I was sold into servitude due to my father’s gambling debts to an English businessman. This was not your normal indentured servitude, you see with the “normal” servitude the indentured would serve a set number of years (usually seven) and after that were supposed to be granted money or land but I was sold due to a debt and could be kept for as long as the master felt the dept was due. So, I was treated as a vagrant or prisoner and was sent to the Caribbean or “West Indies”, specifically Barbados as manpower was needed to tend the plantations. Initially, the plantations were relying on white indentured servants, but as the numbers dwindled, they came to depend on people such as myself and African slaves.

Barbados was just transitioning from tobacco to sugar and by contract was sold several times each adding time to my servitude. The treatment of “servants” were not much better than the slaves brought to also work the sugar plantations except that servants were supposed to serve 7 years and slaves forever. As long as my contract was being sold there was no end in sight for me.
During the time the sugar was growing work in the fields was slow and it was during these times that we worked on the needed building and equipment maintenance that a hot and humid climate dictated, I became proficient in carpentry and became a carpenter.

While not technically a slave, I needed a letter of authorization to leave the plantation for lawful business and it was during these trips that I was able to plan my escape by locating seaworthy boats, equipment, and the like.

I partook in a small uprising and was lucky to escape as I heard many involved were put to death or worse. I was able to commandeer a small boat with a few others and set said away from that cursed island.

It was at sea that a ship approached; it was named the Sirens Wail a pirate ship. Not all of us were welcome aboard as the ship had specific jobs and not just anyone would do. It was my skills as a carpenter that were needed, and I serve the ship, its crew, and its Captain to plunder the ships that serve that cursed Island and others like it.