Financial Independence: The Modern Witch Hunt

I remember sitting in a cramped university library carrel. The air smelled of old paper and dust. My fingers traced the lines of a 17th-century court transcript. It detailed the life of a woman named Katherine Harrison. She brewed ale. She kept bees. She ran a farm alone. For this, her neighbors called her a witch. I closed the book feeling a cold, familiar recognition. Centuries change. The labels do not.

Katherine Harrison became a young widow in Wethersfield, Connecticut. She inherited her husband’s wealth and land. She did not remarry. Instead, she ran the farm herself. She took up ranching. She brewed her own ale. She spun wool into yarn. She kept bees, trading honey and wax. She was clever, outspoken, and independent. These are the hobbies we romanticize today. We see them on social media. They symbolize a return to mindful, hands-on living. But in 1668, they were evidence. They were proof of a pact with the devil.

Her neighbors brought her to trial. They said she used magic to make her work profitable. A tailor claimed she bewitched his needle. He sewed sleeves wrong seven times. Men said she hindered their trades as weavers. They were suspicious of her skill with a spinning wheel. Her conviction was about more than superstition. It was about property. Historian Carol F. Karlsen studied these patterns. She found a shocking truth. Women who inherited property were often accused. Women from families without male heirs were most vulnerable. They made up most of those executed. Katherine’s crime was her financial independence. It was her refusal to need a man.

This pattern stretched across the ocean. In Scotland, a healer named Agnes Sampson was tried. She was a widow, known for her remedies and skill. King James VI accused her of witchcraft. He ordered her torture. Over half the charges focused on her healing work. Her labor was twisted into a conspiracy. She was said to have raised storms to sink the king’s ship. Society punished her for her knowledge. It punished her for her feminine power.

Women’s work itself became a risk. Dr. Philippa Carter at Cambridge University studied this. She reviewed old casebooks from an astrologer. He recorded hundreds of suspected bewitchments. Women worked in dairying, healthcare, and livestock. These jobs were prone to ordinary failures. Milk could sour. A wound might fester. These natural events were called corruption. They were blamed on the “evil eye” of a woman. Her daily path took her between homes and markets. Each interaction was a chance for conflict. Each conflict could spawn an accusation.

Institutions joined the condemnation. In 1325, a pope warned a bishop. He said women practicing medicine without formal training were witches. They should be stopped. This was a strategic move. It barred women from academic institutions. It then barred them from legitimate medical practice. Their community-based knowledge became heresy. Their economic contribution became a threat.

I visited Wethersfield last year. I stood on the land Katherine Harrison farmed. The air was quiet. I thought about the modern echoes. We don’t burn women at the stake anymore. But we still weaponize the word. We saw it on billboards in Melbourne just last June. They depicted the state premier, Jacinta Allan. They put her in a black pointed hat. The message was clear. When a woman holds power, the old label waits. It is a tool to shame her. It is a way to take her influence away.

Financial independence is still a radical act for women. The path to it is still lined with old fears. We might call it “side hustle culture” now. We might post about our homesteading dreams. But the underlying tension remains. A woman building her own security defies a deep, old script. She is told she is too ambitious. She is called difficult or cold. The word “witch” is just a shorter version of that story.

So what do we do with this history? We must recognize the pattern. We must see the accusations for what they are. They are often masks for jealousy. They are covers for a fear of female autonomy. When a woman’s success is mystified or maligned, question it. Support the beekeepers, the brewers, the healers, and the farmers. Support the women building their own tables, not just asking for a seat.

Katherine Harrison was ultimately banished, not killed. She survived. Her story did not end in the flames. That is its own kind of magic. It is a testament to stubborn resilience. Her legacy is not one of witchcraft. It is one of unwavering self-reliance. In a world that told her she couldn’t, she simply did. Perhaps that is the most powerful spell of all.