Post-reading notes: I, Tituba, Black Witch Of Salem

Tituba's influence on the white Christians in the book is really interesting. She uses "witchcraft" or voodoo to slowly and painfully kill one of them, a literal influence, which haunts her the rest of her life. However, her more subtle influence as a non-Puritan on the young girls who she encourages to break a few rules in their religion only to improve their health, has dire consequences for everyone but Tituba. When her suggestions proves successful, it seems the girls turn on her and accuse her of witchcraft but they also accuse everyone who is different or has inconvenienced them of the same thing and turn the whole town against each other. They seem more possessed by Satan than anyone else! So in reality, it seems the girls lost their faith. It's usually those who are most insecure who accuse others of insecurities, usually the same insecurities that they have, which here means feeling in scheme with the devil. It's interesting that for a Puritan, losing faith is suggested as being tantamount to switching to the devil's side but this may be because they see the devil in everything that isn't Puritan. Tituba, by the way, doesn't believe in either God or Satan.

I also thought that the discussions between Tituba, her mother, Mama Yaya, and Hester about gender are really interesting. Everyone else believes involvement with men brings nothing but misfortune to women, which in this novel is generally true, Tituba's life and the plot of the novel, is almost just a string of Tituba's romantic involvements and how they precipitate the events of her life and eventually lead to her hanging. Still, Tituba, who was conceived through rape, seeks involvement with men for the sexual comfort. Tituba is, above all else, a character who wants to trust people.

I like what this story and what Mama Yaya says about the struggle of slaves for freedom. That they are inclined to violent means to gain back the dignity taken from them with such violence. However, it is through Tituba's care for people, whether slave or master, which undoes society. If that isn't a huge shout out to MLK and the Civil Rights Movement, I've never heard one.

Finally, thinking about this book, maybe because it talks about a slave woman's influence on religion, I thought of Roots and I thought of how horrifying it must have been for a Muslim woman to be taken as a slave the way Europeans took the Africans as slaves. Yes, the there are slaves in the Quran but Muslims are urged to treat slaves with humility and promised rewards for freeing slaves. Not that I don't sympathize with enslaved males Muslims but Muslimah taken as a slave is the twisting of the knife in my belly.