Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl

After her arrest for aiding a slave insurrection on Barbados, middle aged Cot Daley is subjected to a lengthy interrogation. She agrees to provide information on the rebellious slaves only if she is allowed to tell her story in her own way. Beginning with her Irish childhood, Cot tells of her kidnapping and transport to Barbados, her sale as an indentured servant, the many extensions to her years of indenture that gave her no hope of freedom until she reached middle age, and her marriage to an African slave, a Coromantee Muslim.

The book is essentially a long monologue only occasionally broken by the thoughts and actions of the interrogator, Peter Coote. By the end of the book, my sympathies were with Coote. I just wanted her to get to show more the end of her story. Cot didn't have the charisma to carry off such a long tale. I think I would have liked this better as a movie, since in a movie other characters would get to speak for themselves instead of through Cot. show less

Tedious, monotonous and to me, unbelievable. I knkow it's fiction, but it's not fantasy. I think it should be somewhat believable.
A man is hired by the Governor of Barbados to write the story of the Irish Slave girl.
Would someone actually spend four days writing the life story of this Irish Slave about how and why she came to be transporting guns?
At the time the book takes place I didn't think so. In America the abolitionists took the time to record the stories of the slaves. But they were working for a cause. This Governor of Barbados and the interviewer seems to have such disdain for the Irish Slave it just didn't work for me.

Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl is a fictitious account of the common 16th century practice of kidnapping Irish people to work as slaves on Caribbean plantations. Cot is captured, shipped and sold into slavery at about age 10; she lives among other Irish and African slaves, working sunup to sundown in sugar cane fields, often cold, always hungry, and never properly clothed. When she reaches sexual maturity, Cot is used as a breeder to increase her owner's holdings, but her children die or are taken from her and sold. She tells her story to an indifferent marshal at the end of her life - he listens in hopes of extracting information about slave revolts brought about with collaboration between Irish and African plantation workers. The show more story feels bleak and hopeless - separated from family and country, Cot is unloved, uncared for and virtually unnoticed all her life. show less

The indentured Irish servants, a subject of which I had not read anything previously. It was a very short book and not terribly fascinating. I was also distressed that the Irish character referred to certain individuals as pickininies. Enough said.

A very touching book. A heart felt story about a woman who was taken as a child and turned into a slave.An Irish slave. I enjoyed this book. It flowed a little different than most books I read but over all I did enjoy it very much. It is a good story, touching, and it will surely make you feel for the conditions and the situation that All Slaves have been in.

I read this book a long time ago. I don't remember the dates or that much about the plot, but I recall that I liked it. I'll give it a 3 for now. If I reread it, I may change my mind.