Research Paper On I Tituba Black Witch Of Salem

History remembers Tituba only as the West Indian slave blamed for bewitching the young girls of Salem, Massachusetts, ultimately inciting the famous “Salem Witch Trials”. However, her lack of historical background has allowed authors to give her historical figure new life. Maryse Conde’s novel “I Tituba, Black Witch Of Salem.” provides us with insight into Tituba’s history. For the first time Tituba, a marginalized member of society, gains a voice. She explores the different dimensions of the slave experience and explains how a young woman's sexuality and her skills as a healer made her an object of wonder and terror. Conde delves into the power of sexuality and its absolute control over Tituba.
The story begins with Tituba's description of her conception; the result of her mother, a black woman from Africa, being raped on a slave ship by an English sailor. She narrates the circumstances of her childhood, including a strained relationship with her mother. She could never really love Tituba, as she was a constant reminder of “ ……the

pain and humiliation” of her conception(CITE). As a result, Tituba views herself as the “daughter of [her stepfather Yao’s ] will and imagination…..[a] daughter of his love”. This is undoubtedly because only he demonstrates affection towards her. One day, Abena resists the sexual advances of her white owner, and is sentenced to death by hanging for it. After the death of his wife and learning that he has been sold to another slave owner, Yao also kills himself, leaving Tituba orphaned. This incident, Tituba comments, haunts her for the rest of her life. She is eventually adopted by Mama Yaya, a wise, elderly woman who uses herbal medicine and spiritual techniques to heal the sick and communicate with the dead. Over time she teaches Tituba everything she knows. After Yaya dies, Tituba moves onto an isolated farm where she practices her healing techniques.
This quickly changes when a man, John Indian, enters Tituba’s life for the first time and she immediately falls in love with him.

“Why, why can’t women do without men?” sighs the ghost of her mother, and indeed this is where Tituba’s troubles begin. For the sake of being with her lover, she eventually voluntarily relinquishes her independence and enters the service of a Puritan woman named Susannah Endicott.
The ghostly Abena and Yaya forewarn her, “Men do not love. They possess. They subjugate.” They tell her that, “…this cock had coupled with half the hens in Carlisle Bay....I only want to take one look at him and see that he's a shallow nigger, full of hot air and bravado!" (15). Against their advice, she attempts to bewitch John to ensure his love. However, she instead becomes consumed with thoughts of him. It is her blinding love for John Indian that leads her into giving up her freedom and entering into the world of

