I think it was about ten years I had worked in the salt ponds at Turk’s Island, when my master left off business, and retired to a house he had in Bermuda, leaving his son to succeed him in the island.  He took me with him to wait upon his daughters; and I was joyful, for I was sick, sick of Turk’s Island, and my heart yearned to see my native place again, my mother, and my kindred.

I had seen my poor mother during the time I was a slave in Turk’s Island.  One Sunday morning I was on the beach with some of the slaves, and we saw a sloop come in loaded with slaves to work in the salt water.  We got a boat and went aboard.  When I came upon the deck I asked the black people, “Is there any one here for me?” “Yes,” they said, “your mother.”  I thought they said this in jest—­I could scarcely believe them for joy; but when I saw my poor mammy my joy was turned to sorrow, for she had gone from her senses.  “Mammy,” I said, “is this you?” She did not know me.  “Mammy,” I said, “what’s the matter?” She began to talk foolishly, and said that she had been under the vessel’s bottom.  They had been overtaken by a violent storm at sea.  My poor mother had never been on the sea before, and she was so ill, that she lost her senses, and it was long before she came quite to herself again.  She had a sweet child with her—­a little sister I had never seen, about four years of age, called Rebecca.  I took her on shore with me, for I felt I should love her directly; and I kept her with me a week.  Poor little thing! her’s has been a sad life, and continues so to this day.  My mother worked for some years on the island, but was taken back to Bermuda some time before my master carried me again thither.[7]

[Footnote 7:  Of the subsequent lot of her relatives she can tell but little.  She says, her father died while she and her mother were at Turk’s Island; and that he had been long dead and buried before any of his children in Bermuda knew of it, they being slaves on other estates.  Her mother died after Mary went to Antigua.  Of the fate of the rest of her kindred, seven brothers and three sisters, she knows nothing further than this—­that the eldest sister, who had several children to her master, was taken by him to Trinidad; and that the youngest, Rebecca, is still alive, and in slavery in Bermuda.  Mary herself is now about forty-three years of age.—­Ed.]

After I left Turk’s Island, I was told by some negroes that came over from it, that the poor slaves had built up a place with boughs and leaves, where they might meet for prayers, but the white people pulled it down twice, and would not allow them even a shed for prayers.  A flood came down soon after and washed away many houses, filled the place with sand, and overflowed the ponds:  and I do think that this was for their wickedness; for the Buckra men[8] there were very wicked.  I saw and heard much that was very very bad at that place.

[Footnote 8:  Negro term for white people.]