Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory located in the Caribbean and included by the United Nations in its List of Non-Self-Governing Territories since 1946. Within this territory, 54.8 percent of its population are descendants from enslaved people who were transported from the West Indies and West Africa during the 18th century (according to the 2005 national census). Slavery in Bermuda was abolished in 1834. However, racial segregation continued until 1959 when Bermudians of African descent rose up against it.

In the Caribbean, a large number of enslaved people, especially women, were accused of poisoning. Poisoning was one of the most common crimes for which enslaved people were accused, which is why in many places enslaved people were forbidden to handle medicines. Many enslaved women knew healing techniques they had brought from Africa and hybridized them with techniques they learned from local natives, which furthered their accusations of witchcraft and poisoning. By 1720 the Bermudan elite began to accuse the slaves of poisonous attacks.

Sarah (Sally) Bassett was a half-caste woman living in Bermuda who practiced medicine. In 1713 Sarah had been flogged in the parish of Southampton on charges of killing cattle. In 1726 and upon the death of her owner, the blacksmith Dickinson, Sarah passed into the hands of Dickinson’s sons and two years later was declared useless because of her old age and valued at very little money. However, Sarah continued to practice medicine in the parish.

After an investigation that took place in 1730, Sarah (Sally) Bassett was found guilty of poisoning a couple consisting of Thomas and Sarah Foster, along with their domestic slave Nancy. On June 21 of that same year Sarah was publicly burned alive at the stake by the government. The Fosters were the enslavers of Sarah’s granddaughter Beck, lived in Sandys Parish and were relatives of former Governor Josias Foster. The investigation concluded that in 1729 Sarah had instructed her granddaughter Beck on the use of substances to poison the Fosters. She is believed to have used ratsbane, manchineel root and even “white toad” or African white toad, a poisonous toad native to the West African rainforests associated with the voodoo tradition of St. Domingue and the poison trade practiced as a form of resistance by black sailors supplying spiritual practitioners with poisons to kill their enslavers. According to the investigation, Beck had gradually placed these poisons in the Fosters’ food on the instructions of her grandmother and was discovered by Nancy, the household’s domestic slave.

Ten white citizens and even her own granddaughter testified against Sarah at her trial. On June 5, 1730, she was found guilty and the next day burned at the stake. Her public execution took place on Crow Lane next to Hamilton Harbor: a pile of wood was gathered, Sarah was fastened to a stake and her body was burned to death in the style of European witch trials.

The 1730s saw several pockets of resistance by enslaved people in the Caribbean colonies. In this context, many analysts interpret Sarah’s condemnation as an attempt by the Bermudan colonial government to send a warning message against rebellious attempts. Even two weeks after the trial the government created a law to further regulate blacks and other slaves.

Sarah’s (Sally) execution took place on a very hot day and since then hot days in Bermuda are called “Sally Bassett Day”. According to local legend, when the stake was removed, a Bermudian (the national purple flower which today grows all over the island) arose from the ashes.