# data[].attributes.body
https://blog.oup.com/2016/11/salem-witch-trials-significance/

https://www.history.com/news/7-bizarre-witch-trial-tests

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/salems-problem-not-witches-but-torture_b_58901334e4b080b3dad6fb09

https://www.history.com/news/salem-witch-trials-first-accused-woman-slave

https://www.history.com/news/read-the-document-that-condemned-a-woman-to-death-in-the-salem-witch-trials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVd8kuufBhM

# data[].attributes.body
Towards the end of our semester we have talked about torture and the African American Experience. Now no one ever thinks that there could ever be a connection between that and this event. But when deeply looking you see that this is all blamed on a person of color. Tituba was an average slave who told fictional stories to the children she watched and told stories of magic to entertain them. But the whole event escalated and she was blamed. To survive she had to put the blame on others. Which is an action many did back then. But even in other readings of slavery we see this again. In the Narrative of William Brown a Fugitive Slave, in the passage where he passes a whipping to someone else to avoid the torture. Even in modern day torture is given to people of color and they respond like everyone does taking it or passing it along. Like it is seen in the Chicago Black Sites. Police will take in members of the African American community and the torture does not end after they are released. It continues on to the next person until everyone has fear instilled in them. Like everyone in Salem.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"I am blind now. I cannot see."

So ended the court appearance of the woman who kicked off the Salem witchcraft trials: Tituba, an enslaved woman who was the first to be accused of witchcraft in Salem. She had just given some of history's most explosive testimony, a convoluted and riveting tale of a witch's coven, a devil's book and evil animals and spirits that seemed to explain away the odd symptoms that overtook a group of Salem girls in 1692.

But what do we really know about the woman whose testimony sparked Salem's witch hunt?

Tituba's story is as convoluted-and potentially fictitious-as any other part of the Salem witch trials. Even during the events of the 1690s, which led to 20 deaths, legends and rumors were common. It's hard to untangle them from a distance, and all historians know for sure about Tituba comes from the court testimony she gave during the infamous trials.

What is certain is that Tituba was a woman of color, and likely an Indigenous Central American, who was an enslaved worker in the house of Reverend Samuel Parris, Salem's Puritan minister. At the time, slavery in the colonies was on the rise, and the West Indies was rapidly becoming Europe's most important center for the slave trade. Reverend Samuel Parris bought Tituba in Barbados, where she had been enslaved since her capture during childhood. He brought her to Massachusetts in 1680, when she was a teenager. At some point, she is thought to have married another enslaved man named John Indian, and she had a daughter, Violet.

Tituba cared for the Parris children, and Parris' daughter and niece were among the first girls who began showing strange symptoms in 1692. The girls had been playing a fortune-telling game that involved dropping an egg white into a glass of water. Supposedly, the form the egg white took in the water could help predict whom the girls would marry and show the shapes of their future lives. After the girls saw a coffin in one of the glasses, they began barking like dogs, babbling and crying hysterically.

Though she apparently had nothing to do with the girls' attempts at fortune telling (a grave sin in the Puritan religion), Tituba tried to help them. She baked a "witchcake" from rye meal and urine and fed it to the girls. Parris, who had already begun praying and fasting in an attempt to cure the girls of what he saw as possession, became incensed when he heard Tituba had fed them the cake. He beat her in an attempt to get her to confess that witchcraft was the reason behind the girls' increasingly odd behavior.

Tituba did confess-and embellished her confession with an embroidered tale of how she had been told to serve the devil. She and the girls rode on sticks, she confessed, and a black dog told her to hurt the children.

This was enough to spark hysteria in Salem. Tituba was formally accused of witchcraft and two other women were accused and arrested along with her.

"She could not have expected to be accused," writes historian Stacy Schiff for Smithsonian. New England witches were traditionally marginals: outliers and deviants, cantankerous scolds and choleric foot-stompers. They were not people of color."

However, it was all too easy to scapegoat people of color and marginal members of society. Sarah Good, who was arrested along with Tituba, was a beggar who was looked down on by the town for her financial instability and her debts. Sarah Osborne lived on Salem's margins, too-she was involved in a dispute with her children over their dead father's estate and was reviled for an affair with an indentured servant. All three women were perfect targets for accusations of deviant, even evil, behavior.

Tituba's testimony was bizarre and deeply disturbing to the people of Salem. She had seen "two rats, a red rat and a black rat," she told the magistrates. "They said serve me." Tituba confessed to pinching the girls and told the court that she had signed a "devil's book."

