THE SHIP DOCTOR’S NARRATIVE
On the arrival of the ships at Bonny[26] and New Calabar, it is
customary for them to unbend the sails, strike the yards and topmasts
and begin to build what they denominate a _house_. This is effected in
the following manner. The sailors first lash the booms and yards from
mast to mast in order to form a _ridge-pole_. About ten feet above the
deck, several spars, equal in length to the ridge-pole, are next lashed
to the standing rigging and form a wall-plate. Across the ridge-pole and
wall-plate, several other spars or rafters are afterwards laid and
lashed at the distance of about six inches from each other. On these,
other rafters or spars are laid lengthwise, equal in extent to the
ridge-pole, so as to form a kind of lattice or net-work, with
interstices of six inches square. The roof is then covered with mats,
made of rushes of very loose texture, fastened together with rope-yarn
and so placed as to lap over each other like tiles. The space between
the deck and the wall-plate is likewise enclosed with a kind of lattice
or net-work formed of sticks lashed across each other and leaving
vacancies of about four inches square. Near the mainmast a partition is
constructed of inch deal boards which reaches athwart the ship. This
division is called a _barricado_. It is about eight feet in height and
is made to project about two feet over the sides of the ship. In this
barricado there is a door at which a sentinel is placed during the time
the negroes are permitted to come upon deck. It serves also to keep the
different sexes apart; and as there are small holes in it, where
blunderbusses are fixed and sometimes a cannon, it is very convenient
for quelling insurrections that now and then happen. Another door is
made in the lattice or network at the ladder by which you enter the
ship. This door is guarded by a sentinel during the day and is locked at
night. At the head of the ship there is a third door, for the use of the
sailors, which is secured in the same manner as that at the gangway.
There is also in the roof a large trap-door through which the goods
intended for barter, the water casks, &c., are hoisted out or in.
-----
Footnote 26:
This account of slaving is abstracted from Alexander Falconbridge’s
_Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa_, London, 1788.
-----
The design of this house is to secure those on board from the heat of
the sun, which in this latitude is intense, and from the wind and rain
which at particular seasons are likewise extremely violent. It answers
these purposes, however, but very ineffectually. The slight texture of
the mats admits both the wind and the rain, whenever it happens to be
violent, and at the same time it increases the heat of the ship to a
very pernicious degree, especially between decks. The increased warmth
occasioned by this means, together with the smoke produced from the
green mangrove (the usual firewood) which, for want of a current of air
to carry it off, collects and infects every part of the ship, render a
vessel during its stay here very unhealthy. The smoke also, by its
acrimonious quality, often produces inflammations in the eyes which
terminates sometimes in the loss of sight.
Another purpose for which these temporary houses are erected is to
prevent the purchased negroes from leaping overboard. This, the horrors
of their situation frequently impel them to attempt; and they now and
then succeed notwithstanding all the precautions that are taken, by
forcing their way through the lattice work.
The slave ships generally lie a mile below the town, in Bonny River, in
seven or eight fathoms of water. Sometimes fifteen sail, English and
French, but chiefly the former, meet here together. Soon after they cast
anchor, the captains go on shore to make known their arrival and to
inquire into the state of the trade. They likewise invite the kings of
Bonny to come on board, to whom, previous to breaking bulk, they usually
make presents (in that country termed _dashes_) which generally consist
of pieces of cloth, cotton, chintz, silk handkerchiefs and other India
goods and sometimes brandy, wine or beer.
[Illustration:
CARRYING SLAVES TO A PORTUGUESE SLAVE BRIG LYING IN BONNY RIVER
From a drawing by T. F. Birch, made in January, 1837, in the
Macpherson Collection
]
` When I was at Bonny, a few years ago, it was the residence of two
kings whose names were _Norfolk_ and _Peppel_. The houses of these
princes were not distinguished from the cottages or huts of which the
town consists, in any other manner, than by being of somewhat larger
dimensions and surrounded with warehouses containing European goods
designed for the purchase of slaves. These slaves, which the kings
procure in the same manner as the black traders do theirs, are sold by
them to the ships. And for every negro sold there by the traders, the
kings receive a duty which amounts to a considerable sum in the course
of a year. This duty is collected by officers, stationed on board the
ships, who are termed _officer boys_; a denomination which it is thought
they received from the English.
The kings of Bonny are absolute, though elective. They are assisted in
the government by a small number of persons of a certain rank, who style
themselves _parliament gentlemen_; an office which they generally hold
for life. Every ship, on its arrival, is expected to send a present to
these gentlemen, of a small quantity of bread and beef, and likewise to
treat them as often as they come on board. When they do this, their
approach to the ship is announced by blowing through a hollow elephant’s
tooth which produces a sound resembling that of a post-horn.
