THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A SLAVE TRADER
I never saw my father.[32] He was a seafaring man, sailing as mate of a
coaster and was lost in a gale four months after his marriage with my
mother, the daughter of a spinner in one of the cotton mills at
Stockford, England. I can just remember her and also a room full of
strange people, a red box and a man standing beside it, talking in a
loud voice; then a dismal walk through the rain, to a field where some
men had just finished digging a hole in the ground. My home after that
was in the Stockford workhouse until one day the work-master came in
company with a swarthy-featured stranger and said: “Look sharp, my lad,
and you’ll see your uncle!” I did “look sharp” and saw a man about
thirty years old, dressed in a jaunty suit of sailor’s store clothes,
with a broad palm-leaf hat on his head, round gold rings in his ears and
heavy gold watch seals hanging from his fob. This grand-looking
personage spoke kindly to me, gave me a few half-pence, told me to cheer
up and try to be a man and then walked away with Mr. Crump, the master.
He never came to the workhouse again but I was told that he had left
some money for me with the parish overseers and promised to look after
me as I grew older.
-----
Footnote 32:
The following narrative is abstracted from _Revelations of a Slave
Smuggler: being the Autobiography of Capt. Richard Drake, an African
Trader for Fifty Years—from 1807 to 1857_, New York, 1860.
-----
One day, when I was twelve years old, there came a summons to go before
the overseers, three stout, red-faced men, in powdered wigs, who sat at
a green-covered table, with snuff boxes before them. After the master
had pulled me roughly by the arm into their awful presence, the oldest
one said: “Philip Drake, how would you like to go to your uncle?” Of
course I joyfully said—I should like to go to him and a few days later I
was hustled away at daybreak, to ride ten miles to the seaport from
which a collier was to start for the Welsh coast, to intercept the Irish
emigrant ship as it left Holyhead. I wore a pair of new leather brogans,
corduroy breeches and a real leather hat and carried a bundle of patched
clothing tied up in an old Spitalfields handkerchief. Safely tucked away
in a pocket was a letter, made formidable by a stamp in green wax,
addressed to “Maurice Halter, Boston, United States.” This was my future
passport.
It was a cold, drizzly morning when I tumbled over the wet side of the
coal-lighter, on a deck crowded with shivering men, women and children
like myself, where I was knocked about by sailors and nearly swept
overboard by a swing of the sloop’s boom, before I managed to creep
under shelter behind a huge pile of corded boxes and clothes bags. The
rain soaked through my brown stuff frock and the tossing of the sloop
sickened me long before we made Anglesley light and hove-to under the
lee of a weather-beaten packet ship, from the Irish coast, bound for
Boston in the United States. The sea was rough, causing confusion and
difficulty in transferring the collier’s freight; but at last it was
effected and with some forty other English paupers, I found myself
dumped among four hundred Irish emigrants, in the steerage of the ship
_Polly_, of Waterford, Captain Herring.
Since that day I have experienced many hardships and seen bad voyages
but my first taste of the ocean, on board the _Polly_, was a thing to be
remembered. Child as I was, I did not know what arrangement had been
made for my keeping and for two days I was totally neglected by
everybody. I crawled to a dark corner of the bulkhead and lay coiled up
with my head on my little bundle. The ship’s motion renewed my sickness
and through the long, dark night I strained and gasped for breath,
thinking to die any moment. In the morning I was unable to move. Around
me were the emigrants, some lying still, some sick, others talking,
laughing or quarreling. Women were cooking food, old men were smoking
pipes and the air was close and stifling. Cursing and groaning was heard
on every side. After the second morning I lost consciousness and before
long was raving with fever. Had it not been for the charity of a poor
family whose bed was stretched near my nook in the bulkhead there would
have been one less poor English orphan.
The packet ship _Polly_, of Waterford, must have been as bad as any
slaver that ever skulked the “Middle Passage” with battened-down
hatches. She was 202 tons burden and carried 450 odd steerage
passengers. They were so thick between decks that the air became putrid
and whenever her sick squads were ordered up the gangways, one or more
was sure to die with the first gulp of fresh air. The steerage became
pestilential before our voyage was half over, for the emigrants’ beds
were never cleaned and whole families literally wallowed in poisonous
filth. The bodies of men and women, and their tattered garments, were
incrusted and impregnated with the most offensive matter. Typhus fever
and dysentery soon broke out and then the mortality raged fearfully.
The _Polly’s_ crew, when she left Ireland, consisted of but ten men and
four died of dysentery before we were half way across the Atlantic. One
day when I had crawled to the deck and lay on a coil of chain near the
capstan, I counted thirty corpses that were hauled up during the morning
and thrown overboard. Most of the bodies were women with their long hair
tangled in their filthy garments.
