HALE: When did you compact with the Devil?
TITUBA: I don’t compact with no Devil!
PARRIS: You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!
PUTNAM: This woman must be hanged! She must be taken and hanged!
TITUBA: No, no, don’t hang Tituba! I tell him I don’t desire to work for him, sir.
– Arthur Miller
The Crucible, Act 1. The perversion of justice in the Salem witch investigations and trials is perfectly illustrated by this passage. Hale, Parris and Putnam repreatedly press Tituba to confess to communicating with the Devil. At first she declares her innocence to the charge, but then she is given a "confess or die" ultimatum. When they threaten to hang her a terrified Tituba falls down on on her knees and out of fear admits to a crime she did not commit. Salem-style justice means that in the eyes of the officials you are guilty before any trial or hearing of defense evidence. The abusive way the people of authority treat Tituba, a black slave, has a strong element of racism in it.