Black people -- Jamaica; Jamaica; Slavery -- Jamaica
“Psyche, yes, 'p,' of course.” He was an observant man, and the next
time the list was presented to her Psyche had been written “Spikey”!
Perhaps the overseer did not do so badly with “Syclike.”
Little Abba, a field cook, has lost one hand. Apparently they did not
trouble much about the field-labourer's food, hardly more than they did
about the book-keeper's. Simbry is Elderly and a Gandy, which appears to
have been a midwife. Poor Pallas is weakly. Sicily, old and weakly, cuts
grass for the stables; Abbas Moll, Invalid, “Sores,” washes the bags.
I hope they weren't used for anything important. Olive is blind, and no
less than thirteen are “superunuated,” while twenty-eight, among them
Behaviour, Friendship, and Phebas, are “of no use, being very young.”
Later on, “Little Friendship's” death of fever and a sore throat is
recorded. Here, too, are Quadroon Kitty, Quadroon Molly, and Quadroon
Bessy, nearer the white man than the black but still slaves.
George Doubt expended his negroes freely.... Thirty negroes, fifteen men
and fifteen women, were bought on the 2nd March 1787. They were “late
the property of Mr Alex. Stanhope dec'd, bo't of Edward Brailsford,
Esq.” Why the difference in the titles I don't know. They were all
marked “Able” when they were bought, but in 1789 the men are reduced to
thirteen, and Toby, who was a Mason, is now old and infirm; England, a
sawyer, is old and infirm; Roger, a field negro, is now “little worth”;
Dick is sickly and Cæsar is Able, but evidently he did not like Worthy
Park, for he is always running away. Prince, now in the overseer's
stables, is of little worth; Cuffic is dead and York is now represented
by a little child.
And of the women, Flora is sickly and Delia is dead, and there is a
sinister entry against Fidelia--“Died, reduced by lying in the bushes.”
Why did Fidelia leave her home and lie in the bushes till she was so
reduced she died?
But it is just the same tale with the older hands. I would condemn
slavery on the Worthy Park slave book alone; and Worthy Park had not the
bad reputation Bose Hall had, yet Quashie, who opens the book as able in
two years, is old and infirm; Mulatto Aleck is infirm. Mulatto George,
then able, is now subject to sores and “Bone ach.” Minuith has now
become Minute, and from being a carpenter has become a watchman, which
means he is good for nothing else. Joan's Cudjoe, the Head sawyer, has
against him “Rheumatism,” and Darby, the Head Driver, formerly Able, is
now “Ruptur'd.” Guy's Quashie and Creole Scotland are now both elderly.
Pool and Waller the Boilers are sent to the field sometimes, a
bitter come-down for them, and are both elderly and infirm. Nero has
elephantiasis, Dryden is now cutting grass, M'herson is weakly, M'Clean
is asthmatic, Don't Care is infirm, Juba's Quashie is dead. Perhaps the
new overseer was a harder man, for I noticed that Quaco's Jumbo, who
was originally described as “Weakly and a Runaway,” is now “Able but a
Skulker.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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