The ship’s provisions began to run short after a time and were doled out
in the most niggardly way until the dysentery thinned out the
passengers, when there was enough and to spare of oatmeal and damaged
rice. But water grew scantier every day. Foul weather set in and the
_Polly_ was driven from her course into the hot latitudes and when we
made the first light, off Cape Ann, we had 186 left out of 450 odd
passengers and some of these died before landing.
The _Polly_ reached Boston in April 1802 and her passengers were placed
in quarantine on one of the islands in the harbor, and there I remained
until one day when a little old man in a snuff-colored coat and rusty
hat, came enquiring for Tommy Driscoll. During the voyage Tommy had
fallen overboard and could not be saved and when the old man heard the
story he befriended me and took me to his home in Sun Court, near Ann
Street now North Street, in the North End of Boston.
Thaddeus Mooney was an apothecary and in his shop I was taught to pound
drugs in a big mortar and to run errands for my new master. As for the
unsealed letter to Maurice Halter, Doctor Mooney made many inquiries but
without result. No one seemed to know of a Mr. Halter.
One September afternoon, two years later, as I was passing the Moon
Tavern, a noted starting post for the Eastern coaches, I caught sight of
a man sitting in one of its large bow windows which projected into the
street. There was something familiar about the swarthy face, glittering
eyes and gold earrings and suddenly it came to me that this must be my
uncle. And so it was, but Capt. Richard Willing and not Maurice Halter,
which accounted for the unsuccessful inquiries that had been made. After
a long conversation during which the captain asked many searching
questions as to what I knew about books, figures and even shop matters,
I was told that I should sail with him on his next voyage, the ship
being then at New York.
It was nearly dusk when we were rowed off to a vessel lying at anchor in
the Sound near New Rochelle, and a storm was coming up, but that night
saw us well on a southerly course which soon gave plenty of sea-room.
The next morning the captain said to me, “I want you to understand that
you’ve got no uncle on board this vessel; I’m captain of all on board;
you are to help the surgeon, as his mate, and keep your mouth shut. If
you do your duty, we shan’t quarrel—if you don’t, then look out, my
lad!”
[Illustration:
VIEW OF THE CITY OF RIO DE JANEIRO
From a colored lithograph published by Lemercier, Paris, in the
Macpherson Collection
]
The crew consisted of thirty men, including the captain, mates and
surgeon whose name was Maxwell. He was a Scotchman, about thirty years
old, stout and thick, with a pock-marked face and yellow, bilious eyes.
Thanks to my experience with Doctor Mooney, I was quite as much at home
with the surgeon’s bottles and boxes as was Maxwell. The two of us slept
in berths on deck, midships, where the medicine chest was kept, and
messed with the mates. Captain Willing had his meals in the cabin.
The brig was a sharply-built craft of about three hundred tons, and a
swift sailor. She was named the _Coralline_ and was well defended with
an ample magazine and a dozen heavy carronades, as it was a time of war
when French cruisers swarmed the seas. After passing through a hurricane
off the coast of Brazil, during which the bowsprit was sprung and the
foretopmast carried away, the brig came to anchor in the wonderful
harbor at Rio, where repairs were made and all hands kept busy stowing a
mixed cargo of colored cottons, kegs of powder and rum, trinkets,
tobacco and other goods suitable for a trading voyage. The surgeon
ordered a new supply of medical stores—calomel, sulphur, Peruvian bark
and other drugs and after a month’s stay, the anchor was weighed early
one morning and a course set for the coast of Africa.
On August 22, 1805, the _Coralline_ anchored at a trading station at the
mouth of the river Volta, which enters the Bight of Benin between the
Gold Coast and the Dahomy country. Here a schooner was chartered from
the trader at the post and Captain Willing began working up the river.
Along the banks the natives could be seen working in their cornfields;
herds of cattle were browsing in the grass and towards night some
negroes in a canoe brought milk and bartered for trinkets. The next day
rice fields were seen with dozens of canals crossing in all directions.
On August 29th, the schooner anchored in front of Malee, a town of about
three thousand inhabitants, with a market place in the center, the huts
forming a semi-circle on the hillside overlooking the river. Here,
Captain Willing organized an expedition to the Kong Mountains, lying to
the northeast, to trade with the gold mines. There was a war going on at
the time, between the King of Ashantee, who ruled over Malee, and the
Dahomy nation, and many prisoners had been taken which were being
shipped down the river to be sold as slaves or sent to the mountains to
wash out gold.
