Catherine Marshall

1. Described by Benjamin McMahon as "a free woman of colour, named Miss Marshall" and living in St Thomas-in-the-Vale with Adam Steel (q.v.). According to McMahon, she was jealous of the fact that Adam Steel made repeated attempts to seduce her young mixed-race enslaved girl, Sarah. "(She) vented her spleen upon the girl and one day accused her of being impudent to her, which, in her jealousy, she imputed to Steel's improper attentions to her, and at the same time threatened the girl that she would make Mr. Steel give her a flogging." Steel ordered the brutal punishment of Sarah, resulting in Marshall entreating him "nnot to murder the poor girl." Sarah has not been traced; she does not appear to have been among those listed by Marshall in the slave registers.

2. Adam Steel, "quadroon infant son of Adam Steele and Kitty Marshall" was baptised in St Thomas-in-the-Vale 03/03/1817.

1. Benjamin McMahon, Jamaica Plantership: Eighteen Years Employed in the Planting Line in that Island (1839) pp. 51-54.

2. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online].

We are grateful to Siddharth Singh Ahlawat for his assistance with compiling this entry.