Tituba in The Crucible: Unveiling the Slave Girl’s Role in the Salem Witchcraft Trials

The Crucible was a play written by the American playwright Arthur Miller in 1953. In the 17th century, there was a big fear of witchcraft. The play is about how in the town of Salem, several females claimed they were attacked by evil spirits and accused members of the community for sending them and afflicting pain on them. One of the characters in The Crucible, who also happens to be one of the accused, is Tituba, a black slave brought from Barbados by Reverend Parris. Although Millers play isnt entirely based on the primary documents, we can draw a connection between the real Tituba and The Crucibles Tituba in which she is presented as the black slave who undoubtedly legitimized the suspicions and doubts of witchcraft by being the first to confess.

The finger was pointed at three women, including Tituba; the three weakest members of the community, but what started off as blaming the weaker ones and a childrens game turned into mass hysteria. The three that were first accused when Betty and Abigail fell sick were immediately Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba. Sarah Good is a homeless, unstable woman, Sarah Osborne has an illness while Tituba was the black save who would always be blamed. All three of them were the low-class of the society and while they were the first to be accused, the first to admit was Tituba.

Looking at the primary documents, we can see how the exact three characters were brought before [the court] upon suspicion of witchcraft and Tituba acknowledg[ed] the matter of fact(3), just like in the play itself. Miller further used the documents in order to base the characters narrative. For example when being interrogated, she at first denies having familiarity with evil spirits but then continues by claiming that the Devil came to [her] and bid [her] [to] serve him (3). It is also mentioned that there were four people with him and the same happens in Act One.

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Hale asks her if she interacts with the Devil and while she denies it at first, she eventually, in fright, admits it and says there [were] four (p.44) people with him, including Goody Good and Osborne. This was the beginning of the hysteria which was to follow in which Abigail, wanting to be in the spotlight, takes her chance and from that point on starts pretending to be possessed and gives out a plethora of names of people, accusing them of witchcraft.

Although Miller based his play on the primary documents, we can see a couple of details he did not include or changed a little bit. To begin with, Titubas racial heritage was not clear in the documents while in the book she was a Negro slave (p.7) and in fact the racial stereotypes contributed to her being accused since even in the book when she first comes in, it is mentioned that trouble in [that] house eventually lands on her back (p.8). Another detail that Arthur Miller did not include was that she was married to a man by the name of John Indian. Furthermore, Tituba is nowhere mentioned in the primary documents to have taught the girls any voodoo spells or how to fortune tell. What Tituba did confess which Miller did not mention was how she saw two rats, wolves, birds and flying on a pole.

To conclude, while there is not much to be known about Tituba, since she is a slave with very few recordings, her confession along with naming the other two accused witches, was a major starting point of the play. By naming the other two, she stimulated the court and the girls to find more people. While there are certain details not mentioned by Miller, he used the primary documents in order to base it into the narratives of the character.

For example, her interrogations were the basis of the conversations she had with Hale. Along with that, there are certain racial factors attributing to her confessions; had she been a white woman of dignity and respect, she would have not confessed. Being a slave, she was used to taking the blame and being the first to be accused. Moreover by accusing Goody Good and Osborne, she dragged along two other low-class people, thereby not causing much damage but this action instead engaged girls such as Abigail which created the big chase after witches which led to nowhere.

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