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| Newspaper depiction of "Doctor White" |
At the close of the 19th century, America was in a state of disarray; the "Panic of 1893" would become the nation's worst economic downturn until the Great Depression, with unemployment rates exceeding 18% by the following year. The unemployment rate in Pennsylvania hit 25%, while New York's jobless rate peaked at 35%. Michigan was hit the hardest, with 43% unemployment. All told, more than 15,000 businesses closed their doors during this depression. Fortunes were lost, careers were ruined, marriages were strained, and the American public looked for salvation anywhere they could. Many of them, in fact, were so desperate that they sought answers to their problems by turning to the supernatural.
During the years of the depression, Washington DC was a haven for mediums, clairvoyants and witches, most of whom promised to restore lost wealth or love with the swallow of an exotic potion or a message from beyond the grave. These charlatans were so popular that city officials made it a priority to crack down on them. Judges handed out stiff sentences to fraudulent fortune-tellers and vagabond Voodoo priests while a police sergeant named John C. Daley made a concerted effort to rid the city of these "disreputable characters".
The following story, which appeared in the May 12, 1898 edition of the Washington Times, illustrates rather colorfully the proliferation of "voodoo doctors" who conducted business in our nation's capital city.
Voodoo Doctors And Their Many Dupes
The mystic confidence game known as Voodooism is so extensively practiced in Washington, despite the activity of the police, and the severe sentences imposed upon offenders by Judges Miller and Kimball. The voodoo "doctors" or charmists are nearly always shrewd, clever-talking colored men, and their victims are members of the woe-begone fraternity, "the other half".
One of the most prolific fields for the operations of these despicable confidence men is South Washington, which abounds with congested byways, lined with squalid hovels, and commons dotted liberally with the shanty homes of poverty.
Police Sergeant John C. Daley is now directing his energies to ferreting out some of these disreputable characters who infest his precinct, the Fourth, which embraces the southern section of the city. One of the men the "fighting sergeant" would like to lay his hands upon is a tall, clerical looking negro whose cards announce him as:
DR. THOMAS A. WHITE, L.L.M.
PROFESSOR OF OCCULT SCIENCE AND MYSTICISM
Diseased Cured by Magnetism, Bad Omens Destroyed, Love Affairs Remedied, Marriage Made Happy, &c.
"Dr." White has made a pretty thorough canvass of South Washington's alleys and fields and has taken from the pockets of the poor many nickels, dimes, quarters and dollars which should have been expended for provender, fuel or clothing by his poor patrons.
This foxy voodoo apparently shuns the bright sunlight of the daytime, for the police say the greater part of his work is done under cover of darkness. Like the fox he steals forth from his lair in the shadows of night and invades the home of his victims while they are sitting about their humble hearthstones enjoying a season of rest after the toils of the day.
The evening hours, too, are the best for his shady work in more senses than one. He has a better opportunity of "conning" the poor negroes into patronizing his swindling games, and there is less danger of being spotted and perhaps arrested by the police.
White's favorite scheme, and the one he can work to perfection as he expressed it, with excellent financial results, is the bringing together of lovers who are at outs, or husbands and wives who are separated. In order to be successful, "Dr." White says he plays middle and "works both ends of the game". In other words, he placates both man and woman. For instance, if John Smith has quarreled with Sally Jones, his best girl, and employed the "doctor" to bring about a reunion with Sally, he first demands a retainer, which is never less than $1. Upon receiving this he gives John Smith a small silk bag, which he says contains the hair of a black cat with nine lives, the poison sack of a rattlesnake, and a potion of love powders made from a mysterious root, which must be dug out of the ground on a moonlit night just as the clock strikes for midnight. Smith is instructed to sleep with the uncanny silk bag under his pillow for fourteen nights, and on the fifteenth his sweetheart will appear before him filled with forgiveness and love.
In the meantime the shrewd voodoo doctor calls upon Sally Jones under some pretext. After conversing with her for awhile, he tells her that he has had a "divine" dream, the purport of which is that some dreadful fate will befall her unless she does as he directs. She must, however, maintain the strictest secrecy and never inform anyone that she has ever met or conversed with him. He has previously informed John Smith that he, too, must be secretive and not let a soul know that he (the "doctor"), is trying to heal up the breach between himself and his girl.