The people of Salem associated supernatural practices like voodoo with people of color and Indians, and the townspeople identified Tituba as both. Her confession was enough to convince the town that true evil was afoot. As the trials spun further and further out of control, Tituba remained imprisoned in Boston.

She was indicted as "a detestable Witch" and languished in jail for more than a year. Parris refused to pay her bail. Meanwhile, more and more indictments and arrests piled up as Salem gave into a town-wide panic.

Later, Tituba recanted. She told the magistrate that she had made up everything after her master beat her in an attempt to force a confession. By then, the trials had wound down and the governor of Massachusetts had ordered the arrests to stop. Eventually an anonymous person paid Tituba's bail and she went free after 13 months in jail.

Eventually, the state of Massachusetts gave Salem's accused people back their property and gave them restitution. However, notes historian Veta Smith Tucker, Tituba-a enslaved woman with no property and no rights-was given nothing. She disappeared from the historical record from that point on.

Since so little is known about Tituba, her story is easy to fictionalize. In the years after the trials, she became popular in literature and lore. But in reality, she seems to have been a marginal figure whose low societal status put her in the perfect position to be accused of witchcraft in a town searching for answers.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Mysterious Enslaved Woman Who Sparked Salem's Witch Hunt | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Tituba has become a legend-but she was all too easy to scapegoat

# data[].attributes.body
In every issue there is always a scapegoat to put all the blame on. Like many times it was pushed on a minority group member. In the story of the Salem Witch Trials that remains true. A slave named Tituba was said to have started out all the magic in Salem

# data[].attributes.body
This shows that in this time they placed blame on eachother out of fear that they will get blame themselves. By reporting a witch you could not be a witch. The woman Mary Daniels explained how she was being tortured for information and passed on the name of other women. That "confession" led to the untimely death of the innocent women Margaret Scott.

# data[].attributes.headline
Personal View: The Impact of the Witch Trials

# data[].attributes.subject
Personal View: The Impact of the Witch Trials

# data[].attributes.body
Through my time studying the Salem Witch Trials it is clear to see that this was a mess from beginning to end. Family turned on each other, husbands and wives suspicious of each other. They say that they were trying to find evil but in reality the actions to find it were the evil. The torture, the bloodshed and the hysteria made this so much worse. Now to say this is not the case today would be a lie. The behaviors that they had were not so different than ours today. Today people point fingers and attack each other on such little things. The main difference is we have the internet to carry those messages. We have wealthy white men in charge of the fate of the country, like how the fate of the women in Salem was in the hands white wealthy men. The world has changed but   Witch Trials was not a one time tragic event it continued in different forms of oppression of women every day.

# data[].attributes.headline
Historical Legacy of the Salem Witch Trials 

# data[].attributes.subject
Historical Legacy of the Salem Witch Trials 

# data[].attributes.body
When actions like this occur no matter what time period it makes an impact like a drop in an ocean. it ripples through time and history. The trials shined a light in the criminal justice system and points the flaws we have in our current system to this day.In the link attached see the legacy of the trials today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Religious fanaticism, power-hungry individuals, local disputes, misogyny, anxiety, political turmoil, psychological distress, and mass hysteria all contributed to the atmosphere surrounding the infamous Salem witch trials. These factors converged in 1692 to "produce what was by far the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in American history ... threaten[ing] to bring down the newly formed Massachusetts Bay government of Sir William Phips." The witch trials left a lasting impression on the early American colonists, and subsequently provided citizens of the American republic with a cautionary tale about the dangers of persecution, intolerance, and bigotry.

Many of the issues that plagued colonial Salem persist in America today. The playwright Arthur Miller captured the American popular imagination with his play The Crucible, which presents the Salem witch trials as an allegory for Joseph McCarthy's campaign against communism in the 1950s. Today, thousands of people travel to Salem every year to learn more about the community's unique place in American history. To illustrate what makes the Salem witch trials so significant, we've compiled some interesting facts:

1. Poor and marginalized members of society tended to be the victims of witchcraft accusations, but in 1692, many leading members of the colony were accused. A total of 172 people are known to have been formally charged or informally cried out upon for witchcraft in 1692. Two Salem Village church members, Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse, five ministers, and four ministers' wives stood accused, as well as other leading members of the colony. Even the governor's wife, Lady Mary Phips, was called out as a witch.

2. The judges of the Salem Witch Trials appointed by the governor were well-educated. The nine judges on the trials' panel were among the wealthiest merchants in the colony. Most had extensive experience as judges. Five had spent at least some time at Harvard, and one attended Oxford.

