After leaving Barbados Tituba  John Indianand the Parris family settled for the winter in Boston, it was a very trying time for the family, Mr. Parris wasn’t earning an income only John Indian was bringing in a meager few dollars, stealing scraps of food and bringing them home under his coat, they were literally starving, and Mrs. Parris was getting even more ill. At one point she almost died if it wasn’t for the healing hands of Tituba.

Eventually Mr. Parris got a church to pastor in Salem, they moved there, and Tituba witnessed a hanging of an old lady that brought back memories of her own mother’s death. She connects with the spiritual world once more and started to practice her witchcraft again, inadvertently she is leaking information to the outside through Betsey who tells her friends about Tituba’s stories about the devil and her ability to cure the sick. She became alarmed when Mary Walcott started to inquire about her abilities and asked her if she was a witch, I can already see the implication this association is going to create for Tituba.

The story started on the Christ the King a ship traveling to Barbados, Tituba mom Abena was raped and this is how she was conceived. She came into the world as a result of a violent act to a slave, and was destined for a life of suffering. Raised by a mother who showed no love for her and a stepfather who regained his desire to live, after he was given a pregnant Abena as his wife, Tituba was loved by her stepfather.

Tituba’s mother was hanged and her stepfather committed suicide  when she was still a child, she was ostracized, and threw off the plantation. She was taken in by a witch named Mama Yaya, one day she had a vision, and saw her mother and father and spoke to them, there her mom made amends for the lack of love she showed her in life. With excitement Tituba told Mama Yaya the “dream”. There Mama Yaya and Tituba discovered her ability to talk to the invisible and her training as a witch began.

What caught my attention in this passage was the effort that Mr. Wood is putting in not to grant Mary her freedom, on page 43, reason #6 “He alleges that she was before marriage, licentious, and even depraved in her conduct, unfaithful to her husband afterwards” Mary Prince, here is where  I am reading between the lines that  Mr. Wood was having sex with Mary, he was condemning her as being promiscuous and being someone of low moral character because he knew what he was doing with her behind closed doors, but his actions were contradicting all the negative he was portraying Mary to be.

Mary was the one that took full care of his house when he and his wife was out of the country, she was the one that took care of the duties in his house, she took care of his kids, and most important he had the opportunity to sell her on five occasions and refused, even when he got offers that were more than her value, he choose to sell other slaves because she was giving him more than face value for his money, she was his most valuable slave because of the intangibles she brought to him, she wasn’t licentious, she was in survival mode in my opinion.

What was interesting to me in this section Mary Prince seemed to find new strength and self-worth, I don’t know if it was because she was back in her native Bermuda or after the harsh treatment she endured in Turk Island she felt she had paid her dues, and had nothing worst to face. She started to stand up for herself and even others, one day she came home from collecting water and found her master beating his daughter, Mary jumped in and stopped the assault, as a slave that took tremendous courage and strength, she could have paid a heavy price for that action, there was another case where she defended herself from her master beating her and another time refused to bath him, then proceeded to call him out on his indecent ways, she even found a way to rid herself of her master after she decided she couldn’t serve him anymore. All these were sighs of her being an unusual slave, and one who was never satisfied with the status quo of her time.

The event that stood out and was significant to me personally was the last two paragraphs on pages 6 and the first two on pages 7, it was touching, and I felt the emotions and the pains of Mary’s mom, having to dress your own kids to be sold! Not knowing if you would ever see them again. I am a father and I could put myself in her position, which had to be the most heart wrenching pain next to the death of a child for a parent.
I am a descendant of slaves so slavery would always be a part of my history, reading this evokes thoughts and emotions and highlights the pain and suffering our forefathers went through. So we should treasure the sacrifices that was made to bring us to this point today and never take want we have for granted, we have it easy in comparison but we didn’t get it easy.
Some slaves were strong and some broke and it’s comes as no surprise that eventually Mary Prince’s mother broke, obviously it was too much for her to cope with both the mental and physical abuse, she lost her freedom, her kids and finally her mind, I knew that slavery was horrible, but what she described was a whole other devil to me.