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The American Social Experience Series
Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies
A landmark contribution to women's history that sheds new light on the Salem witch trials and one of its most crucial participants, Tituba of The Crucible
In this important book, Elaine Breslaw claims to have rediscovered Tituba, the elusive, mysterious, and often mythologized Indian woman accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692 and immortalized in Arthur Miller's The Crucible .
Reconstructing the life of the slave woman at the center of the notorious Salem witch trials, the book follows Tituba from her likely origins in South America to Barbados, forcefully dispelling the commonly-held belief that Tituba was African. The uniquely multicultural nature of life on a seventeenth-century Barbadan sugar plantation―defined by a mixture of English, American Indian, and African ways and folklore―indelibly shaped the young Tituba's world and the mental images she brought with her to Massachusetts.
Breslaw divides Tituba’s story into two parts. The first focuses on Tituba's roots in Barbados, the second on her life in the New World. The author emphasizes the inextricably linked worlds of the Caribbean and the North American colonies, illustrating how the Puritan worldview was influenced by its perception of possessed Indians. Breslaw argues that Tituba’s confession to practicing witchcraft clearly reveals her savvy and determined efforts to protect herself by actively manipulating Puritan fears. This confession, perceived as evidence of a diabolical conspiracy, was the central agent in the cataclysmic series of events that saw 19 people executed and over 150 imprisoned, including a young girl of 5.
A landmark contribution to women's history and early American history, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem sheds new light on one of the most painful episodes in American history, through the eyes of its most crucial participant.
In this important book, Elaine Breslaw claims to have rediscovered Tituba, the elusive, mysterious, and often mythologized Indian woman accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692 and immortalized in Arthur Miller's The Crucible .
Reconstructing the life of the slave woman at the center of the notorious Salem witch trials, the book follows Tituba from her likely origins in South America to Barbados, forcefully dispelling the commonly-held belief that Tituba was African. The uniquely multicultural nature of life on a seventeenth-century Barbadan sugar plantation―defined by a mixture of English, American Indian, and African ways and folklore―indelibly shaped the young Tituba's world and the mental images she brought with her to Massachusetts.
Breslaw divides Tituba’s story into two parts. The first focuses on Tituba's roots in Barbados, the second on her life in the New World. The author emphasizes the inextricably linked worlds of the Caribbean and the North American colonies, illustrating how the Puritan worldview was influenced by its perception of possessed Indians. Breslaw argues that Tituba’s confession to practicing witchcraft clearly reveals her savvy and determined efforts to protect herself by actively manipulating Puritan fears. This confession, perceived as evidence of a diabolical conspiracy, was the central agent in the cataclysmic series of events that saw 19 people executed and over 150 imprisoned, including a young girl of 5.
A landmark contribution to women's history and early American history, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem sheds new light on one of the most painful episodes in American history, through the eyes of its most crucial participant.
270 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 27, 2015
The first half of this book, in which Breslaw traces Tituba's probable early life, is quite good. She explains very clearly the speculative leap she's making in assuming that the slave Tattuba listed in the inventory of a Barbados plantation is the same as the slave Tituba Samuel Parris brought to Salem Village, and she not only convinced me that the leap was justified, she demonstrated that even if Tituba and Tattuba were not the same person, the reconstruction Breslaw managed of Tattuba's life was still worthwhile, in that it illuminated a great deal about what Tituba's experiences would have been like.
Then we hit 1692, and the thing just fell apart. Breslaw has the Salem historian's disease, in which the one cause on which the historian has focused is proclaimed to be the ONLY cause. In Breslaw's case, she asserts that the reason the Salem witchcraft crisis exploded in the way it did, mushrooming to nineteen executions and well over one hundred arrests, the only important reason is Tituba's testimony. Even without the other problems (which I'll get to in a moment), I would disagree with this thesis; I think the crucial moment is when the adult authority figures asked the afflicted girls who had bewitched them and accepted their answers as unquestionable truth. I also think that moment has a tremendously complicated genesis of its own, as well as very complicated consequences. And I would certainly agree that Tituba's testimony encouraged the spread of suspicion. But she didn't cause it, and she certainly didn't create the ground-breaking paradigm of social upheaval that Breslaw claims.