3. Today, the court system in the United States assumes innocence until proven otherwise; the courts in Salem appear to have assumed the opposite and " the order of the prosecutions reveals the judges' intentions. Historians' close readings of the proceedings suggest that the judges believed a significant witch conspiracy threatened the colony, and that it was crucial to round up any guilty members to end the crisis.

4. Historically, witchcraft tended to be a female crime; about three-quarters of the accused were women. However, even the men of the highest-status in Salem, such as ministers, were cried out to be witches. The Harvard-educated Puritan minister Reverend George Burroughs; John Willard, a kinsman of Reverend Samuel Willard of Boston's South Church; and John Proctor, the respected farmer and tavern keeper made famous in Arthur Miller's 1953 play, The Crucible, were all hanged together during the trials.

5. Those who pleaded "not guilty" were swiftly tried and convicted, and many were executed. The 28 people who were tried by the Court of Oyer and Terminer and who pleaded "not guilty" were all condemned to death by the judges-an unprecedented one-hundred percent conviction rate.

6. With the exception of Samuel Wardwell, who recanted his confession before trial, no one who confessed to being a witch was executed. Only those who refused to confess met death. "This was a dangerous game to play, as prior to 1692 in Europe or America a confession of witchcraft almost universally resulted in a speedy conviction and execution. So, confessing to witchcraft did not guarantee one's ultimate survival but at the least it seemed to rule out speedy execution."

7. Rumors of a vast witchcraft conspiracy quickly spread throughout New England. By the end of August 1692, three confessors had agreed that there were 200 people present at their black Sabbaths. Others reported hearing of more than 300 active witches in the region. The confessors provided fuel for more accusations. By the middle of September, 42 confessors had named others as witches.

8. As the trials went on, judges seemed to rely increasingly on spectral evidence, but you wouldn't dare want to challenge their authority. In their treatment of Giles Cory, the judges ordered the 81-year-old man to be pressed to death to attempt to literally press an answer out of him that he was in fact a witch. "Just two years earlier some of the same judges had participated in a case where a pirate refused to plead, as he felt that Massachusetts lacked jurisdiction. Rather than press him, however, the court just continued with his trial."

9. The Salem witch trials seriously threatened the new Massachusetts Bay government. "They signaled the beginning of the end of Puritanism as a potent force in Massachusetts and triggered a distrust of government. No longer would the governor be a trusted partner of the legislature, nor would a minister sit as his top adviser."
Featured image credit: "Witchcraft at Salem Village" by William A. Crafts. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why were the Salem Witch Trials so significant? | OUPblog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Religious fanaticism, power-hungry individuals, local disputes, misogyny, anxiety, political turmoil, psychological distress, and mass hysteria all contributed to the atmosphere surrounding the infamous Salem witch trials. These factors converged in 1692 to "produce what was by far the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in American history

# data[].attributes.body
" I was taken very ill again all over & felt a great pricking in ye soles of my feet, and after a while I saw apparently the shape of Margret Scott, who, as I was sitting in a chair by ye fire pulled me with ye chair, down backward to ye ground, and tormented and pinched me very much, and I saw her go away at ye door, in which fit I was dumb and so continued till ye next morning, finding a great load and heaviness upon my tongue …

There appeared to me the shape of some woman, who seemed to look and speak most fiercely and angrily, and beat, pinch’d and afflicted me very sorely telling me I should not have said so, or told such things & to yt purpose … In some of ye fits yt I had afterwards, I was senseless and knew not yt I saw who it was yt afflicted me. In one fitt (upon ye beginning it) I thought I saw Goodw Jackson, and widow Scott come walking into the chamber with yr staves, one of ym came & sat upon me so yt I could not stir … In another fitt I saw ye appearance of sd Scott in ye room who afflicted me, and being speechless, I continued so, untill I went to ye sd Scott, who taking me by ye hand, I had ye liberty of speech again as formerly. The last fitt I had was upon ye last Sabbth day, in which I saw ye shapes of four women or five, of whom widow Scott was one, ye rest I knew not, nor knew yt any did hurt me, unless sd widow Scott."

# data[].attributes.body
There is a document that has been going around being auctioned as the deposition of Mary Daniels. This document is what put Margaret Scott to death as a witch. The word of one leads to the downfall of another.

