SIR JOHN HAWKINS, SLAVE TRADER
The first Englishman to engage in the slave trade between the Guinea
coast and America was Capt. John Hawkins, a younger son of Capt. William
Hawkins of Plymouth, who was trading on the coast of Brazil as early as
1630, “in a tall and goodlie ship of his owne.” Young Hawkins was born
in 1532 and also followed the sea. He made several voyages to the Canary
Isles and while there formed a trade alliance with a Spanish merchant,
Pedro de Ponte, of Teneriffe, who suggested to him the feasibility of a
trade in negro slaves to be obtained in the gulf of Guinea and sold to
the sugar planters in the Spanish West Indies. Between voyages Hawkins
made inquiry of his father and others as to the conditions existing in
the West Indies, but his principal source of information was found among
the traders in the Canaries. He was assured that negroes were greatly
desired in Hispaniola (Haiti) and that they might easily be had on the
African coast. Pedro de Ponte agreed to furnish a pilot familiar with
Spanish America and the state of the trade there and Hawkins finally
decided to make a trial of the venture.
He returned to London from his last Canary voyage, in the summer of
1562, and at once laid the project before his father-in-law, Benjamin
Gonson, the Treasurer of the Admiralty, who thought so well of it that
Thomas Lodge, the governor of the Russia Company and a member of the
Grocer’s Company; Alderman Lionel Ducket, an enterprising merchant who
afterwards became Lord Mayor of London; Sir William Winter, and several
others were interested and “became liberal contributors and adventurers
in the action.”[9] These men were venturers in the full meaning of the
word, for no English fleet had yet entered into the commercial field in
the New World long monopolized by Spain. Any prudent Englishman could
easily forecast trouble with that mighty power in case the proposed
voyage was carried out to a conclusion.
-----
Footnote 9:
Hakluyt, _The principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries made by
the English Nation_, London, 1589.
-----
Forty-five years before this date, Charles V had formally licensed the
importation of negro slaves into the West Indies. In 1551, 17,000
licenses for slave importation from Africa to the West Indies were
offered for sale by the Spanish government and two years later a
monopoly of the African slave trade was granted for seven years
obligating an importation of 23,000 negroes. It was this monopoly that
Captain Hawkins proposed to break and only bold men became shareholders
in his venture.
[Illustration:
MAP OF THE COAST OF AFRICA FROM SIERRA LEONE TO THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
From an original by Arnoldus F. a Langren, engraved in 1599, in the
Macpherson Collection
]
In the fall of 1562, three “private” ships were fitted out,—the
_Solomon_, of one hundred and twenty tons burden, the _Swallow_, of one
hundred tons, and the _Jonas_, a bark of only forty tons. The vessels
were manned by less than a hundred men, “for feare of” sickness and
other “inconveniences, whereunto men in long voyages are commonly
subject,” and with a cargo of English goods aboard, the little fleet set
sail in October, 1562, and laid a course for the island of Teneriffe,
where Captain Hawkins “received friendly intertainement” at the hands of
Senor de Ponte and his friends.
“From thence hee passed to Sierra Leona, upon the coast of Guinea, which
place by the people of the country is called Tagarin, where he stayed
some good time, and got into his possession, partly by the sword and
partly by other meanes, to the number of 300 negroes at the least,
besides other merchandises, which that Country yeldeth. With this praye
he sailed over the Ocean sea unto the Island of Hispaniola, and arrived
first at the port of Isabella: and there hee had reasonable utterance of
his English commodities, as also of some part of his Negroes, trusting
the Spaniards no further than by his owne strength he was able still to
master them. From the port of Isabella he went to Porte de Plata, where
he made like sales, standing always upon his gard: from thence also hee
sailed to Monte Christi;[10] another port on the north side of
Hispaniola, and the last place of his touching, where he had peaceable
trafique and made vent of the whole nomber of his Negroes: for which he
received in those 3 places, by way of exchange, such quantity of
merchandise, that he did not onely lade his owne 3 shippes with hides,
ginger, sugers, and some quantitie of pearles, but he fraighted also two
other hulkes with hides and other like commodities, which he sent to
Spaine. And thus leaving the Island, hee returned and disimboked,[11]
passing out by the Islands of the Caycos,[12] without further entring
into the Bay of Mexico, in this his first voyage to the West India, and
so with prosperous successe and much gaine to himselfe and the aforesaid
adventurers, he came home and arrived in the moneth of September
1563.”[13]
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Footnote 10:
Isabella, Port Plata and Monte Christi were all ports on the north
shore of Hispaniola, or St. Domingo.
