Well it looks like things started to heat in Mary’s cases when “Mr. Phillips of Antigua submitted his inspection of Mr. Wood’s letter and Mary’s narrative”Pg.46. This part in the reading was the first most interesting to me because of the way Mr. Phillips inspection actually defends Mary’s claims about her mistreatment while working for the Wood’s family. This came as a surprise to me because at that time in history (slavery era) I truly did not believed that a slave could have any chance at justice, let alone had a fair chance of winning a case (such as Mary’s) against a white slave owner.

The Last thing that caught my attention was a sentence on Page 55 “slavery is a curse to the oppressor scarcely less than to the oppressed” this irritated me the most. I really could not comprehend how slavery was a curse to the oppressor (slave owners) when they had all the power and could do anything they wanted to their slaves. For example the beating that the Wood’s did to Hetty I pretty sure that pained them a lot (I’m being sarcastic), that sentence made me realize that slave owners didn’t have any care or remorse for their heinous acts against slaves.

In the beginning of the story Mary was working for Mrs. Williams who was said to be “a kind-hearted good women and she treated all her slaves well”. Mrs. Williams had a daughter named Betsey for which Mary was purchased for. Mary stated that Betsey made a pet out of her and call her (Mary) little nigger, which Mary said “was the happiest period of her life”. Reading that made me notice that Mary was not at the right age to understand the situation she was in (slavery). Later on in the story Mrs. Williams died which not only made Mary grief but all of her Mrs. Williams slaves grief, as all of the slaves cried. I found this part of the story interesting because of all the slave or slavery related book I have read I never heard or readied about slaves crying for their dead mistress or master.

What I have gathered from this read so far, Mary started working for Mr. and Mrs. Wood in Antigua. Upon this time Mary suffered from an illness called rheumatism. This illness left her quite crippled to the point where she had to start walking with a stick. Although she suffer from rheumatism it was still expected of her daily duties (this sure could not have been easy for her). Later on in the story she met a man named Daniel James. James was a carpenter and cooper, he also was a slave who brought his freedom. In 1826 Mary and Daniel had gotten married and while the two were happy Mr. and Mrs. Wood were enraged by the them getting married. At this point in the story I started to become angry because of the way Mrs. Wood treated Mary after she found out she (Mary) had gotten was married. I mean beating Mary because she got married was uncalled for and throughout the story you can see Mrs. Wood mistreating Mary only for the fact she had gotten married.