written by Tiara Jade

“This Halloween, remember witch hunts were created by a patriarchy terrified of older women. Long demonized and persecuted, wise women past childbearing age could actually be the key to saving humanity’s future.” NBC News

The story of Tituba is both fascinating and spine-chilling. 

Tituba was a slave owned by Reverend Samuel Parris, a wealthy business owner who inherited a sugar plantation in Barbados. She was the first woman accused of witchcraft during the notorious Salem witch trials.

In the 1600s, the West Indies rapidly became Europe’s hub for the slave trade. Massachusetts native Samuel Parris bought Tituba in Barbados where she had been enslaved since her childhood. Her origins are unknown, though it is believed she may have been from the Arawak tribe of Venezuela before her capture. Parris brought Tituba to Massachusetts in 1680, when she was a teenager. She was thought to have married another slave named John Indian at some point and had a daughter named Violet. 

[Additional Read: These Ghosts are Family: A Conversation with Author Maisy Card]

Parris was married in Boston and earned the position as the minister of Salem Village in 1689. Tituba was entrusted with the care for Parris’ nine-year-old daughter, Betty, and his 11-year-old niece, Abigail Williams. In January 1692, the two girls became mysteriously ill after playing a fortune-telling game that involved dropping an egg white into a glass of water. It was thought the form the egg white took could predict whom the girls would marry and show the shapes of their future lives. After seeing a coffin in one of the glasses, they began to bark like dogs and cry hysterically.

A doctor was brought to see the girls and claimed someone was performing witchcraft to punish Parris and his family. A member of the church recommended Tituba to bake a witch cake to reveal the identity of the tormentor. She mixed the girls' urine with rye meal to make a small cake and it was fed to them. The girls, likely looking for the easiest target, claimed Tituba was the witch that made them sick.

“I no hurt them at all,” Tituba told them, in her Bajan accent.

Tituba denied any practice of witchcraft or intention to hurt the girls, but it wasn’t enough to convince the Parris family or the people of Salem. As a Black slave, her word meant nothing in proving her innocence. In 1692, Tituba was accused of witchcraft, marking the beginning of the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Some could argue that the people of Salem were fundamentalist Christians. Church and scripture oftentimes held a strong and literal significance in their lives. A state of hysteria was ignited. Anyone thought to be working with the devil and practicing his craft would need to be eradicated before they could infect others with their evil. The “witchcraft” craze had previously ripped through Europe from the 1300s to the end of the 1600s. Tens of thousands of women were executed for their perceived crimes.

One hundred and forty-four people in total were accused of practicing witchcraft in Salem and 54 of them confessed. Twenty people were convicted and executed, three died in prison before their trial. The witch hunts were uncompromising. People were accused for outrageous reasons like the tone they spoke in, not being liked by others or just because someone pointed a finger at them. Tituba's low status in society made her almost a perfect target for the townspeople. Historians believe Tituba confessed as a way to get back at Samuel Parris and his family. As a minister, the people would look to their holy leaders for solutions to the devil’s influences.

Parris punished Tituba by beating her for weeks until she was forced to confess to being a witch. The accusations continued and two other women, a church member and indentured servant, claimed Tituba used magic to hurt them with the help of two known beggar women, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. All three were considered outcasts in society. Similar to the previous history of witches, those who were “different” or didn’t fit the rigid expectations of society were demonized.

All three women were arrested and on March 1. The accused witches, kept in chains, were questioned by magistrates in the Salem meeting house where their accusers and the entire village could bear witness. Sarah Goode and Sarah Osborne both refused to confess to practicing witchcraft. Things took a turn when Tituba’s turn came. 

“The devil came to me and bid me to serve him,” she told the room. 

Tituba told the observers that she had seen Sarah’s use magic to hurt Parris’s daughter and niece. She claimed they had demons who helped them commit the crimes and that they had forced her into becoming a witch. By this point, the people of Salem were in a state of paranoia and wanted their village cleansed of the evil that lingered. When Tituba finished her testimony, Betty and Abigail began screaming and Tituba announced she could see Sarah Good’s spirit hurting them. The day closed in chaos.

According to Salem’s Witch Museum, the Christian environment of this period heavily restricted the girl’s and women’s movement, education, and the ability for social activities. A life of restriction often led to boredom and is said to have fueled such paranoia. As seen on “The Crucible,” women would have secret gatherings in the forest.

Tituba’s persecution reflects a much deeper issue much too common amongst patriarchal cultures. Women are often demonized in such societies. With ignorance and paranoia, it became easy in a patriarchal society to blame women when things go awry. Unsurprisingly the majority powerful men in Salem were not accused of witchcraft. It was often older women, single women, black women, and landowners who were accused. 

Tituba was imprisoned and interrogated by magistrates. She revealed more details including having signed the devil’s book with blood and claiming the devil showed her Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne’s signatures as well. She spoke of multiple signatures in the book that indicated Salem had multiple witches residing. Her confession even included a description of the witches holding a meeting in Samuel Parris’ home.

Afterword of Tituba’s confession spread, people coincidently reported seeing witches and spirits regularly. Their stories all matched hers perfectly, likely due to hearing the live confessions in the meeting house. The magistrate accepted these actions as proof that Tituba’s story was true. Tituba ultimately managed to shift the attention of the people from herself and on to others, leading everyone to believe the problem at hand was severe. This may have been strategic. In an era of racism and sexism it was a black woman’s only means of relief from persecution amidst the witch hunt. With people carefully watching one another and ready to accuse, she was able to disappear from the scene. 

Following the confessions, Tituba was no longer considered a threat and was sent to a prison in Boston. Tituba spent an entire year in jail. On May 9, 1693, the charges against her were dismissed. Samuel Parris refused to pay any of Tituba’s prison fees so she was sold to another man who agreed to cover them. It is said that after being freed, Tituba left Salem with her husband John and was never heard from again. Historians know nothing else of her life.

The story of Tituba has lived on in the modern-day through T.V. series like “Salem,” “American Horror Story: Coven,” and the book turned movies, “The Crucible.”