slavery.
When Tituba meets John Indian's owner, Susanna Endicott, she is struck by how cold and domineering the woman is. She quickly notes how ridiculous John makes himself before her, “I could not forget the pain and shame I felt at his behavior in front of Susanna Endicott, but my rage sharpened my desire for him." (23). In their little home at the back of the Endicott plantation, John tells her that a slave's first duty is to survive. This becomes a comment that he frequently repeats to her when she becomes angry and resentful toward the life she has led herself into. That night, their first together, they make love and Tituba discovers how much she enjoys sex, “Finding myself on this bed…our first moments of love-making resembled a battle.”(page 23).  Tituba loves her sexual relationship with John Indian so much that she gladly subjects herself to the culture of slavery, a culture that her mother and stepfather desperately fought against.
While Tituba is aware of the contradiction in her desire to be a free woman and her desire to give in to her sexuality, she repeatedly succumbs to her sexual desires despite any type of repercussions that may follow. Tituba's life is one fraught with strong influences; women(her mother and yaya) inspire her to achieve great things while her sole weakness, men, pull her down and ultimately contribute to her demise. Tituba’s hyper sexuality is a recurring theme throughout the story; she constantly sleeps with men. First it was John Indian, a slave that she eventually married. Later, when she is jailed for her alleged witch crimes in Salem, she is bought by a widowed Jewish man named Benjamin Cohen to be his slave. Her role in the household is to take care of his nine children, but she ends up becoming his personal slave and mistress. When tragedy strikes and Cohen’s kids die in a house fire, he sets Tituba free and she returns to her homeland of Barbados. It is there that she meets Christopher, the leader of the maroons, who ends up impregnating her. When Tituba speaks of Christopher’s “noble cause” to Abena her reply is, “Hypocrite! Is it the cause he’s fighting for that interests you? Come now” (146). At the end of the story, she returns “home”, the place she shared with Mama Yaya, and heals a young boy named Iphigene. He decides to stay with her and together they form a revolt against slavery, wanting to make the world a better place for the child Tituba is about to bring into the world. The day before the battle they have sex and when they eventually both die in the fight they live on together as lovers in the spirit world. Tituba’s hyper sexuality literally transcends death. She says, “I myself have loved men too much and shall continue to do so. Sometimes I get the urge to slip into someone’s bed to satisfy a bit of leftover desire and my fleeting lover is delighted with his solitary pleasure”.
Tituba finds solace in sex when every encountering the harsh realities of life and it is sexuality is the leading force that drives Tituba into slavery. It becomes the single defining factor in her relationships with Benjamin, Christopher and Iphegene. Tituba’s overly-sexual nature is caused by an underlying desire to be close to the only parental figure that demonstrated any affection towards her growing up, her stepfather Yao. Tituba’s European father represents the aggressor and the imperialism with which Tituba cannot identify. In addition, this father figure from Britain ignores Tituba and others like her and forces them to live subordinate lives. On the other hand, her African mother rejects Tituba because of the way in which she was brought into the world. Thus, both of Tituba’s parents ignore and reject her. After he notices Abena’s rejection of her daughter, Yao takes over the maternal role. He spends time with Tituba, looks after her and instructs Abena on how to properly show affection. However, Abena would only do this when Yao instructed her to do so. Tituba sadly recalls the rejection she experiences at the hands of her mother, “ ..whenever I used to cuddle up to her….she would inevitably push me away. I would throw my arms around her neck, should quickly duck her head.”(pg 7). This parental rejection in addition to the loss of her substitute parents forces Tituba to find acceptance elsewhere. Her first, addicting display of affection comes from John Indian. Even as Tituba's “true love”, John Indian is unable to provide the completeness that Tituba desires. Tituba desires someone who will share their world with her, even locked in a perilous situation such as slavery. John Indian is accomplished at satisfying Tituba's sexual passion and unlocking the "locked compartment[s]" of her heart with his laughter (16). But he stops "communicating" when he stops making love to her (27). His "shared stories" are of a different nature and purpose: they are often biblical and therefore patriarchal. He tells the story of how Adam and Eve were turned away from the "earthly paradise through the fault of our mother, Eve" (18). John Indian believes the white man's Puritanical claim that women lead men astray: Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah, Solomon by many, David and Bathsheba. In her conversations with John Indian, Tituba feels that he is instructing rather than loving her. She suspects that he is a puppet of "religious fanatics like our Samuel Parris" (46). After being confronted by a tall, dark figure of a man, the frightened Tituba runs into the arms of John Indian and says that she has "just seen Satan"; John Indian's few words of "comfort" are that she is now "talking like a Christian" (34). The instant attraction that she feels is something different from love, it is a visceral response to someone who triggers a “lack of completeness” feeling in her. She yearns to feel whole once more, as she was with Yao, and fantasizes about the men that she believes will get her there.
Some people have certain passion’s that lead them to success, others, to their downfall. Tituba’s sexuality was her passion and it led to her demise. She spent her life filling a void to “fill” herself with the affection, and love from the opposite sex. Her understanding of love was a constant misunderstanding throughout the novel. Perhaps if she had followed the words of her late mother “why cant women do without men” maybe she would have taken a different route in her life. Even today, as the generations have gone by, regardless of culture, family, or location in the world, love does hold a certain power above many other things. Women and men alike are on their quest for love regardless of how unapologetic it may be.