After impressing the woman with his alleged wonderful occult powers, if she is at all superstitious, and the female generally is, he proceeds to work upon her feelings and nearly always succeeds in bringing about a reconciliation. After this is affected he pays John Smith a secret visit, usually on his pay day, and collects the remained of the fee.
Voodoo White works a similar game in bringing together man and wife, who have been separated. One of his meanest schemes is to collect fees from unemployed men and women on the promise to get them employment. In these cases he tells his victim to select the position he or she desires and promises to work a charm on the employer to secure employment for his victim. By this outrageous game White has managed to filch many hard-earned pennies and dimes from poor men and women who are struggling in the cheerless embrace of grim poverty. Such work as this, the police say, should land Voodoo White high and dry in the penitentiary for a long term of years.
Dr. White's Devil Salve
"Dr." White also professes to be able to cure rheumatism of long standing, and sells what he calls "The Devil's Salve", for 50 cents a box. It is guaranteed to cure radically the worst cases of rheumatism. He informs his patrons that the salve is made from the oil of tree frogs captured during the first fall of snow, and a liquid extracted from the hearts of jet black cats.
In the practice of a voodoo doctor the black cat plays an important part. Its hair, claws, eyes, heart and other portions forming essential features of his mysterious and fraudulent materia medica. It is for these reasons that black cats are regarded with such reverence by superstitious negroes, especially in the south. A black cat in the cabin of a colored family is regarded as a veritable mascot, a panacea for all ills, real or imaginary. A feline of midnight hue is regarded with as much suspicious awe by the average plantation negro as the sacred white elephant is by the Hindus.
The police are looking high and low for voodoo "Dr." White. They have learned that he lives with the other lawless elements in a Jackson City hovel, where he spends his ill-gotten gains at policy, crap, and other gambling games. He makes predatory visits to South Washington during the candle-light hours and then sneaks back to his lair and evil companions like a thief in the night. He is described as a tall and very black man, with a smooth face, clerical collar and necktie, black clothing and a beaver hat of the vintage 1850.
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| "Aunt Nancy" |
Aunt Nancy's Earth Juice
The South Washington police are also looking for an old colored woman known as "Aunt Nancy", who has established a sort of perambulating Keeley institute for the cure of drunkenness. By means of this scheme the old woman has succeeded in buncoing the wives and mothers of colored drinking men out of much money.
Aunt Nancy carries with her a quart bottle filled with a liquid which, she claims, will make the worst drunkard forsake his cups and devote his earnings to the legitimate uses of his family. Her instructions are to give the victim whisky freely, and in each drink to place three tablespoonfuls of the liquid. The result is that the victim is made deathly sick, and after taking several doses of the "doctored" firewater he will quickly return to sobriety.
Aunt Nancy's magic liquid is known as "Earth Juice" and is made of the slimy substance extracted from the masses of the red worms, or bait worms, which are dug out from the dark and loamy soil by anglers. The effect of "Earth Juice', when administered with whisky, is to make the victim's very sick, and to cause violent purgings. Several of Aunt Nancy's patients were made so ill by the use of the remedy it is said that it became necessary to send them to Freedman's Hospital for treatment.
This same old female voodoo does a thriving business in selling "love powders" and charms. The former, if administered in the food or drink of a subject, male or female, are warranted to bring on a most desperate case of love, which will remain as true as "the stars above". While her charm, if used as directed, will enable their possessor to control the actions, finances, etc., of the desired person, or to place them under an evil spell.
Aunt Nancy is said to live in a little shanty near Eighteenth and A streets northeast, and the king of her uncanny abode is a big Tom cat. His name is Jasper and he is as black a feline as ever trod the top of a back fence or indulged in a midnight falsetto solo. The peculiarity about Jasper is a small spot of yellow on the center of his forehead, and his eyes, one of which is green and the other blue. This animal is regarded as sacred by the superstitious colored people on the eastern commons, many of whom journey to Aunt Nancy's tumble-down little castle and pay ten cents for the privilege of stroking Jasper's back thrice, which Nancy declares will give them "gud luck an' plenty ob it".
Washington is overrun with tricky voodoos and it will be a good piece of work if the police succeed in arresting them and incarcerating the whole lot, under the vagrancy act, in the workhouse, which is their proper realm.