So I disagree with the argument. But I also find that the argument is very shoddily put together. She talks a great deal about the impact of the story Tituba told, the importance of the words she used, and the ways in which her testimony was repeated, embroidered, and modified by the afflicted girls and the confessing witches, but she uses almost no direct quotes. It's all described in indirect discourse. The generalizations are breathtaking in their sweep, particularly in discussing the culture of "American Indians." She makes no effort to distinguish between the Arawak Indians of South America (Tituba's probable tribe)--whose folklore and beliefs she claims influenced Tituba's testimony--and the Indians of north-eastern North America (unlike with the Arawak, she never specifies which tribes are under discussion) whom the European settlers were intermittently at war with throughout the second half of the seventeenth century--whose folklore and beliefs she claims influenced the magistrates' reception of Tituba's testimony; I find it hard to believe that "American Indians" in her argument are anything more than a locum tenens for ... well, for something that Breslaw hasn't done enough work on.
And Breslaw is particularly inconsistent on the historians' bugbear (which I blogged about): the nature of the participants' belief in witchcraft. She assumes that the nightmares Tituba describes in her testimony are real, and that she made the witchcake in a sincere effort to help Betty Parris. But she also assumes that Tituba deliberately and consciously tailored her testimony to give the magistrates what they wanted to hear, and that she equally deliberately constructed it as a subversive and subtle attack on her master, Samuel Parris. She also insists on describing it is a "model for resistance" (180). And when she talks about the confessing witches using Tituba's testimony, it is always as if they were in conscious control of a sophisticated strategy of resistance. I will give one example:
Tituba's unidentified evil presence, the imputations of elite responsibility, a witches' meeting, and assorted strange creatures provided a forum for the exposure of discontent with Puritan theology and ministerial intellectual demands; with the social class system and degradation of servants; and above all with the traditions of the late medieval world that valued communal goals above individual efforts. Tituba may have omitted sexual references because Indian cultures never made the erotic side of human behavior a factor in witchcraft prceedings. Others followed her lead for different reasons--sexual exploits might have negated their intent to parody Puritan values by conflating the godly and demonic realms. In this technique, as in others, Tituba again had supplied the outlines of a method that could be embellished and reformulated to fit the mental baggage of other cultures. (Breslaw 155)
She assumes "resistance" to be behind all the confessions (though, oddly, she doesn't spend much time applying the idea to the afflicted girls, where I think it can be more plausibly deployed--although still with much more caution than Breslaw shows), without ever acknowledging that as a method of resistance, confessing to witchcraft is a dismal failure, and without doing any of the work necessary to show how her modern, theoretical concept of "resistance" actually applies to the lives and words of her subjects. And she consistently makes assertions about Tituba's motivations that she does not prove--and couldn't prove if she tried. Unlike with the identification of Tituba and Tattuba in the first half of the book, these speculative assertions are not defensible either historiographically or rhetorically. Like Srebnick (The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers: Sex and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York) Breslaw overstates the importance of her central figure, and like Srebnick, rather than supporting her grandiose argument with evidence and careful reasoning, she supports it with buzzwords and academic obfuscation.
What really irks me about this book is that it could have been so much better. Not just in the general sense in which a poorly written book can always be a better book, but quite specifically. Mary Beth Norton's In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 has some excellent and provocative work on a subject one could encapsulate by Breslaw's subtitle: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies; Norton's work makes clear that the Puritan construction of Indians, particularly in relation to the Devil, probably did have a profound influence on the Salem crisis, and that is a topic that I think could and should be written about more--and should include Tituba. But Breslaw, while she mentions various facets of Puritan beliefs about Indians, doesn't examine them carefully, or make any sustained or persuasive effort to show, at the nuts and bolts level, how those beliefs influenced what happened at Salem.
So half of this is a good book and half of it is a mess. Unfortunately, the good half, while good, isn't great, and the mess is really kind of awful. Unless you're a Salem-completist like me, I can't recommend this one.
Then we hit 1692, and the thing just fell apart. Breslaw has the Salem historian's disease, in which the one cause on which the historian has focused is proclaimed to be the ONLY cause. In Breslaw's case, she asserts that the reason the Salem witchcraft crisis exploded in the way it did, mushrooming to nineteen executions and well over one hundred arrests, the only important reason is Tituba's testimony. Even without the other problems (which I'll get to in a moment), I would disagree with this thesis; I think the crucial moment is when the adult authority figures asked the afflicted girls who had bewitched them and accepted their answers as unquestionable truth. I also think that moment has a tremendously complicated genesis of its own, as well as very complicated consequences. And I would certainly agree that Tituba's testimony encouraged the spread of suspicion. But she didn't cause it, and she certainly didn't create the ground-breaking paradigm of social upheaval that Breslaw claims.
