Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl

Rating:
Summary: 3 Stars For a Great Effort
Review: I'm sorry but I couldn't finish this book. I tried really hard but I couldn't keep my eyes open while reading it. I usually like books like this but this one put me to sleep. The topic of this book is a really great idea and if it was written a little differently it could make a fantastic book. Cot seemed like a really strong character that went through a lot of horrible things during her life. I know I'd be upset if I was kidnapped and sold into slavery against my own will! It was a great attempt that didn't quite make it for me personally.

Rating:
Summary: Brutal History
Review: In this extensively researched historical novel, author Kate McCafferty uncovers a little-known area of history: the 'trepanning'(forced immigration into slavery) of Irish and other whites to Barbados in the 17th C. Cot Daley, who is kidnapped at the age of 11, endures a 'middle passage' similar to that taken by African slaves to her new, 'hellish' home in the New World. The novel is written in the form of a deposition that the now elderly Cot Quashey delivers to Peter Coote, an apothecary charged with unearthing evidence from an aborted slave-servant revolt on the island in which Cot played a minor role. Cot promises information, if only Coote will take down her entire life story (which he does with increasing frustration). We learn of Cot's endless suffering, both in her work on sugar cane plantations and in her personal life. There are only fleeting moments of happiness, some with her eventual 'husband', an African named Quashey, who becomes the leader of a thwarted rebellion (there were several unsuccessful attempts by enslaved whites and Africans during the 17th C). There are few joys in Cot's life -- the novel is depressing in its realism -- yet, by the end of the book, she has gained a certain nobility of purpose. McCafferty provides an in-depth character study of a flawed woman who only wants her personal freedom...and is denied such by circumstance and the men in her life. Well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: "testimony"-- not romance; must-read for all minorities
Review: Reading some of the customer reviews I gather that some people were disappointed because this novel is not more dramatic-- even an editorial review remarked on a distant feeling in the narrative. To be fair I think this is a fault of the book jacket which leads a reader to imagine this will be a 20th-century style romance, a bit more like Roots.

No. this book never lets you to forget it is the 17th-century, and the style of the testimony and even Cot's early memories of Ireland are told in a way that shows harshness and low expectations of life. Neither the main narrator, the former slave girl (an old crone in her forties at the time of the book's opening) nor her deposer, a young "apothecary" (doctor), come from a world as safe and civilized as ours (for all the fault's in today's world).

But look again to the title. The book is testimony, and it is a testament to a period and an event that few know about-- the impressing of "indentured servants" (i.e., slaves) from Ireland. "Impressing" is code for "kidnapping." The book's heroine, Cot Quashey (nee Daley) is kidnapped at a little over 10 years old, and grows up in this strange new world. It's a very harsh world, although one does have the impression that it's fairly harsh for masters too.

What is remarkable is how quickly most of these slaves adapted to the utter brutality-- forced breeding programs, life in low shacks they built themselves, long labor. Romance of all kinds is played down-- it is a little disappointing that Cot's beauty is so hinted at without the book ever fulfilling the promise of a steamier romance.

If you come to the book without the expectations of an intimate acquaintance with a sympathetic, fairly modern heroine, you will find a fascinating journey. The doctor interviews Cot because his employers want to find the connection between the Irish workers and the African slaves, that led to the wave of rebellions on the island. Even at the end of the story he doesn't see it, but we do. Cot at first identifies with her captors (like a young Elizabeth Smart) because they are the ones who can save her. So she betrays one rebellion while still young, something she bitterly regrets at the telling. But over the course of her life her loyalties shift.

She is a creature with many faults-- jealousy, and a certain amount of cowardice. But she is very human, and a testament to the human will to survive.

This is a slim book-- like a deposition, again, not a true novel. And it is absolutely fascinating. Cot comes from a long
line of "seanachies"-- storytellers-- and it shows in her gift for description and honesty. Hers was a bleak and terrible life, yet she never succumbed to absolute bitterness and despair, finding joy in her children (an interesting point and one that rings true is the deep attachment mothers had to their babies even when they came from a "breeding program") and taking what pleasures she could in her existence.

It's terrible to think people could so abuse each other-- it was an Irish barmaid who contributed to her kidnapping-- with no remorse, but the times were harsh. That the servants/slaves revolted as often as they did is a testimony to the resilience of human nature even in bondage. I think this book is a must-read for Jews and Blacks (I read this over Passover) and anyone from any people who have been oppressed (including, perhaps, women!). Though the ending is ambivalent, if you read between the lines there is enormous hope in her tale.

