GJ6

=//Do I Stay or Do I Go?// = = =  **BACK **

After a meager breakfast of water and moldy bread, all of you are taken to the magistrate’s office. The magistrate looks down at you with contempt. “If I had my way, the lot of you would be thrown to the dogs,” he says. “But it’s not my choice. You lucky sods are going to have a choice. You can go to Maryland or Barbados. You’d better think quickly, because you have to choose right now.”

The women immediately start chattering about the colonies. You listen carefully, since you don’t know much about either place.

“I hear they work you do death in Barbados—I’ll not go there if I can help it!” “But Barbados is in the Caribbean. It doesn’t get cold there—we won’t freeze like we do here!” “In Barbados, they’ll put you on a sugar plantation with a hundred other servants. You’ll be lucky to last a year before you die from the fever!" "It will take longer to get to Maryland. I want to be off that ship as soon as I can." Most of the women are going to Maryland. It sounds like conditions in Barbados are far worse for servants.

**//WHAT WILL YOU DO?//** Go to Maryland. Go to Barbados.


 *  // GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY// **