So I disagree with the argument. But I also find that the argument is very shoddily put together. She talks a great deal about the impact of the story Tituba told, the importance of the words she used, and the ways in which her testimony was repeated, embroidered, and modified by the afflicted girls and the confessing witches, but she uses almost no direct quotes. It's all described in indirect discourse. The generalizations are breathtaking in their sweep, particularly in discussing the culture of "American Indians." She makes no effort to distinguish between the Arawak Indians of South America (Tituba's probable tribe)--whose folklore and beliefs she claims influenced Tituba's testimony--and the Indians of north-eastern North America (unlike with the Arawak, she never specifies which tribes are under discussion) whom the European settlers were intermittently at war with throughout the second half of the seventeenth century--whose folklore and beliefs she claims influenced the magistrates' reception of Tituba's testimony; I find it hard to believe that "American Indians" in her argument are anything more than a locum tenens for ... well, for something that Breslaw hasn't done enough work on.
And Breslaw is particularly inconsistent on the historians' bugbear (which I blogged about): the nature of the participants' belief in witchcraft. She assumes that the nightmares Tituba describes in her testimony are real, and that she made the witchcake in a sincere effort to help Betty Parris. But she also assumes that Tituba deliberately and consciously tailored her testimony to give the magistrates what they wanted to hear, and that she equally deliberately constructed it as a subversive and subtle attack on her master, Samuel Parris. She also insists on describing it is a "model for resistance" (180). And when she talks about the confessing witches using Tituba's testimony, it is always as if they were in conscious control of a sophisticated strategy of resistance. I will give one example:
Tituba's unidentified evil presence, the imputations of elite responsibility, a witches' meeting, and assorted strange creatures provided a forum for the exposure of discontent with Puritan theology and ministerial intellectual demands; with the social class system and degradation of servants; and above all with the traditions of the late medieval world that valued communal goals above individual efforts. Tituba may have omitted sexual references because Indian cultures never made the erotic side of human behavior a factor in witchcraft prceedings. Others followed her lead for different reasons--sexual exploits might have negated their intent to parody Puritan values by conflating the godly and demonic realms. In this technique, as in others, Tituba again had supplied the outlines of a method that could be embellished and reformulated to fit the mental baggage of other cultures. (Breslaw 155)
She assumes "resistance" to be behind all the confessions (though, oddly, she doesn't spend much time applying the idea to the afflicted girls, where I think it can be more plausibly deployed--although still with much more caution than Breslaw shows), without ever acknowledging that as a method of resistance, confessing to witchcraft is a dismal failure, and without doing any of the work necessary to show how her modern, theoretical concept of "resistance" actually applies to the lives and words of her subjects. And she consistently makes assertions about Tituba's motivations that she does not prove--and couldn't prove if she tried. Unlike with the identification of Tituba and Tattuba in the first half of the book, these speculative assertions are not defensible either historiographically or rhetorically. Like Srebnick (The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers: Sex and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York) Breslaw overstates the importance of her central figure, and like Srebnick, rather than supporting her grandiose argument with evidence and careful reasoning, she supports it with buzzwords and academic obfuscation.
What really irks me about this book is that it could have been so much better. Not just in the general sense in which a poorly written book can always be a better book, but quite specifically. Mary Beth Norton's In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 has some excellent and provocative work on a subject one could encapsulate by Breslaw's subtitle: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies; Norton's work makes clear that the Puritan construction of Indians, particularly in relation to the Devil, probably did have a profound influence on the Salem crisis, and that is a topic that I think could and should be written about more--and should include Tituba. But Breslaw, while she mentions various facets of Puritan beliefs about Indians, doesn't examine them carefully, or make any sustained or persuasive effort to show, at the nuts and bolts level, how those beliefs influenced what happened at Salem.
So half of this is a good book and half of it is a mess. Unfortunately, the good half, while good, isn't great, and the mess is really kind of awful. Unless you're a Salem-completist like me, I can't recommend this one.
September 22, 2014
Elaine Breslaw is soliciting a confession from Tituba and the archives the same way the trials did.
April 13, 2010
First time I've read this theory: Tituba named others *purposefully* as an act of resistance against The Man.
Usually it's "she did it in self-defense" or "she didn't know what she was doing". This portrays it more in the vein of a captured Allied pilot giving disinformation to the Nazis in order to bring them down.
The author does a marvelous job uncovering Tituba's PRE-Salem history. If you didn't already know that Tituba was an INDIAN slave - not African - you *must* read this book.