# data[].attributes.body
Used still to this day a common form of getting information was keeping the person being interrogated awake for as long as possible. They would as the person many questions and not let them sleep until they say what was wanted to hear.

# data[].attributes.headline
Examples of Torture: Pricking and Scratching Test

# data[].attributes.subject
Examples of Torture: Pricking and Scratching Test

# data[].attributes.body
For Example, the pricking and scratching test is when they would pick and stab on a person skin until the flesh would break. If the person was to bleed then the person was not a witch.If they healed too quickly then they would be a witch or if they kept stabbing and pricking until they found an area that produced witch like results the person would be guilty.

# data[].attributes.body
Another example is the "Swimming test" where they would drag the suspected Witch to a body of water and if they sank they were not a witch. This would lead to many accidental drownings. This test is derived from "trial by water" which was banned in the Middle Ages by many European countries due to the way it presented like torture and many innocent deaths.

# data[].attributes.body
In the Witch Trials many tests were done to see if a person was a witch. Back then they believed that these were mere insurances to make sure a person was not posing as a regular person. But in reality some of these test were horrific acts of torture.

# data[].attributes.body
All semester we learned about torture and how false confessions can be made. In the Salem Witch trials torture lead to a domino affect of others to be tortured and punished for crimes not committed. This went on for a year of one person getting tortured only to be free once blame and information was put on someone else. Showing once again that torture is not an effective or ethical way to get information because if someone is desperate to stop the pain anything could come out of their mouths.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Salem witchcraft prosecutions are widely acknowledged to be a low point in American history. Nineteen people-both men and women-were hung (not burned) as witches. One man was crushed to death using a medieval judicial procedure designed to force him to give in a plea (guilty or not guilty) so he could be tried as a witch. Many more people were accused, some of whom fled for their lives. Others died in prison or spent long months incarcerated in abysmal conditions before the scare ran its course and they were released. This incident is a blot on early American history, a notorious event that invokes outrage to this day.

Torture of accused witches played a key role in the affair. People were stuck with pens, tied "neck to heels" (that is bent backwards) until blood ran out of their noses, kept awake for long hours of interrogation, and threatened with worse. Little wonder that fully fifty-five people confessed to being witches and provided testimony against other accused witches that sent a number of innocent people to the gallows.

Some torture victims quickly recanted their testimony, and two of them were executed (still at the height of the scare) for lying about their status as witches. Once the trials ended, many more came forward to declare that they had lied about being a witch in order to end their abuse. They explained that the relentless barrage of questions, the assumption of their guilt, and their ill treatment in prison had finally caused them to lie.

Virtually everyone in Massachusetts came to believe that the trials and executions had been a terrible mistake: victims' families were compensated and supposed witches had convictions overturned. They realized that terrified people had been forced into confessing. The whole affair spun out of control because community fears had gotten out of hand, helped along by the judges' method of terrorizing the accused into false confessions.

The people who lived through Salem realized torture resulted in false confessions. Scholars who later tried to understand what happened at Salem have come to the same conclusion as the perpetrators and victims: that torture paved the way for false convictions. U.S. policy experts agree with this assessment: while damaging our reputation in the world, torture fails to find the truth. The current President does not agree, and in this he is joined by voters who have been duped by TV pundits or television and movies to think torture works. We hear a great deal about the "liberal media" promulgating a left leaning agenda, but various examples push in the opposite direction. For instance, the film Zero Dark Thirty promoted the view that Trump now holds: that torture works. If that film had a liberal moment, it occurred when the heroine paused over the decision to abuse her victim. She finally accepted that the results would be worth the horrific act (and in this cinematic fantasy they were). The assumption that torture works was never questioned, even though it goes against all the evidence of the last three hundred plus years.

At Salem torture persuaded people who had never flown to a midnight meeting with the devil to say they had done so. Let us hope that Donald Trump will-as he has stated-defer to the expertise of his Secretary of Defense, who is opposed to the use of torture. Otherwise we will resume a practice that can only lead to lies and to another blot on the American reputation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Salem's problem: not witches but torture

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Salem witchcraft prosecutions are widely acknowledged to be a low point in American history. Nineteen people-both men and women-were hung (not burned) as witches. One man was crushed to death using a medieval judicial procedure designed to force him to give in a plea (guilty or not guilty) so he could be tried as a witch.

# data[].attributes.body
in 1692, lead to the torture, murder and imprisonment of many residents of Salem Village. The fire that fueled that flame was teenage boredom, hysteria and religion.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What really happened during the Salem Witch Trials - Brian A. Pavlac