The “big gang” on Worthy Park numbered 137, comprising 64 men from nineteen to sixty years old and 73 women from nineteen to fifty years, though but four of the women and nine of the men, including Quashy the “head driver” or foreman, were past forty years.  The gang included a “head home wainman,” a “head road wainman,” who appears to have been also the sole slave plowman on the place, a head muleman, three distillers, a boiler, two sugar potters, and two “sugar guards” for the wagons carrying the crop to port.  All of the gang were described as healthy, able-bodied and black.  A considerable number in it were new negroes, but only seven of the whole died in this year of heaviest mortality.

The “second gang,” employed in a somewhat lighter routine under Sharper as foreman, comprised 40 women and 27 men ranging from fifteen to sixty years, all black.  While most of them were healthy, five were consumptive, four were ulcerated, one was “inclined to be bloated,” one was “very weak,” and Pheba was “healthy but worthless.”

Finally in the third or “small gang,” for yet lighter work under Baddy as driveress with Old Robin as assistant, there were 68 boys and girls, all black, mostly between twelve and fifteen years old.  The draught animals comprised about 80 mules and 140 oxen.

Among the 528 slaves all told—­284 males and 244 females—­74, equally divided between the sexes, were fifty years old and upwards.  If the new negroes, virtually all of whom were doubtless in early life, be subtracted from the gross, it appears that one-fifth of the seasoned stock had reached the half century, and one-eighth were sixty years old and over.  This is a good showing of longevity.

About eighty of the seasoned women were within the age limits of childbearing.  The births recorded were on an average of nine for each of the five years covered, which was hardly half as many as might have been expected under favorable conditions.  Special entry was made in 1795 of the number of children each woman had borne during her life, the number of these living at the time this record was made, and the number of miscarriages each woman had had.  The total of births thus recorded was 345; of children then living 159; of miscarriages 75.  Old Quasheba and Betty Madge had each borne fifteen children, and sixteen other women had borne from six to eleven each.  On the other hand, seventeen women of thirty years and upwards had had no children and no miscarriages.  The childbearing records of the women past middle age ran higher than those of the younger ones to a surprising degree.  Perhaps conditions on Worthy Park had been more favorable at an earlier period, when the owner and his family may possibly have been resident there.  The fact that more than half of the children whom these women had borne were dead at the time of the record comports with the reputation of the sugar colonies for heavy infant mortality.  With births so infrequent and infant deaths so many