And if you're at all interested in the Salem witch trials, this book adds a layer of knowledge which will make your research even more delicious.
Hmmm... Never write book reviews before lunch....
Usually it's "she did it in self-defense" or "she didn't know what she was doing". This portrays it more in the vein of a captured Allied pilot giving disinformation to the Nazis in order to bring them down.
The author does a marvelous job uncovering Tituba's PRE-Salem history. If you didn't already know that Tituba was an INDIAN slave - not African - you *must* read this book.
And if you're at all interested in the Salem witch trials, this book adds a layer of knowledge which will make your research even more delicious.
Hmmm... Never write book reviews before lunch....
April 10, 2025
3.25 stars
Tituba was an indigenous woman, likely indigenous to South America, and was a slave in Barbados before she came to Massachusetts with Samuel Parrish in the late 1600s. When the girls started convulsing and pointing fingers at possible “witches,” Tituba was one of the first who was pointed at. In fact, Tituba “confessed,” but she later indicated that she had lied to save herself. This was a biography, of sorts, of Tituba.
There is not a lot of information on Tituba beyond the time of the witch trials in Salem, but with a lot of research, the author has put together something that makes sense. But it is a lot of looking at the research and deducing things. So, especially at the start, it’s not super-enticing. But, there is a reason the author wants to include Tituba’s likely background as a child in her indigenous community as a child, then as a slave in Barbados. The author thinks Tituba drew on those things when she was testifying, and it does, in fact, explain some of what was happening, if the author is correct. So, I think there is good information here, though it is a bit slow-going, especially at the start.
Tituba was an indigenous woman, likely indigenous to South America, and was a slave in Barbados before she came to Massachusetts with Samuel Parrish in the late 1600s. When the girls started convulsing and pointing fingers at possible “witches,” Tituba was one of the first who was pointed at. In fact, Tituba “confessed,” but she later indicated that she had lied to save herself. This was a biography, of sorts, of Tituba.
There is not a lot of information on Tituba beyond the time of the witch trials in Salem, but with a lot of research, the author has put together something that makes sense. But it is a lot of looking at the research and deducing things. So, especially at the start, it’s not super-enticing. But, there is a reason the author wants to include Tituba’s likely background as a child in her indigenous community as a child, then as a slave in Barbados. The author thinks Tituba drew on those things when she was testifying, and it does, in fact, explain some of what was happening, if the author is correct. So, I think there is good information here, though it is a bit slow-going, especially at the start.
September 16, 2020
A really unique account of a woman confined by enslavement and the accusation of witchcraft. Breslaw's concentration on resistance, and how Tituba uses it in her elaborate confession to attack the elites who have enslaved her, is truly important. The first half of the book provides background and the second half uses that background to explain the significance of Tituba's role in the Salem witch trials. If you're interested in learning about historical origins, witchcraft, and the role race plays in religious beliefs and community relations, I would definitely recommend this book!
April 2, 2025
While there were a few very interesting facts in the book for the most part it was just a list of speculations on the part of the author. She spent wayyyyy to much time at the beginning trying to justify why it is believed tituba is who she is even though the records state a different name. More of the story revolved around this one issue and background of slavery in Barbados then was even spent discussing the witch trials. Very disappointing full read.
June 11, 2020
Breslaw offers an unusual perspective on the hysteria of the witch trials in Salem. Often portrayed as a black slave in late 19th and early 20th century literature, Tituba's Indian descent lends an interesting perspective of a typical misrepresented individual and how her cultural influences impact the narrative of her testimony.
September 29, 2020
The author draws a new conclusion to the Salem witch trials that is interesting. The repetition and “on the other hand” method of filtering through the lack of facts is like watching Vizzini trying to decide which cup to drink from that lasts for hours. Just decide which path you would like to go down and go.
March 6, 2024
A compelling, if still highly speculative, reconstruction of the life and world of one of the most central actors of the Salem witch trials.
December 30, 2023
Historians have long debated the origins of the Salem Witchcraft Trials and what caused it to become a mass panic. Elaine Breslaw’s Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem, introduces a new theory exploring the role Tituba, an enslaved Native American, played in the trials. She argues that Tituba’s confession fueled the fire of Puritan fears of a “devilish fantasy.” As Breslaw’s book continues, the idea of Samuel Pariss’s role in the trials with his cruelty to Tituba by forcing her to confess challenges the reader. Tituba’s fabricated testimony was an attempt to save her own life, but it cost many others theirs.
