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，与福特家事业稳步上升的路径伴随着一个道德上比较复杂的行为：

　　William Ford looked upon my great-great-great-grandmother with desire at a slave market in Alligator Pond and purchased her. 威廉·福特在鳄鱼塘的奴隶市场看到我的曾曾曾祖母时十分渴慕，并花钱把她买了下来。

　　The slaves who were not so chosen had short and unhappy lives. 那些没有被他人选中的奴隶，她们的结局基本上是渡过了一个短暂而不幸的人生。

　　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. 在牙买加，农场主趁奴隶还年轻力壮，会完全把他们的劳动力榨取干——

　　To work their slaves until they they were either dead or useless, and then simply buy another round at the market. 直到他们毫无用处或死亡——这样才有意义，然后他们到奴隶市场再买一个回来。

　　They had no trouble with the philosophical contradiction of cherishing the children they had with a slave and simultaneously thinking of slaves as property. 宠爱他们与奴隶生的孩子，同时又把奴隶看成是自己的财产，对于这种矛盾，他们根本不会觉得麻烦。

　　William Thistlewood, the plantation owner, who catalogued his sexual exploits, 威廉姆·西斯特伍德是一位农场主，他与那位名叫菲比的奴隶维系了一生的性关系。

　　had a lifelong relationship with a slave named Phibbah, whom, by all accounts, he adored, and who bore him a son. 据说，他很爱她，而且菲比为他生了一个儿子。

　　But to his "field" slaves, he was a monster, 但对于其他那些在地里干活的奴隶，他就像一个恶魔。

　　whose preferred punishment for those who tried to run away was what he called "Derby's dose." 对于那些试图逃跑的奴隶，他用一种叫做“德贝的药”来惩罚：

　　The runaway would be beaten, salt pickle, lime juice, and bird pepper rubbed into his or her open wounds. 那些逃跑的人被鞭挞，然后他们的伤口被撒上盐水、柠檬汁和辣椒水酒。

　　Anther slave would defecate into the mouth of miscreant, who would then be gagged for four or five hours. 同时还让奴隶吃粪便，使他连续呕吐四、五个小时。

　　It's not surprising, then, that the brown-skinned class of Jamaica came to fetishize their lightness. It was their great advantage. 在那时,牙买加褐色皮肤的人崇拜浅色肤色并不奇怪。因为这是他们很大的优势。

　　They scrutinized the shade of each other's skin and played the color game as ruthlessly in the end as the whites did. 他们仔细比较彼此肤色的深浅，像白人一样无情地利用肤色来把玩地位。