A High Wind in Jamaica

A High Wind in Jamaica is a novel written by Richard Hughes and first published in 1929.

Following the destruction of their Jamaican plantation by a hurricane, the Bas-Thornton children — John, Emily, Edward, Rachel and Laura — are sent to England aboard the merchant ship Clorinda, captained by Marpole.

However, the ship is hijacked by pirates led by Captain Jonsen, and amid the confusion the Clorinda sets sail without the children.

They spend months living on the pirate schooner. From this point on, things become increasingly complicated for the children.

"ONE of the fruits of Emancipation in the West Indian islands is the number of the ruins, either attached to the houses that remain or within a stone’s throw of them: ruined slaves’ quarters, ruined sugar-grinding houses, ruined boiling houses; often ruined mansions that were too expensive to maintain. Earthquake, fire, rain, and deadlier vegetation, did their work quickly.
One scene is very clear in my mind, in Jamaica. There was a vast stone-built house called Derby Hill (where the Parkers lived). It had been the centre of a very prosperous plantation. With Emancipation, like many others, that went bung. The sugar buildings fell down. Bush smothered the cane and guinea-grass. The field negroes left their cottages in a body, to be somewhere less disturbed by even the possibility of work."