One day, when all our people were gone out to their work as usual, and only I and my sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both; and without giving us time to cry out, or to make any resistance, they stopped our mouths and ran off with us into the nearest wood. Here they tied our hands, and continued to carry us as far as they could, till night came on...the next day proved one of the greater sorrow than I had yet experienced; for my sister and I were then separated, while we lay clasped in each other's arms. It was in vain that we besought them not to part us; she was torn from me...I cried and grieved continually; and for several days did not eat anything but what they forced into my mouth....

...I did not long remain after my sister. I was again sold, and carried through a number of places...both by land and by water, through different countries and various nations, till at the end of six or seven months after I had been kidnapped, I arrived at the sea coast....

The first object that saluted my eyes...was the sea, and a slave ship. ... These filled me with astonishment, that was soon converted to terror....I was immediately handled and tossed up...by some of the crew...their complexions... differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke. ...

When looked round the ship too, and saw a large furnace or copper boiling and a multitude of black people, of every description, chained together, every one Of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate; and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck, and fainted. When I recovered a little, I found some black people about me, who I believed were some of those who brought me on board, and had been receiving their pay: they talked to me in order to cheer me, but all in vain. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and long hair. They told me I was not...

I was soon put under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that with the loathsomeness of the stench, and with my crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat. ... I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat...[they] flogged me severely....

But this disappointment was the least of my grief. The stench of the hold, while we were on the coast, was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, being so crowded that each had scarcely room to tum himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This deplorable Situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered it a scene of horror almost inconceivable....

The island [of Barbados] is divided into three sorts of men, viz. Masters, [indentured] Servants, and Slaves. The slaves and their posterity, being subject to their masters forever, are kept and preserved with greater care than the servants...

It has been accounted a strange thing, that the Negroes, being more than double the number of Christians that are there, and they accounted a bloody people ... that they should not commit some horrid massacre upon the Christians thereby to enfranchise themselves and become masters of the island. But there are three reasons that take away this wonder; the one is, they are not suffered to touch or handle any weapons; the other, that they am held in such awe and slavery as they are fearful to appear in any daring act; and seeing the mustering of our men and hearing their gun shot (which nothing is more terrible to them) their spirits are subjugated to follow a condition, as they dare not look up to any bold attempt. Besides these, there is a third reason, which stops all designs of that kind, and that is they are fetched from several parts of Africa who speak several languages, and by that means one of them understands not another. For some of them are fetched from Guinea and Bonny...some from Angola, and some from the river of Gambia. And in some of these places where petty kingdoms are, they sell their subjects, as such as they take in battle, whom they make slaves; and some mean men sell their their children, or sometimes their wives; and think all good traffic for such commodities as our merchants feed them.

When they are brought to us, the planters buy them out of the ship, where they find them stark naked, and therefore cannot be deceived in any outward infirmity They choose them as they do horses in a market; the strongest, youngest, and most beautiful yield the greatest prices.... And we buy them so the sexes may be equal...

At the time the wife is to (give birth)...a neighbour to come to her, who gives little help to her delivery, but when the child is born (which she calls her Pickininny) she helps to make a little fire near her. In a fortnight this woman is at work with her Pickininny at her back, as merry a soul as any there is. If the overser be discreet, she is to rest herself a little more than ordinary; but if not, she is compelled to do as others do...The work which the women do is most of it weeding, a stooping and painful work; at noon and night they are called home by the ring of a bell, where they have two hours time for their repast at noon; and at night, they rest from six till six a clock the next morning.

On Sunday they rest, and have the whole day at their pleasure; and the most of them use it as a day Of rest and pleasure; but some Of them who will make benefit of that day's liberty go where the mangrove trees grow and gather the bark, of which they make ropes, which they truck away for other commodities, as shirts and drawers...

I can name a planter there, that feeds daily two hundred mouths, and keeps them in such order as there are no mutinies amongst them; and yet of several nations. All these are to be employed in their several abilities so as no one be idle.... After weeding planting ... canes are to be planted at all times, that they may come in, one field after another; otherwise the work will stand still.... This work of planting and weeding the master himself is to see done; unless he have a very trusty and able overseer; and without such a one he will have too much to do. The next thing he is to consider, is the Ingenio (factory) which is the primum mobile of the whole work.... If anything in the rollers ...be at fault, the whole work stands still; Or in the boiling house if the frames which hold the coppers from the violence of the heat from the furnaces crack or break, there is a stop in the work till that be mended. Or, if any of the coppers have a mischance, and be burnt, and a new one must presently be had, there is a stay in the work ... for all these depend upon one another, as wheels in a clock But the main impediment and stop of all is the of our cattle, and amongst them there are such diseases, as I have known that in one plantation thirty that have died in two days.... So that if any of these stops continue long, or the cattle cannot be recruited in a reasonable time, the work is at a stand; and by that means the canes grow over ripe and will in a very short time have their juice dried up, and will not be worth the grinding.