Samuel Parris

…the influence of the Putnams, Samuel Parris, a merchant from Boston by way of Barbados, became the pastor of the village’s Congregational church. Parris, whose largely theological studies at Harvard College (now Harvard University) had been interrupted before he could graduate,was in the process of changing careers from business to…

…enslaved in the household of Samuel Parris and lived with the family in both Boston and Salem Village. Her origins are unknown. In contemporaneous records, she is consistently described as “Indian.” Although most scholars take this to mean the obvious—that she was originally kidnapped from some Indigenous American group before…

…(or perhaps the summer before) Parris—along with his wife Elizabeth, their three children, Tituba, and John—moved from Boston to Salem Village, where Parris served as minister to the Puritan congregation. The people of the Massachusetts Bay Colony believed in witchcraft, and they made it a crime. Convicting a person, however,…