Imagine Being One Of Two Hundred People Being Accused Of

The trouble in Salem began in January, 1692 when Tituba, a slave from the West Indies was talking to Elizabeth Parris, daughter of the Reverend Samuel Parris, and his niece, Abigail Williams about their futures. After telling them their futures, the girls begin to cry hysterically and act strangely as if bewitched. These fits could be brought on by the idea that their futures as Puritan child-bearing women was at risk or also by the girl’s wanted attention that they had no chance at getting regularly in Puritan society. Tituba also is undergoing torments at this time, seeing specters and having the same type of fits that the other girls are having. As the fits begin to happen to other

Many people were accused of being witches in 1692 and hung or pressed to death for their crime, many others were thrown in prison for life. When the Salem Witch Trials Hysteria of 1692 swept Salem Village and surrounding areas, it was not a happy time. Many of the people living in Salem at the time were Protestants seeking religious freedom. Protestants were very religious people and looked to the Bible for help as God’s words were all true. One of the subjects that the Bible addressed was the Devil and how he possessed people to make them witches. When two young girls asked a West Indian slave woman be the name of Tituba to show them their fortunes, they begun to get more curious about her abilities. Tituba showed them the “magic” she knew from her former tribe, but when the young girls started acting strangely, she was accused for being a witch along side two other local white women. Instead of pleading guilty, Tituba confessed that she was a witch and told the audience of her trial that there were 6 more witches amongst them. This lead to a hectic frenzy to find the remaining witches and it turned neighbors onto each other, husbands on wives and entire families were thrown into prison for their crime. The three main reasons for the Salem Witch Trials Hysteria of 1692 were a group of young girls looking for attention, neighbor conflicts and gender/status/age.

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. These trials began after a group of young girls in Massachusetts claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several other locals of witchcraft. After this broke out a special court convened in Salem to “hear and determine” (Mather 328)

If there isn't a child yet, may his wife never bear one! I know you can do it! Everyone says you are the most awesome of witches!"pg 86 This is what the residents in Salem led to think of Tituba. But was she really a witch, or was she evil like how the Puritans viewed them? Did she use her power to harm people or to comfort people? Did her actions strike sickness or to cure them?

In the evenings Tituba entertained little Betty and her cousin Abigail Williams by the kitchen fire. She played fortune-telling games and told them stories of magic and spirits from the Caribbean. Tituba was pointed out by the three girls and accused of teaching them witchcraft and fortune telling, which resulted in their strange behavior. Tituba did not deny the allegations. She confessed to being a witch after Reverend Parris beat her.

As the story of Tituba unfolds, it reveals a strong and kind hearted young woman, very different from the Tituba we meet in The Crucible. I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem unveils for the reader, Tituba's life, loves, and losses. Her long and arduous journey through life is inspired by her many female counterparts, yet also hindered by her insatiable weakness for men, who also press upon her the realities of life.

Tituba is Parris’s slave from Barbados. Tituba was with the girls when they went into the woods and danced around the fire. Abigail told her to cast a spell onto Elizabeth so she would die but before anything could happen they got caught. When accused of witchcraft she confessed so she wouldn’t be hung. She also accused other people with being with the devil and that she even saw them. Tituba told them that the devil told her that she needed to kill Parris but she always told him no that he never has done anything to hurt

During the phase of witchcraft accusations, it was observed that generally women were both the accusers and the suspects of witchcraft. An Indian slave named Tituba was the first perpetrator of witchcraft, who used to work in Samuel Parris’ house (Ray, “Satan’s War against the Covenant” 82). She was severely tortured and interrogated during her capture. At one stage of interrogation, Samuel Parris brutally assaulted her, which resulted her to confess about her involvement in