After the kings have been on board and have received the usual presents,
permission is granted by them for trafficking with any of the black
traders. When the royal guests return from the ships they are saluted by
the guns.
From the time of the arrival of the ships to their departure, which is
usually about three months, scarce a day passes without some negroes
being purchased and carried on board; sometimes in small and sometimes
in larger numbers. The whole number taken on board depends in a great
measure on circumstances. In a voyage I once made, our stock of
merchandise was exhausted in the purchase of about 380 negroes, when it
was expected to have procured 500. The number of English and French
ships then at Bonny had raised the price of negroes so much as to
occasion this difference.
The reverse (and a happy reverse I think I may call it) was known during
the war of the American Revolution. When I was last at Bonny, I
frequently made inquiries on this head of one of the black traders whose
intelligence I believe I can depend upon. He informed me that only one
ship had been there for three years during that period; and that was the
_Moseley Hill_, Captain Ewing, from Liverpool, who made an extraordinary
purchase, as he found negroes remarkably cheap from the dulness of
trade. Upon further inquiring of my black acquaintance what was the
consequence of this decay of their trade, he shrugged up his shoulders
and answered, “_Only making us traders poorer and obliging us to work
for our maintenance._” One of these black merchants being informed that
a particular set of people, called Quakers, were for abolishing the
trade, he said _it was a very bad thing, as they should then be reduced
to the same state they were in during the war, when, through poverty,
they were obliged to dig the ground and plant yams_.
I was once upon the coast of Angola, also, when there had not been a
slave ship at the river Ambris for five years previous to our arrival,
although a place to which many usually resort every year; and the
failure of the trade for that period, as far as we could learn, had no
other effect than to restore peace and confidence among the natives;
which, upon the arrival of ships, is immediately destroyed by the
inducement then held forth in the purchase of slaves. And during the
suspension of trade at Bonny, as above-mentioned, none of the dreadful
proceedings which are so confidently asserted to be the natural
consequence of it, were known. The reduction of the price of negroes and
the poverty of the black traders appear to have been the only _bad_
effects of the discontinuance of trade; the _good_ ones were, _most
probably_, the restoration of peace and confidence among the natives and
a suspension of kidnapping.
After permission has been obtained for _breaking trade_, as it is
termed, the captains go ashore, from time to time, to examine the
negroes that are exposed to sale and to make their purchases. The slaves
are bought by the black traders at fairs, which are held for that
purpose, at the distance of upwards of two hundred miles from the sea
coast; and these fairs are said to be supplied from an interior part of
the country. Many negroes, upon being questioned relative to the places
of their nativity, have asserted that they have travelled during the
revolution of several moons (their usual method of calculating time)
before they have reached the places where they were purchased by the
black traders. At these fairs, which are held at uncertain periods, but
generally every six weeks, several thousands are frequently exposed to
sale who had been collected from all parts of the country for a very
considerable distance round. During one of my voyages, the black traders
brought down, in different canoes, from twelve to fifteen hundred
negroes which had been purchased at one fair. They consisted chiefly of
men and boys, the women seldom exceeding a third of the whole number.
From forty to two hundred negroes are generally purchased at a time by
the black traders, according to the opulence of the buyer, and consist
of all ages, from a month to sixty years and upwards. Scarcely any age
or situation is deemed an exception, the price being proportionable.
Women sometimes form a part of them, who happen to be so far advanced in
their pregnancy as to be delivered during their journey from the fairs
to the coast; and I have frequently seen instances of deliveries on
board ship. The slaves purchased at these fairs are only for the supply
of the markets at Bonny and Old and New Calabar.
There is great reason to believe that most of the negroes shipped from
the coast of Africa are _kidnapped_. But the extreme care taken by the
black traders to prevent the Europeans from gaining any intelligence of
their modes of proceeding; the great distance inland from which the
negroes are brought; and our ignorance of their language (with which,
very frequently, the black traders themselves are equally unacquainted)
prevent our obtaining such information on this head as we could wish. I
have, however, by means of occasional inquiries made through
interpreters, procured some intelligence relative to the point and such,
as I think, puts the matter beyond a doubt.
On board one of the slave ships a negro informed me that being one
evening invited to drink with some of the black traders, upon his going
away they attempted to seize him. As he was very active he evaded them
and got out of their hands, but was prevented from effecting his escape
by a large dog which laid hold of him. These animals are kept by many of
the traders for that purpose and being trained to the sport do very
effective work.
