Taking a black lover had dire consequences back then. Here is one account.
The Legend of the White Witch of Rose Hall
There are, as with most legends, many variations to the story of the White Witch of Rose Hall, but there are common threads that run through all versions. It is these common threads that will be used to tell the story here.
As the legend goes, Annie Palmer was born Annie Patterson, the daughter of an English mother and an Irish father. When Annie was just ten years old, the family moved to Haiti. There, Annie learned Voodoo from her Haitian nanny. When her parents later died of yellow fever, Annie was left to be raised by the nanny, under who's continued tutelage she became an expert in Voodoo. At the age of eighteen, following the death of her nanny, Annie moved to Jamaica in search of a rich husband. It is here that she met and married John Palmer, who was by this time the owner of the Rose Hall estate.
Annie Palmer's Bedroom at Rose Hall | Source
Within a few months of the wedding, Annie began to tire of her husband. She started taking slaves as lovers. When John caught her at this, he beat her with a riding crop. The next day, John was dead. It was believed that Annie had killed him by poisoning his coffee.
With John dead, Rose Hall went to Annie, who now had the estate to herself. Thus began her reign of terror. She continued to take slaves as lovers, murdering them when she became tired of them. She would regularly torture her slaves and even kill those who displeased her. She set traps all around the property so that the slaves could not escape. Slaves that worked in the house and had access to the kitchen were required to whistle whenever they were around food so that she would know they were not helping themselves to any of it; they could not whistle with their mouths full. If any were caught not whistling, she would cut their heads off as punishment for the supposed theft of food. Due to her extreme cruelty, and regular practice of Voodoo, the slaves took to calling her the White Witch of Rose Hall.