The Jahn-Teller distortion plays an important role in determining the exchange interaction in rare-earth manganites.In this work we study the influence of the Jahn-Teller distortion on the magnetic structures of TbMn1-xFexO3(x = 0,0.02,0.05,0.10,and 0.20) single crystals in the basal MnO2 plane.The decrease in the quadruple splitting with the increasing Fe doping indicates the reduction of the Jahn-Teller distortion,which makes the nearest neighboring(NN) FM interaction dominant over the next nearest neighbor(NNN) AFM interaction.This alteration is favorable for the development of A-type AFM ordering instead of the spiral magnetic ordering,which collapses when x ≥ 0.05.The analysis of dielectric data indicates that the ferroelectricity is arising from the peculiar spiral magnetic ordering.