The 1711 reversal bill named 22 individuals. Passed by the colonial legislature of Massachusetts, the act reversed the attainders of people convicted during the Salem witch trials and restored their legal standing.
An attainder treated a convicted person as legally dead, allowing property to be confiscated and preventing normal inheritance or civil rights. Reversing it mattered to surviving defendants, families, and heirs who had suffered financial and legal consequences even after the trials ended.
The bill did not cover every person convicted in Salem. Seven additional convicted people had not signed the petition associated with the legislation, so their attainders were not reversed at that time. The act also authorized compensation totaling £578 and 12 shillings for survivors and relatives connected with the named petitioners.
The number 22 is easy to confuse with other Salem statistics. Thirty people were convicted overall, 19 were executed, and more than 200 were accused. Those figures describe different stages of the crisis, while 22 refers specifically to the people named in the 1711 reversal measure.