I was also told by a negro woman that as she was on her return home one
evening, from some neighbours to whom she had been making a visit by
invitation, she was kidnapped and notwithstanding she was big with
child, was sold for a slave. This transaction happened a considerable
way up the country and she had passed through the hands of several
purchasers before she reached the ship. A man and his son, according to
their own information, were seized by professed kidnappers, while they
were planting yams, and sold for slaves. This also happened in the
interior parts of the country; and after passing through several hands
they were purchased for the ship to which I belonged.
It frequently happens that those who kidnap others are themselves, in
their turn, seized and sold. A negro in the West Indies informed me that
after having been employed in kidnapping others he had experienced this
reverse. And he assured me that it was a common incident among his
countrymen.
Continual enmity is thus fostered among the negroes of Africa and all
social intercourse between them destroyed; which most assuredly would
not be the case had they not these opportunities of finding a ready sale
for each other.
During my stay on the coast of Africa, I was an eyewitness of the
following transaction:—A black trader invited a negro who resided a
little way up the country, to come and see him. After the entertainment
was over the trader proposed to his guest to treat him with a sight of
one of the ships lying in the river. The unsuspicious countryman readily
consented and accompanied the trader in a canoe to the side of the ship,
which he viewed with pleasure and astonishment. While there, some black
traders on board, who appeared to be in the secret, leaped into the
canoe, seized the unfortunate man and dragging him into the ship
immediately sold him.
Previous to my being in this employ I entertained a belief, as many
others have done, that the kings and principal men bred negroes for sale
as we do cattle. During the different times I was in the country, I took
no little pains to satisfy myself in this particular; but
notwithstanding I made many inquiries, I was not able to obtain the
least intelligence of this being the case. All the information I could
procure, confirmed me in the belief that to kidnapping and to crimes
(and many of these were fabricated as a pretext) the slave trade owes
its chief support.
Here is an instance that tends to prove that artifice is often made use
of. Several black traders, one of whom was a person of consequence and
exercised an authority somewhat similar to that of our magistrates,
being in want of some particular kind of merchandise and not having a
slave to barter for it, they accused a fisherman at the river Ambris,
with extortion in the sale of his fish; and as they were interested in
the decision they immediately adjudged the poor fellow guilty and
condemned him to be sold. He was accordingly purchased by the ship to
which I belonged and brought on board.
As an additional proof that kidnapping is not only the general but
almost the sole mode by which slaves are procured, the black traders in
purchasing them, choose those which are the roughest and most hardy;
alleging that the smooth negroes have been _gentlemen_. From which we
may conclude they mean that nothing but fraud or force could have
reduced these smooth-skinned gentlemen to a state of slavery.
In order to prove that the wars among the Africans do not furnish the
number of slaves they are supposed to do, I may say that I never saw any
negroes with recent wounds; which must have been the consequence, at
least with some of them, had they been taken in battle. And it being my
particular province, as the surgeon, to examine the slaves when they are
purchased, such a circumstance could not have escaped my observation. As
a farther corroboration it might be remarked, that on the Gold and
Windward Coasts, where fairs are not held, the number of slaves procured
at a time are usually very small.
The preparations made at Bonny by the black traders, upon setting out
for the fairs which are held up the country, are very considerable. From
twenty to thirty canoes, capable of containing thirty to forty negroes
each, are assembled for this purpose; and such goods put on board as
they expect will be wanted for the purchase of the number of slaves they
intend to buy. When their loading is completed they commence their
voyage with colors flying and music playing and in about ten or eleven
days generally return to Bonny with full cargoes. As soon as the canoes
arrive at the trader’s landing-place, the purchased negroes are cleaned
and oiled with palm oil and on the following day they are exposed for
sale to the captains.
The black traders do not always purchase their slaves at the same rate.
The speed with which the information of the arrival of ships upon the
coast is conveyed to the fairs, considering that it is the interest of
the traders to keep them ignorant, is really surprising. In a very short
time after any ships arrive upon the coast, especially if several make
their appearance together, those who dispose of the negroes at the fairs
are frequently known to increase their prices; and these fairs are not
the only means, though they are the chief, by which the black traders on
the coast are supplied with negroes. Small parties of from five to ten
are frequently brought to the houses of the traders, by those who make a
practice of kidnapping and who are constantly employed in procuring a
supply while purchasers are to be found.
When the negroes that the black traders have to dispose of, are shown to
the European purchasers, they first examine them relative to their age.
They then minutely inspect their persons and inquire into the state of
their health; if they are afflicted with any disease or are deformed or
have bad eyes or teeth; if they are lame or weak in the joints or
distorted in the back or of a slender make or are narrow in the chest;
in short, if they have been or are afflicted in any manner so as to
render them incapable of much labor. If any of the foregoing defects are
discovered in them they are rejected. But if approved of, they are
generally taken on board the ship the same evening. The purchaser has
liberty to return on the following morning, but not afterwards, such as
upon re-examination are found exceptionable.
