Such are the principal points in Tituba’s account of the origin and author of the disturbance or “amazing feats” at Mr. Parris’s house. In the main, they are plain, direct, and seemingly true. They teach as clearly as words ever taught anything, that “something like a man”—“a tall man with white hair,” dressed in “serge coat”—came and forced Tituba to pinch the children at the very time when one of them was first taken sick. They teach also that the same man appeared to Tituba several times, and was with her on the day of her examination. The spiritual source of the first physical manifestations which generated the great troubles at Salem Village is thus set forth with such clearness as will command credence in future ages, even if it shall fail to do so in this Sadducean generation.
As before stated, another record of Tituba’s testimony was made by Ezekiel Cheever, which is much less ample and particular than the one above presented. It omits entirely several very instructive and important parts—especially those which make known Tituba’s earlier interviews with “the man;” those which fix the exact time when he first came to her; the exact time when Abigail was taken ill; and, more important still, those parts which describe the assemblage of spirits at Mr. Parris’s house, and their deliberate inflictions of pains upon the children at the very time when their disordered conditions came upon them.
Upham, by using Cheever’s instead of the other account, failed to adduce several vastly important historic facts; the special facts which are essential to a fair presentation of the origin and nature of Salem witchcraft. He nowhere recognizes the probably acute intellect, strong powers, persistent action, and inspiring presence of the tall man with white hair and in serge coat. Omitting these, he has but given us Hamlet with Hamlet left out. And this, too, not in ignorance, for he had seen Corwin’s manuscript, which made clearly manifest the presence and doings of one spirit-personage especially, and taught many other facts that were not reconcilable with his theory.
The tall man with white hair who visited Tituba on the evening of January 15, 1692, has such obvious and important connection with, and influence over, all the ostensible actors in the scenes which former witchcraft historians have depicted, as may revolutionize their theories, and teach the world that those expounders never traced their subject down to its genuine base; that they built, partly at least, upon the sands of either ignorance or misconception of the nature and actual source of what they discussed.
There are some important differences in the two records of Tituba’s testimony, even where the words and facts must have been the same. The following parallel passages present quite differing reports of what she said concerning her own knowledge of the devil:—
| Cheever. | Corwin. | |
| “Why do you hurt these children?” “I do not hurt them.” “Who is it then?” “The devil, for aught I know.” “Did you ever see the devil?” “The devil come to me, and bid me serve him.” | “Why do you hurt these poor children? what harm have they done unto you?” “They do no harm to me. I no hurt them at all.” “Why have you done it?” “I have done nothing. I can’t tell when the devil works.” “What! Doth the devil tell you that he hurts them?” “No, he tells me nothing.” |
Thus Cheever makes her say that “the devil” came to her and bade her serve him, while Corwin, reporting the same part of the examination makes her say that “the devil” never told her anything. Further on, Corwin makes her say, “A thing like a man told me serve him.” Cheever says the devil told her thus. Tituba herself, and all the clairvoyants of that age, preserved a distinction between the devil and the personages they saw, heard, and talked with. But the recorders of their testimony, failing to observe this distinction, often perverted the evidence. A comparison of the two records throughout suggests the probability that Corwin, who is most minute, gives the questions and answers in their original order and sequences much more nearly than does Cheever, whose record, when compared with the other, appears in some parts to be summings-up of several minutes’ talks into a brief sentence or two, and also gives evidence of his taking it as obvious fact, that Tituba’s “thing like a man” was the veritable devil. This is probable, because his minutes make her say “the devil come to me, and bid me serve him,” at a point in the examination where, according to Corwin, she said the devil “tells me nothing.” Thus the appearance is, that Cheever carried back in time words which she subsequently applied to her “thing like a man,” and on his own authority—not hers—applied them to “the devil.” In Corwin’s account, her conception of the separate individualities of “the devil” and her “thing like a man” reveals itself clearly, and is nowhere contravened. But Cheever, almost at the commencement of his record, and at a point where she, according to Corwin, said the devil told her nothing, reports her as then applying to the devil what she a few minutes or hours afterward applied to her “thing like a man.” According to the more full and the more trustworthy record, she at no time confessed to any interview with “The Devil,” though she did freely to many conversations with “the man.” These facts are important, very interesting, and instructive. As we interpret them now, they indicate that Tituba never confessed to any intercommunings with the devil, never charged Mrs. Good, Mrs. Osburn, or any one else with being familiar with his Sable Majesty, but only with “a tall man, with white hair,” wearing a “serge coat.”
The court before whom she was questioned, and the people around, generally, no doubt, deemed her “thing like a man” to be the veritable devil, as Cheever did. But the more exact recorder of her words furnishes good grounds for belief that Tituba herself conceived otherwise. She who was gifted with faculties which let her see, hear, and feel the actors, apprehended that one of them at least was a disembodied human spirit; while the spiritually blind, but physically and logically keen-eyed ones around her, wrongfully inferred the presence of their Malignant and Mighty Devil with her.
Some dates fixed by this witness in Corwin’s account, and entirely omitted in Cheever’s, are interesting and somewhat important. We learn what, so far as we know, escaped the notice of all former searchers, that it was on Friday, January 15, just as she was going to sleep, that “one like a man” came to her and appointed a meeting there at Mr. Parris’s house, to take place on the next Wednesday evening. Accordingly, on Wednesday evening, January 20, “the man” and four women came, and then designedly and deliberately pushed Tituba on, and made her pinch the daughter and niece of Mr. Parris; and on that very evening, Abigail, at least, if not Betty also, “was first taken ill.” Here is an important and significant coincidence. Just at the time when the illness was developed, spirits, in compliance with a previous arrangement, were there present at work seeking to produce just such a result as was manifested. Did they, or did other agencies, produce the mysterious disorders which seemed to devil-dreading beholders like diabolical obsessions? In view of all the facts, it is plain that a spirit or spirits caused the children to suffer.
By failing to present the above points, which, though lacking in the account that he copied and followed, yet came under his eye, Upham clearly failed to use some very important historic facts which are essential to a fair presentation of both the time at which, and the agents through whom, Salem witchcraft had its origin, and consequently to a fair presentation of its nature. But those facts strenuously conflict with his theory that embodied girls and women were the designers and perpetrators of that great and terrific manifestation of destructive forces. How strong the chains of a pet theory! How blinding the cataracts of long-cherished conclusions!