We set out with a long procession of black traders and soldiers, as a
guard for the white men, and soon after leaving the town entered a dense
forest. The head man of the Ashantee soldiers was a ferocious-looking
negro, as black as jet, with wool braided in stiff hanks. His teeth were
filed sharp and his cheeks slashed with two deep cuts, colored by some
red earth, which gave him an unearthly appearance. Quobah was a giant in
height. He carried a spear and had a powder horn and pouch strapped to
his neck. Three slaves bore his arms—one carrying a heavy, curved
broadsword, another his club and a third his musket. We had nothing to
do but walk as there were plenty of blacks to carry all luggage. There
must have been one hundred and fifty in the company. The day’s journeys
were short and at night we halted in some beautiful valley and were
served like lords with African delicacies. The women ground corn, cooked
rice cakes, and milked the cows that were driven along with the party as
pack-beasts. After supper the blacks beat their tomtoms or wooden drums
and kept up singing and dancing until it was time to camp down. Then the
Ashantee soldiers set a watch; the white men swung their hammocks under
the trees and the night passed well enough except for the crying of wild
animals.
One evening we encamped on the bank of a smooth river shaded by immense
trees. The sun was setting splendidly as we ate our supper. Some of the
blacks were lounging about, smoking their pipes and others lay on the
grass while their wives fed them with butter-rolls and nice bits of a
kid that had been killed and stewed since we halted. Suddenly we were
attacked and the air seemed filled with arrows. The forest appeared
alive with savages. I was seated under a tree drinking water from a
calabash, when the attack began and almost immediately I saw a negro
making for me, armed with a huge club. Quobah, our Ashantee chief,
jumped before him, but a dozen enemies darted in from all sides and I
was beaten down before I could lift an arm.
When I came to my senses I found myself lying at the foot of a tree,
tied hand and foot. The forest seemed on fire from hundreds of torches
that had been stuck in the ground or were waved up and down in the hands
of the negroes who were running to and fro, singing and yelling like
maniacs. Their bodies were smeared with white in bars and streaks so
that they looked like skeletons as they leaped back and forth. One of
them spied me as I turned my face and suddenly jumped toward me,
screeching horribly, and dashed close to my face the thing he was
holding. It was a human head—the head of a white man—dripping with
blood. A short distance from where I lay was a log on the river bank and
every now and then a victim was dragged to this log, to be held by the
legs, with his head on the log, when a dull blow from a heavy war club
would end his life immediately.
Before sunrise the black camp was in motion. I saw our cows driven past
and behind them about fifty of the Malee soldiers and their attendants,
tied together, in couples. In the company of hideous savages that
followed were a number of female warriors with bows and arrows slung
across their naked breasts, each carrying aloft on the point of a spear,
a head or leg of one of the massacred prisoners. I had heard of the
women-warriors—the Amazons—of the Dahomey King and these led me to
imagine who were my captors.
It was a week’s march, along a well-beaten track through the forest,
before we reached our destination, the walled town of Yallaba which
fronted on a sluggish river and was rendered nearly inaccessible on
three sides by a wide swamp. Quobah and I were led before an old black
man, fat and greasy, dressed in a shirt of red muslin, such as curtains
are made of, and wearing a tarpaulin hat on his grey wool. He was seated
on a pile of soft sheepskins and I was made to kneel before this old
fellow who turned out to be the King of Yallaba. I was entirely naked as
my clothes had been stolen on the march by the chattering women. The
King pinched my flesh, rubbing it with his black hand and muttering
something in his lingo. The women then gave me milk in a gourd and led
me away.
Such was my reception at Yallaba. I soon found that my youth and white
skin had made a favorable impression on the fat King, who was called
Mammee. My fetters were removed and I was permitted to roam about the
courtyard of the square house or palace. It was not a very grand
mansion, but it extended over an acre or more and was guarded by fifty
female soldiers. I was taken in charge by the King’s women and treated
liberally with milk, curds, fruit and rice cakes, and afterwards kept
among the house slaves and helped the women to pound corn between two
flat stones and prepare fagots for fires.
It was about the middle of September, 1805, when I began my captivity in
the Yallaba valley and it was not long before I began to understand and
speak many words of the Dahomey language. The King’s youngest daughter,
a handsome girl in spite of her tawny skin, took quite a fancy to me and
was my constant teacher. Her name was Soolah and when I first saw her
she was about twelve years old.
Quobah, the Ashantee chief, was considered quite a prize and about three
months after our arrival I was told by Soolah that he was to be
sacrificed at a grand feast in honor of the King’s fetish. But in this
affair events took a strange turn. For some time a lion had been
ravaging the country about the King’s town and one morning Soolah came
to tell me that the beast had attacked the slaves who were gathering
corn and killed a dozen the night before. The King was in great trouble
and a consultation with the priests was to be held and the fetish
consulted about the alarming visitor. As a result it was decided to
sacrifice Quobah at once. Accordingly the Ashantee captive was led into
the public square and all the people gathered about to witness his
massacre. King Mammee sat on his throne of sheepskins and the priests
were all armed with immense clubs and swords.