The traders frequently beat the negroes which are objected to by the
captains and use them with great severity. It matters not whether they
are refused on account of age, illness, deformity or for any other
reason. At New Calabar, in particular, the traders have frequently been
known to put them to death. Instances have happened at that place, when
negroes have been objected to, that the traders have dropped their
canoes under the stern of the vessel and instantly beheaded them in
sight of the captain.
On the Windward Coast another mode of procuring slaves is pursued; that
is, by _boating_, a mode that is very destructive to the crews of the
ships. The sailors who are employed upon this trade go in boats up the
rivers, seeking for negroes among the villages situated on the banks of
these streams. But this method is very slow and not always effectual.
After being absent from the ship during a fortnight or three weeks, they
sometimes return with only from eight to twelve negroes.
I have good reason to believe that of the one hundred and twenty negroes
purchased for the ship to which I then belonged, then lying at the river
Ambris, by far the greater part, if not the whole, were kidnapped. This,
with various other instances, confirms me in the belief that it is
kidnapping that supplies the thousands of negroes annually sold off the
Windward and other Coasts where boating prevails.
As soon as the wretched negroes fall into the hands of the black
traders, they experience an earnest of the sufferings which they are
doomed in future to undergo. And there is not the least doubt that even
before they can reach the fairs, great numbers perish from cruel usage.
They are brought from the places where they are purchased, to Bonny,
&c., in canoes, at the bottom of which they lie, having their hands tied
with a kind of willow twigs and a strict watch is kept over them. Their
usage in other respects, during the time of the passage, which generally
lasts several days, is equally cruel. Their allowance of food is so
scanty that it is barely sufficient to support nature and they are also
much exposed to the violent rains which frequently fall, being covered
only with mats that afford but a slight defence; and as there is usually
water in the bottom of the canoes they are scarcely ever dry.
And after they become the property of Europeans their treatment is no
less severe. The men, on being brought aboard ship, are immediately
fastened together, two and two, by handcuffs on their wrists and by
irons rivetted on their legs. They are then sent down between the decks
and placed in a space partitioned off for that purpose. The women also
are placed in a separate space between decks, but without being ironed.
An adjoining room, on the same deck, is set apart for the boys.
At the same time, however, they are frequently stowed so close as to
admit of no other position than lying on their sides. Nor will the
height between decks, unless directly under the grating, allow them to
stand; especially where there are platforms on either side, which is
generally the case. These platforms are a kind of shelf, about eight or
nine feet in width, extending from the side of the ship towards the
centre. They are placed nearly midway between the decks, at the distance
of two or three feet from each deck. Upon these the negroes are stowed
in the same manner as they are on the deck underneath.
In each of the apartments are placed three or four large buckets, of a
conical form, nearly two feet in diameter at the bottom and only one
foot at the top and in depth about twenty-eight inches, to which, when
necessary, the negroes have recourse. It often happens that those who
are placed at a distance from the buckets, in endeavouring to get to
them, tumble over their companions, in consequence of their being
shackled. These accidents, although unavoidable, are productive of
continual quarrels in which some of them are always bruised. In this
situation, unable to proceed and prevented from getting to the tubs,
they desist from the attempt; and as the necessities of nature are not
to be resisted, they ease themselves as they lie. This becomes a fresh
source of broils and disturbances and tends to render the condition of
the poor wretches still more uncomfortable. The nuisance arising from
these circumstances is not unfrequently increased by the tubs being much
too small for the purpose intended and their being usually emptied but
once every day. The rule for doing so, however, varies in different
ships according to the attention paid to the health and convenience of
the slaves by the captain.
When the ships have disposed of all their merchandize in the purchase of
negroes and have laid in their stock of wood, water and yams, they
prepare for sailing by getting up the yards and topmasts, reeving the
running rigging, bending the sails, and by taking down the temporary
house. They then drop down the river to wait for a favorable opportunity
to pass over the bar which is formed by a number of sandbanks lying
across the mouth of the river, with navigable channels between them. It
is not uncommon for ships to get upon the bar and sometimes they are
lost.
About eight o’clock in the morning the negroes are generally brought
upon deck. Their irons being examined, a long chain, which is locked to
a ring-bolt fixed in the deck, is run through the rings of the shackles
of the men and then locked to another ring-bolt fixed in the deck. By
this means fifty or sixty and sometimes more are fastened to one chain
in order to prevent them from rising or endeavoring to escape. If the
weather proves favorable they are permitted to remain in that situation
till four or five in the afternoon when they are disengaged from the
chain and sent below.
