The Salem Witch Trials Are An Outstanding Example Of A Dysfunction

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.

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?

Leo Tolstoy, author of the critically acclaimed novel War and Peace, wrote, “It’s too easy to criticize a man when he’s out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else’s mistakes.” Throughout history, social pariahs have served as scapegoats for the privileged; perhaps the most notorious--and treacherous--example of this were the Salem Witch Trials, where vengeance forced blame and death upon usually low-tiered citizens. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Parris’ slave Tituba confesses to witchcraft in order to escape death, while also recognizing the immense power she previously could never dream of having. It is undeniable that Tituba’s accusations and lies perpetuated the hysteria: she is not entirely blameless. However, the reader must also acknowledge the circumstances leading up to her wrongdoing in order to understand why Tituba’s innocence truly outweighs her guilt: the way in which Tituba is regarded as a slave speaks to the traumatizing powerlessness that she faced; her paganistic religion presented a rare opportunity for Tituba to attain trust and amusement from the girls; and she needed to lie and falsely accuse others so that she could both escape death and gain newfound freedoms.

This story shows us in many different ways of how people are scared of other being different. It shows us this when in Act 1 reverend Hale asked Abigail; “Abigail, it may be your cousin is dying. Did you call the Devil last night?” to which Abigail responded “I never called him! Tituba, Tituba…” Here we can easily see how Abigail blamed the witchcraft issue that she was being accused of on Tituba.

In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Tituba is most to blame for the Salem Witch Trials. Tituba was a slave from Barbados that worked for Reverend Parris. She performed the roles of the wife, even though they were not married. Tituba practices what the Puritans contemplates as black magic, but she only practices at the appeal of Abigail Williams. She never considered spell casting, dancing, and singing was premeditated evil because those practices were spiritual and common descending from her African roots. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Miller demonstrated that it was Tituba’s flaws Gullibility, Immaturity, and Ignorance that led her to be most responsible for the tragedy of the witch-hunt in Salem.

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.

The Salem witch trials, that occurred in colonial Massachusetts, were a hostile part of American history. People lived in a constant state of paranoia and fear. A great number of people were accused of practicing witchcraft, which was thought to be connected to the devil, and some were even executed. Eventually, the colony realized the faults in the trials. By reading the primary sources ‘A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft Chapter II’ by John Hale and Two Letters by Governor William Phips, we are able to discover a wealth of knowledge about the aforementioned trials. The two sources allow the reader to gain insight into how the trials were flawed by showing the nature of the Salem Witch Trials, the evidence used to find the witches guilty, and the role native americans played in the trials. While also exhibiting how primary sources can be a disadvantage in navigating through historical events.

While in court, the reverend, Hale, tells Tituba, “...Tituba, look into my eyes. Come, look into me. (She raises her eyes to his fearfully.) You would be a good Christian woman, would you not, Tituba?... Open yourself, Tituba—open yourself and let God's holy light shine on you” (Miller 47-48). Hale has already decided that Tituba is guilty of dealing with the devil, but provides no evidence for such accusation thus, he chooses to force her to confess by frightening her using a religious approach. It is unjust to use fear to blind the accused, leaving them no alternative but to confess to a crime they did not commit. Tituba begs not to be punished, “No-no, don't hang Tituba. I tell [the devil] I don't desire to work for him, sir.” (Miller 36). The court should consider the reactions of the accused the determine if there’s suspicion of her guilt. Tituba was scared and explained that she refused to deal with the devil, but the court treated her unfairly. Tituba’s case was improperly held in that she was considered guilty from the start, but deserved the benefit of the doubt.

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

The Salem Witch Trials were a dark spot in America’s early history. During a time where acts of the unknown were simply considered spiritual signs or supernatural forces with meanings; the early American settlers in Salem, Massachusetts were plagued with what they claimed were acts of the Devil putting witches in their town to disrupt Puritan beliefs and actions. One of the earliest accused witches was the village pastor’s slave Tituba Indian. Tituba was especially vulnerable to accusations to due to her extreme double minority status as well as the fact that she was owned by the village pastor.

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.

That was a quote from Mrs Putnam. I think the fact that she has lost 7 babies makes her think it is work of the devil trying to punish the “good”. Once everyone believed it was the work of the devil, they blamed Tituba who is only low class person in the household and her being a black slave makes it easy for everyone to blame her because as she doesn’t have any power or authority she won’t react and her coming from a completely different culture to than the people in Salem makes the believe that she is affected by the witch and devil.

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

One of the reasons that I chose to read this book was because I had prior knowledge of the Salem Witch Trials from reading The Crucible in high school. Reading The Crucible helped me when I read In the Devil’s Snare because I recognized a lot of the people’s names. In particular, I recognized the name of Titbua. Samuel Pairs’ daughter and niece accused Tituba for bewitching them. Tituba was believed to have had known people who were witches, but she denied being one. It is interesting to note that In the Devil’s Snare refers to Tituba as Reverend Pairs’s Indian Slave, when I read The Crucible and saw the movie; I always believed that Tituba was African. Norton states that “Many scholars have addressed these questions…. Every surviving piece of contemporary evidence identifies her as an Indian. Later tradition transformed her into an African or half African slave.” Since Tituba was an Indian this