By the time Fuseng-be made her way up the hill to Fort Thornton on 9 January 1809, she had been living in the household of Warwick Francis, her master, for almost a year. When she arrived at the Fort, she complained to John Donald McGregor that she had been ill-treated by her master's wife. With the injuries she had sustained, the walk uphill would have been arduous. McGregor  
reported how 'two of her toes were very near off, and very offensive'. Finding a suitable time when she could leave her master's house unnoticed and make her way to Fort Thornton would have required some careful planning by Fuseng-be. She may have picked up intelligence or rumours in the colony that Governor Thompson was interested in rooting out cases of slave sales, and took the risk of leaving her master in the hope that she would receive a favourable hearing. She complained that, despite her injuries, she was 'obliged to go to wash at the brook, carry water, beat rice, and do all other work about the house'. Her appeal to government and court officials for redress was a type of strategy used widely by other enslaved women in different settings in East and West Africa.