James Stout

No podcast.

No podcast, right.

So Granville shows up one day in 1765, the year before Equiano buys his freedom, and he happens to meet a black enslaved person named Jonathan Strong.

Strong had been taken from Barbados to London by his owner, slave trader David Lyle.

He was 15 or 16 when Lyle has him baptized.

Now –

Religion is confusing at the best of times, and Strong, like many enslaved people, misunderstood the purpose of baptism and was under the impression that now that this was done, he was a free person.

Because he had been baptized, right?

You can't hold a Christian as a slave, right?

That'd be fucked up.

Pretty weird.

Pretty weird.

And so he tells Lyle, well, like, I'm free now, right?

And Lyle, being a slave owner and trader, doesn't have a great control over his anger and just immediately pistol whips this adolescent boy nearly to death.

He beats him so badly with the butt of a handgun that Strong goes temporarily blind and can barely walk upright.

So he, and you get the feeling he just loses his temper and beats this kid nearly to death because he's immediately like, oh shit, I killed him.

And he just tosses him out onto the street like a piece of trash.

He's like, well, he's not worth anything anymore.

Bye.

So somehow this dying boy manages to like crawl or find help.