Tituba Salem Witch Trials

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Pages: 3

One of the darkest moments in American history happened in 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts. At the time the hierarchy of crimes were not like crime hierarchy found today. Witchcraft was among the highest crimes at the time, even higher than murder. Two young girls, around ages 9 and 11, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece to the first ordained minister of Salem Village, Samuel Parris began exhibiting unusual behavior. Ann Putnam, age 11 years old, and other girls in the Village began acting similarly to Elizabeth and Abigail. The only doctor in Salem village had noted the girls’ behavior was to be explained by supernatural causes. Thanks to the doctor saying the strange behavior was due to supernatural causes, the people wanted answers for the behavior and pressured the girls into giving them names of who could be cursing them. The girls ended up accusing three different women. Two of the women confessed their innocence, while the other, Tituba, a slave to one of the magistrates, admitted to afflicting the girls. Tituba had at the time, told the young girls old stories of her childhood from Barbados. Even showing them some voodoo, which might have caused guilt in the girls due to their hardcore puritan lifestyle. …show more content…
Perhaps Tituba was giving the magistrates everything they wanted to hear. It may have been true, Tituba the Slave, had claimed many things including signing a book in her own blood, that included the names of other women within the community. The atmosphere in Salem was poisoned and tainted with evil and people used it to their advantage. The first women who were accused were of a lower-class status, as the accusations went on, even women of higher social classes and outstanding citizens were being accused of witchcraft. Men were also accused of witchcraft and as time went on more than one hundred and fifty people from Salem Village were