What is ironic about rev. parris' owning a slave

Reverend Samuel Parris was a Puritan involved in the Salem witch persecutions and trials. Arthur Miller wrote the play The Crucible, in which the trial hunts are brought to mind as compared with the McCarthysm,i.e., another form of accusation without evidence. The Reverend had a slave brought from Barbados; in the first part of Miller´s play the Reverend finds his daughter was involved in pagan rituals in the forest, precisely the kind of thing the Reverend was intent on persecuting.

sir thomas more, venerated in the catholic church as saint thomas more, was an english lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted renaissance humanist. he was also a councillor to henry viii, and lord high chancellor of england from october 1529 to 16 may 1532.