Kingston, Jamaica

As you dock, you marvel at Kingston harbour – a pool of shining cerulean waters locked in ring of steep green hills with a single opening to the sea just wide enough for the ships to pass. It feels like a part of the divine design to make the Empire great, though as you hear the clanking of chains on the dock, you fear God has no role in any of this.

The captain is in a foul mood when he presents his manifest to the buyers – seventeen dead on the crossing, and three more too sick to fetch any price. You watch the buyers move along the dock, opening mouths, checking hands, You think, and then wish you hadn't, of the cattle markets back home in the glen.

The people brought here will be working growing sugar used for producing the very same rum you are currently loading onto the ship. You've heard, however, that Africans here have been giving trouble to the British long before the Americans did. What was the name of that fella? Fifteen or so years ago years ago? They say he was a king or a chieftain back home. Tacky – that was it!

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