Breslaw structures her book in two parts. The first part is a biography of Tituba’s life which traces her origins to the likely Arawak tribe of South America. Breslaw follows various plantation records in Barbados to locate and explain her likely sale to Barbados and then to Samuel Pariss. Pariss then leaves Barbados and travels to Boston, Massachusetts. Tituba gained a diverse knowledge of European and Puritan beliefs, which Breslow credits as her saving grace with the ability to camouflage herself into the background of the Puritan world despite her race. The second half of her book explores Tituba’s confession and how it affected the town of Salem and caused the trials to spiral out of control. Breslaw makes it clear that Tituba’s confession was because of abuse received by Parris and that she would say anything to get the abuse to stop. Tituba created an elaborate story, with the guidance of Pariss, that confirmed the devil’s presence in Salem and ignited the panic of the witch hunt.
Breslaw created a new approach and put Tituba at the forefront. If it were not for Tituba’s confession, it is unlikely that the trials would have escalated as they did. Pulling from Titbua’s actual testimony, Breslaw concludes that Tituba pulled from cultural aspects from not only her Native background but also her time in Barbados. For example, Tituba said she saw a figure representing the Kenaima in Arawak culture and the Ashanti of West African culture. The biography portion of the book seemed thoroughly researched and created an indisputable timeline. The second half of the book was where the argument seemed to falter.
Although Breslaw placed Tituba as the leading cause of the spiral, in chapter seven, her evidence takes away from Tituba and spotlights Samuel Pariss. On page 139, when Breslaw talks about the arrest of Rebecca Nurse, she hints that there was an animosity between the Parris and the Nurse households. She states, “no doubt he was justifying the arrest of Rebecca Nurse, the wife of the enemy, Francis Nurse, a member of the Village Committee who had denied him his annual salary.” Although Breslaw attempted to highlight Tituba’s role, she inadvertently placed the primary target on Parris. It is evident toward the end of the trials when Parris did not comment on Tituba’s recantment and refused to get her out of jail.
Parris was falling out of favor within the community, so how else could he attempt redemption except by ridding the devil from the community? There are many coincidences; surprisingly, historians have not closely investigated Parris’s role. Breslaw’s book creates a solid foundation for looking deeper into the probable conspiracy led by Parris. In Tituba’s recanting, she stated that Parris beat her to gain a confession and force the accusation of her “sister witches.” Tituba was trying to save her own life by doing what Parris wanted her to do. Although she was a Native, her European upbringing and knowledge of proper English syntax made her a trustworthy witness within the Puritan community. They created a sense that everything she said was a fact. Tituba was different in the eyes of the community when placed up against other people of color accused, such as Candy or Mary Black. They did not have the knowledge base of Puritan customs to be able to guide their testimony and stories as Tutiba did.
Elaine Breslaw had a great thesis in mind; in a way, Breslaw was correct. Tituba’s confession did cause the witch hunts to spiral out of control with her use of mental images from her cultures in South America and Barbados. However, if it were not for Parris beating a confession out of her, the hunts would have likely stopped at the original three accused. Breslaw repeated her information quite a bit, almost like she was running out of things to say in each chapter and, therefore, would try and fill the pages with slightly reworded content. Overall, Breslaw presented sufficient evidence to prove her thesis.
Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem, is narrative-based, making it an enjoyable read for a general audience. Many questions come out of its context, making it an excellent foundation for further research. Although she took the spotlight off Tituba in the end, it adds an interesting view to women’s and witchcraft history.
Breslaw structures her book in two parts. The first part is a biography of Tituba’s life which traces her origins to the likely Arawak tribe of South America. Breslaw follows various plantation records in Barbados to locate and explain her likely sale to Barbados and then to Samuel Pariss. Pariss then leaves Barbados and travels to Boston, Massachusetts. Tituba gained a diverse knowledge of European and Puritan beliefs, which Breslow credits as her saving grace with the ability to camouflage herself into the background of the Puritan world despite her race. The second half of her book explores Tituba’s confession and how it affected the town of Salem and caused the trials to spiral out of control. Breslaw makes it clear that Tituba’s confession was because of abuse received by Parris and that she would say anything to get the abuse to stop. Tituba created an elaborate story, with the guidance of Pariss, that confirmed the devil’s presence in Salem and ignited the panic of the witch hunt.
