She was born in about 1761, in the interior of Africa. Her short childhood was likely filled with chores, games, prayers, songs, and family time, including playing with her brothers.
Muslim Africa
According to Pamela, either her name or her father's in Africa was Loquassichub Um.
The surname “Um” comes from the Arabic word for “mother.” Until the 1700s, vast Muslim empires included much of Africa. Many African communities either practiced Islam or blended Islamic elements with their indigenous cultures and religions.
Left: Map of West Africa in approximately 1700. Image reproduced with permission of the Afriterra Library, www.afriterra.org.
One terrible day when she was 6 or 7, the girl was seized by slavers along with her brother. The children were marched on a long journey to the Atlantic coast and loaded onto a ship with many other kidnapped Africans to be taken across the ocean.
The Middle Passage
An estimated 10 to 12 million Africans were kidnapped into slavery, bound for the Americas on slave ships. The transatlantic crossing, known as the Middle Passage, was part of a larger cycle of trafficking raw materials, goods, and people among Europe, Africa, and the Americas. In the 18th century, it became increasingly profitable to enslave and transport children, who took up less space on the ship, were less likely to rebel, and required fewer provisions for the journey.
View a 3D reconstruction of a slave ship from SlaveVoyages.org.
Right: Stowage diagram for the slave ship Brookes, 1788.
The harrowing crossing must have been terrifying for the little girl, kept chained in hot, fetid conditions in the cramped belly of a slave ship. The journey took at least six weeks, with another week or two sitting in the harbor in Jamaica to quarantine as a measure against disease.
In Jamaica, the girl and her brother were bought by a man named Eliphalet Fitch, a merchant who trafficked goods and people between Boston and the West Indies. His family also kept enslaved servants in their own household. But rather than keeping the boy and girl in his own home in Jamaica, Fitch loaded the children, now his property, onto another ship, bound for Boston.
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Created with an image by cortixxx - "chain rust iron"