Research

There was equal reason why Tituba afterward caused grown men to freeze in their tracks. Hours after her testimony, they trembled at “strange and unusual beasts,” diaphanous creatures that mutated before their eyes and melted into the night. And she would herself undergo a number of strange and unusual transformations, with the assistance of some of... See more

Setting out on a journey to reclaim Tituba is like stepping into a house of mirrors. A hundred different images are reflected back, some distorted by a trick mirror’s curves, each Tituba haunting and haunted by the others, while the real Tituba remains unknowable, elusive, and slippery and—just like the stories of other enslaved peoples—lost in... See more

Having introduced flights and familiars into the proceedings, having delivered a tale that could not be unthought, Tituba was neither again questioned nor so much as named. She finally went on trial for having covenanted with the devil on May 9, 1693, after 15 harrowing months in prison. The jury declined to indict her. The first to confess to... See more

Much less well known are the stories of the Black men and women who were accused and convicted as Communists, losing their homes and livelihoods in some cases, because they fought for social justice and equality for Black and brown people.

Among them was the political activist Claudia Jones. In 1949, she wrote the essay “An End to the Neglect of... See more

She was presumably not a large woman; she would expect the Salem justices to believe that two other suspects had strong-armed her into a high-speed excursion through the air, while all held close to one another on a pole. She was the first in Salem to mention a flight.