Quobah stood with his arms folded until he heard all that his enemies
had to say and then he addressed the King and priests abruptly. He
proposed that, as he was to be sacrificed in any event, he should be
allowed to choose his own method by volunteering to go out alone and
fight the lion. The priests decided this to be lawful, the King was
satisfied and the field people of Yallaba were glad to find a champion
to attack the lion. No time was to be lost as the sun was declining and
the lion was expected to visit the valley again that evening.
Before long Quobah was brought out from his hut. He was armed with a
long spear, his own huge sword, and with my carbine, the only really
serviceable firearm in the town. He alone appeared to be unmoved as he
marched to the south gate. Scarcely had he got beyond the heavy stone
that secured the log door, before a terrific roar sounded from the
fields and an enormous lion came cantering toward the approaching man.
The priests and women began to howl and the men pounded their war drums
to frighten the lion, but he only lashed his tail the fiercer and
crouched for a spring. Quobah sunk on one knee and the next moment the
lion leaped and came down on the sharp point of Quobah’s spear which the
crafty warrior had suddenly raised, the butt resting on the ground. The
Ashantee jumped aside and left the brute floundering with the lance
through his shoulder.
At this instant another loud roar was heard from the forest and soon a
lioness came crashing through the corn followed by two half-grown cubs.
Then, indeed, it seemed that all was over with the Ashantee, for the
wounded lion had broken the spear to fragments in his struggle and was
crouching for another spring, though evidently severely wounded. Quobah
lifted the carbine and then as the lion made his second leap, the
Ashantee sprang nimbly aside and as the beast fell heavily on its
wounded shoulder he ran close to him and fired the carbine into his
jaws. When the smoke cleared we could see the lion writhing in his death
agony and the lioness snuffing the ground about a dozen feet from
Quobah. An instant later she gave a frightful roar and rose with a
flying leap, directly for the warrior, who awaited her attack and as she
fell, with all his giant strength drove his sword-blade straight into
the animal’s mouth. We heard a stifled roar but every movement was
shrouded in the cloud of dust that whirled around the man and the
beasts; then, as the dust settled, we could see the lion and the lioness
stretched side by side and Quobah lying across them, covered with blood.
The cubs sat on their haunches, a little way off. The Ashantee was still
living, but his left arm had been mangled and his breast was torn by the
lioness’ claw. He recovered in a few weeks and was solemnly set free and
allowed to go to his own country with the skins of the lion and the
lioness as his trophy.
When Quobah took his departure I ventured to ask King Mammee if I, too,
might return to my people, but the old man promptly refused, telling me
that he had other plans for my future. I continued to grow in his favor
and as I better understood the Dahoman language it seemed that I was in
a fair way to become a person of consideration and after the season of
rains this was, in a way, confirmed for I was allowed to accompany an
expedition organized to capture slaves for the great Dahoman market held
yearly at Abomey, the capital town.
The preparations for this expedition had been going on for some months
and when we set off from Yallaba there were three hundred men in the
party. We travelled easterly for two days before we joined the main body
of about twelve hundred. Four hundred of these were women soldiers.
Besides warriors there were gangs of slaves to carry provisions and
luggage and women to prepare food for the soldiers. On the seventh
morning of the march we reached the enemy’s borders and came in sight of
a peaceful village. Here our hunting began. The Abomey chief fired off
his gun and gave a shrill yell and immediately our whole army rushed
upon the village. The resistance was not very great as our approach was
unexpected and the inhabitants soon tried to escape but found themselves
completely surrounded. In less than an hour we had secured about three
hundred prisoners. The old people and infants were not considered of
value and were knocked on the head or stuck with spears as fast as they
were brought in. The captives were yoked together in couples with bamboo
collars, a long ox-hide band connecting a half dozen collars together.
Besides this, their hands were bound behind and a tall Dahoman marched
beside every couple, beating them with a heavy whip whenever they
appeared to lag.
[Illustration:
SLAVE HUNTERS ATTACKING A NEGRO TOWN
From a wood engraving in Canot’s _Twenty Years of an African Slaver_,
New York, 1854
]
Two days later we arrived near a larger town than the one we had
surprised. It was in a valley and I had a fine view of it from the top
of a wooded hill where we camped. Here our captives were made to lie
down and stakes were driven in the earth, fastening them securely. When
the night was somewhat advanced the main portion of our force set off in
small parties to creep on the unsuspecting town and in about an hour a
bright flame shot up followed by a chorus of yells, cries and groans. In
a few minutes the whole valley seemed in flames. From the brow of the
hill I could see the Dahoman warriors running about whirling their
weapons. The naked women and children were flying in all directions and
in the light from the blazing huts I could see the wretched people
rushing from the flames to be received on the spear points of their
enemies. It was nearly morning when the work of capture and massacre was
finished. More than four hundred choice slaves had been taken and after
they had been shackled we pushed on, without rest, for fear of pursuit,
as we had heard that the enemy were assembling in our rear. On the
homeward march we surprised three other small villages so that our hunt
resulted in the capture of nearly a thousand slaves. When we reached our
valley there was a great feast and old King Mammee sat on his pile of
sheepskins and distributed feathers to the principal men and the priests
made a solemn sacrifice of two young boys to the King’s fetish. The poor
lads were cut to pieces with knives by the women soldiers and afterwards
burned before the idol.
