Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies, Book Review
Title: Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies
Author: Elaine G. Breslaw
Publication: New York and London, 1996
This book summarizes the life of a female Indian servant and her involvement in the 1692 witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. To begin it gives background information of the Arawak Indian woman named Tituba, which reveals cultural influences. It tells how Tituba was captured and sold into slavery and shifted from one cultural world to another, from South America to Barbados then to Massachusetts, where she was forced to separate from friends and her culture to acclimate and thrive in another; as a servant she had no say in the matter. Her obligations as a servant were to fulfill domestic responsibilities within the household. In 1689 she found herself living in Salem, Massachusetts in the home of Samuel Parris, his wife Elizabeth, their 3 children Thomas (7), Elizabeth (6) who was later referred to as Betty, and Susannah (<1), a young African servant, as well as a male Indian servant named John who would soon become her husband. In 1691, Parris’s niece Abigail Williams may have been living with them. According to Parris’s will, Tituba and John had a daughter named Violet who would have been about two or three years old during the witch trials in 1692. After the Parris’s move to Salem around 1688, Samuel began preaching in the village and would eventually become the town’s minister by 1689. By the winter of 1691, a group of young girls from the village, Elizabeth Hubbard (17), and Ann Putnam (12), joined by Parris’s daughter Betty (9), and his niece Abigail (11), would begin playing fortune-telling games drawn from centuries old cultural traditions. Subsequently, Betty would start experiencing strange physical symptoms of pain that confounded spectators and led them to believe that someone had bewitched her. A neighbor to the Parris’s, as well as a covenant member of the church Mary Sibley, would
Author: Elaine G. Breslaw
Publication: New York and London, 1996
This book summarizes the life of a female Indian servant and her involvement in the 1692 witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. To begin it gives background information of the Arawak Indian woman named Tituba, which reveals cultural influences. It tells how Tituba was captured and sold into slavery and shifted from one cultural world to another, from South America to Barbados then to Massachusetts, where she was forced to separate from friends and her culture to acclimate and thrive in another; as a servant she had no say in the matter. Her obligations as a servant were to fulfill domestic responsibilities within the household. In 1689 she found herself living in Salem, Massachusetts in the home of Samuel Parris, his wife Elizabeth, their 3 children Thomas (7), Elizabeth (6) who was later referred to as Betty, and Susannah (<1), a young African servant, as well as a male Indian servant named John who would soon become her husband. In 1691, Parris’s niece Abigail Williams may have been living with them. According to Parris’s will, Tituba and John had a daughter named Violet who would have been about two or three years old during the witch trials in 1692. After the Parris’s move to Salem around 1688, Samuel began preaching in the village and would eventually become the town’s minister by 1689. By the winter of 1691, a group of young girls from the village, Elizabeth Hubbard (17), and Ann Putnam (12), joined by Parris’s daughter Betty (9), and his niece Abigail (11), would begin playing fortune-telling games drawn from centuries old cultural traditions. Subsequently, Betty would start experiencing strange physical symptoms of pain that confounded spectators and led them to believe that someone had bewitched her. A neighbor to the Parris’s, as well as a covenant member of the church Mary Sibley, would