The first certain reports Brown had was that a small but determined detachment in some of the coastal forts had stopped Prevost’s advance and forced him, at least temporarily, to turn back. Brown had mixed emotions when he received the news: gratification that his political and military adversary in Florida had failed, but deep concern at this omen that with Prevost’s delay and the well-prepared American defense of Savannah, the entire British “southern strategy” would be frustrated. Brown was, in effect, an independent operator and decided to remain in the vicinity of Savannah and do whatever was possible to assist the British fleet sailing down from New York and scheduled to anchor off Tybee Island, about fifteen miles from the main settlement.

•  •  •

Quash Dolly tried to hold back tears and to ignore the intense pain that, in unpredictable waves, wracked her body. What she wanted most was to put down the brush broom and go back to lie on the pallet in her cabin down the white sand path below the big house. But then she realized this was not the supreme desire of her life: it was a mixed yearning to avoid any other beatings from the overseer and, in some fashion, to see him suffer as she had. Despite the rags tied at her crotch, she could still feel the fresh blood on her legs and knew that the other women could see the dried remnants of it on her bare feet. What they could not see were the stripes across her back.

It was difficult for her even to remember when she was known as Quanimo and, although a slave, had lived in relative luxury. Her family had belonged to a widower, Quintus Swanson, who was a teacher in England in his earlier years until he agreed to move to Savannah to serve as secretary for Governor James Wright. Slavery had been illegal in Georgia when the colony was founded, but it soon became apparent that plantation owners in Virginia and the Carolinas had a huge competitive advantage in using slave labor. Under intense pressure, Georgia’s royal government finally legalized slavery in 1750, and the trade built up rapidly. Within a few years, the Savannah slave market was auctioning as many as 260 newly arrived slaves in a day.

When Mr. Swanson arrived in Savannah in 1766 and reported to Sir James for duty, he was surprised and disturbed to hear the governor announce proudly that he would furnish him a small cottage east of the town and that two African adults had been assigned to care for his personal needs. The governor brushed aside his quiet demurrals about the servants, but Swanson had actively condemned slavery while he was in England and was determined to grant manumission to the black couple as soon as possible.