Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl

Reviews / Votes

"McCafferty's haunting novel chronicles an overlooked chapter in the annals of human slavery... Abducted at the age of 10, Cot Daley is subjected to one bewildering indignity after another as she is sold and resold as both a house servant and a field hand. Eventually incarcerated for her participation in a mixed-race slave revolt, she is questioned by Peter Coote, an English physician commissioned by the governor to evaluate the utility of the various races of slaves residing in Barbados... Cot recounts her life as a slave, her marriage to a proud African rebel, and her role in a noble, but doomed, uprising against the brutal plantation owners. A meticulously researched piece of historical fiction that will keep readers both horrified and mesmerized." Booklist "Thousands of Irish men, women and children were sold into slavery to work in the sugarcane fields of Barbados in the 17th century... McCafferty has researched her theme well and, through Cot, shows us the terrible indignities and suffering endured." Irish Independent "McCafferty's imagined oral record is convincing - a harrowing tale about events too long ignored by textbooks." Los Angeles Times "McCafferty does a remarkably vivid and thorough job of portraying what life was like for the indentured Irish." Boston Globe"