Footnote 11:
Disimboked: _i.e._, went into the main ocean.
Footnote 12:
The Caicos bank, north of St. Domingo.
Footnote 13:
Hakluyt, _The principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries made by
the English Nation_, London, 1589.
-----
In attempting to dispose of part of his gains in Spain, Hawkins
displayed an almost incredible assurance. He professed to rely on old
commercial treaties between the two countries, but when his second in
command arrived in Cadiz, the cargoes were promptly seized and half of
the profits of the venture were thus lost. Moreover, an order was at
once dispatched to the West Indies absolutely forbidding any future
trade with English vessels.
The success of Captain Hawkins’ first slaving voyage was so great that
he had no difficulty in obtaining powerful backing for a second
interloping venture. Even the queen became a shareholder and lent the
expedition the _Jesus of Lubeck_, a vessel of seven hundred tons that
had been bought for the English navy, by Henry VIII, from the Hanse
traders of Lubeck. Elizabeth’s stake in the venture may be judged from
the fact that the _Jesus_ was valued at £4,000, about £40,000 in present
day values.
The slaving fleet of four vessels, consisting of the _Jesus_, 700 tons;
the ship _Solomon_, 140 tons; the bark _Tiger_, 50 tons; and the pinnace
_Swallow_, 30 tons, supplied with ordnance and well victualled and
manned by 170 men, sailed from Plymouth, Oct. 18, 1564, bound for
Teneriffe and the information that Senor de Ponte might be able to
furnish.
The sailing orders, governing the southerly voyage, were as follows:
“The small shippes to be always a head and a weather of the _Jesus_, and
to speake, twise a day with the _Jesus_, at least.
“If in the day the Ensigne bee over the poope of the _Jesus_, or in the
night two lights, then shall all the shippes speake with her.
“If there be three lights aboord the _Jesus_, then doth she cast about.
“If the weather be extreme, that the small shippes cannot keep companie
with the _Jesus_, then all to keep companie with the _Solomon_, and
foorthwith to repaire to the Island of Teneriffe, to the Northward of
the road of Sirroes.
“If any happen to any misfortune, then to shewe two lights and to shoote
off a piece of Ordnance.
“If any loose company, and come in sight again, to make three yawes
[_veerings of the ship_] and strike [_lower_] the Myson [_the mizzen
sail_] three times.
“Serve God daly [_have daily prayers_], love one another, preserve your
victuals, beware of fire, and keepe good companie [_the fleet keep
together_].”
When only three days out a great storm arose and continued for a day and
a night so that the little fleet lost company and Hawkins put into the
port of Ferrol, on the Spanish coast, to refit. While here, the
brigantine _Minion_, one of Queen Elizabeth’s ships, came in with news
of a disaster that a few days before had befallen her consort, the
_Merlin_ of London.
“Through the negligence of one of her gunners, the powder in the
gunners’ roome was set on fire, which with the first blast struck out
her poope, and therewithall lost three meen, besides many sore burned
(which escaped by the Brigantine being at her sterne), and immediately,
to the great losse of the owners and mose horrible sight to the
beholders, she sanke before their eyes.”
Captain Hawkins’ fleet reached Teneriffe early in November and after
coming to anchor in the port of Adecia he hoisted out his ship’s pinnace
and went ashore proposing to send word of his arrival to Senor de Ponte,
who lived at Santa Cruix, twenty leagues distant. As the boat neared the
share, a company of some eighty men, armed with harquebusses, halberts,
pikes, swords and targets, suddenly appeared and disputed his landing.
Hawkins at once cried out that he was a friend of Senor de Ponte, to
whom he desired to send a letter, and the commander “put his men aside.”
Two days later Senor de Ponte arrived and “gave him as gentle
entertainment as if he had been his own brother.”
The ships reached Alcatraz island, off the African coast and south of
the river Gambia, early in December, after various adventures. One day,
on the voyage down the coast, the ship’s pinnace, with two men in her,
sailing beside the _Jesus_, by the neglect of the men was overset. The
wind was high and before the ship could be brought about, the overturned
pinnace was out of sight and there was small hope of her recovery. But
Captain Hawkins, “having well marked which way the pinnesse was by the
Sunne, appointed 24 of the lustiest rowers in the greate boat to rowe to
windewards and so recovered, contrary to all men’s expectations, both
the pinnesse and the men sitting upon the keele of her.”