The diet of the negroes while on board, consists chiefly of horse-beans
boiled to the consistence of a pulp; of boiled yams and rice and
sometimes of a small quantity of beef or pork. The latter are frequently
taken from the provisions laid in for the sailors. They sometimes make
use of a sauce composed of palm-oil mixed with flour, water and pepper,
which the sailors call _slabber-sauce_. Yams are the favorite food of
the Eboe or Bight negroes, and rice or corn of those from the Gold and
Windward Coasts; each preferring the produce of their native soil.
In their own country the negroes in general live on animal food and
fish, with roots, yams and Indian corn. The horse-beans and rice, with
which they are fed aboard ship, are chiefly brought from Europe. The
latter, however, is sometimes purchased on the coast where it is
superior to any other.
The Gold Coast negroes scarcely ever refuse any food that is offered
them and they generally eat larger quantities of whatever is placed
before them than any other species of negroes, whom they also excel in
strength of body and mind. Most of the slaves have such an aversion to
the horse-beans that unless they are narrowly watched, when fed upon
deck, they will throw them overboard or in each other’s faces when they
quarrel.
They are commonly fed twice a day; about eight o’clock in the morning
and four in the afternoon. In most ships they are only fed with their
_own food_ once a day. Their food is served up to them in tubs about the
size of a small water bucket. They are placed round these tubs, in
companies of ten to each tub, out of which they feed themselves with
wooden spoons. These they soon lose and when they are not allowed others
they feed themselves with their hands. In favorable weather they are fed
upon deck but in bad weather their food is given them below. Numberless
quarrels take place among them during their meals; more especially when
they are put upon short allowance, which frequently happens if the
passage from the coast of Guinea to the West India Islands proves of
unusual length. In that case, the weak are obliged to be content with a
very scanty portion. Their allowance of water is about half a pint each
at every meal. It is handed round in a bucket and given to each negro in
a pannekin, a small utensil with a straight handle, somewhat similar to
a sauce-boat. However, when the ships approach the islands with a
favorable breeze, the slaves are no longer restricted.
[Illustration:
A VIEW OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
From a line engraving after a painting by T. Mellish, published about
1750, by John Bowles, London, in the Macpherson Collection
]
Upon the negroes refusing to take food, I have seen coals of fire,
glowing hot, put on a shovel and placed so near their lips as to scorch
and burn them. And this has been accompanied with threats of forcing
them to swallow the coals if they persisted in refusing to eat. This
generally had the desired effect. I have also been credibly informed
that a certain captain in the slave-trade, poured melted lead on such of
his negroes as obstinately refused their food.
Exercise being considered necessary for the preservation of their health
they are sometimes obliged to dance when the weather will permit their
coming on deck. If they go about it reluctantly or do not move with
agility, they are flogged; a person standing by them all the time with a
cat-o’-nine-tails in his hand for that purpose. Their music, upon these
occasions, consists of a drum, sometimes with only one head; and when
that is worn out they make use of the bottom of one of the tubs before
described. The poor wretches are frequently compelled to sing also; but
when they do so, their songs are generally, as may naturally be
expected, melancholy lamentations of their exile from their native
country.
The women are furnished with beads for the purpose of affording them
some amusement. But this end is generally defeated by the squabbles
which are occasioned in consequence of their stealing from each other.
On board some ships the common sailors are allowed to have intercourse
with such of the black women whose consent they can procure. And some of
them have been known to take the inconstancy of their paramours so much
to heart as to leap overboard and drown themselves. The officers are
permitted to indulge their passions among them at pleasure and sometimes
are guilty of such brutal excesses as disgrace human nature.
The hardships suffered by the negroes during the passage are scarcely to
be conceived. They are far more violently affected by seasickness than
Europeans and it frequently terminates in death, especially among the
women. But the exclusion of fresh air is the most intolerable. For the
purpose of admitting fresh air, most of the ships in the slave-trade are
provided, between the decks, with five or six air-ports on each side of
the ship, of about six inches in length and four in breadth; in addition
to which, some few ships, but not one in twenty, have what they
denominate _wind-sails_. But whenever the sea is rough and the rain
heavy it becomes necessary to shut these and every other conveyance by
which the air is admitted. The fresh air being thus excluded, the
negroes’ rooms very soon grow intolerably hot. The confined air,
rendered noxious by the effuvia exhaled from their bodies and by being
repeatedly breathed, soon produces fevers and fluxes which generally
carry off great numbers of them.
During the voyages I made, I was frequently a witness to the fatal
effects of this exclusion of the fresh air. One instance will serve to
convey some idea, though a very faint one, of their terrible sufferings.
Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the port-holes to be shut
and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among the negroes
ensued. While they were in this situation, I frequently went down among
them till at length their rooms became so extremely hot as to be only
bearable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the only
thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that is, the
floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had
proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a
slaughter-house. It is not in the power of the human imagination to
picture a situation more dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves
having fainted they were carried upon deck where several of them died
and the rest with great difficulty were restored. It had nearly proved
fatal to me also. The climate was too warm to admit the wearing of any
clothing but a shirt and that I had pulled off before I went down;
notwithstanding which, by only continuing among them for about a quarter
of an hour, I was so overcome with the heat, stench and foul air that I
nearly fainted; and it was only with assistance that I could get on
deck. The consequence was that I soon after fell sick of the same
disorder from which I did not recover for several months.
A circumstance of this kind sometimes repeatedly happens in the course
of a voyage; and often to a greater degree than that which has just been
described, particularly when the slaves are much crowded, which was not
the case at that time, the ship being more than a hundred short of the
number she was to have taken.
A certain Liverpool ship once took on board at Bonny, at least seven
hundred negroes. By shipping so large a number, the slaves were so
crowded that they were obliged to lie one upon another. This occasioned
such a mortality among them that without meeting with unusual bad
weather or having a longer voyage than common, nearly one half of them
died before the ship arrived in the West Indies.
That it may be possible to form some idea of the almost incredible small
space into which so large a number of negroes were crammed, the
following particulars of this ship are given. According to Liverpool
custom she measured 235 tons. Her width across the beam was 25 feet.
Length between the decks, 92 feet, which was divided into four rooms,
thus:
Store room, in which no negroes were placed 15 feet
——————
Negroe’s rooms—men’s rooms—about 45 feet
women’s ditto—about 10 feet
boy’s ditto—about 22 feet
——————
Total room for negroes 77 feet
——————
Exclusive of the platform before described, from 8
to 9 feet in breadth and equal in length to that
of the rooms.
The ships in this trade are usually fitted out to receive only one third
women negroes, or perhaps a smaller number, which the dimensions of the
room allotted for them, above given, plainly show but in a greater
disproportion.
One would naturally suppose that an attention to their own interest
would prompt the owners of the Guinea ships not to permit their captains
to take on board a greater number of negroes than the ship would allow
room sufficient for them to lie with ease to themselves or, at least,
without rubbing against each other. However that may be, a more striking
instance than the above, of avarice, completely and deservedly
disappointed, was surely never displayed; for there is little room to
doubt but that in consequence of the expected premium usually allowed to
the captains, of £6. per cent. sterling on the produce of the negroes,
this vessel was so crowded as to occasion such a heavy loss.
The place allotted for the sick negroes is under the half deck, where
they lie on the bare planks. By this means those who are emaciated
frequently have their skin and even their flesh entirely rubbed off, by
the motion of the ship, from the prominent parts of the shoulders,
elbows and hips so as to render the bones quite bare. And some of them,
by constantly lying in the blood and mucus that had flowed from those
afflicted with the flux and which is generally so violent as to prevent
their being kept clean, have their flesh much sooner rubbed off than
those who have only to contend with the mere friction of the ship. The
excruciating pain which the poor sufferers feel from being obliged to
continue in such a dreadful situation, frequently for several weeks, in
case they happen to live so long, is not to be conceived or described.
Few, indeed, are ever able to withstand the fatal effects of it. The
utmost skill of the surgeon is here ineffectual. If plasters are applied
they are very soon displaced by the friction of the ship; and when
bandages are used the negroes very soon take them off and appropriate
them to other purposes.
The surgeon, upon going between decks in the morning to examine the
condition of the slaves, frequently finds several dead; and among the
men, sometimes a dead and living negro fastened by their irons together.
When this is the case they are brought upon the deck and laid on the
grating when the living negro is disengaged and the dead one thrown
overboard. We should here remark that the surgeons employed in the
Guinea trade are generally driven to engage in so disagreeable an
employment by the confined state of their finances. An exertion of the
greatest skill and attention could afford the diseased negroes little
relief so long as the causes of their diseases, namely, the breathing of
a putrid atmosphere and wallowing in their own excrements, remain. When
once the fever and dysentery get to any height at sea, a cure is
scarcely ever effected.
Almost the only means by which the surgeon can render himself useful to
the slaves is by seeing that their food is properly cooked and
distributed among them. It is true, when they arrive near the markets
for which they are destined, care is taken to polish them for sale by an
application of the lunar caustic to such as are afflicted with the yaws.
This, however, affords but a temporary relief as the disease most
assuredly breaks out whenever the negro is put upon a vegetable diet.
