Note 45 — Introduction.
Reading edition
John Indian and his wife Tituba were slaves. In the mittimus to the jail keeper at Boston, she is described as “an Indian woman belonging to Samuel Parris of Salem village.” (Woodward’s Records of Salem Witchcraft, vol. i. p. 15.) Calef (p. 19) says, “she lay in jail till sold for her fees.” The Salem delusion had its origin in the fetichism practised by these two ignorant Spanish-African slaves, whom Mr. Parris probably obtained from the Barbadoes, where he was at one time in business.
P.