I had now been among the Yallabas nearly a year and could talk their
lingo quite glibly. Soolah, the youngest daughter of King Mammee, had
been a sort of playmate of mine from the first and during the year had
grown into quite a little woman. My associates were among the princes
and young chiefs and I shared in all the feastings of the King, who led
an indulgent life with his score of wives. My full dress consisted of a
piece of calico wrapped about the loins and a sort of cloak which Soolah
wove of mango leaves, split fine and fringed with colored threads of
unravelled cotton.
One day King Mammee sent for me and after a long harangue said that he
intended that I should become his son by marrying Soolah. He told me
that his fetish and mine would then become very powerful. My vanity was
touched by this mark of royal favor and I was not averse to the princess
who was the handsomest young negress I had ever seen and so I consented
at once. Soolah was sent for and she came, dressed in her white cotton
shift and attended by her sisters and a train of maids and the ceremony
of marriage was performed by the women leading her to my hut. After a
special feast, with singing and dancing, I became a husband at the age
of seventeen years.
I had not been living with Soolah very long before another great slave
hunt was announced which I was to accompany as doctor. This turned out
to be my last expedition with the Yallabas, for before we reached the
rendezvous of the other Dahoman war parties, we were set upon by a
superior force of hostile negroes and nearly all of our party taken
prisoners. I was stripped and tied and then marched a twenty days’
journey through a dense forest, till we reached a negro settlement on a
large river. This was Fandee, a town of the Foulah tribe, located on the
Gambia river. The Yallaba warriors were sent off in gangs to work in the
rice fields and I was taken before the Foulah prince, a man fully six
feet and a half in height, who wore gold rings in his ears, which
reminded me of my uncle. I could understand his language with my
knowledge of the Dahoman tongue and soon he had my story with the result
that I was released from strict confinement and permitted to go about
the town. The women of Fandee were quite free and attractive and very
curious about the white stranger, but though I saw many handsome forms
among them, I couldn’t help thinking with regret of my Yallaba wife
Soolah.
A month later I was taken in charge by a company of Foulahs and carried
down the river in a canoe, until we reached a trading station and slave
market where I was greeted for the first time in two years by the sound
of a white man’s voice, in my own language. Captain Fraley was a British
trader, engaged in the African trade, and had half a dozen sloops at
different stations on the Gambia, taking in cargoes of negroes to ship
from the coast. The place where I had been brought by the Foulahs was
one of these stations, called Wadee. It was merely a depot for slaves
with a few sheds built for their shelter. Captain Fraley had heard from
one of his negro agents that a white man was at Fandee and had bought me
from the Foulah prince for half a dozen muskets, a keg of rum and a
piece of Manchester cotton. “You see, my boy,” said the Bristol trader,
laughing as he shook my hand, “you’re a regularly purchased slave, but
I’m ready to bargain for your ransom on favorable terms.” I soon learned
that my uncle had escaped the Dahoman massacre, for Captain Fraley was
acquainted with him and had seen him within a year.
The captain took me on board his sloop which was to sail down the river
the next morning. She was more like a pleasure yacht than a trading
vessel, being about twenty-five tons burden, with four comfortable
lockers in her snug little cabin. I was given a cot in one of them and
during the night was awakened by a noise of groaning which startled me
so that I went on deck, though the air was chill and a thick mist
covered the river. Captain Fraley heard me and asked what was the matter
and when I inquired about the groaning noise he replied that was only
the “darkies.” Next morning all was explained. The sloop’s hold was
crowded with a cargo of eighty slaves stowed in a space of hardly thirty
feet, as the hold was only ten feet long. The blacks were placed in a
sitting position, one within another’s legs, so that each did not occupy
more than three feet of space.
We dropped down the Gambia and were joined next day by a smaller sloop
of ten tons, with forty slaves aboard, in a hold about nine by four
feet, length and width. Our own craft was afterward made to accommodate
a deck-load, as there was quite a stock of slaves waiting at all the
stations.
I found Captain Fraley a pleasant man in the cabin, but he had no
feeling where negroes were concerned as a matter of traffic. He was
engaged in extensive operations on the river Gambia and owned quite a
fleet of Bristol and Liverpool craft, which he supplied with cargoes
from his factories on the African coast. His mode of obtaining slaves
was generally by fair barter, but he also organized hunting parties on
his private account, to operate with various negro kings. It was
customary for parties of sailors and coast blacks to lie in wait near
the streams and little villages and seize the stragglers by twos and
threes, when they were fishing or cultivating their patches of corn.
