![]() ![]() ![]() Neither did the long chain gang of newly arrived Africans, greased for auction, who now stood naked and impassive next to the seawall. Passersby may have thought Alexander Hamilton unnaturally serious for an eleven-year-old, but he had much on his mind and a leaky enterprise to keep afloat.Ĭolored stevedores loading barrels of sugar for North America appeared not to notice the repellent miasma that signaled a long voyage with a packed hold. Where had he gone? It could take hours to find the servant, who was probably flirting with a girl when he ought to be rolling a barrel to the store at 34 Company Street. The dock was crowded.ĭamn Ajax, Alexander thought. Women balancing baskets of green coconuts on their heads wound through the press of laborers going about their usual work alongside the sparkling sea. Soldiers stationed themselves every few paces to oversee the off-loading of Africans, but blacks still outnumbered whites ten to one. ![]() The noxious tang of the Spanish slaver that had sailed into port at daybreak was overpowering. THE BOY FROWNED, PRESSED A FOLDED handkerchief to his nose, and scanned the crowd for the third time. Proclamation of the Royal Council, Danish West Indies, 1733 “The leader of runaway slaves shall be pinched three times with red-hot iron, and then hung … Each other runaway slave shall lose one leg.” ![]()
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