Tituba

By: Jessica Millward

Source:

 Black Women in America, Second Edition

Tituba

Sex:  Female

Born:  Barbados
fl.1692

Died:  United States

Activity/Profession:  Witchcraft Hysteria Victim, Slave

(fl. 1690s) From 1691 to 1692, the enslaved woman Tituba found herself at the center of the witchcraft hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts

. During the crisis, 144 people were charged as witches. Nineteen men and women were hanged. Tituba was one of the first indicted for wickedly and feloniously signing the devil's book. Tituba was never formally charged and sentenced for her participation in the activities. After serving nearly a year in jail awaiting her trial, she was, however, the last to be released. Samuel Parris, her owner, refused to pay the costs associated with her imprisonment. She was sold to another owner in order to pay her jail fees. Local legend suggested that she was bought by a weaver and spent the rest of her days in Boston.

Tituba and her contemporaries were caught up in a web of power that often privileged the rights of landholding white males over those of landless white women, free blacks, American Indians, and slaves. Historians attribute the witchcraft hysteria to a wide range of causes, including political strife among men and social control in a frontier society. In general, most of those accused as witches tended to be older women, single young women, and those with little legal power. The colonial magistrates ended the trials when the wives of several prominent officials fell under suspicion.

The witchcraft accusations began in 1691. In late December 1691 and into January 1692, the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris began exhibiting strange symptoms. They fell into fits, babbled incessantly, and complained of being repeatedly pinched. After several weeks of watching the girls suffer, Mary Sibley, a neighbor, ordered Tituba and her husband, John, to prepare a healing agent for the girls. Under Sibley's supervision, the couple prepared a “witchcake,” a mixture consisting of rye meal and the girls' urine. It was baked in ashes and fed to a dog. According to English folklore, the dog would reveal the name of the witch who afflicted the girls. The dog did not reveal the name of the witch, but Tituba was accused of witchcraft as a result of her participation in this act. Tituba's indictment and subsequent confession heightened existing suspicions that the Devil and witchcraft were at work in the community.

“Tituba teaching the first act of witchcraft.”  Although Tituba found herself at the center of the hysteria in Salem, there is actually no evidence that she practiced any kind of sorcery until, in December 1692, she and her husband were ordered to prepare a “witchcake” to help a minister's afflicted daughter and niece.

Library of Congress

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Tituba confessed to practicing witchcraft. However, historians agree that she did so only after her owner repeatedly beat and tortured her. During her confession, Tituba named two other white women associated with witchcraft. There is no evidence that Tituba practiced any elements of sorcery, voodoo, or storytelling prior to December 1692, yet she is the individual most often associated with the Salem witch trials.

According to the existing records, Tituba, arguably colonial America's most infamous black woman, may actually have been a Native American. Originally from New Spain, an area comprising present-day California and Mexico, Tituba and her husband John Indian were sold into slavery in the Caribbean. Samuel Parris purchased the couple in Barbados and returned to Salem, Massachusetts. There is no evidence that Tituba was black. In fact, she is listed in the court records as “Tituba, Indian,” “Tituba, the Indian,” or “Tituba, wife of John Indian.”

The other two “black” women who were accused of practicing witchcraft were perceived by their contemporaries as being of African descent. Mary Black was listed in the court docket as “Negro,” as was a woman named Candy, a native of Barbados. By the mid-nineteenth century, Tituba was identified in published renditions of the Salem crisis as, among other things, African, black Carib, and African American. It is not surprising that Tituba, an Indian from Spanish America, evolved into a black woman in historical and literary accounts. Though she clearly stated that she “doth not know how the devil works,” the image of her as a sorceress and her subsequent association with the witchcraft hysteria serve as key examples of how black could be synonymous with evil in early colonial society.

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