Tituba
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Tituba, was the first woman accused of being a witch during the Salem witch trials of 1692 that took place in Salem Village, Massachusetts. In the late seventeenth century Tituba lived on the island of Barbados as a slave. While Tituba lived on the island she was brought by a man named Samuel Parris to care for his home. Sometime during the 1680’s Samuel Parris moved his family and his slave Tituba to Boston, Massachusetts. In 1689 Samuel Parris became Minister of Salem Village and began to preach in the Village.
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[edit] Tituba’s involvement in the Salem witch trials
Tituba was the first person accused of being a witch in Salem Village which eventually led to several others (men and women) in Salem and the surrounding areas to be accused of witchcraft. Tituba was accused by 9 year old Betty Parris who was Minister Samuel Parris’s daughter and her 11 year old cousin Abigail Williams who also lived in the Parris home. The two girls claimed to be bitten and pinched while they slept. The girls also begin to surccumb to epileptic fits, seizures, and comatose trances. The girls would eventually blame Tituba for their symptoms claiming that they felt Tituba in their dreams pinching, and bitting them. The girls also stated that Tituba would whisper in their ears during their dreams and that was the cause of their fits and trances. Tituba was well known throughout Salem Village as a practicer of witchcraft. There were stories in the village that she taught the young girls in the Parris home how to read palms. Rumors that Tituba read the girls stories at night about magic from Barbados where Obeah was part of the everyday culture also surfaced. Due to the gossip throuhgout the village that Tituba knew witchcraft the Parris’s neighbor Mary Sibley asked Tituba to bake a witch cake to feed to a dog to find out who was bewitching the two girls. Tituba agreed to bake the witch cake. Minister Parris found out about Tituba’s attempt to use witchcraft in the baking of the witch cake and punished Tituba. Tituba apologized for practicing in witchcraft since it was illegal in the village and believed to be evil. Tituba was formally accused of bewitching the two girls after the girls accusation and the discovery of the Witch cake. Tituba denied that she cast a spell on the two Parrish family members and said that she only knew a lttle witchcraft due to her upbringing on the island of Barbados. However, later on Tituba did confess to being a witch and that she was the one who was afflicting the Parris girls. Tituba also stated that she was not the only witch in the village. Tituba named other witches in the village who were her accomplices. Tituba named Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne as her accomplices. Tituba was jailed after being accused and arrested for afflicting the Parris girls. Tituba remained in custody for the duration of the Salem witch trials. After the witch trials ended Minister Parris did not pay the fee to release Tituba from prison so she was bought by an unknown individual for seven pounds who relocated with Tituba to another town.
[edit] Links
Link To Salem witchcraft trial[1] Link to Salem witchcraft video[2] Link to information on Barbados[3]
[edit] Historical Importance of Tituba
Tituba was the first person accused of witchcraft in Salem Village. The affects of the Tituba accusation and her confession allowed the Salem witchcraft trials to take place. If Tituba had not confessed to being a witch and afflicting the Parris girls then there may have never been a witchcraft trial in Salem, Massachusetts in1692. With Ttiuba’s confession she allowed Salem Village to play out all of the anger, fustration, and hysteria to it held pent up within the village society. With Tituba’s confession the citizens of Salem Village had someone to point the finger at for all of the evil events, and wrong doing that were happening to them. It was not the fault of the inhabitants of Salem Village that they were under constatnt fear of being attacked by Natvie Americans. I t was not the inhabitants of Salem Village fault that they were at odds with Minister Parrish over his pay. The citizens of Salem had doen nothing to deserve this it was the evil in the town that caused these things to happen. The Salem witch hunt was a pressure value that allowed the villagers to release social and political tension under the guise of a witch hunt.
[edit] Historical Debate over Tituba
The physical description of Tituba from the first time she was studied by a historian to the present study of her life has had contravercy surrounding it. The argument of Tituba’s ancestery has gained more and more attention day by day. In the beginning of the scholarly study of Tituba it was considered to be a assumed fact that Tituba was of Indian descent. But over time the origins of Tituba have began to be reavaulueated and old theories have been contested. One scholar who disagrees with the old theory that Tituba was Indian is Maryse Conde. I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem (1982) by Maryse Condé tells the story of Tituba from a narrative and fictonal point of view. Conde describes Tituba as being a African slave whose mother was raped on her passage over from Africa and then had Tituba after she arrives in Barbados. This account of Tituba’s origins does not claim to relly on facts for all of its evidence, but since there is no sure fire way to conclude where Ttiuba was from todays evidence Conde feels that she could be correct in her assumptions. In Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies (1996) by Elaine G.Breslaw, she writes “
according to local legend, Tituba and her husband, John, “were spoken of as having come from New Spain…that is, the Spanish West Indies, and the adjacent mainland,” is borne out by the record of known slave-capturing activities in South America”.
