Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem by Elaine G. Breslaw

Tituba was allowed to speak against her accusers despite their race because it was not illegal for slaves to give testimony in court. It has been theorized that Tituba told the girls tales of voodoo and witchcraft prior to the accusations. Tituba was one of the first persons to be accused of practicing witchcraft by Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams. They appear documented together in Samuel Parris's church record book. Her husband went on to become one of the accusers in the Witch Trials. There are historians such as Samuel Drake who suggest that Tituba was African. The often unreliable records of the enslaved persons’ origins makes this information difficult to verify.

Once the head of the Thompson plantation died, Tituba was inherited by Samuel Parris and then she was brought to Massachusetts. As Tituba interacted with a diverse group of people in Barbados, it is assumed that Barbados is the place where she picked up most of her knowledge about witchcraft from mistresses and other slaves. This evidence was concluded through slave-transport documents which described things such as head counts and names of the slaves. While there is no physical evidence to prove this theory, it is believed that she was taken from her tribe and forced into slavery in Barbados, where she was sold to the Thompson plantation and became the family cook, as most Native American slaves were. Tituba may have originally been a member of the Arawak-Guiana native South American tribe. Many historians, such as Elaine Breslaw and Charles Upham, gathered that Tituba was a Native American based on Samuel Fowler's writing, 'Account of the life of Samuel Parris'. Tituba may have originally been from Barbados. It is said that she was named after her town or tribe. Tituba's husband was John Indian, an Indigenous man whose origins are unknown, but he may have been from Central or South America, Tibitó, Colombia to be precise. It is unknown what happened to her after the case against her was dismissed by a grand jury in May 1693. She was imprisoned for over a year but never went to trial. She accused the two other women, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, of the same crime. She was pivotal in the trials because she confessed to witchcraft when examined by the authorities, giving credence to the accusations.

She was brought to colonial Massachusetts from Barbados by Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village.

Tituba (Barbados) was an enslaved woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693. Accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials.

Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem by Elaine G. Breslaw