Mandingo: Another Child Taken Into Slavery

As I continue to go through the records, telling their story, even if it is tiny in nature, is better to be told than to remain silent. This is the case with Teresa Maysonet. I suspect that she did manage to survive slavery as this line has African descendants I’ve seen in years later on the island. Hopefully, she is connected to someone. While I do not descend from many that were forced into slavery, I do translate them to help those who may connect with them.

How scary it must have been that a 10-year-old, who may have been playing outdoors, or potentially getting water, hanging laundry, etc was captured and taken away from her parents, her family, her people, and taken to a foreign place never to see anyone she loved and known. To face the horrible voyage across the seas known as Middle Passage. The claim that only those who committed crimes were enslaved as I’ve seen the ignorant narrative doesn’t fit into the story of a 10 years old girl.

Yet below is the image from the church in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico.  A girl of no more than 10 years of age, from Guinea and from the nation of Mandingo, being baptized on June 13, 1820.  She is listed as being the slave of Joseph Maysonet and also a neighbor of  Toa Alta.  Extremely disheartening and hopefully someone connects to this little girl.

Teresa Maysonet Baptism record in 1820