Like much of Europe and colonial America , Scotland has a scandalous account ofwitch huntingdating back to the 16th century . Between the passage of the Witchcraft Act in 1563 and its repeal in 1736 , 4000 people were accused of witchery in the area — most of whom were woman . Of the targeted victims , roughly 2500 were sentence to expiry . This geological era is regarded as an barbarousness today , and Scotland is taking steps to acknowledge its past wrongdoings . As theBBC reports , Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has cut a schematic apologia to the victims of Scotland ’s witch trials .
" Today on International Women ’s Day , as first minister on behalf of the Scottish authorities , I am choosing to acknowledge that rank historical iniquity and extend a stately posthumous apology to all of those accused , convict , vilified or run under the Witchcraft Act of 1563 , " she said in a statement at Holyrood in Edinburgh on March 8 . " It was unfairness on a colossal scale , driven at least in part by misogynism in its most literal sentiency , hatred of charwoman . "
While Scotland was n’t the only land shamefaced of torture and vote down people accused of witchcraft 300 years ago , it hold an dismaying distinction . harmonize to historiographer , Scotland ’s murder rate for convict witch was five sentence higher than the norm for Europe . Germany , Switzerland , and Catalonia in Spain have allexonerated the victimsof their enchantress hunts , but Sturgeon ’s late statement mark the first metre Scotland has excuse for its involvement in the mass hysteria .
Beyond the fact that most of them were women , the masses charge of witchcraft centuries ago did n’t always fit a primed stereotype . Being very sure-enough , very young , impoverished , or financially independent could all arouse mistrust from a paranoid society . Here are moresigns that you ’d restrict as a witchin the 17th hundred .
[ h / tBBC ]
