“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
– Exodus 22:18
Something Wicked
The origins of Tituba remain shrouded in mystery. Did she come from the old world or the new? Over the years, the narrative of history has become muddied, much like an eroding creek bed. Facts can fade, distorted by the sediment of time, and sometimes rewritten to align with contemporary biases.
What is clear about Tituba is her keen intellect. When prompted, she adeptly navigated the expectations placed upon her, which ultimately ignited one of the most chilling episodes of mass hysteria in American history.
In 1680, Tituba likely journeyed from Barbados to the Massachusetts Bay Colony with Samuel Parris, becoming his servant. Almost a decade later, Parris took on the role of Reverend Samuel Parris, the first ordained minister in Salem Village.
In January 1692, for reasons still unclear, Parris’ nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and his eleven-year-old niece, Abigail Williams, began exhibiting bizarre and uncontrollable behaviors. They screamed, threw objects, made strange sounds, and contorted their bodies. Another girl, twelve-year-old Ann Putnam Jr., also began to suffer similar fits.
In small towns and bustling cities alike, inexplicable events often call for simple explanations. This tendency led a local doctor to blame the supernatural.
On February 29, under pressure from colonial officials Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, the girls accused three women of causing their afflictions. These women, considered social outcasts, were easy targets for the girls’ unfounded accusations.
Among the accused were Tituba, the enslaved woman of the Parris family, Sarah Good, a homeless beggar, and Sarah Osborne, an elderly woman with little means.
Full-Blown Witch Hunt
Beginning March 1, all three women faced intense questioning from local judges over several days. While Osborne and Good professed their innocence, Tituba confessed, stating, “The devil came to me and bid me serve him.”
She spun a fantastic tale involving black dogs, red cats, yellow birds, and a “tall man with white hair” who asked her to sign his book. Tituba even claimed that she had done so and mentioned several other witches aiming to harm the Puritans.
This bizarre confession raises eyebrows. Why would Tituba fabricate such alarming accusations?
One possibility is that she aimed to deflect attention from the odd behavior of her master’s daughter and niece. As the first ordained minister in the colony, Reverend Parris may have felt shame over their inexplicable conditions.
Tituba may have been attempting to appease the judges with what she believed her master desired. Regardless of her motives, the situation quickly spiraled out of control.
Once fear and distrust took root, a flurry of accusations emerged in the following months. Notably, Martha Corey, a respected church member, was accused, which deeply unsettled the community. If she could be labeled a witch, then anyone could!
Before anyone knew it, an all-out witch hunt had begun. Justices even interrogated Good’s four-year-old daughter, Dorothy, whose frightened answers were misinterpreted as confessions.
Gallows Hill
By April, the intensity of the questioning had reached alarming levels, with the colony’s deputy governor, Thomas Danforth, and his aides present at the hearings. A significant number of residents from Salem and surrounding Massachusetts towns were brought in for questioning.
On May 27, Governor William Phips established a Special Court of Oyer and Terminer to conduct trials for Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex counties.
Bridget Bishop, an older woman with a known history of promiscuity, became the first alleged witch to face this court. When asked if she practiced witchcraft, she replied, “I am as innocent as the child unborn.”
Sadly, her defense did not sway the judges, and Bishop was convicted. On June 10, she was hanged at what came to be known as Gallows Hill.
Notably, respected minister Cotton Mather tried to intervene, urging the court against accepting spectral evidence, which included testimony about dreams and visions. His appeal went unheard.
The court rapidly proceeded with mass hangings; five were executed in July, five more in August, and another eight in September.
On October 3, Cotton Mather’s father, Increase Mather, then-president of Harvard, sought to end the chaos gripping Salem by condemning the use of spectral evidence, stating, “It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned.”
Eventually, Governor Phips began to listen, possibly motivated by personal stakes, as his own wife faced accusations of witchcraft.
Regaining the Senses
Soon after, Phips ceased all further arrests and released many of the accused witches. On October 29, he disbanded the special court, replacing it with a Superior Court of Judicature that disallowed spectral evidence and only convicted three out of fifty-six defendants.
By May 1693, following fifteen months of chaos, Phips had pardoned all those imprisoned on witchcraft charges. However, for many, this return to sanity came too late.
By the time the trials concluded, nineteen men and women had been hanged on Gallows Hill, and Giles Corey, Martha’s 71-year-old husband, was crushed to death under heavy stones for refusing to stand trial. Five additional accused witches died in jail, and amidst this hysteria, several dogs were killed, wrongly believed to be possessed.
What exactly sparked the violent and uncontrollable fits of Reverend Parris’ daughter and niece remains unknown. Theories abound—perhaps they suffered from mental illness, autism, or had ingested contaminated grain. The cause may never be uncovered.
What we do know is that Tituba’s sensational confession stoked the fire of hysteria, leading to devastating consequences.
Interestingly, she was not subjected to further questioning nor accused as a witch. After fifteen months in prison, she finally faced trial on May 9, 1693, for allegedly covenanting with the devil. However, by this point, the fervor had dissipated, and the jury chose not to indict her, making her the last suspect to be released.
Tituba seemingly departed Massachusetts with whoever paid her prison fees, disappearing from public records. While she escaped with her life, the same could not be said for the women she had implicated.
Lies, Witch Hunts, and America’s Next Rendezvous with Madness
In today’s world, science has dispelled many of the eerie fears that haunted previous generations. However, numerous mysteries remain, presenting challenges that resist straightforward explanations. The quest for answers is inherent to the human experience, and often, people would rather grasp at less-than-logical explanations than face uncertainty.
The notion of a witch hunt—for actual witches—may seem absurd to us now, yet the spirit of such manic hysteria persists. The recent upheaval brought on by COVID-19 serves as a poignant case study. We witnessed outcries from the public, reliance on so-called experts, deceit, cover-ups, and condemnation.
Consider the ludicrous claim that the coronavirus was first transmitted at the Wuhan wet market, conveniently ignoring the laboratory research being conducted there. Was this mere coincidence? Certainly not. Yet, suggesting a lab leak branded one a conspiracy theorist.
Two weeks to stop the spread. Anthony Fauci emerged as a figure akin to a modern-day Tituba. The ensuing lockdown led to the shuttering of schools, churches, beaches, restaurants, and gyms—essentially freezing the economy. Families were urged to forgo Christmas gatherings, and masks became mandatory even in one’s own home.
The roll-out of experimental vaccines, which proved ineffective and potentially hazardous, became compulsory for many employers. The politicalization of American life escalated, and mainstream media narratives distorted the truth, while social media wielded immense influence.
This raises the question: what kind of madness is unfolding? Is it not reminiscent of the chaos that once engulfed the Massachusetts Bay Colony?
Charles Mackay, the author of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841), observed: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
Have many Americans genuinely reflected on the hysteria that transpired? How many are still grappling to regain their senses? How many may never recover?
And as we approach the next potential crisis, how will individuals respond? Will they champion personal freedom, or will they acquiesce to the emergence of collective madness once again?
Alas, this remains to be seen.
[Editor’s note: Is the Pentagon complicit in provoking China to respond to Taiwan? Are your finances safeguarded against such madness? Discover insightful answers in a unique Special Report. You can access a copy here for less than a penny.]
Sincerely,
MN Gordon
for Economic Prism
Return from Lies, Witch Hunts, and America’s Next Rendezvous with Madness to Economic Prism