While riding at anchor at Alcatraz island, the two barks went to another
island and landed eighty men in armor for the purpose of capturing
slaves. But the negroes were wary and fled into the woods “leaping and
turning their tailes, that it was most strange to see and gave us great
pleasure to behold them,” wrote John Sparke, a gentleman adventurer who
accompanied Hawkins on this voyage.[14]
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Footnote 14:
Hakluyt, _The principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries made by
the English Nation_, London, 1589.
-----
As his men were unable to find the towns where these negroes lived,
Hawkins continued his southerly course and three days later, on the 12th
of December, 1564, came to anchor at an island called Sambula. The
negroes living there were Sapies, and three years before they had been
conquered by the Samboses (the modern Sambos), a tribe that lived beyond
Sierra Leone. The men of the fleet were kept busy going ashore every day
to capture the negroes, burning and spoiling their towns, and many were
taken, none of whom, however, turned out to be of the Sambos tribe. They
had fled to the mainland at the first alarm.
On the beach were found about fifty canoes,—dugouts about twenty-four
feet long and three feet wide, having a beak head and carved sides
painted in red and blue. These were able to carry twenty to thirty men,
the rowers standing upright. Sparke comments that four rowers and a
steersman, in one of these canoes, could make as good time as a pair of
oars in a wherry, in the Thames at London.
By the 21st of December, the raiding parties had taken all the negroes
they could find and had also carried on board as much fruit, rice and
other food as they could stow, so on that day the fleet made sail for
the river called Callowsa, the Portuguese being located there about
twenty leagues from the sea. Hawkins left his two ships at the mouth of
the river and going up trafficked with the Portuguese and three days
later started on his return with two caravels loaded with negroes.
Misfortune befell him, however, on the way down the river, for the
Portuguese had told him of a negro town called Bimba, located near the
river bank, where there was a great quantity of gold and only forty men
and a hundred women and children. Captain Hawkins and his men were in
high spirits over their success thus far and sighting an easy capture of
an additional hundred slaves, to say nothing of the gold known to be in
the village, forty armed men, with Portuguese guides, were landed at the
indicated point. The men had been ordered to keep together for mutual
protection and offense, but on reaching the negro village the company
broke up into ones and twos in a mad search for the gold. In the midst
of the ransacking of the houses some two hundred negroes fell upon them
and many of Hawkins’ men were wounded and all driven back to the boats
in confusion, where several were drowned and others perished in the deep
ooze.
“Thus wee returned backe,” wrote Sparke, “somewhat discomforted,
although the Captaine in a singular wise manner, with countenance very
cheerful outwardly, as though he did little weigh the death of his men,
nor yet the great hurt of the rest, although his heart inwardly was
broken in pieces for it, done to this ende, that the Portingals, being
with him, should not presume to resist against him, or take ocasion to
put him to further displeasure or hindrance, for the death of our men:
having gotten by our going ten Negroes and lost seven of our best men,
whereof Master Field, Captaine of the _Solomon_, was one, and we had 27
of our men hurt.”
The barks and the caravels reached the ships at the mouth of the river
on the 28th of December and two days later the fleet set sail for
Taggarin, across the river from where now stands Freetown, the capital
of the Sierra Leone, where a colony of liberated slaves was founded in
1791 by Englishmen. From here the two barks and both the boats went into
a river called the Casseroes and brought back negroes. The _Swallow_
also went up the river “about her traffik, where they saw great townes
of the Negroes, and Canoes that had three score men in a peece: there
they understood of the Portingals, of a great battell, betweene them of
the Sierra Leona side, and them of Taggarin: they of Sierra Leona had
prepared 300 canoes to invade the other. The time was appointed not past
6 daies after our departure from thence, which we would have seene, to
the intent we might have taken some of them, had it not been for the
death and sickness of our men, which came by the contagiousness of the
place, which made us to haste away.”
