Down to the harbour I was took again,

On board of ship bound with an iron chain,

Which I was forc'd to wear both night and day,

For fear I from the sloop should run away.

My master was a man but of ill fame,

Who first of all a transport thither came,

In Rapahannock country we did dwell,

In Rapahannock river known full well.

When the ship with lading home was sent,

An hundred miles we up the river went,

The weather cold, and hard my fate.

My lodging on the deck both hard and bare.

At last to my new master's house I came,

To the town of Wicowoco called by name,

Here my European cloaths were took from me,

Which never after I could see.

A canvas shirt and trowsers me they gave,

A hop-sack frock, in which I was a slave,

No shoes or stockings had I for to wear,

Nor hat, nor cap, my hands and feet went bare. [1]

Thus dress'd unto the field I next did go,

Among tobacco plants all day to hoe.

At day break in the morn our work begun,

And lasted till the setting of the sun.

My fellow slaves were five transports more,

With eighteen negroes, which is twenty-four,

Besides four transport women in the house,

To wait upon his daughter and his spouse. [2]

We and the negroes both alike did fare,

Of work and food we had an equal share;

And in a piece of ground that's call'd our own,

That we eat first by ourselves was sown. [3]

No other time to us they will allow,

But on a Sunday we the same must do,

Six days we slave for our master's good,

The seventh is to produce our food. [4]

And when our hard day's work is done,

Away unto the mill we must begone.

Till twelve or one o'clock a-grinding corn,

And must be up by day-light in the morn. [5]

And if you get in debt with any one.

It must be paid e'er thence away you come,

On public places they'll put up your name,

As every one their just demands must claim. [6]

But if we offer once to run away,

For every hour we must serve a day,

For every day a week, they're so severe,

Every week a month, and every month a year.

But if they murder, rob, or steal, when there,

They're hang'd direct the laws are so severe;

For by the rigour of that very law,

They are kept under, and do stand in awe.

1. Modern corrections attire stems from the indenture racket. Shoes and hats were forbidden to make mobility in the forest and rain difficult and daunting to the health.

2. Ten years earlier, before Bacon’s Rebellion the whites outnumbered the blacks on Virginia plantations by 9-1. Beginning at about the time of James’ enslavement, African slaves were being aggressively imported to reduce the likelihood of another white or mixed slave revolt. Based on these numbers and the details ahead, I will place his indenture beginning in the late 1680s and ending around about 1700.

3. Terms for slaves, both white and black were informally servant and formally [legally] bondsman. Throughout the period the usual term for a black slave was negro. The slave masters often avoided use of the term slave, which was a term used more often by its critics and victims. Slave and servant were sometimes used to designated the field hand [slave] and the house hand [servant]. Free servants tended to be referred to by their occupation, such as footman.

4. By 1800, when East Coast slavery was primarily a black affliction, the masters would encourage and even enforce the slaves to not work on the last week of the year and consume and spend whatever they had managed to save, and by all means, to get roaring drunk so as to imbue them with a sense of shame to begin the New Year. The masters feared even this one day of individual industry.

5. An 18-hour workday

6. Unpaid debts could—and often did—result in an extended indenture.

7. The poetics of this description of raw tyranny has rarely been equaled.