From Margin to Center: Contrasting Representations of Tituba in American Culture

Abstract

The aim of this work is to investigate the presence and absence of the figure of Tituba in the American history and literature. Little is known about her origins, except that she was brought to Salem as a servant of Reverend Samuel Parris and accused of witchcraft in the infamous trials of 1692. The sixteenth-century Puritan writings are a good place to start this research on Tituba, for they provide the basis for future speculations on her persona. The historical, social and cultural dynamics of early New-England reveal other interesting perspectives on the choice of a non-white American woman as the first witch of Salem. After a century of relative literary silence, the Salem Witch Trials are resurrected from obscurity by historians and writers of the nineteenth century. Tituba suffers from historical oblivion and steps into the realm of myth. The different metamorphoses that she undergoes in the novels and dramas in between the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, are worth analyzing to show how they all possibly converge in the myth of Tituba as the dark priestess of occultism. The rise of an assertively identitarian literature in the second half of the 20th century, inaugurates a counter narrative of this enigmatic and controversial figure of American history. Although being fictionalized, Tituba is given a voice that is powerfully hers in demanding recognition and justice: “I can look for my story among those of the witches of Salem, but it isn't there.” Ann Petry’s and Maryse Condè’s novels return us a sui generis heroine, protagonist of a different American story.