Tituba - Fiction

Fiction

Tituba is the protagonist of the novel I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem (1986) by Maryse Condé. She also featured prominently in the 1952 play The Crucible by Arthur Miller; In the 1957 and 1996 film adaptations of Miller's play, she was depicted by Darling Legitimus and Charlayne Woodard, respectively. The image of Tituba as the instigator of witchcraft at Salem was reinforced by the opening scene of The Crucible, which owes much to Marion L. Starkey’s work The Devil in Massachusetts (1949).

In the play, Tituba was brought to Salem from Barbados, was taught how to conjure up spirits, and had allegedly dabbled in sorcery, witchcraft, and Satanism. These fictional accounts hold that Abigail Williams and the other girls tried to use her knowledge when dancing in the woods before the trials began; it was, in fact, their being caught that led to those events. With the original intention of covering up their own sinful deeds, Tituba was the one to be accused by Abigail, who had in fact drunk from a magic cup Tituba made to kill John Proctor's wife, Elizabeth, and to bewitch him into loving her. She and the other girls claimed to have seen Tituba "with the Devil."

It is ironic that the belief that Tituba led these girls astray has persisted in popular lore, fiction and non fiction alike. The charge, which is seen by some as having barely disguised racial undertones, is based on the imagination of authors like Starkey, who mirrors Salem’s accusers when she asserts that "I have invented the scenes with Tituba .... but they are what I really believe happened."

Tituba is also the main character in the 1956 book Tituba of Salem Village by Ann Petry. Written for children 10 and up, it portrays Tituba as a black West Indian who tells stories about life in Barbados to the village girls. These stories are mingled with existing superstitions and half-remembered pagan beliefs on the part of Puritans (for instance, it is a white neighbor who makes the witch cake, rather than Tituba herself), and the witchcraft hysteria is partly attributed to a sort of cabin fever during a particularly bitter winter. Petry's portrayal of the helplessness of women in that period, particularly slaves and indentured servants, is key to understanding her take on the Tituba legend.

Tituba is also a character in The Witch's Children (1987) by Patricia Clapp. The Witch's Children is narrated by Mary Warren, one of the possessed girls. Clapp's portrayal is very accurate of what Puritan girls probably went through and how large a role Tituba played in the opening up the girls to witchcraft.

Tituba also appeared in issue number 131 of Nightwing.

Tituba appears in the novel Calligraphy of the Witch (2007) by Alicia Gaspar de Alba. In the novel Tituba is an Arawak Indian from Guyana fluent in several languages, and the only person in the Boston area who understands Spanish. She is a friend and English tutor to the slave Concepción Benavidez who is accused of witchcraft in the Boston area because of her Mexican and Catholic culture. In the book she foresees trouble for Concepción through water scrying. Later in the novel Samuel Parris and his slave Tituba move to Salem.

Tituba appears in Lara Parker's novel "The Salem Branch" (2012) (2nd part of Lara Parker's Dark Shadows series) which is partly set in colonial New England, during the time of the Trials.