Lawmakers in Maryland’s General Assembly will start their session by tackling some weighty issues, from a budget deficit of nearly $3 billion to the high cost of education reform and the potential ripple effects of changes under President-elect Donald Trump.
But one legislative effort takes a look back in Maryland’s history.
Whether they were accused, tried or convicted of the crime of witchcraft, a Maryland lawmaker wants individuals who were singled out for prosecution before the American Revolution to be exonerated.
Maryland state Del. Heather Bagnall told WTOP that while most people think of the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, in Maryland, “We have a record of seven individuals that were accused, tried, some were exonerated, some were convicted,” and one was executed for the crime of being a witch.
Bagnall said she became interested in the issue after being approached by constituents who are looking at the issue nationally.
While it may seem like an odd issue to take up, Bagnall said, “The more I looked into it, the more I thought this is still really relevant today.”
Bagnall said the accusations in the 17th and 18th centuries could “drive people out of professions, to drive them out of their homes, to reclaim their estates and their fortunes. It was very, very dangerous.”
She also noted how unjust persecutions today are often referred to as “witch hunts.”
Bagnall said women bore the brunt of accusations of witchcraft, something she said is rooted in misogyny, but that men were sometimes targets. She mentioned John Cowman of Calvert County, who was sentenced to hang for the crime in 1674.
“He was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to labor,” she said, and Cowman ended up living as an indentured servant.
Rebecca Fowler is the only person in Maryland executed for what was then a felony offense of being a witch. But Bagnall said there’s another casualty of the accusations of witchcraft, Moll Dyer, of what is now St. Mary’s County.
“Moll Dyer is the one that people are most familiar with, even if they don’t realize that they’re most familiar with her,” Bagnall said.
Any mention of witches in Maryland often brings up the story in the movie “The Blair Witch Project,” and Bagnall emphasized that story was fictionalized, but that it’s modeled in part, on Dyer, who was from Leonardtown.
According to St. Mary’s County’s tourism site, accusations against Dyer followed an influenza outbreak in 1697. In February of 1698, Bagnall said, “She was accused of witchcraft by the locals. She was driven out of her home. Her home was burned,” and Dyer fled into the woods where, according to Bagnall, “she died of exposure.”
Bagnall told WTOP the bill she’s submitting is a resolution that’s needed, because, as the resolution states, the accusations, trials and singular execution led to “trauma and shame that wrongfully continued to affect the families of the accused.”
“We’ve never exonerated the people that were harmed by it. We’ve never gone back and said this was wrong. They never should have been accused. They certainly never should have been convicted,” she said.