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My grandmother was a remarkable woman.
我的祖母是一個很了不起的女人。
But it is important to remember that a steady upward path upon which the Fords embarked began with a morally complicated act.
但更重要的是，與福特家事業穩步上升的路徑伴隨著一個道德上比較復雜的行為：
William Ford looked upon my great-great-great-grandmother with desire at a slave market in Alligator Pond and purchased her.
威廉·福特在鱷魚塘的奴隸市場看到我的曾曾曾祖母時十分渴慕，并花錢把她買了下來。
The slaves who were not so chosen had short and unhappy lives.
那些沒有被他人選中的奴隸，她們的結局基本上是渡過了一個短暫而不幸的人生。
In Jamaica, the plantation owners felt it made the most sense to extract the maximum possible effort from their human property while the property was still young.
在牙買加，農場主趁奴隸還年輕力壯，會完全把他們的勞動力榨取干——
To work their slaves until they they were either dead or useless, and then simply buy another round at the market.
直到他們毫無用處或死亡——這樣才有意義，然后他們到奴隸市場再買一個回來。
They had no trouble with the philosophical contradiction of cherishing the children they had with a slave and simultaneously thinking of slaves as property.
寵愛他們與奴隸生的孩子，同時又把奴隸看成是自己的財產，對于這種矛盾，他們根本不會覺得麻煩。
William Thistlewood, the plantation owner, who catalogued his sexual exploits,
威廉姆·西斯特伍德是一位農場主，他與那位名叫菲比的奴隸維系了一生的性關系。
had a lifelong relationship with a slave named Phibbah, whom, by all accounts, he adored, and who bore him a son.
據說，他很愛她，而且菲比為他生了一個兒子。
But to his "field" slaves, he was a monster,
但對于其他那些在地里干活的奴隸，他就像一個惡魔。
whose preferred punishment for those who tried to run away was what he called "Derby's dose."
對于那些試圖逃跑的奴隸，他用一種叫做“德貝的藥”來懲罰：
The runaway would be beaten, salt pickle, lime juice, and bird pepper rubbed into his or her open wounds.
那些逃跑的人被鞭撻，然后他們的傷口被撒上鹽水、檸檬汁和辣椒水酒。
Anther slave would defecate into the mouth of miscreant, who would then be gagged for four or five hours.
同時還讓奴隸吃糞便，使他連續嘔吐四、五個小時。
It's not surprising, then, that the brown-skinned class of Jamaica came to fetishize their lightness. It was their great advantage.
在那時,牙買加褐色皮膚的人崇拜淺色膚色并不奇怪。因為這是他們很大的優勢。
They scrutinized the shade of each other's skin and played the color game as ruthlessly in the end as the whites did.
他們仔細比較彼此膚色的深淺，像白人一樣無情地利用膚色來把玩地位。
