In Memory of CHARLES BACCHUS (an African) who died March 31. 1762. He was belov'd and Lamented by the Family he Serv'd was Grateful, and Humane and gave hopes of Proving a faithful Servant and a Good Man. Aged 16 Here titles cease! Ambitions oer! And Slave of Monarch, is no more. The Good alone will find in Heav'n, Rewards assign’d, and Honour giv'n.
I had slept very lightly since the fever took my brothers. I was my mother’s fifth boy and we were owned by Thomas Bond. We slept under the Blue Mountains at Mona Plantation with more than two hundred slaves. Jamaica was sugar, Mr Bond said. And there were more than four hundred and nineteen sugar-mills when I was born. Mr Bond said I was too beautiful for the fields and the canes that scarred my hands. I smiled at my weeping sisters when I was taken away to the big ship at Port Royal. My mother had wailed on losing her first son, and her tears had dried up now, she said. My father died the day before I was born. Mr Bond said he was a good man and loyal, though weak. The boat slid away like a frightened fish, and I spent weeks in great fear and discomfort. We unloaded seven of their sailors and fourteen other slaves, their bodies disintegrating before our eyes as their convulsions ceased. 40
