Salem Witch Hunt - Tituba's Confession
Slave Was the First to Be Accused of Practicing Witchcraft
Sep 23, 2008
Tituba was a member of the Arawak tribe, not black, a common misconception. She was from a village in South America where she was captured as a child, taken to Barbados and sold into slavery. Samuel Parris, then a merchant, bought her.
When the Parris family moved to the Colonies so he could serve as a minister, Tituba and another AmerIndian, John, accompanied them. They married. It’s believed Tituba had one child, Violet, who remained in Parris's household until he died.
Fortune Telling and Accusations in Salem Involve Tituba
Parris’ daughter Betty, niece Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam Jr. learned about divination and secretly practiced it by putting egg whites in a glass of water, which the Puritans considered a sin. Tituba joined them and also told them about Voodoo and other mystical things from Barbados.
Betty was the first to exhibit bizarre behavior which was diagnosed as being bewitched. She and the others accused Tituba, Sara Good and Sarah Osborne of practicing witchcraft. Mary Sibley asked Tituba to make a witch cake to feed to a dog in order to try to remove the spell. When Parris discovered this, he beat Tituba.
Tituba's Confession
Both Sara Good and Sarah Osborne denied the accusations, but Tituba confessed to practicing witchcraft. Why she confessed is a matter of speculation. She might have thought she was guilty since she practiced fortune telling, which she believed was white magic. She may have thought the judges would be lenient if she confessed. It’s unlikely her confession was obtained by torture. Although pain was used in Europe to elicit confessions from accused witches, there are no confirmed cases of it being used in Colonial America. New England law did not condone it.
In her confession she apologized for hurting Betty, claimed she never wanted to do this, and professed her love for the child. She said nothing about the fortune telling gatherings. Her confession, in modern times, sounds like fantasies.
- She rode a pole to witch meetings accompanied by Good who rode a yellow bird with a woman’s head and Osborn riding a hairy long-nosed creature.
- A black dog threatened her and commanded her to hurt the girls.
- A black cat and a red one forced her to serve them.
- The other women made her to attack Ann Jr. with a knife, which the girl corroborated.
- There was a coven led by a tall white-haired man dressed in black who visited her many times and forced her to sign his devil’s book. Good, Osborne and others whose names she couldn’t read also signed it.
Aftermath, Tituba's Confession
When Tituba finished her confession, she, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne were taken to jail. Good and Osborne were bound in chains to prevent their phantoms from traveling to torment the girls.
By confessing, Tituba avoided going to trial. She became a witness for The Afflicted, providing key evidence against the other accused witches. Her husband, John, fell into fits, becoming one of The Afflicted.
Eventually, public sentiment towards the accusers and trials changed. Tituba recanted her confession, which enraged Parris. He refused to pay the jailer's fee to release her. After she spent 13 months in jail, someone, name unknown, paid the fee and bought her.
Related articles:
Salem's Witch Hunts and Mass Hysteria
Salem Witch Persecutions: Who Was Who
Sources:
Dictionary of Witchcraft, David Pickering, (Cassel, 1996)
The Encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, (Facts on File, Inc., 1999)
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