Breslaw created a new approach and put Tituba at the forefront. If it were not for Tituba’s confession, it is unlikely that the trials would have escalated as they did. Pulling from Titbua’s actual testimony, Breslaw concludes that Tituba pulled from cultural aspects from not only her Native background but also her time in Barbados. For example, Tituba said she saw a figure representing the Kenaima in Arawak culture and the Ashanti of West African culture. The biography portion of the book seemed thoroughly researched and created an indisputable timeline. The second half of the book was where the argument seemed to falter.
Although Breslaw placed Tituba as the leading cause of the spiral, in chapter seven, her evidence takes away from Tituba and spotlights Samuel Pariss. On page 139, when Breslaw talks about the arrest of Rebecca Nurse, she hints that there was an animosity between the Parris and the Nurse households. She states, “no doubt he was justifying the arrest of Rebecca Nurse, the wife of the enemy, Francis Nurse, a member of the Village Committee who had denied him his annual salary.” Although Breslaw attempted to highlight Tituba’s role, she inadvertently placed the primary target on Parris. It is evident toward the end of the trials when Parris did not comment on Tituba’s recantment and refused to get her out of jail.
Parris was falling out of favor within the community, so how else could he attempt redemption except by ridding the devil from the community? There are many coincidences; surprisingly, historians have not closely investigated Parris’s role. Breslaw’s book creates a solid foundation for looking deeper into the probable conspiracy led by Parris. In Tituba’s recanting, she stated that Parris beat her to gain a confession and force the accusation of her “sister witches.” Tituba was trying to save her own life by doing what Parris wanted her to do. Although she was a Native, her European upbringing and knowledge of proper English syntax made her a trustworthy witness within the Puritan community. They created a sense that everything she said was a fact. Tituba was different in the eyes of the community when placed up against other people of color accused, such as Candy or Mary Black. They did not have the knowledge base of Puritan customs to be able to guide their testimony and stories as Tutiba did.
Elaine Breslaw had a great thesis in mind; in a way, Breslaw was correct. Tituba’s confession did cause the witch hunts to spiral out of control with her use of mental images from her cultures in South America and Barbados. However, if it were not for Parris beating a confession out of her, the hunts would have likely stopped at the original three accused. Breslaw repeated her information quite a bit, almost like she was running out of things to say in each chapter and, therefore, would try and fill the pages with slightly reworded content. Overall, Breslaw presented sufficient evidence to prove her thesis.
Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem, is narrative-based, making it an enjoyable read for a general audience. Many questions come out of its context, making it an excellent foundation for further research. Although she took the spotlight off Tituba in the end, it adds an interesting view to women’s and witchcraft history.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 29, 2015
Tituba is a slave known for being at the center of the Salem witch trials.
What this book does is trace Tituba's pre-Salem life, from her likely origins in South America to her time in Barbados, and also shows what impact her confession had on Salem and Puritans as a whole.
This book also dispels that Tituba was African. She was clearly identified as Indian in documents during court and before.
Although the book isn't extremely long, it is a lot of information to take in. I also felt that it was very well researched. I have read a lot about the Salem witch trials, Tituba, and her involvement is always mentioned. But this book really goes in depth and I really like the author wrote this book about Tituba. I have always wanted to know more about her, but there is only so much books on Salem tell you. If you wish to know more about Tituba, I definitely recommend this book.
What this book does is trace Tituba's pre-Salem life, from her likely origins in South America to her time in Barbados, and also shows what impact her confession had on Salem and Puritans as a whole.
This book also dispels that Tituba was African. She was clearly identified as Indian in documents during court and before.
Although the book isn't extremely long, it is a lot of information to take in. I also felt that it was very well researched. I have read a lot about the Salem witch trials, Tituba, and her involvement is always mentioned. But this book really goes in depth and I really like the author wrote this book about Tituba. I have always wanted to know more about her, but there is only so much books on Salem tell you. If you wish to know more about Tituba, I definitely recommend this book.
March 4, 2008
I read this in a class on witchcraft taught by the Author. The Salem witch trials political motivatations gave me a greater appreciation for the Miller play and its subtle(?) portrayal of McCarthism as well as a clue in on a very interesting peice of American history.
July 29, 2016
Very well researched history of Tituba the INDIAN slave, not African as many falsely assume, who was at the center of the Salem Witch hysteria of February 1692 thru May 1693, in colonial Massachusetts.
September 30, 2008
read this for a college course
September 19, 2010
The most readable evidence I have read for a History course at Smith so far.
August 11, 2011
This is a good history book but sometimes a little boring. Great background information on Tituba and good theories about how influential Tituba was to the hysteria and fear of witchcraft.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews