1. Tituba’s Trial Testimony- Original and Transcript

• Transcription of Tituba’s Trial Testimony:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JTq9_x_tgeE1qUh1T05q2oijUE3pjrAGuNKeCRm6AQw/edit?usp=sharing

Here is Tituba’s trial testimony, also provided in the novel by Condé.

2. Depictions of Tituba in History and Literature

These illustrations and depictions of Tituba show how she was viewed as an other; magical, evil, and personifying the act of witchcraft. In Condé’s novel, Tituba is younger than she is depicted in the most common images of her. History has not been kind to Tituba, it uses her to its benefit and ignores the legacy she claims.

Tituba as she is portrayed in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

“Look into this Glass”

“Tituba Teaching the First Act of Witchcraft”

“I Am Tituba the Witch”

3. Hester Prynne- Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter

Condé places Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne in prison with Tituba. Hester in this novel is much more empowered than in the Scarlet Letter. Condé takes creative license to kill off Hester, effectively pointing out that the events of the Scarlet Letter can no longer occur, making the claim that Hawthorne is no longer cannon.

5. Tituba’s Known History

• Tituba, or Tituba Indian, was a slave woman in the home of Samuel Parris in Salem Village. She was the first woman accused of witchcraft in 1692 and she was also the first accused woman to confess to witchcraft. Tituba was not executed for witchcraft like some of the accused women, instead she was held in jail for over a year due to Samuel Parris refusing to pay the costs associated with her imprisonment. The end of her imprisonment came when an unknown person paid her fees and took her away from Salem Village. Tituba’s role in the Salem Witch Trials and her place in Salem Village is highly debated. These very brief facts about her life are known to be true. After she was freed from prison, nothing else is known about Tituba’s story.