Over 400 years after the fact, Scotland is finally apologizing to the thousands of people that were accused of witchcraft and executed under the country's Witchcraft Act.
Scotland's first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, made the announcement on International Women's Day, describing it as an “egregious historic injustice” in the formal posthumous apology.
Similar to the way that the Salem Witch Trials resulted in dozens of false accusations, the Scotland Witchcraft Act made the practice of witchcraft or associating with witches a capitol level offense and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 4,000 people, most of whom were women, from 1563 to 1736.
"Those who met this fate were not witches, they were people, and they were overwhelmingly women,” Sturgeon said during her remarks. “At a time when women were not even allowed to speak as witnesses in a courtroom, they were accused and killed because they were poor, different, vulnerable.”
Sturgeon's formal apology comes as the result of years-long campaign by the Witches of Scotland seeking a pardon and national memorial for those that were accused of witchcraft during the moral panic.
Scotland was by no means the only country to have a similar law on the books, England even introduced “An Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts” the exact same year, and the rate of accusations was four to five time the European average at the time.
Scotland didn’t apologize for the cruel treatment of the witches, only that they were accused.
Not much of an apology as far as we are concerned.
If they were witches, it was something to be proud of.
The Witches' Well, a cast iron fountain and plaque, honors the Scottish people who were burned at the stake between the 15th and 18th centuries.
