Bury the Chains; Chapter Four

The chapter opens up with an explanation of the importance of sugar plantations at the time. It describes the layout of the property that the slave owners managed. While the working conditions were harsh for the slaves, the plantation owners managed to live in beautiful houses. We are told of a British man who traveled to America who was a key player in the abolitionists movement. James Stephen was caught in a triangle of three women at the time. While he details his love for Nancy to begin with, he later meets Maria (who gets pregnant with their child,) and in the midst of all of this just disappears. The book then describes the harshest of conditions on Codrington's plantation, where all but the young children and elderly were to work in 12 hour shifts. The intensive work was the hardest for field hands. The threat of over-working the slaves were very little for the plantation owners; a mere 15 dollar fine. Slave deaths were recorded with the deaths of cattles, horses, and hogs. After getting a southern American description, the author describes how much harder the Carribean slave work was. Plantation owners depended on this new "shipments" of human cargo very often, to avoid the decreasing numbers of the many slaves that died of sickness and disease as time passed.