Sometimes an attack was made on the huts by night and as many seized as
could be conveniently managed in the boats.
Captain Fraley had heard that my uncle was at a slave station near the
Congo river and agreed to give me a passage in one of his coasters, just
starting southward,—a Bristol brig carrying supplies to a factory on the
Angola coast from which she would bring back a cargo of slaves to the
Gambia stations where his chief depots were located. She was a heavy
sailer and when we reached Embomma, about a hundred miles from the
Congo, we found that Captain Willing had left the settlement a week
before, so there was nothing for me to do but to stay on the brig and go
to Angola and thence back to the river Gambia.
The brig was named the _Friendship_ and her captain was a Londoner—one
Thorley—a rough but honest seaman who treated me very well. The mate was
an Irishman and there were eight Portuguese and Danish sailors on board,
an English cabin-boy and two Guinea negroes. We had hardly cleared the
Congo river outward, when the Portuguese and Danes mutinied and took the
vessel. I was below talking with Captain Thorley, when we heard a noise
on deck and he ran up to see what it was about. I waited a few moments
before I followed and, to my horror, stumbled over the little cabin-boy,
lying by the companion rail, with his head split open. The crew were
just then throwing Captain Thorley overboard after having knocked him in
the head with the cook’s axe. At the same time I heard a faint cry of
“Boat! Boat!” and saw our Irish mate drifting astern. One of the
Portuguese sailors ran toward me, brandishing a handspike, but I called
out in Spanish, begging my life, and he turned away. The two Guinea men
were called from below, where they were asleep, and the Portuguese cook
brought them each a tin cup full of rum. While they were drinking it,
two of the mutineers shot them with musket balls through the stomach and
they were then thrown overboard.
I thought my turn was now sure to come, but the fellows, after talking
together a few minutes, held up a cross before me and demanded that I
should swear never to divulge what they had done, which I was glad
enough to do, though with small faith in their goodwill to me. They then
began to overhaul the brig and after plundering the officer’s chests,
filled two boats with provisions and whatever articles they thought most
valuable. I was allowed to get into one of the boats and after scuttling
the brig, they pushed off and steered for the coast which was reached on
the third day after the murders. Both boats were swamped in making a
landing, but some of the provisions and rum-kegs were washed ashore.
About noon we started for the bush, but had not walked far before a gang
of blacks appeared, armed with clubs and spears, and in a few minutes we
were all stripped and bound and I was once more a captive among the
negroes. We had fallen into the hands of a tribe of Kroomen, as the
coast negroes are called, and my ability to talk a little of their lingo
was of service. They marched us inland to their village and our rum was
distributed and a bullock killed for a feast. Here we stayed for two
days and then were taken back to the beach where we found a boat
belonging to an English ship, then in the offing, and soon were safely
on board _The Brothers_, a Liverpool slaver. I told her captain the
story of the loss of the _Friendship_ and the mutineers were at once put
in irons.
_The Brothers_ was a ship of five hundred tons, with a crew of
forty,—English, Scotch and Portuguese. She was coasting for a cargo of
slaves and had a small schooner on deck to run up the rivers. Captain
Baker, her commander, told me that my uncle was at Calabar and promised
to take me there. When we arrived at the outlet of Calabar river, I
learned that Captain Willing was on the Qua, a smaller stream about
eight miles inland and as Captain Baker hoisted out his schooner here I
went on board of her to ascend the river. When we reached the Qua river,
I found that my uncle had gone still farther inland, on a negro hunt,
but on one of his schooners, lying before the negro depot, I found my
old friend Doctor Maxwell.
The surgeon was hardly able to believe the evidence of his eyes. Instead
of the pale-faced, undersized lad of fifteen, he saw a stout, manly
fellow, tanned like a Moor. I related my adventures and a Fishman
messenger was sent off to my uncle with the news of my resurrection, as
Doctor Maxwell called it. He told me that he had been to Brazil and the
West Indies twice, since their escape from the massacre on the night of
the attack by the Dahomen. Only one white had been killed on that
occasion, a sailor, whose head I had seen. The _Coralline_ was then at a
place called Cameroons, a couple of hundred miles down the coast from
Calabar, and Captain Willing was in partnership with a rich Spaniard at
Rio and was shipping cargoes of slaves every month from various stations
on the Guinea coast. The fifth day after my arrival, a message came from
my uncle that I should join him at once and in company with a couple of
Fishmen I set off for the tramp inland.
My uncle was at a large negro town, called Gambo, and he welcomed me
most cordially and told me that my knowledge of negro tongues would make
me very useful to him as an interpreter. Next day I was presented to the
negro king of Gambo, who was called Ephraim. There was some difference
between the languages of the Dahomans and Foulahs and the Gambo natives,
but I soon contrived to pick up a stock of new words.
