Witches Who Would Not Burn

There’s a circle of chairs waiting by the fire, and the smell of old books and spiced tea fills the room. Tonight isn’t about spells or divination. Tonight is about remembering—because history has a way of burying magical people unless someone speaks their names out loud.

Take a seat. Let the candles flicker. Let the library hum with myth, memory, and rebellion.

Throughout history, the word witch has not only meant “magic-worker”—it has meant woman who would not shrink.
Women who knew herbs, who refused abusive husbands, who owned property, who organized their communities, who healed without permission, who loved outside the church—sometimes those were the ones who vanished into smoke.

Even today, calling someone a witch can be a threat… or a crown.

The legacy of historical witches isn’t just about magic. It’s about autonomy.

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Tituba is remembered as the first woman accused in the Salem witch trials, 1692.
She was an enslaved Black or Indigenous woman, forced into the household of Samuel Parris. When pressured to confess to witchcraft, she told the Puritans exactly what they wanted to hear—visions of familiars, flights, the devil’s book.

Scholars now argue that Tituba may have been resisting in the only safe way available:
if she refused, she might have been executed immediately. If she confessed, she could survive longer.

Her “confession” launched a frenzy that killed 20 people and devastated a community.

But her legacy?
Today Tituba is remembered as a symbol of survival in the face of impossible power.
A reminder that marginalized women have often been punished not for magic, but for simply existing.

In 1591, midwife and healer Agnes Sampson was accused of raising storms against King James VI of Scotland. Her crime wasn’t sorcery—it was competence. She saved babies, treated the sick, and spoke plainly.

Agnes endured unimaginable torture. Still, she recanted her forced confession—choosing truth over survival.
She faced her execution not as a monster, but as a woman who refused to validate a lie.

Her legacy? The reminder that “witch” has long meant “woman whose knowledge threatened men in power.”

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Not every historical witch burned.
Some reigned.

Marie Laveau, the famed Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, ruled not through fear but through community. She blended Catholicism, Hoodoo, African spirituality, and folk medicine into a spiritual practice that comforted the forgotten and terrified the elite.

She nursed the sick without fear during epidemics. She prayed and danced and resisted the church that told her she couldn’t lead.

Her legacy is not only her magic—but her liberation theology:
spiritual power belonged to the people, not the priests or the colonizers.

Sources: Carolyn Morrow Long A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau; New Orleans Historical Project

From the past we inherit…
🔹 Herbal knowledge — knowing the land, the plants, the seasons
🔹 Community healing — tending to others without needing approval
🔹 Defiance of unjust power — refusing to bow when the world demands obedience
🔹 Spiritual autonomy — crafting a sacred path that belongs to no one else

And in the present, we carry it forward when we…
🟢 Learn from the earth instead of corporations
🟢 Practice mutual aid, emotional care, and show up for each other
🟢 Stand firm in activism, boundaries, and refusing silence
🟢 Build our own spiritual practices rather than waiting for permission

No need for elaborate ritual.

Start small:

🔹 Say their names out loud
🔹 Study the traditions they came from with respect
🔹 Support communities whose magic was historically stolen or demonized
🔹 Practice autonomy—spiritually, emotionally, politically
🔹 Care for others without apologizing for your power

The legacy of witches isn’t about broomsticks or cauldrons—
it’s about refusing to be small.

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“Our ancestors are not gone; they are waiting for us to remember.”
— Aja Monet

Do you weave witchy practices into your self-care, or are you just dipping your toes into the cauldron?
Share in the comments—I’d love to hear your rituals, your doubts, even your half-burned candle stories.

And if this post lit a little spark in you, pass it along to a friend who might need some magic today.

🕯 Books
• Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem – Elaine G. Breslaw
• A New Orleans Voudou Priestess – Carolyn Morrow Long
• Witches, Midwives & Nurses – Ehrenreich & English
• Caliban and the Witch – Silvia Federici

🎧 Podcasts
• The Witch Wave
• Black Magic Woman Podcast
• Morbid — The Salem Witch Trials Series

🌍 Places to Support
• SisterSong (Reproductive Justice)
• Trans Lifeline
• Indigenous Environmental Network

Because the political present is never far from the witching past.

📚 Check out my books here! 📚

🔗 All My Links 🔗

🧙‍♀️ Blessed Be! 🧙‍♀️

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