It has been asserted in favor of the captains in this trade, that the
sick slaves are usually fed from their tables. The great number
generally ill at a time, proves the falsity of such an assertion. Were a
captain even disposed to do this, how could he feed half the slaves in
the ship from his own table? For it is well known that more than half
are often sick at a time. Two or three perhaps might be fed.
The loss of slaves, through mortality, arising from the causes just
mentioned, is frequently very considerable. One half, sometimes two
thirds and even beyond that have been known to perish. On one voyage,
before we left Bonny River no less than fifteen died of fevers and
dysenteries occasioned by their confinement. On the Windward Coasts,
where slaves are procured more slowly, very few die in proportion to the
numbers which die at Bonny and at Old and New Calabar where they are
obtained much faster; the latter being of a more delicate make and
habit.
As very few of the negroes can bear the loss of their liberty and the
hardships they endure, they are ever on the watch to take advantage of
the least negligence. Insurrections are frequently the consequence;
which are seldom suppressed without much bloodshed. Sometimes these are
successful and the whole ship’s company is cut off.
One evening while a ship to which I belonged lay in Bonny River, a
number of negroes were brought on board and shortly after one of them
forced his way through the network on the larboard side of the vessel,
jumped overboard and was devoured by the sharks. During the time we were
there, fifteen negroes belonging to a vessel from Liverpool found means
to throw themselves into the river and very few were saved; the rest
fell a sacrifice to the sharks.
Circumstances of this kind are very frequent. On the coast of Angola, at
the River Ambris, the following incident happened:—During the time of
our living on shore we erected a tent to shelter ourselves from the
weather. After having been there several weeks and being unable to
purchase the number of slaves we wanted, through the opposition of
another English slave vessel, we determined to leave the place. The
night before our departure the tent was struck, which was no sooner seen
by some of the negro women on board than it was considered as a prelude
to our sailing and about eighteen of them, when they were sent between
decks, threw themselves into the sea through one of the gun ports, the
ship carrying guns between decks. They were all of them, however,
excepting one, soon picked up; the negress missing was at last found
about a mile from the shore.
A young female negro, falling into a desponding way, it was judged
necessary in order to attempt her recovery to send her on shore to the
hut of one of the black traders. Elated at the prospect of regaining her
liberty she soon recovered her usual cheerfulness, but hearing, by
accident, that it was intended to take her on board the ship again, the
young woman hung herself.
It frequently happens that the negroes on being purchased by Europeans,
become raving mad and many of them die in that state, particularly the
women. One day at Bonny, I saw a middle-aged, stout woman, who had been
brought down from a fair the preceding day, chained to the post of a
black trader’s door, in a state of furious insanity. On board the ship
was a young negro woman chained to the deck, who had lost her senses
soon after she was purchased and taken on board. In a former voyage we
were obliged to confine a female negro of about twenty-three years of
age, on her becoming a lunatic. She was afterwards sold during one of
her lucid intervals. One morning upon examining the place allotted for
the sick negroes, I noticed that one of them, who was so emaciated as
scarcely to be able to walk, was missing and was convinced that he must
have gone overboard in the night, probably to put a more expeditious end
to his sufferings.
The first place the slave ships touch at in their passage to the West
Indies, is either the Island of St. Thomas, or Princes Island, where
they usually carry their sick on shore for the benefit of the air and
also replenish their stock of water. The former of these islands is
nearly circular, being one hundred and twenty miles round, and lies
exactly under the equator, about forty-five leagues from the African
continent. It abounds with wood and water and produces Indian corn,
rice, fruits, sugar and some cinnamon. The air is rather prejudicial to
an European constitution; nevertheless it is well peopled by the
Portuguese. Princes Island, which is much smaller, lies in 1° 30′ North,
and likewise produces Indian corn and a variety of fruits and roots,
besides sugar cane. Black cattle, hogs and goats are numerous there; but
it is infested with a mischievous and dangerous species of monkeys.
During one of the voyages I made, I was landed upon the Island of St.
Thomas with nearly one hundred sick negroes who were placed in an old
house taken on purpose for their reception. Little benefit, however,
accrued from their going on shore, as several of them died there and the
remainder continued nearly in the same situation as when they were
landed, though our continuance was prolonged for about twelve days and
the island is deemed upon the whole healthy.