[Illustration:
BRANDING A NEGRESS AT THE RIO PONGO
From a wood engraving in Canot’s _Twenty Years of an African Slaver_,
New York, 1854
]
Captain Willing was making up a kaffle of slaves from the several lots
brought in by the hunting parties. A kaffle is the common name for a
train of slaves to be driven to the rivers or seacoast. He had a
standing bargain for supplies so there was no chaffering. He bought in
lots of twenty, allowing a thirty-gallon keg of brandy, a half dozen
pieces of colored cottons or twenty-five pounds of gunpowder for any
prime lot. Iron spearheads, coral beads, tobacco and gilt trinkets were
exchanged proportionately for other lots.
The business of examination and choice of stock was done in a shady wood
near the center of the town where my uncle’s quarters were. In shirt and
duck trowsers with palm-leaf hat, he would walk up and down the fettered
line of slaves. Shakoe, the mulatto overseer, was a sort of negro doctor
as well and could tell an unsound slave almost at a glance. He handled
the naked blacks from head to foot, squeezing their joints and muscles,
twisting their arms and legs, examining teeth, eyes and chest, and
pinching breasts and groins without mercy. The slaves stood in couples,
stark naked, and were made to jump, cry out, lie down and roll and hold
their breath for a long time. The women and girls were used no more
gently than the men by this mulatto inspector.
The day before we were to start from Gambo, the branding was done and a
good deal of flogging had to be done also to keep the frightened negroes
quiet. Shakoe’s lash and the heavy whips of his assistant negroes were
not idle for a moment. The slaves were fetched up singly, made to lie
down on their faces where they were held by a big negro while another
kept the branding irons hot in a fire close by and a third applied them
between the shoulders of the shrieking wretches. At first there was
horrible yelling, for the poor negroes expected to be tortured to death
and I was called upon to talk to them in their own lingo, though my
assurances didn’t have much effect. Shakoe plied his leather until it
became actually encrusted with blood.
After the scourgings and brandings were through with for that day, the
negroes were allowed double rations of rice, yams and beans and then
coupled for the march. That night King Ephraim gave a feast to my uncle
and a slave sacrifice was made to the fetish for good luck. The sick,
maimed and feeble negroes, discarded in making up the kaffle, supplied
victims enough for the occasion and several of them were cut to pieces
before we started from Gambo.
Our march to the river was a painful one. Shakoe and his assistant
“devils,” as the slaves, no doubt, considered them, marked their way
with blood. When we reached the Qua and marched along its banks to the
Calabar depot, I let the whole kaffle pass me and the slaves presented a
deplorable appearance as they moved along, scarred and bleeding.
Doctor Maxwell and the two skippers of the vessels were at the station
to receive us. Here the kaffle was overhauled and the barber’s work
done. The heads of all slaves, without distinction of age or sex, were
shaved and they were then scrubbed with sand while standing in the
water. The schooners were fitted with bulkheads, in the fashion of
regular slavers, and the sexes divided on each side. The largest males
were packed first in the hold, sitting cross-legged in rows, back to
back. They faced each other closely and a hundred were crammed into each
schooner under decks. The women and girls were all stowed in one hold.
After securing these below, about fifty were tied around the masts and
rails of both vessels, so that every available foot of space was covered
with black flesh. As it was impossible to shift them while we were in
the river, they were served their rations from wooden buckets let down
by bamboo poles to each row. We made good progress down the Calabar and
arrived at the Cameroons in five days losing only three boys and two
girls who were suffocated in the hold and thrown overboard at sea. At
Cameroons we found the _Coralline_, waiting for her freight, and I soon
trod her familiar decks.
The barracoon, where the slaves were collected, was a large building
near the landing place and the next morning after we arrived the loading
of the ship commenced early. The blacks were all stripped naked and
shipped by twos and threes, in canoes, through the surf. They were
shackled down in tiers, on the deck of the _Coralline_, sitting between
each other’s legs, fore and aft. One slave deck rested on stanchions,
over the water stowage and the blacks were strung across in gangs of six
or eight, according to size, and their ankle-bolts were secured by two
iron rods running amidships and padlocked in the center. When the rods
were drawn out the shackles would drop and a gang could take its turn to
go on deck for air.
We sailed on May 11th, 1808, bound for Dutch Guiana. There was a fine
breeze and everything was in order. The slaves were given two meals a
day, of boiled beans or rice and each had a light wooden dish and spoon
tied about the neck. The ninth day out we had an exciting time as there
was an attempted revolt. It was all due to Shakoe. The mulatto was hated
by every slave on board and that morning one of them struck him with his
shackle and then jumped overboard. Shakoe became furious and rushed down
into the hold cutting right and left with his whip. By some means a gang
got loose and broke off the iron rod that fastened their ring bolts.