The ships had difficulty in watering while lying here. Soon after
anchoring, the empty water casks were put ashore and filled with water
to season them, intending afterwards to fill with fresh water. While the
men were ashore, some of them at their boats, they were set upon by
negroes and a number were wounded. The negroes also cut the hoops from
twelve of the water butts, which was a serious loss considering the
water supply required for so many people during the voyage to the West
Indies. Again, just before sailing, some of the _Solomon’s_ men went
ashore at night to fill water casks and just as they were ready to leap
on land they espied a negro standing on a rock with nine or ten others
behind him, who immediately disappeared among the rocks. This put fear
into the hearts of the sailors and they returned at once to the ship.
The next day it was learned from the Portuguese, that the king of Sierra
Leone had designed to capture some of the sailors. “But God, who worketh
all things for the best, would not have it so, and by him wee escaped
without danger, his name bee praysed for it,” afterwards wrote John
Sparke.
[Illustration:
DUTCH SHIPS TRADING ON THE GUINEA COAST. FROM DE BRY’S “VOYAGES,” 1601
(A) Ship. (B) Negro merchants. (C) How goods are passed from the
canoes to the shore.
(D) Where the merchants have to pay a tax to the chief. (E) Canoe
being carried up the beach
]
The slaving fleet set sail for the West Indies on Jan. 19, 1565, and
during the voyage was becalmed for twenty-eight days, to say nothing of
experiencing contrary winds and a tornado or two. As the store of fresh
water was none too great, before long both Englishmen and negroes were
pinched “and that which was worst, put us in such feare that many never
thought to have reached to the Indies, without great death of Negroes
and of ourselves; but Almightie God, who never suffereth his elect to
perish, sent us the sixteenth of Februarie, the ordinarie Breese, which
is the Northwest wind, which never left us till we came to an Island of
the Cannybals, called Sancta Dominica, where we arrived the ninth of
March.” They came to a desolate part of the island where the men were
unable to find fresh water, save some rain water that remained in a
puddle in a dale, “whereof we filled for our Negroes.”
A week later, Margarite, an island off the coast of Venezuela, was
reached, where they obtained meat and supplies from the alcade, but the
Spanish governor would have nothing to do with them and sent a caravel
to the viceroy with news of their arrival. Word came back forbidding all
traffic and soon all the inhabitants of the town, including the
governor, abandoned their homes and fled to the mountains. With plenty
of fresh supplies and a full cargo of negro slaves aboard, the fleet set
sail for Cumana, on the Spanish main, where they found soldiers newly
arrived and so were not able to sell a negro. “A marvelous goodly
watering place,” was found about two leagues from Cumana, where fresh
water came into the sea and where black-haired Indians, wearing no
beards, came aboard bringing cakes made of a “kinde of corne called
Maize, in bigness of a pease, the eare whereof is much like to a
teasell, but a span in length, having thereon a number of graines.” They
also brought hens, potatoes and pineapples which were traded for beads,
pewter, whistles, glasses, knives and other trifles.
On March 28, 1565, the fleet again set sail and the next day passed near
the island of Tortuga and two days later Captain Hawkins, sailing near
the coast in the pinnace belonging to the _Jesus_, saw many Caribs on
the shore and made in to trade with them, narrowly escaped capture—“as
God would have it.” On April 3d, he reached Burboroata, near the present
town of La Guaira, in Venezuela, where by a show of strength and
persuasive guile he was permitted to bring his ships into the harbor and
also to obtain from the Spanish officials a license to sell thirty “lean
and sicke Negroes which he had on his shippe like[ly] to die upon his
hands, having little or no refreshing for them.”
The sale of these negroes went on slowly. The Spaniards claimed that the
price asked was too high, and Hawkins “shewed his writings what he paid
for his Negroes, declaring also the great charge he was at in his
shipping and men’s wages.” Another grievance was the customs charge
amounting to thirty ducats on each slave (about £66, in modern money).
The governor would not abate this amount so Hawkins showed his teeth and
with “one hundred men well armed with bowes, arrowes, harquebusses and
pikes, hee marched to the towne wardes, and beying perceived by the
Governor, hee straight with all expedition sent messengers to know his
request.” When told that 7½ per cent duty was enough and if it was not
granted that Hawkins and his men “would displease” them, the governor
quickly sent word that “all things should bee to his content.”
While at anchor here a French slaver, the _Green Dragon_ of Havre,
Captain Bontemps, arrived from the Guinea coast with news that he had
been driven off by Portuguese galleys before completing his cargo of
slaves; that Capt. David Carlet with his supercargo and a dozen sailors
had been taken prisoners and accounts of other misadventures, of loss of
men and great lack of fresh water that had occurred, “which was most
sorrowful for us to understand,” wrote Master Sparke.