When the ships arrive in the West Indies the slaves are disposed of by
different methods. Sometimes the mode of disposal is that of selling
them by what is termed a _scramble_ and a day is soon fixed for that
purpose. But previously the sick or refuse slaves, of which there are
frequently many, are usually taken on shore and sold at a tavern, by
vendue or public auction. These, in general, are purchased by the Jews
and surgeons, but chiefly the former, upon speculation, at so low a
price as five or six dollars a head. I was informed by a mulatto woman
that she purchased a sick slave at Grenada, upon speculation, for the
small sum of one dollar, as the poor wretch was apparently dying of the
flux. It seldom happens that any who are carried ashore in the emaciated
state to which they are generally reduced by that disorder, long survive
their landing. I once saw sixteen taken on shore and sold in the
foregoing manner, the whole of whom died before I left the island.
Sometimes the captains march their slaves through the town at which they
intend to dispose of them and then place them in rows where they are
examined and purchased.
The mode of selling them by _scramble_ is most common. Here, all the
negroes scrambled for bear an equal price; which is agreed upon between
the captains and the purchasers before the sale begins. On a day
appointed, the negroes are landed and placed altogether in a large yard
belonging to the merchants to whom the ship is consigned. As soon as the
hour agreed on arrives, the doors of the yard are suddenly thrown open
and in rushes a considerable number of purchasers, with all the ferocity
of brutes. Some instantly seize such of the negroes as they can
conveniently lay hold of with their hands. Others, being prepared with
several handkerchiefs tied together, encircle with these as many as they
are able; while others, by means of a rope, effect the same purpose. It
is scarcely possible to describe the confusion of which this mode of
selling is productive. It likewise causes much animosity among the
purchasers who not unfrequently fall out and quarrel with each other.
The poor astonished negroes are so much terrified by these proceedings,
that several of them, on one occasion, climbed over the walls of the
courtyard and ran wild about the town but were soon hunted down and
retaken.
[Illustration:
THE VOYAGE OF THE SABLE VENUS, FROM ANGOLA TO THE WEST INDIES
From a painting by T. Stothard, engraved for Edwards’ _History of the
West Indies_, London, 1818
]
This picture inspired the muse of a member of the British Parliament, as
follows:
“Her skin excell’d the raven’s plume,
Her breath the fragrant orange bloom,
Her eye the tropic beam:
Soft was her lip of silken down,
And mild her look as evening sun
That gilds the Cobre stream.”
While on a former voyage from Africa to Kingston in Jamaica, I saw a
sale there by _scramble_, on board a snow. The negroes were collected
together upon the main and quarter decks and the ship was darkened by
sails suspended over them in order to prevent the purchasers from being
able to see, so as to pick or choose. The signal being given the buyers
rushed in, as usual, to seize their prey, when the negroes became so
terrified that nearly thirty of them jumped into the sea, but they were
soon retaken, chiefly by boats from other ships.
On board a ship lying at Port Maria, in Jamaica, I saw another
_scramble_ in which, as usual, the negroes were greatly terrified. The
women, in particular, clung to each other, shrieking in terror at the
savage manner in which their brutal purchasers rushed upon and seized
them.
Various are the deceptions made use of in the disposal of the sick
slaves and many of these must excite the liveliest sensations of horror.
A Liverpool captain boasted of his having cheated some Jews by the
following stratagem:—A lot of slaves afflicted with the flux, being
landed for sale, he directed the surgeon to stop the anus of each of
them with oakum. Thus prepared they were taken to the place of sale,
where, being unable to stand but for a very short time, they were
usually permitted to sit. The Jews, when they examine them, oblige them
to stand up in order that they may see if there be any discharge; and
when there is no appearance they consider it as a symptom of recovery.
In the present instance, such an appearance being prevented, the bargain
was struck and the slaves were accordingly sold. But it was not long
before discovery of the cheat followed, for the excruciating pain which
the prevention of a discharge of such an acrimonious nature occasioned,
not being to be borne by the poor wretches, the temporary obstruction
was removed and the deluded Jews were speedily convinced of the
imposition.
So severely are the negroes sometimes afflicted with this troublesome
and painful disorder that I have seen large numbers of them, after being
landed, obliged by the virulence of the complaint to stop almost every
minute as they passed on.
The whole of their cargoes being disposed of the ships are immediately
made ready to proceed to sea. It is very seldom, however, that they are
not detained for want of a sufficient number of sailors to navigate the
ship, as the slave trade may justly be denominated the grave of seamen.
Though the crews of the ships, upon their leaving England, generally
amount to between forty and fifty men, scarcely three-fourths and
sometimes not one-third of the complement, ever return to the port from
whence they sailed, through mortality and desertion.
The time during which the slave ships are absent from England, varies
according to the destination of the voyage and the number of ships they
happen to meet on the coast. To Bonny, or Old and New Calabar, a voyage
is usually performed in about ten months. Those to the Windward and Gold
Coasts are rather more uncertain, but last in general from fifteen to
eighteen months.