SOME AMERICAN SLAVE SHIPS
The first American-built slaver seems to have been a small ship, the
_Desire_, built at Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1636. In the summer
of 1637, she went on a trading voyage to the West Indies and part of
her cargo was two women and fifteen boys, members of the Pequot
tribe of Indians, who had been taken captive after the swamp fight
at Fairfield, Connecticut. The _Desire_ came to anchor at
“Providence Isle” and there the unfortunate Indians were sold into
slavery. The return cargo was cotton, tobacco and negro slaves, and
when the ship reached Boston, on Feb. 26, 1638, three of these
negroes were sold to Samuel Maverick, who lived on the island in the
harbor now known as East Boston. How many were brought to Boston at
that time is not known, but it was not long before negro and Indian
slaves were owned in all of the New England settlements, though in
limited numbers.
Edward Randolph, the government agent, in a report made in 1676,
states that a few slaves had been brought into New England from
Guinea, Madagascar and the West Indies, and Governor Bradstreet,
writing in 1680, said that “no company of slaves have been brought
since the establishment of the Colony fifty years ago, except about
two years ago, after a twenty months’ voyage to Madagascar, a vessel
brought forty or fifty negroes.”[41]
-----
Footnote 41:
_Massachusetts Historical Society Collections_, VIII, 337.
-----
This seems to refer to a considerable importation,—a vessel whose
principal cargo was slaves, for the frequent appearance of negroes
in New England, in the latter part of the seventeenth century and in
still greater numbers in the following century, shows that there
must have been a constant influx, though never in large numbers. In
1742 there were 1,514 slaves owned in Boston and twelve years later
the number had increased to 4,489. When the census was taken in
1764, there were 5,779 negro slaves and free blacks living in the
town.
In 1708, Governor Cranston of Rhode Island reported that one hundred
and three vessels had been built in that province between 1698 and
1708, all of which were trading with the West Indies and the
Southern Colonies. They took out lumber and fish and brought back
molasses in the direct trade, but “in most cases made a slave voyage
in between.” Not infrequently these Rhode Island slavers, after
having sold their prime slaves in the West Indies, brought home to
New England the less salable remnants of their cargoes.
Here is the advertisement of one of these Rhode Islanders, taken
from the July 3, 1758, issue of the _Boston Gazette_:
Just imported from Africa, and to be sold on board the brig
_Jenney_, William Ellery, Commander, now lying at New-Boston
[_i.e._, West End of Boston], A Number of likely Negro Boys and
Girls, from 12 to 24 years of Age; Inquire of said Ellery on board
said Brig, where constant attandance is given.
_Note._ The above Slaves have all had the Small-Pox.—Treasurer’s
Notes, and New England Rum will be as Pay.—
This trade in Indians and Africans and in the ownership of slaves
was a universally recognized economic condition until the latter
part of the eighteenth century. It was like the belief in witchcraft
or that the world was flat. It was accepted by all.
In 1641, Massachusetts adopted its first code of laws in which it
was provided “There shall never be any Bond Slavery, Villinage, or
Captivity amongst us, unless it be lawful Captives taken in just
Wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves, or are sold
to us.... This exempts none from servitude who shall be judged
thereto by authority.” It was under this authority that the Court at
Salem directed that Daniel and Provided Southwick, the children of
Quakers, should be sold to the English in Virginia or Barbadoes. But
the ship masters at that time (1659) were more humane than the
judges and no one would have anything to do with the proposed
transportation and sale of white children and they eventually were
released. Seven years earlier, in 1652, two hundred and seventy
Scotchmen, taken prisoners at the battle of Dunbar, were sent to
Boston and sold for a term of years, into servitude comparable with
negro slavery. In London, the capital city of the realm, there were
20,000 negro slaves, as late as 1764, and these blacks were openly
bought and sold on “Change.” It was then the swagger thing for a
gentleman to put a silver collar about the neck of his body servant,
and Matthew Dyer, working goldsmith at the Crown in Duck Lane,
Orchard Street, Westminster, advertised that he made “silver
padlocks and collars for Blacks or Dogs.”