Breslaw believes that Tituba was an Arawak Indian from Guiana who was either kidnapped or then brought to Barbados or her tribe had migrated there though South America. While Breslaw relies more on factual evidence then Conde her argument can not be considered any more reliable due to no clear evidence that disputes either theory. The debate over whether Tituba was of Indian ethnicity or of African ancestory can not be resovled tody with the evidence availably today. One scholar who tries to explain why the debate cannot be resolved is Vitea Smith Ticker. In Vitea Smith Ticker, article Purloined Identity The Racial Metamorphosis of Tituba of Salem Villlage she writes “
17th-century Puritans blended the categories Indian, African, and slave…In seventeenth century Massachusetts, such discriminations among unregenerate peoples of color were considered unnecessary, especially for slaves. By 1692 Columbus misnamein had yieldeda catchall term…appplied to the Guanahani, the Caribbe, the Aztecs, and West Indies Arficans…
” Thise passage from the Ticker article sets the background on how the debate over the ethnicity of Tituba’s origins can still be going today. Since there was no clear distinction by the Puritans on the racial differences between Indians, Africans, and slaves it remains hard to truly identify Tituba’s origin. This how ever is not the only reason for the scholarly debate over the identity of Tituba. In Chadwick Hansen’s, article The Metamorphosis of Tituba, or Whey American Intellectuals Can’t Tell an Indian Witch from a Negro he states “
Over the years the magic Tituba practiced has been changed by historiasn and dramatists from English, to India, to African. More startlingly, her own race has been changed from Indian, to half-Indian and half-Negro, to Negro…There is no evidence to support these changes, but there is an instructive lesson in American historiography to be read in them”.
Hansen explains that due to further research into Tituba’s origins that American historians feel more comforatably with labeling Tituba a prevaer of Indian, or African magic as long as it is not connected to any form of Eurepean magic. These reading explain why the historical debate over Tituba’s beginning our just as relalent fact to the historical scholarly field as the part she played in the Salem witch trials.
[edit] Fiction
Tituba is the protagonist of the novel I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem (1982) by Maryse Condé*, she also featured prominently in the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The image of Tituba as the instigator of witchcraft at Salem fed into the popular mindset by the opening scene of The Crucible, which owes much to Marion Starkey’s work "The Devil in Massachusetts" (1949). In the play, Tituba was brought to Salem from Barbados, was told to know how to conjure up spirits, and had allegedly dabbled in sorcery, witchcraft, and Satanism. These fictional accounts hold that Abigail Williams and the other girls tried to use her knowledge when dancing in the woods before the trials began; it was, in fact, their being caught that preceded those events. With the original intention of covering up their own sinful deeds, Tituba was the one to be accused by Abigail, who had in fact drank from a magic cup Tituba made, to kill John Proctor's wife Elizabeth and to bewitch him into loving her. She and the other girls claimed to have seen Tituba "with the Devil."
It is ironic that the belief that Tituba led these girls astray has persisted in popular lore, fiction and non fiction alike. The charge, which is seen by some as having barely disguised racial undertones, is based on the imagination of authors like Starkey, who eerily mirrors Salem’s accusers when she asserts that "I have invented the scenes with Tituba .... but they are what I really believe happened."
- Though it should be noted that according to I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem, Tituba was born in Barbados as the result of an English sailor raping her mother, Abena (who had "jet black skin", which is evidence that Abena and Tituba were of African descent, rather than Indian). The book also says that Abena (as well as two male slaves bought with her) were Ashantis. There is a fair deal of evidence in the first chapter alone as to Tituba's origins, and not one mention of her being even remotely "Indian."
| Salem witch trials | |
|---|---|
| Authorities | Thomas Danforth | John Hale | Increase Mather | Samuel Parris | William Phips | William Stoughton |
| Accusers | Elizabeth Hubbard | Mercy Lewis | Betty Parris | Ann Putnam, Jr. | Susannah Sheldon | Mary Walcott | Abigail Williams |
| Accused | John Alden | Edward Bishop | Sarah Bishop | Mary Black | Mary Bradbury | Sarah Cloyce | Rebecca Eames | Mary English | Phillip English | Abigail Faulkner | Dorcas Good | William Hobbs | Mary Lacy | Sarah Morey | Benjamin Proctor | Elizabeth Proctor | Sarah Proctor | William Proctor |
| Confessed and Accused Others | Dorcas Hoar | Abigail Hobbs | Deliverance Hobbs | Margaret Jacobs | Tituba | Mary Warren |
| Executed | Bridget Bishop | George Burroughs | Martha Carrier | Martha Corey | Mary Eastey | Sarah Good | Elizabeth Howe | George Jacobs, Sr. | Susannah Martin | Rebecca Nurse | Alice Parker | Mary Parker | John Proctor | Ann Pudeator | Wilmot Redd | Margaret Scott | Samuel Wardwell | Sarah Wildes | John Willard |
| Died in Prison | Lydia Dustin | Ann Foster | Sarah Osborn | Roger Toothaker |
|
Died During Interrogation |
Giles Corey |
