Over the course of the long voyage, Jessie grows more and more sickened by the greed of the sailors and the cruelty with which the slaves are treated. Jessie’s job is to provide music for the slaves to dance to on the ship’s deck-not for amusement but for exercise, as a way to keep their muscles strong and their bodies profitable. There, the Moonlight picks up ninety-eight black prisoners, and the men, women, and children, chained hand and foot, are methodically crammed into the ship’s hold. When he wakes up, Jessie finds himself aboard a slave ship, bound for Africa. One night, on his way home, a canvas is thrown over his head and he’s knocked unconscious.
Thirteen-year-old Jessie Bollier earns a few pennies playing his fife on the docks of New Orleans. In this iconic, wrenching Newbery Medal winning book, a young Louisiana boy faces the horrors of slavery when he is kidnapped and forced to work on a slave ship.
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