There formerly was considerable noise and vituperation on both sides
of Mason and Dixon’s line concerning “the Divine institution” of
slavery and the trade in human flesh. As late as Mar. 26, 1884, a
congressman from North Carolina, during a speech in Congress, saw
fit to remark that “Massachusetts is a State more responsible under
heaven than any other community in this land for the introduction of
slavery into this Continent, with all the curses that have followed
it; that it is the nursing mother of the horrors of the middle
passage, and that after slavery in Massachusetts was found not to
pay, her slaves were sold down South for a consideration, and then
their former owners thanked God and sang the long metre Doxology
through their noses, that they were responsible no longer for the
sin of human slavery.”[42]
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Footnote 42:
_Congressional Record_, Mar. 26, 1884, p. 2284.
-----
It is as silly and futile to talk through one’s nose as it is
inharmonious and unpleasant to sing through that organ. Slavery was
largely a question of economic conditions and excluding the saints,
the philosophers and the fanatics, men placed under similar
conditions usually think and act very much alike.
American slave ships made their voyages to and from the African
coast until the very outbreak of the Civil War brought on by that
trade. During the three years ending December 31, 1807, two hundred
and two slave ships entered the port of Charleston, South Carolina.
Seventy of these were owned in Great Britain, three in France, one
in Sweden, sixty-one in Charleston, fifty-nine in Rhode Island and
eight in other American ports. Altogether, 39,075 slaves were
brought in. Of the fifty-nine ships hailing from Rhode Island,
Bristol vessels brought 3,914; Newport, 3,488; Providence, 556, and
Warren, 280, mostly in brigs and schooners of two hundred tons or
less.[43]
-----
Footnote 43:
Munro, _Tales of an Old Sea Port_ (Bristol, R. I.), Princeton,
1917.
-----
In this chapter it is proposed to narrate the adventures of certain
of these ships concerning which exact information is now obtainable.
Among the vessels sailing from Charleston, during this period, was
the brig _Tartar_, James Taylor, master, owned by Frederick Tavell
of Charleston, a native of Switzerland. She cleared Nov. 22, 1806,
bound for Pongo River, just north of Sierra Leone, for a cargo of
slaves, and the owner instructed Francis Roux, the supercargo, to
make his trade as much as possible at the Rio Pongo and not to trade
at other places on the coast. The underwriters not allowing a stay
on the coast of more than four months, any cargo not disposed of
must be brought back to Charleston, and in case slaves were found to
be scarce, he was authorized to trade for beeswax to the amount of
one-third of the return cargo. All slaves taken aboard must be
marked or stamped. “Those belonging to the Cargo must be marked F T,
and those that may be shipped on board by James Taylor, Captain, for
Returns of his Four Hogsheads Tobacco, shall bear his Marks, in
order to have Mortality, if any, supported by property concerned.”
The brig measured 160 tons burden and mounted no guns. Her master,
James Taylor, was born in Boston, but lived in Charleston, as did
most of the crew. The ship’s doctor was a Frenchman. The cargo, for
trade on the coast, consisted of tobacco, brandy, claret, tar,
flour, five bales of dry goods, ten dozen of negro low pipes and a
box of white hats.
[Illustration:
CAPTURE OF AMERICAN SLAVE SHIP “MARTHA,” JUNE 6, 1850, OFF AMBRIZ,
BY U.S. BRIG “PERRY”
From a lithograph in Foote’s _Africa and the American Flag_, New
York, 1854
]
The brig arrived at the Rio Pongo, Jan. 24, 1807, and slaves being
scarce, the lading was not completed until Jan. 9, 1808,
notwithstanding the limitation of the underwriters. The slaves were
all natives of the Windward Coast and bore various marks in
accordance with their ownership, viz., an O on the right thigh; an O
on the right shoulder; a pipe bowl on the left hip; an O on the left
arm.
