running away, Thistlewood had her flogged and "put a chain about her neck". On another occasion, he "flogged her well & brand marked her in the forehead". In 1774, Thistlewood sold her to a ship bound for Georgia after another runaway attempt. In 1772, he had three slaves whipped for damage caused by walking through his corn piece. In 1774, he ordered the flogging of a party of slaves for not working hard enough. Between 1774 and 1775, Solon failed to catch enough fish on several occasions, and Thistlewood had him flogged for his failures. After one beating, Solon ran away, but eventually returned, whereupon Thistlewood had him flogged and "a collar and chain put about his neck", after which he was immediately sent out to fish again. This was a punishment meted out to Solon on several occasions, often after he was recaptured following an attempt to run away. In 1776, when Lincoln failed to catch enough fish, Thistlewood ordered the unfortunate slave-fisherman to be flogged and "put him in the bilboes". In 1778, when the slave driver, Dick, failed in his duty to force the slaves to work hard enough, Thistlewood ordered another slave, Jimmy, to have Dick flogged. But Thistlewood expressed dissatisfaction with Jimmy's efforts in flogging Dick and ordered that Jimmy be flogged. Thistlewood demoted Dick to the field, and made Strap the new slave driver. But Strap was overfond of the whip, and flogged Peggy so hard that she nearly lost the use of her right eye. Thistlewood had Strap flogged for his carelessness, and reinstated Dick as slave driver. Mortality rates With mortality rates high and birth rates low among Jamaican slaves, white plantations depended on the continued importation of slaves from Africa; one-third of all slaves brought to the New World on British ships went to Jamaica. The death rate was so high that 500,000 slaves had to be imported to increase the island's slave population by just 250,000. The mortality rate for white Jamaicans was nearly as great, and more than a third died from tropical diseases within three years of their arrival. While the black slaves and white planters died in large numbers from diseases and illnesses, the free towns of the Jamaican Maroons experienced large increases in population. There was a high mortality rate among children. Coobah's child Silvia died in 1768 at the age of one. In 1770, Maria