Saint Lucia enters the account as the place Titch gives to explain his aerostat and Washington Black’s presence beside him. The island’s name helps frame their passage as a planter’s engineering venture, but the explanation is challenged at sea, where the mismatch between the stated destination and the vessel’s position exposes the risks facing a fugitive and those helping him.

The plantation and the Cloud-cutter

When questioned by a surgeon about why a planter would leave his estate, Titch says that his plantation is on Saint Lucia. He describes himself not as the planter but as an engineer overseeing enslaved workers who operate mechanized tools. He claims to have been given use of the plantation’s resources and time away to launch his prototype, the Cloud-cutter, which, if successful, would be useful in the plantation’s daily operations.

Titch also explains that Washington was assigned to him as an assistant and had played a crucial role in assembling and launching the craft. The surgeon calls the aerostat a balloon that lies at the bottom of the sea; Titch rejects the description. In this account, Saint Lucia supplies the setting for a technical experiment while the language of plantation management makes Washington’s assistance sound authorized and ordinary.

A challenged account at sea

The island’s name does not persuade Captain Benedikt Kinast. He tells Washington that the vessel’s position is too far southeast for Saint Lucia and concludes that Washington is an enslaved person from Barbados or Grenada, not someone whose circumstances match Titch’s explanation. His challenge makes geography evidence: the distance between the claim and the ship’s actual position threatens to reveal the fugitives’ history.

The Kinasts ultimately ask Titch and Washington to leave discreetly and not identify the ship or its owners when describing how they reached American soil. Their response is shaped by their own childhood losses and a wish not to injure or complicate the fugitives’ situation. Titch nevertheless warns Washington to trust strangers sparingly, since mercy can be withdrawn. Saint Lucia thus remains a stated destination rather than a secure refuge: the name helps conceal the pair’s circumstances, but cannot erase the danger attached to Washington’s status.