Tituba’s role in society was to be a slave to the family of Rev. Parris. Tituba was a foreigner to Salem, as Parris had bought her in Barbados. Slaves had no rights at all in this time period therefore; Tituba’s only job was to care for Parris’s children and house. This situation presented to Tituba contributed to her role in the witch trials because, being a slave didn’t get her much respect in society, therefore people wouldn’t object to her being a witch because she is not much of a respectable person to defend. For example, while Tituba would be caring for Parris’s children, “In the evenings Tituba entertained little Betty and her cousin Abigail Williams by the kitchen fire. She played fortune telling games and told them stories of magic and spirits from the Caribbean” (Tituba, par. 4). This proves that Tituba’s role in society affected her role in the witch trials because these trials were based on how others saw you in society. If someone of high social status were to be accused of witchcraft, people would protest. However, if someone of low social status were to be accused, it wouldn’t mean much to the common

Elizabeth Parris and Abagail Williams, the pastor’s daughter and niece respectively, were two of the six young ladies that Tituba watch over. In the beginning, Tituba would perform witchcraft in an attempt to lure the girls into witchcraft but the girls rejected Tituba’s actions. Eventually, the girls would begin to act out and were proclaimed to have become bewitched. After Parris discovered that his girls’ actions were not of physical nor mental disease and of spiritual doings, an aunt of one of the afflicted girls used Tituba to experiment using a urine-cake (eventually this aunt would be scorned for practicing counter magic) to determine who bewitched the young girls. When the girls cried out that it was Tituba’s doing and made several accusations of her acts of witchcraft, Tituba rejected all allegations. In theory, Tituba made herself out as a witch. In the end of her trial, Tituba would confess to practicing witchcraft. She confessed that she had signed the Devil’s book along with eight other witches including Goody Osborne and Sarah Good, as well as seeing the Devil various times in the form of a tall man, a hog, cats, a great black dog, and wolves and birds. Sarah Good and Goody Osbourne worked in command of Tituba taking the Devil’s orders to terrorize the young women of the household by pinching, harming, and performing acts of levitation. Tituba being the first to

The witch trials of Salem are often thought to be a hysteria that can be categorized as fake and sometimes “crazy”. The trials started by the belief of the supernatural and the practice of the devil’s ability to grant people the ability to hurt others. Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams are the two young ladies that began the stereotypical beliefs in witchery. Williams and Parris started having hysterical fits and “uncontrollable” tantrums filled with screaming and crazy-like seizures. The result of all the insane opinions and conclusions to society were nineteen hangings, and one pressing. The Salem witch trials were a result of hasty decisions and the fear of God’s anger on the people of society. Today, the trials would be seen as crazy or fictional.

Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. It started when a group of young girls showed odd behavior as well as them, also claiming to be possessed by the Devil. At that time most of the people in Massachusetts were Puritans who heavily believed in Devil as real as God. Puritans recognized that the accusers were influenced by the Devil. In the 21st century, it is hard to admit that the main cause was only the devil.

Tituba was a women considered to be an outcasts of the village since she has very little dignity in being a slave. These false accusations lead Tituba to be condemned to death. This unjust act is only the beginning of a series of false allegations that take control of Salem, as well as the spreading of paranoia and hysteria through the village. This finally results in the deaths of the some of the main characters, such as Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor, for carrying out acts of witchcraft.

When Abigail accused her of witchcraft, Tituba dined all of the accusations. Unlike Abigail, Tituba did not have a plan to defend herself. She was also not able to control the girls and make them tell the truth. When Tituba was threatened to be hanged, she changed her mentality on the situation. Instead of dining what she had done, she confessed her sins. During her confession, shame affected what she revealed to the others. Tituba said that the devil had control of her, and wanted her to kill Reverend Parris. This was Tituba’s way of admitting that she had thought about killing Reverend Paris. Tituba also took the center of attention off of herself by

After the doctor’s analysis, the townspeople then gathered up all of the girls with the symptoms. The collected girls accused three women: Sarah Good, an odd homeless woman who lived the streets of Salem Village, Sarah Osborne, who had married her servant and rarely attended the church meetings, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados who was in service of Reverend Samuel Parris. Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne denied the accusations, while Tituba confessed, and claimed there were multiple other witches working by her side in Salem.