Outskirts Press, INC.

History is both fact and teacher. If we are mindful of it, we can ensure that the rule of law protects us all—and slavery never happens again.

A Jamaican Lady is a work of fiction based in truth—a story about two people from different races, different backgrounds, different countries, and different eras. The novel takes place in St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest permanently settled community in the United States and the place where Spanish slaves brought to Florida by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés worked and lived.

Tiana and Phillip develop a special relationship during a time of enormous grief, and then work to piece together the stories of their ancestors, including Tiana’s seven-times-removed great-grandfather, a second-generation slave who escaped from a South Carolina plantation. Tiana wants to confirm that he joined the British army to gain his freedom and moved to Jamaica following America’s War of Independence. A Jamaican Lady also explores the history of slavery in the Caribbean that began with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, chronicling the magnitude and abuses of the slave trade and how its impact has never been adequately acknowledged or discussed.