and areas, girls proceed to be prosecuted for witchcraft.)
In the present day, the legend of Moll Dyer nonetheless permeates Leonardtown, a tidy waterside enclave the place a horse-drawn carriage may move a hip cocktail lounge. The rock, the one the place Ms. Dyer supposedly met her finish, is roofed by glass — touching it’s mentioned to enrage Ms. Dyer’s spirit and produce unhealthy luck. A cat cafe in town’s essential strip is known as “Meow Dyer,” an obvious reference to the accused witch’s identify. Since 2021, a weekend in late February has been dedicated to celebrating Ms. Dyer’s reminiscence. This yr, the occasions included “paranormal investigations,” axe throwing and a cocktail contest.
Historic markers on the highway to Leonardtown proclaim Maryland’s legacy as a haven of non secular tolerance. However, when England handed an anti-witchcraft act in 1604, the state adopted it. However Ms. Bagnall just isn’t bothered by the truth that centuries have handed for the reason that injustices have been dedicated underneath that regulation. “It’s by no means the unsuitable time to do the precise factor,” she mentioned.