Rating:
Summary: Testimony of an Irish slave Girl
Review: The history of slavery of course crosses all racial and ethnic boundaries. In America that story has been suppressed. The afrocentric view of American scholarship has created a polarized and fractured society in which the issue of slavery has been crafted into solely a racial issue in which an endless cycle of guilt and hate and rage.In the real world, oppression and challenging have faced all groups depending on time and place. This book reveals the universality of issues such as this and for that reason is highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Testimony of an Irish slave Girl
Review: The history of slavery of course crosses all racial and ethnic boundaries. In America that story has been suppressed. The afrocentric view of American scholarship has created a polarized and fractured society in which the issue of slavery has been crafted into solely a racial issue in which an endless cycle of guilt and hate and rage.In the real world, oppression and challenging have faced all groups depending on time and place. This book reveals the universality of issues such as this and for that reason is highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Is a screenplay on the horizon?
Review: The Publisher's Weekly blurb sums up the strengths and weaknesses of this ambitious but ultimately lackluster narrative. The research conveyed here admirably impels you to keep going, but about a third of the way into the story, the initial pace flagged (after the first attempted uprising) and the subsequent characters and events did not captivate me. I kept reading dutifully; the spark that animated the tension between interrogating brooding scribe Coote and his unbelievably eloquent prisoner Cot dwindled into endless testimony rather than crafted tale-telling. It defies a reader's credulity that a girl with minimal education, in spite of her Daly bardic heritage and that oul' gift of the gab could fashion such a tale down to artfully rendered verbatim conversations, vocabulary, and allusions and details so long after the "fact". McCafferty wisely intersperses Coote's own impatient and rather scoffing reactions to Cot's volubility to balance her testimony, but by the end of two hundred pages of such a lopsided conversation, the narrator's own power has long dwindled before the relentless drone of dreary incident and irrelevant digressions. Perhaps this is meant to reflect "real" slave narratives, but this does not make for the most engrossing fiction.

If McCafferty wants us to imagine that this is a testimony in the line of slave and captivity narratives, this imitation would work well in a classroom study of such texts. With an author's preface and afterword, footnotes, reader's guide, and a glossary, this apparatus only furthers such a use. I liked the attempt to add an Islamic spin to the later sections of the tale, but this never became as fascinating a motif as it could have been within the larger framework.

Many students (and teachers) could benefit from exposure to the little-known "redshanks'" fate in the colonization of he New World. As a college instructor myself who researches Irish themes, this work by a lecturer does appear created for such an audience for comparison to "real" narratives of servitude. But, outside of a syllabus' assignment, I cannot imagine many readers will finish this without, well, being impelled to do so by their own duty to their Authority.

(For later black-Irish American themes, Peter Quinn's "Banished Children of Eve" and Kevin Baker's "Paradise Alley" both treat the middle-19c in NYC, immigrants and mixed-race unions, free-born and ex-slaves, and the Draft Riots--the latter re-created in the film "Gangs of New York".)

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but slow
Review: This book deals with the story of an Irish woman, Cot, who was kidnapped at age 10 in Galway, Ireland and transported as an indentured servant to Barbados. The story begins as she is testifying to an English investigator as to her part in a slave uprising in 1675. With her remaining shreds of dignity, she insists on telling the entire story of her servitude - which really amounted to nothing short of slavery in all its horror. I found the Preface and Epilogue very interesting having been previously unaware of the Irish slave trafficing (whatever nice "indentured servitude" name the English of the time gave it). My family, being of Irish decent, has long realized that throughout history the Irish were treated horribly - first as pagans, then as Catholics and the treatment followed them to America as immigrants. I had no idea of this period of slavery in the 17th century as England pushed it colonial ways across the world.
While I did find the book interesting, horrifying, and even sadly sweet at points...I also found it a bit flowery and long winded in areas. I imagine the author made the right choice in explaining things in great detail because of the unusual subject matter. However, the interrigator often asks Cot to hurry up and get to the point and I found myself agreeing with him.
It's a quick read - 200 pages. If you are interested in history, the Irish or the African slave trade, English colonization, sugarcane plantations or the tropics - you'll find something here to satisfy you. If you are looking for pure entertainment - this topic is too awful for that - look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Testimony of an Irish slave Girl
Review: This book is interesting because it tends to broaden an issue that has been narrowly covered. The history of slavery of course crosses all racial and ethnic boundaries. In America that story has been suppressed. The afrocentric view of American scholarship has created a polarized and fractured society in which the issue of slavery has been crafted into solely a racial issue in which an endless cycle of guilt and hate and rage continues. In the real world, oppression and challenges have faced all groups depending on time and place. This book reveals the universality of issues such as this and for that reason is highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Testimony of an Irish slave Girl
Review: This book is interesting because it tends to broaden an issue that has been narrowly covered. The history of slavery of course crosses all racial and ethnic boundaries. In America that story has been suppressed. The afrocentric view of American scholarship has created a polarized and fractured society in which the issue of slavery has been crafted into solely a racial issue in which an endless cycle of guilt and hate and rage continues. In the real world, oppression and challenges have faced all groups depending on time and place. This book reveals the universality of issues such as this and for that reason is highly recommended.