The Lazarus Curse (32 page)

some Negroes:
The naturalist and physician Sir Hans Sloane observed : “The Negroes from some Countries think they return to their own Country when they die in Jamaica, and therefore regard death but little, imagining they shall change their condition, by that means from servile to free, and so for this reason often cut their own Throats.” He visited Jamaica in 1688 and later published two volumes of his experiences.

Source:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/files/chapter-6-resistance-19110.pdf

first snows:
According to contemporary accounts, the winter of 1783–84 was one of the coldest in living memory.

“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”:
The carol was first published in 1760.

Sir Joseph’s famous herbarium:
Sir Joseph Banks collected thousands of specimens during his voyage on HMS
Endeavour
. Many of the 30,000 plant specimens were pressed on sheets and can be seen today in London’s Natural History Museum.

Dr. Grainger:
James Grainger was a Scottish doctor who, in 1764, published
Essay on the more common West-India Diseases.
It was the first work devoted to the diseases and treatment of slaves in the Caribbean.

sufferance wharf:
Where cargo can be inspected by customs and excise authorities.

Graviora manent:
The English translation is “heavier things remain,” or “the worst is yet to come.”

golden dome:
The famous ball has sat on top of St. Lawrence’s church tower in West Wycombe since 1761 and can be seen for miles around.

pomade:
Mashed apples were a common ingredient in this scented ointment that was often used on the hair and scalp.

lime wash:
A traditional plaster wash for covering exterior walls. Color pigments were often added.

freeze over:
The River Thames at London froze over several times during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries during what is known as the “Little Ice Age.”

spring tide:
Not a tide during springtime, these exceptionally high tides occur during the full and new moon.

mud larks:
Mainly children, they would scavenge the shoreline at low tide for anything of value.

Execution Dock:
Located on the shore at Wapping, this was the place of execution for those pirates, smugglers, and mutineers condemned to die by the Admiralty Courts. It was last used in 1830.

bur:
A prickly husk of a seed or fruit.

livor mortis:
A purple discoloration of the skin that occurs after death when blood collects and sets in the lower parts of the body.

parenchyma:
The functional parts of an organ in the body.

phthisis:
An archaic term for consumption or tuberculosis.

Wapping or Deptford:
The currents of the Thames tended to wash bodies to these locations.

Henry Fielding:
Together with his younger half-brother John, he helped found the Bow Street Runners, in 1749, described by some as London’s first police force.

hothouse:
A slave hospital.

Solanum:
A large genus of flowering plants.

dika tree:
Indigenous to West Africa, the tree can grow to 40 meters and produces a fruit.

Mount Afadjato:
The highest mountain in Ghana.

Bewildered Negro men, women, and children:
This description is adapted from John Atkins,
A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies,
published in 1737: “This is a Rule always observed, to keep the Males apart from the Women and Children, to handcuff the former . . .”

Spittle Fields:
An area of London, now called Spitalfields, where there has been a market since 1638.

Jonathan Strong:
A young black slave from Barbados who had been beaten by his master and abandoned. He recovered, but a few years later was recaptured and sold to a planter. A legal challenge followed and Strong regained his freedom. He died five years later.

Over dinner, we were told:
This account of brutality is inspired by John Gabriel Stedman’s
Narrative of Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam
(1796). It became an abolitionist publication.

Source:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/files/chapter-6-resistance-19110.pdf

Maroon weed:
The naturalist and physician Henry Barham described the well-known use of savanna flower (
Echites umbellata,
commonly called Maroon weed) as a poison in Jamaica in 1710: “It is too well known, and it is pity that ever the negro or Indian slaves should know it, being so rank a poison: I saw two drams of the expressed juice given to a dog, which killed him in eight minutes time . . .”

Source:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/files/chapter-6-resistance-19110.pdf

I spoke with another physician:
This fictional excerpt is inspired by another account by Henry Barham of his experience with Maroon weed.

Source:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/files/chapter-6-resistance-19110.pdf

thumbnail:
Barham wrote that some slaves scooped up poison under their thumbnail, and, “after they drink to those they intend to poison, they put their thumb upon the bowl, and so cunningly convey the poison; wherefore, when we see a negro with a long thumb-nail, he is to be mistrusted.”

Source:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/files/chapter-6-resistance-19110.pdf

Fevillea cordifolia:
Natural historian Patrick Browne wrote of
Fevillea cordifolia
, also known as antidote cocoon, in 1756: “The kernels are extremely bitter, and frequently infused in spirits for the use of the negroes: a small quantity of this liquor opens the body and provokes an appetite, but a larger dose works both by stool and vomit. It is frequently taken to clear the tube, when there is any suspicion of poison, and, often, on other occasions.”

Source:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/files/chapter-6-resistance-19110.pdf

Mr. Clarkson:
Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) was an English abolitionist and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and to achieve the passing of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended British trade in slaves. In his later years Clarkson campaigned for the abolition of slavery worldwide.

Sharp:
Granville Sharp (1735–1813) was one of the first English campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade. His involvement in the Jonathan Strong case led him to study English law, which he declared to be “injurious to natural rights.”

Our Quaker friends:
In 1783 an informal group of six Quakers presented a petition containing over three hundred signatures against the slave trade to Parliament.

There are those whom slaves:
This excerpt is based on an account in a book written in 1800 called
Obi; Or, The History of Three-Fingered Jack,
by William Earle, and inspired by the story of an escaped slave called Jack Mansong, who practiced obeah.

George Coffee House in Chancery Lane:
Anyone interested in an advertisement offering a fourteen-year-old Negro slave boy for £25 was asked to apply to this coffee house in 1756.

Yule log:
For centuries it was customary to burn such a log in the fireplace at Christmas. The tradition dates back at least three hundred years.

West Wycombe:
A historic village, now largely owned by the National Trust, and home to West Wycombe Park, a Palladian mansion, the Hellfire Caves, and St. Lawrence’s Church, with its famous golden ball.

Middle Passage:
The voyage of slave trading ships from the west coast of Africa across the Atlantic. It was the longest, hardest, and most horrific part of the journey.

John Wilkes:
One of the most colorful and controversial figures of the eighteenth century, best known for his prominent political career and eventful personal life.

murder of a Negro:
In 1811, Arthur William Hodge became the first West Indian slave owner to be executed for the murder of a slave considered his property.

mummer:
An actor and entertainer who is usually part of a troupe of fellow actors who travel from place to place.

blind man’s buff:
The children’s game dates back to at least the sixteenth century.

hunt the slipper:
The game is described as a primeval pastime in Oliver Goldsmith’s 1776 novel
The Vicar of Wakefield.

wassailers:
A group of men who visited homes to enact an ancient ritual to wish good cheer to residents.

frozen grip:
The winter of 1783–84 was one of the most severe on record in England. Many modern experts attribute this to the effect of the eruption of the Laki fissure in Iceland, which sent millions of tons of ash into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun.

almanac: The London Almanack for Year of Christ 1783
was published by the London Stationers’ Company.

screw tourniquet:
Also known as a Petit tourniquet, after its inventor Jean-Louis Petit (1674–1750), this was used to stop excessive bleeding during amputation.

wretch:
In his 1774 account of the brutal treatment of slaves in the Dutch colony of Surinam, the Scottish-Dutch soldier John Gabriel Stedman described how a slave was suspended to a gallows by means of a hook through his ribs and left to die. His subsequent book was illustrated by the famous artist William Blake and caused an outcry against slavery in Britain.