They at once attacked Shakoe and beat his brains out and succeeded in
liberating half a dozen other gangs and got on deck all together. Our
watch and the negro sentinels immediately fired their muskets into the
crowd of naked blacks who had begun to arm themselves with handspikes,
buckets and any other loose missiles. Doctor Maxwell and I were on deck
at the time and Captain Willing came up in a hurry with a pistol in each
hand. Our white crew rushed aft and the mate served out arms with which
the blacks were driven back but not before two sailors were killed and
one wounded. It was a terrible affair while it lasted. The negroes
fought like wild beasts and had they succeeded in releasing all below,
we should have been overpowered and everyone slaughtered. Thirteen
blacks were shot on the deck and seven seriously wounded. All these were
flung into the sea. It was a narrow escape for the brig. Slaving is a
dangerous business at sea as well as ashore. Shakoe deserved his fate as
he abused the blacks shamefully. His head was beaten to pieces,—a
ghastly sight, and the negroes tore his whip into bits no larger than my
finger.
On July 14th the _Coralline_ anchored at Berbice, Dutch Guiana. The
blacks were landed at once and two days later were placed on sale in the
market. There was a scarcity of hands on the sugar plantations and good
prices were paid for the slaves. The Dutch maids, in short green jackets
and scarlet petticoats, walked around inspecting the naked Africans as
if it was a common thing. The auctioneer sat on a high chair at one end
of the large room and the slaves stood on a stool in front of him. He
made them turn round about, as they stood in their breech-cloths before
the people, and the purchasers walked up and felt of them to try their
flesh and soundness. The darkies were obliged to go through every sort
of motion. It seemed at times as if their arms would be pulled out of
joint or their jaws cracked by some of the Dutch boors. One dame was not
satisfied until she forced a wench to screech by squeezing her breast
cruelly. In two days the vendue was over. The grown men fetched as high
as a thousand guilders and the boys and girls and women from seven to
eight hundred, which were considered good prices.
Leaving Berbice, the _Coralline_ made a quick run to Rio de Janeiro
where I met my uncle’s partner, Don Juan de Cobral, a Portuguese trader
of great wealth, who lived in style at a country house in the mountains,
a few miles out from Rio. He had a dozen illegitimate children, whom he
was educating, and lived with their mothers on his large estate. Donna
Maria, a quadroon girl, sixteen years old, was at her father’s house
when I first went there with my uncle, and entertained us with playing
on the harp and singing. She was the handsomest young woman, with negro
blood in her veins, that I ever saw. This girl, with several of her
brothers and sisters, was sold in 1813 to help pay her father’s
creditors.
[Illustration:
A DUTCH PLANTER IN SURINAM IN HIS MORNING DRESS
From an engraving in Stedman’s _Narrative of an Expedition to
Surinam_, London, 1796
]
A few days after our arrival at Rio, my uncle took me for a walk on the
promenade overlooking the wonderful bay, during which he told me that he
had withdrawn from his partnership with Don Juan. I also learned that
the English government had abolished the slave trade with her colonies
and that henceforth no slaver could sail under the British flag.
“Captain Fraley,” said my uncle, “has broken up his coast stations and
left the field clear for us. The _Coralline_ is now a Spanish vessel and
you and I, Phil, must sink our English birthrights and resign all claims
to our larger estates in Stockford.”
I laughed at my uncle’s joke and said I was as ready to sail under the
Spanish flag as any other. Shortly after this the _Coralline_ shipped a
new crew of Portuguese and Spaniards and we sailed from Rio, bound for
the Guinea coast. Cape Palmas, on the Ivory Coast, was reached on Nov.
3, 1808, where we shipped forty Kroo fishermen with their canoes and
three days later reached a place called Assinam, on the Windward Coast,
about two miles from a river said to be populous. The country thereabout
was ruled by a king known as Prince Vinegar who reminded me of my old
father-in-law, King Mammee. Here we set up covered sheds surrounded by a
picket fence and in time the settlement grew to be one of the most
thriving on the Coast and was the means of saving scores of British
merchants from ruin if it did no good otherwise. The river made a bend
near us creating a little harbor. By means of our fast schooners,
together with the _Coralline_ and her mate, an American-built brig named
the _Florida_, we kept up a constant tapping of the coast between Cape
Palmas and the Rio Gambia, where Captain Fraley’s stations were still
supplied with negroes. My uncle Richard called himself Don Ricardo and
my name was transmogrified into Felipe. Our settlement we christened Rio
Basso where we soon had extensive barracoons erected on the mainland and
on several small islands in the river. My uncle made several voyages in
the _Corraline_, with full cargoes, and before long became noted in
Africa and the West Indies as a shrewd and successful trader who never
lost a cargo, though privateers were swarming in every sea.