Mary Prince by E. L. Norry

Author:E. L. Norry [Norry, E. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Pembroke Parish, Bermuda and Grand Turk Island, Turks and Caicos Islands

1801–1803

I remained in the captain’s service for the next three years. My longing for freedom never left me, but as the years wore on, there seemed to be little I could do. For much of the time, the days all passed in much the same way. I did not have time to dream of a different, better life; I simply existed, from one day to the next. But as the time passed, I was becoming older and wiser. I carried more scars inside and outside – and some wounds that would never heal.

One day, Captain Ingham called me to him. “I have sold you,” he said abruptly. “I am sending you away on a sloop. You will leave tomorrow.”

“Will I be able to…?”

“There will be no time for goodbyes,” he interrupted. “Make sure you work hard and show my family name in a good light. I have told them you are strong. Make sure to make me a man of my word.”

Much as I was relieved to be free of the captain and his wife, I couldn’t help worrying who my new owners might be and what they would be like. Would they treat me fairly or work me to exhaustion? Would they be even worse than the Inghams? Only time would tell.

I discovered that I was being sent to work in the salt ponds on Grand Turk Island with other slaves. These shallow ponds were full of seawater; when the sun evaporated the water, crystals of salt were left behind, ready to be harvested, sold and sent to other countries.

I had never been on a sloop, or any kind of boat, before. I liked the way it bobbed up and down on the surface of the waves. The way that, when the sun was high and clear, the water around us shimmered and sparkled. But on the voyage I became sick and weak, like many of the other slaves – there was not enough food or water for all of us.

As the sloop bobbed along, a kind-looking Black man and woman quietly introduced themselves. “My name is Anthony, and this is my wife, Elizabeth,” the man said.

“How much longer until we get there?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

They were a nice couple who shared their food with me, and I was grateful to have them as company.

As I lay on the deck, the huge, white sails shuddering and slapping back and forth in the breeze, I tried to imagine what this next phase of my life might bring.

I overheard some men saying that the distance from Bermuda was eight hundred and fifty miles. They said that the journey could take as little as a week if the winds were favourable. We had been at sea for three weeks already, so those winds were definitely not blowing in our favour!

Anthony told me that there were around forty white families and over twelve hundred slaves on the island. In

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