Tituba of Salem Village

Regarded now as one of the most influential works of American post-war young adult fiction, Ann Petry’s historical novel Tituba of Salem Village (1964) recreates the hysteria surrounding the 1692 witch trials in Puritan Massachusetts. The novel focuses on the historic person of Tituba Indian (1674-1693), the Caribbean slave of Reverend Samuel Parris (1653-1720), the minister of the tiny rural church rocked by accusations of witchcraft made by 10 teenage girls, accusations that would lead to more than 150 arrests and ultimately to 19 executions. Tituba was herself accused of practicing witchcraft and, after intense interrogation and beatings, confessed. At the time of the novel’s publication, Petry (1908-1997) was one of America’s most prolific and successful Black writers; indeed, her first novel, The Street (1946), about a single Black mother raising her children in post-war Harlem, is regarded now as the first best-seller written by a Black woman.

Published at the height of the Black civil rights movement, Tituba presented a sympathetic portrait of a noble slave woman who gets entangled in the hysteria and the paranoia of the witch hunts. The novel introduced to a YA reading audience complicated issues about religious hypocrisy and intolerance; the dehumanization of Blacks within the institution of slavery; the dark psychology of scapegoating (blaming community misfortune and bad luck on a specific group of people); and ultimately, the affirmation of the human spirit to survive difficult times.

This study guide uses the 1992 HarperCollins paperback edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

In late 1688, Tituba and her husband John, slaves in the household of Susanna Endicott in Barbados, are sold to the Reverend Samuel Parris of Boston. Reverend Parris hopes to establish himself as a minister. When his family, his ailing wife, his daughter, Betsey, and his niece, Abigail Williams, arrive in Boston, he is not offered a suitable post for months. During that time, a neighbor, Samuel Conklin, recognizes Tituba’s natural skills at spinning fabric and teaches her how to work a loom. Reverend Parris accepts a posting in Salem Village north of Boston, although he believes the church is far below his status.

At Salem, Tituba struggles to help restore the parsonage and its garden, long neglected. To pass the time, she shares exotic stories of life on her island with the girls and their friends. John is put to work at the local tavern, and Tituba, alone most of the day, befriends a stray cat. The girls ask Tituba whether she could tell fortunes—a friend, Mercy Lewis, an indentured servant of the Putnam family, brings a pack of tarot cards to the parsonage. Tituba reluctantly agrees to tell the girls’ futures even though she knows there would be trouble if word got out that tarot cards were in the parson’s house.

Tituba meets Sarah Good, a homeless vagrant, and her child Dorcas who come to the parsonage begging for food. Mistress Good is rumored to be a witch, and Reverend Parris instructs Tituba to give Sarah Good whatever she asks. During one visit, the child leaves behind a doll, which Dorcas has named Patience Mulenhorse, made of corn shucks. Abigail notices Dorcas has stuck thorns into the doll. When Abigail tosses the doll into the fire, it appears to shriek. Later they find out a girl in the village by that same name has been killed in a horrible accident involving a fire.

Soon after, Abigail, Betsy, and several of their friends begin to exhibit strange behavior. They suddenly scream or bark or laugh hysterically. They flap their arms as if trying to fly. They drop to the floor in uncontrollable fits. They tell stories of how Satan comes to them in visions. The town determines the girls must be bewitched. Hysteria grows. To finger who is bewitching the girls, one of Tituba’s neighbors bakes a witch cake made of expensive rye flour and the girls’ urine, a treat according to folklore irresistible to witches. Through complete coincidence, Tituba, Sarah Good, and an elderly neighbor Sarah Osburne come into the house together and are identified as the witches tormenting the girls.

Reverend Parris, eager to ferret out the witches, interrogates Tituba, even beating her, to get her to confess. Uncertain what to do, she confesses more to stop the beatings. In the subsequent trial, witnesses testify with obviously bogus evidence of the women’s guilt. During the trial, the girls pitch fits and scream and run about the meeting house. The three women are found guilty and sent to the King’s prison in Boston.

More Salem townspeople are accused of witchcraft, and the jails swell. Some, like Sarah Good, are hanged. Others like Sarah Osburne die in jail. The rest, like Tituba, languish in jail. Finally, after months, the Royal Governor stops the witch trials and orders the jails cleared once the accused can settle the bill for their incarceration. Tituba has no money and stays in jail until Samuel Conklin, that kind neighbor from Boston, pays her bill. Conklin then arranges for Tituba and John to work in his household, where the two slaves live full and useful lives.