tituba

The only records of Tituba pertain to her central position in the Salem witch trials, where she appears as the Indian slave of a local minister named Samuel Parris. It is not known how Parris initially came across Tituba, who was not from Massachusetts.

The sole source for Tituba's birthplace is Thomas Hutchinson, who wrote in 1764 – decades after Tituba's death – that she had been "brought into the Country from New Spain". Later historians have taken this to mean the Caribbean or more specifically Barbados, but this is speculation.Mary Beth Norton. In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. Vintage, 2007. p.21. In the 1990s, Elaine G. Breslaw identified her with a "Tattuba," born circa 1662–1666, who was documented as enslaved to one Samuel Thompson in Barbados in 1674. Breslaw proposed that the name Tituba was derived from the Tetebetana clan of Arawak language speakers, and that she was born near Venezuela and captured as a child.{{cite book |last1=Breslaw |first1=Elaine G. |title=Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies |date=1996 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-1307-5 |pages=12–14 |jstor=j.ctt9qg919.6 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg919.6}} Other historians including Peter Charles Hoffer and Samuel Drake have suggested that Tituba was born in Africa.{{cite book |last1=Hoffer |first1=Peter Charles |title=The devil's disciples : makers of the Salem witchcraft trials |date=1996 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore |isbn=978-0-8018-5200-8 |page=8 |url=https://archive.org/details/devilsdisciplesm0000hoff/page/8/mode/2up?q=titub}}Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem by Elaine Breslaw, p. xxi In 1998, Bernard Rosenthal objected to both lines of argument as compounded speculation. He observed that Barbadian slaves were indeed generally African, but Tituba was universally described as Indian in Puritan sources.{{cite journal |last1=Rosenthal |first1=Bernard |title=Tituba's Story |journal=The New England Quarterly |date=1998 |volume=71 |issue=2 |pages=190–203 |doi=10.2307/366502 |jstor=366502 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/366502 |issn=0028-4866}}

In support of the theory connecting Tituba to Barbados, Elaine Breslaw and Charles Upham pointed to Samuel Fowler's writing, "Account of the Life of Samuel Parrish", which described Tituba's eventual master Samuel Parris as transporting slaves from there. While there is no direct evidence to prove this theory, Breslaw presumes that she was Samuel Thompson's family cook, as most enslaved Native Americans were. Tituba would have interacted with a diverse group of people in Barbados, likely picking up knowledge about witchcraft from mistresses and other slaves.

Samuel Thompson inherited his farm in 1676, then fell deathly ill in 1679 and deeded his estate to others. No evidence links Thompson to Parris, but the Thompson estate was in flux at this time, and "Tattuba" could have been purchased or inherited by Parris, who returned to Massachusetts in 1680.{{cite book |last1=Breslaw |first1=Elaine G. |title=Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies |date=1996 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-1307-5 |pages=22–24 |jstor=j.ctt9qg919.7 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg919.7}}{{Cite journal|last=Hwang|first=Junghyun|date=2019|title=Rupturing Salem, Reconsidering Subjectivity: Tituba, the Witch of Infinity in Maryse Condé's I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem|journal=American Studies in Scandinavia|volume=1|pages=43–59| issue=1| doi=10.22439/asca.v51i1.5790|s2cid=203003057|doi-access=free}}{{Cite book|last=Breslaw|first=Elaine|title=Tituba Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies|publisher=New York University Press|year=1996|isbn=0-8147-1227-4|location=New York|language=english}} There is no surviving record, however, of a woman named Tattuba or Tituba being transferred.{{Cite book|title=The Salem Witch Trials Reader (Cambridge, Massachusetts2009), 228.|last=Hill|first=Frances|publisher=Da Capo Press|year=2009|pages=228}}

Tituba's husband was called "John Indian," and his origin is unknown. His name is an apparent exonym, and he may have been a Wampanoag or another Indian from New Spain. John became one of the accusers in the Salem witch trials.{{Cite book|title=Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692|last=Rosenthal|first=Bernard|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1993|location=Cambridge, UK|pages=60}} They appear documented together in Samuel Parris's church record book.

Tituba was the first person to be accused of practicing witchcraft by Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams. It has been theorized that Tituba told the girls tales of Haitian Vodou and witchcraft before the accusations.{{cite magazine |last=Shapiro |first=Laura |date=31 August 2016 |title=The Lesson of Salem |url=http://gnauss.hrsbteachers.ednet.ns.ca/sites/gnauss.hrsbteachers.ednet.ns.ca/files/documents/The%20Lesson%20of%20Salem.pdf |magazine=Newsweek |location=New York City, New York |pages=64–67 |access-date=27 October 2016 |archive-date=27 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161027123146/http://gnauss.hrsbteachers.ednet.ns.ca/sites/gnauss.hrsbteachers.ednet.ns.ca/files/documents/The%20Lesson%20of%20Salem.pdf |url-status=dead }} Tituba was allowed to speak against her accusers despite her race because it was not illegal for slaves to give testimony in court. She was also the first person to confess to practicing witchcraft in Salem Village in January 1692. Initially denying her involvement in witchcraft, Tituba later confessed to making a "witch cake",{{Cite web |last=Johnson Lewis |first=Jone |date=March 11, 2021 |title=The Role of Witch's Cake in Salem |url=https://www.thoughtco.com/definition-of-witchs-cake-3528206 |url-status=live}} but she confessed to making it only after Samuel Parris beat her. Tituba also confessed to speaking with the devil, and in her confession, she stated that he ordered her to worship him and hurt the children of the village. When she was questioned later, she added that she learned about occult techniques from her mistress in "her own Country" (presumably Barbados), who taught her how to ward herself from evil powers and reveal the cause of witchcraft. Since such knowledge was not supposed to be harmful, Tituba again asserted to Parris that she was not a witch. Still, she admitted that she had participated in an occult ritual when she made the witch cake in an attempt to help Elizabeth Parris.Breslaw, Elaine G. Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies. New York: New York University Press, 1996, pp. 107, 170, et al.{{Cite Appletons'|wstitle=Parris, Samuel|year=1900}} Due to how young the accusers were, the accusation did not get taken to court, but Samuel Parris still beat Tituba in an attempt to get her to confess. A month later, Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne were accused of witchcraft again, this time by two adult women who were able to get the accusation taken to court.{{Cite web |last=Boomer |first=Lee |title=Life Story: Tituba |url=https://wams.nyhistory.org/settler-colonialism-and-revolution/settler-colonialism/tituba/ |access-date=2023-07-21 |website=Women & the American Story |language=en-US}} Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne were sent to jail in Boston to await trial and punishment on March 7, 1692. Despite these confessions, there is no proof that she did the things to which she confessed.{{Cite book|title=The Salem Witch Trials Reader|last=Hill|first=Frances|publisher=Da Capo Press|year=2009|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=300}}

Other women and men from surrounding villages were accused of practicing witchcraft and arrested during the Salem witchcraft trials. Tituba not only used these outlandish accusations to stir confusion among Massachusetts residents, but she also used them to displace the punishment and death sentence that could have been imposed upon her. By deflecting people's attention, she convinced others that she was a credible witness, and her recognition saved her life and reputation. Tituba must have been aware that she could not hide from the accusations which were being made against her due to certain prejudices which people held against her based on her ethnicity. She claimed not to be a witch and denied that accusation against her despite her use of occult practices, admitting that the devil visited her and Parris' determination to find her guilty. Her confession and accusations not only served as a scapegoat, they also served as a new form of entertainment to the residents of Salem as they experienced possessions because of her words. Not only did Tituba accuse others in her confession, but she talked about black dogs, hogs, a yellow bird, red and black rats, cats, a fox, and a wolf. Tituba talked about riding sticks to different places. She confessed that Sarah Osborne possessed a creature with the head of a woman, two legs, and wings. Since it mixed various perspectives on witchcraft, Tituba's confession confused listeners, and its similarities to certain stock tropes of demonology caused some Salem Village residents to believe that Satan was among them.

After the trials, Tituba remained in Boston Gaol, which had deplorable living conditions, for thirteen months because Samuel Parris refused to pay her jail fees. During that time, she would testify in other trials of accused witches. In April 1693, Tituba was sold to an unknown person for the price of her jail fees.{{Cite web|url=https://historyofmassachusetts.org/tituba-the-slave-of-salem/|title=Tituba: The Slave of Salem|website=historyofmassachusetts.org|date=3 January 2013|access-date=2019-02-01}} In an interview with Robert Calef for his collection of papers on the trials, titled More Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Trials of Several Witches, Lately Executed in New-England, Tituba confirmed that Parris had beaten a confession out of her and then coached her on what to say and how to say it when she was first questioned.{{Cite web|url=http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/calef/calef.html|title=MORE WONDERS of the INVISIBLE WORLD|website=salem.lib.virginia.edu|access-date=2019-02-01}}

There is no record of Tituba or John Indian after 1693. In 1694, Parris apologized to the people of Salem for his role in the witch trials. In 1711, Massachusetts offered compensation to victims of the trials, but Tituba's name was not listed among those compensated; she may have been deceased by this time. She may have had a daughter, as an "Indian woman" named Violet is named in Parris's will in 1720, but nothing is known of Violet's life either.{{cite book |last1=Breslaw |first1=Elaine G. |title=Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies |date=1996 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-1307-5 |pages=87, 177 |jstor=j.ctt9qg919.7 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg919.7}}

Image:TitubaandtheChildren-Fredericks.jpg

The majority of fictional pieces that artistically or historically depict Tituba's life portray her as a Black woman or an "outgroup" by Puritan society, due to her racial and socioeconomic status as a South American Indigenous and an indentured servant woman or slave.{{Cite journal|last=Cakirtas|first=Onder|year=2013|title=Double Portrayed: Tituba, Racism and Politics|url=http://oaji.net/articles/2014/505-1393081090.pdf|journal=International Journal of Language Academy|volume=1|pages=13–22}} Although it is not explicitly discussed in all of the movies, plays and books, that account for Tituba's conviction, it is quite possible that the "fear of strangers" in combination with the Western European traditional belief and understanding of witchcraft, made Tituba a prime target for witchcraft conviction.{{Cite book|title=Women's Studies Encyclopedia|last=Tierney|first=H|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1999|location=Westpot, CT}} With reference to the historical understanding of Tituba and why she was convicted, it has been argued that the pre-existing ideas about "out groups" and stereotypical ideas of foreign cultures combined with fictional portrayals of witchcraft and sorcery works, has created a case where history and fiction shape each other.{{Cite journal|last=Jalalzai|first=Zubeda|year=2009|title=Historical Fiction and Maryse Condéś, "I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem"|journal=African American Review|volume=43|issue=2–3 |pages=419|doi=10.1353/afa.2009.0009|s2cid=202639379 }} Essentially, the fictional works have assisted in the idea of what the Salem Witch Trials were like and what events lead to the convictions, trials and confessions, but without factoring in racial, political, religious and economic influences of the time, the portrayals of Tituba in media remain, for the most part, fictional.{{Cite book|title=Spellbound: Women and Witchcraft|last=Reis|first=Elizabeth|publisher=Scholarly Resources|year=1998|location=Wilmington, Del}}

In John Neal's 1828 novel Rachel Dyer, a socially isolated Matthew Paris (based on Samuel Parris){{cite thesis | last = Richards | first = Irving T. | date = 1933 | title = The Life and Works of John Neal | degree = PhD | publisher = Harvard University | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | url = http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990038995990203941/catalog | oclc = 7588473 | page = 697n2}} feels threatened by Tituba's relationship with John Indian and is motivated to accuse her of witchcraft as a result.{{cite book | last = Fleischmann | first = Fritz | title = A Right View of the Subject: Feminism in the Works of Charles Brockden Brown and John Neal | publisher = Verlag Palm & Enke Erlangen | location = Erlangen, Germany | year = 1983 | isbn = 978-3-7896-0147-7 | page = 303}} Neal described her as a "female Indian" who "did the drudgery of the house".{{cite book | last = Neal | first = John | author-link = John Neal | date = 1964 | title = Rachel Dyer: A North American Story | location = Gainesville, Florida | publisher = Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints | oclc = 468770740 | pages = 50, 57}} Facsimile reproduction of 1828 edition.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his 1868 play entitled Giles Corey of the Salem Farms, describes Tituba as "the daughter of a man all black and fierce…He was an Obi man, and taught [her] magic." Obeah (also spelled Obi) is a specifically African and Afro-American system of magic."Hansen, Chadwick. "The Metamorphosis of Tituba, or Why American Intellectuals Can't Tell a Native Witch from a Negro", The New England Quarterly 47 (March 1974), pp. 3–12.

Tituba is featured prominently in the 1953 play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The image of Tituba as the instigator of witchcraft at Salem was reinforced by the opening scene of The Crucible, which owes much to Marion L. Starkey's historical work The Devil in Massachusetts (1949).{{cite book|last1=Bloom|first1=Harold|title=Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations – Arthur Miller's The Crucible|date=2008|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=9780791098288|page=209|edition=New|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vp3P5Vk6bUYC&q=%22the+crucible%22+%22The+Devil+in+Massachusetts%22&pg=PA209|access-date=24 December 2015}}

In Miller's play, Tituba is said to have come from Barbados, where she was taught how to conjure up spirits and had allegedly dabbled in sorcery, witchcraft, and Satanism. The play suggests that Abigail Williams and the other girls tried to use Tituba's knowledge when dancing in the woods before the trials began; it was their being caught that led to those events. With the original intention of covering up their own sinful deeds, Tituba was the one to be accused by Abigail, who had drunk 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". Ironically, the belief that Tituba led these girls astray has persisted in popular lore, fiction, and nonfiction. The charge, which is seen by some as having barely disguised racist undertones, is based on the imagination of authors like Starkey, who mirrors Salem's accusers when she asserts that "I have invented the scenes with Tituba .... but they are what I really believe happened."{{r|Bloom}}

Tituba appears in the novel Calligraphy of the Witch (2007) by Alicia Gaspar de Alba as an Arawak Native American Indigenous from Guyana fluent in several languages and the only person in the Boston area who understands Spanish. She is a friend and English tutor to the indentured servant Concepción Benavidez, who is accused of witchcraft in the Boston area because of her Mexican and Catholic culture.{{cite web |url=http://www.serendipitylit.com/clients/item/calligraphy-of-the-witch-a-novel |title=Calligraphy of the Witch: A Novel |website=Serendipity Lit |access-date=28 June 2016 |archive-date=6 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160406200558/http://serendipitylit.com/clients/item/calligraphy-of-the-witch-a-novel |url-status=dead }}

In American Horror Story: Coven (2013–2014), young witch Queenie states that she is a descendant of Tituba.{{cite web |url=http://jezebel.com/american-horror-story-which-witch-was-the-most-badass-1447254644 |title=American Horror Story: Which Witch Was the Most Badass This Week? |last=Davies|first=Madeleine |publisher=Gawker Media |date=17 October 2013 |website=Jezebel |access-date=26 April 2016}} Later in the series, Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau and Supreme witch Fiona Goode have an in-depth discussion of Tituba's history and legacy. They suggest her magic came from her Arawak ancestry.{{cite web |url=http://www.eonline.com/news/471066/american-horror-story-coven-witches-and-bitches-lowdown |title=American Horror Story: Coven: Witches and Bitches Lowdown! |last=Bricker |first=Tierney |publisher=E! Entertainment Television |date=17 October 2013 |website=E! News |access-date=26 April 2016}}

In Salem (2014–2017), Tituba (Ashley Madekwe) is portrayed as an enslaved biracial woman of Arawak descent who made a deal with the Devil and taught witchcraft to leading character Mary Sibley, née Walcott (Janet Montgomery), plotting against Puritan settlers.{{Cite web|url=https://www.dailyactor.com/interview/interview-ashley-madekwe-salem/?utm_content=cmp-true|title=Interview: Ashley Madekwe on Her New Show 'Salem': "I struggled with trying to find an accent that felt like it was steeped in truth"|publisher=Daily Actor|first=Kristyn|last= Burtt|date=January 24, 2014|access-date=November 17, 2024}}

Tituba is portrayed in the Jayce Landberg song Happy 4 U, featured on the album The Forbidden World (2020).{{Cite web|url=http://bostonrockradio.com/forum3/articles.php?article_id=1024&fbclid=IwAR1CBUQqIWGYe9_7oTpi6U4KYWfDsbsGgFOw6w6XU6MET2eTUqdMgsyFHd8|title = Boston Rock Radio – BRR Articles: Interview with Swedish Guitarist Jayce Landberg by Thomas Amoriello Jr}}

Tituba is the protagonist of Maryse Condé's 1986 novel, I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem. The English translation includes a foreword by activist and academic Angela Y. Davis.Condé, Maryse (1992). I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem. New York: Caraf Books. pp. Forward: x. ISBN 0-345-38420-2.

• List of slaves
• List of people of the Salem witch trials

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• {{cite book|last1=Breslaw|first1=E.G.|title=Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies|date=1996|publisher=New York University Press|location=New York|isbn=0814713076 |url=https://archive.org/details/titubareluctantw00bres}}

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Category:17th-century American slaves

Category:17th-century births

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Category:18th-century deaths

Category:17th-century Native American people

Category:17th-century Native American women

Category:Barbadian slaves

Category:People accused in the Salem witch trials

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Category:American women slaves

Category:People enslaved in Massachusetts

Category:Barbadian emigrants to the United States

Category:Violence against women in Massachusetts