Sarah Basset

Sarah "Sally" Bassett, also known as Sary, was an enslaved African woman from Bermuda. She was declared guilty and burned at the stake in June 1730 for the poisoning of three individuals. Her notoriety has influenced Bermudian history and cultural heritage.

Life Sarah Bassett was a mixed-race woman and raised many grandchildren. In 1713 she was found guilty of killing livestock and was whipped through the parish. Prior to 1727 she was owned by a Southampton blacksmith, Francis Dickinson of Pembroke Parish. Dickinson died around 1726, leaving Bassett for his children to inherit. In 1729, she was valued as useless because of her age, but she continued to practice her medicinal skills in Southampton Parish.

During the late 1720s, Bermuda's elite began making claims of being victims of poison attacks by their slaves.

On 18 December 1729, about six months prior to the illnesses of Thomas and Sarah Foster and Nancey, Bassett visited her granddaughter, Beck, at her slaveholders home, the Fosters. According to the trial records, Bassett had various substances on her that contained several types of poisons including ratsbane, manchineel root, and a white substance known as 'white toade'. The Chief Justice asked Bassett for any statement that could change her sentence and she stated that she never deserved it.

About two weeks after the Sarah Bassett trial, on 23 June, An Act for the Further and Better Regulating Negroes and other Slaves and for the more Effectual and Speedy Way of Prosecuting Them was created by the Bermuda Assembly to have more regulation and control over 'negroes and other slaves'.

The government of Bermuda commissioned Carlos Dowling to create a statue of Basset, as the nation's first memorial to an enslaved person. Despite some controversy about its placement, a ten-foot statue of Bassett was unveiled on the Cabinet office grounds in 2008.