Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

People could be pledged as security for loans, and when debts were not repaid in time, pawns could be enslaved.

This description of Marqu appeared in John W. Barber, A History of the Amistad Captives (New Haven, Conn.1840):

"Mar-gru, (black snake,) 4 ft. 3 in. a young girl, with a large, high forehead; her parents were living; she had four sisters and two brothers; she was pawned by her father for a debt, which being unpaid, she was sold into slavery."