Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 53 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

We start the chapter with the Artemis reaching the West Indies. As the ship is supposed to be a trading vessel, Fergus comes up with an idea to make that look legitimate. He arranges to get a cargo of bat guano to take to a Mr. Grey in Jamaica.

It’s excellent for fertilization, so it’s not surprising that plantation owners want it. This will help the crops grow.

While they’re getting ready to sail to another island, Jamie gets a note from someone. Claire hopes that it is a note of where Young Ian could be. However, it is connected to an incident in the days before.

Claire thinks back to the slave market. She describes the horrid conditions and events that happened. When a naked slave is being man-handled to “prove” his “virility,” she snaps. She fights against the auctioneer to try to protect this young man who only has one hand.

It’s not the done thing, and it starts a fight within the slave market. Jamie gets to Claire to help her, and then does the only thing he can do. He buys the slave in Claire’s name, and she’s most certainly not happy about it.

Jamie does have a little bit of information about where Young Ian could be. A freemason says that some of the slaves have come from the Bruja. Not all of them have previous owners, but those that do are connected to a Mrs. Abernathy in Jamaica.

That’s where everyone needs to head next.

As they start to sail out of port, they get a whiff of something terrible. It’s where the slaves that don’t survive the journey are taken to be burned. Claire and Jamie both fear the worse and Jamie gets off the ship to check out the pile of bodies waiting to be burned and some of them already burned.

Young Ian isn’t there, but something like this is going to sit with them for some time. For now, it’s time to head to Jamaica.