Curaçao was reached on the 6th of May, where they had difficulty in
finding an anchorage. Here they trafficked for hides “and found great
refreshing both of beefe, mutton and lambes,” the flesh being so
abundant that when they brought the hides the flesh was given to them so
that “the worst in the ship thought scorn not onely of mutton, but also
of sodden lambe, which they disdained to eate unrosted.”
Rio Hache, on the coast of what is now Bolivia, was reached on the
nineteenth and the Spanish authorities denying Hawkins a license to
trade he replied, that “seeing that they had sent him this for his
supper, hee would in the morning bring them as good a breakfast.” When
morning came he shot off a whole-culverin, to summon the town, and with
a hundred men in armor, rowed towards the shore. In his great boat were
two brass falcons and in the bow of each of the other boats were small
cannon called “double-bases.” Drawn up on the beach were thirty horsemen
and about one hundred and fifty foot soldiers “making great bragges with
their cries,” but a round from the two falcons “put them in no small
feare,” so that “they broke their arraie and fell flatte to the
grounde,” and then “dispersed themselves.” Hawkins landed his men and
began marching on the town, which brought out the Spanish treasurer, in
great fear, who granted all demands and “so we made our traffique
quietly with them,” continues the narrative.
While lying in the river they saw many “crocodiles” and lost a negro who
was carried away by one as he was filling water casks by the river bank.
“His nature is ever when he would have his praie, to crie and sobbe like
a Christian bodie, to provoke them to come to him and then he snatcheth
at them, and thereupon came this proverbe that is applied unto women
when they weepe, _Lachryma Crocodili_, the meaning whereof is, that as
the Crocodile when he crieth, goeth about most to deceive, so doth a
woman most commonly when she weepeth.”
Having disposed of his entire cargo of negroes, Captain Hawkins set sail
on May 31st for the island of Jamaica, proposing there to complete his
cargo of hides, but mistaking the island for Hispaniola he ran by to the
leeward and was unable to get up again by reason of the force of the
current, so the little fleet made for Santa Cruz on the island of Cuba,
which also was overpassed and thereby was lost a rich profit on a great
store of hides to be had at either place. Storms and contrary winds in
time brought on great want of fresh water. On the 16th of June, the Isle
of Pines was reached, where they “reasonably watered” from brackish
pools of rainwater found near the shore and made haste to get away from
the exposed anchorage. Scarcely were the anchors weighed and foresails
set than a storm swept down on them and one of the barks was obliged to
cut her cable in hawse in order to save herself.
After passing Cape St. Antonio, at the westerly end of Cuba, they sailed
to the westward, “to fetch the wind,” and also to take advantage of the
current which brought them in sight of the Dry Tortugas on July 5th,
where they loaded a pinnace with birds and took many turtles; also
finding many turtle’s eggs which “they did eat very sweetly.” An effort
was then made to reach the harbor at Havana, but it was passed in the
night and with a short store of water, so that “every man was contented
to pinch his own bellie,” a course was set for the Florida coast. The
little fleet, swept along by the Gulf Stream, made rapid northing and
after one or two mishaps reached the river of May, now the St. Johns,
where a Huguenot colony had been established three years before. Captain
Hawkins found the settlement greatly weakened and with only a small
supply of food. He sold them twenty barrels of meal, four pipes of beans
and other necessaries and also the fifty-ton bark, for which he received
seven hundred crowns.
The homeward voyage was continued on July 28, 1565, and was prolonged by
contrary winds, so that victuals were scanted. On August 23d they were
on the bank off Newfoundland, in one hundred and thirty fathoms. A great
many cod were caught here, which relieved their distress. A week later
two French fisherman were spoken and more fish were obtained in exchange
for Spanish gold and silver; “but they, not looking for anything at all,
were glad in themselves to meete with such goode intertainement at sea,
as they had at our handes. After which departure from them, with a good
large winde the 20 of September we came to Padstow in Cornewall, God be
thanked, in safetie, with the losse of 20 persons in all the voyage, and
profitable to the venturers of the said voyage, as also to the whole
Realme, in bringing home both golde, silver, pearles and other jewels
great store. His name therefore be praised for evermore, Amen.”