The _Tartar_ made the passage toward the American coast without any
unusual event until Feb. 2, 1808, when near Martinique, she was
overhauled and captured by H.M. ship of war _Ulysses_ and taken to
Barbadoes, where she was condemned as a lawful prize because (1) she
was proceeding from Africa to a colony of the enemy (_i.e._,
France), under a false designation, _i.e._, to Charleston: and (2)
because trade in slaves was contrary to the laws of America after
Jan. 1, 1808. Captain Taylor deposed that he had laid a course for
Martinique because he was likely to be in need of provisions, and
had he received an advantageous offer he should have sold his slaves
while there.[44]
-----
Footnote 44:
The briefs in this case were printed in London for the benefit of
the Lords Commissioners, sitting as a Court of Appeal, and from
one of these rare originals, owned by the Marine Research Society,
this account of the voyage has been abstracted.
-----
The schooner _Nancy_ of Charleston, South Carolina, sailed from that
port on June 1, 1807, bound for Africa, on a slaving voyage. She was
built at Great Egg Harbor, New Jersey, and was owned by John Gardner
and John C. Phillips, merchants of Charleston. She carried a cargo
of lumber and provisions, a small supply of trading goods, such as
handkerchiefs and beads, and $6,000 in money. Her master, Joshua
Viall, was a native of Warren, Rhode Island, and his crew consisted
of six Americans and three Portuguese, one of whom died of the
African disease, or slow fever, on the return voyage.
The _Nancy_ arrived at Senegal about the first of August, and there
Captain Viall sold his lumber and provisions and with the proceeds
and the cash he had brought with him, purchased eighty slaves at an
average cost of $125 each. The _Nancy_ was only 67 feet long, 20
feet 6 inches wide and 9 feet deep, which did not allow much spare
room for either crew or cargo, or for Thomas Bartholomew, a
passenger. Four or five days out from Senegal, as the slaves were
messing together one afternoon, the males and females apart, one of
the males seized the master as he was pouring molasses into his
victuals, whereupon the rest of the males rose and tried to seize
Captain Viall, but he escaped from their clutches and with the aid
of the crew drove the blacks below after small arms had been given
out. One negro jumped overboard during the mêlée and a few were
slightly wounded. This outbreak left the crew in a very nervous
state, especially when the two mates and two of the seamen soon
after fell sick of fevers, and not long after one of the seamen, in
a night watch, imagining that the slaves were about to rise, shot
and killed one of the slaves and the next night stabbed another.
Finding himself short-handed, Captain Viall decided to make for a
neutral port in the West Indies—St. Thomas or St. Bartholomew—to
obtain hands to navigate the schooner. About five leagues northward
of St. Thomas he fell in with H.M. schooner _Venus_, and
notwithstanding that he was in distress and asked for assistance, a
prize crew was put aboard and the _Nancy_ was ordered to Tortola,
where she was condemned for prosecuting a voyage from a French
colony and actually intending for the Havana or some other port in
the West Indies, hostile to Great Britain, instead of for
Charleston, the port named in her papers.
From time to time, after the abolition of the slave trade in 1808,
sporadic efforts were made by the United States Navy to suppress the
“smuggling” trade in slaves, but it was not until 1819 that a
squadron was sent to the African coast charged with the duty of
suppressing the trade carried on in American vessels. A number of
the officers in command were Southerners and the effectiveness of
the work done by them may be judged from the fact that Captain M. C.
Perry reported, “I could not even hear of an American slaving
vessel; and I am fully impressed with the belief that there is not
one at present afloat”; while Captain Trenchard reported that there
were three hundred slave ships on the coast and backed up his
opinion by capturing five American slavers. Beggarly appropriations
by Congress made it impossible to keep American naval vessels on the
African coast until the Ashburton Treaty with Great Britain, in
1842, made it compulsory that the United States should maintain a
“sufficient and adequate” naval force for the “suppression” of the
slave trade and the following year Commodore Perry was sent to the
African coast with four vessels under his command.
The slave coast was three thousand miles long and in playing the
game of “hide and seek” the odds were always with the slaver, for he
had only to run up a Spanish or Portuguese flag to be secure from
attack or injury. Moreover, in following the orders issued by the
Navy Department, only slavers with slaves actually on board could be
seized. Consequently, fully equipped slavers would sail past the
American fleet, deliberately make all preparations for shipping a
cargo and then, when the English were not near, “sell” the ship to a
Spaniard, hoist the Spanish flag, and again sail gaily past the
American fleet with a full cargo of slaves.[45]
-----
Footnote 45:
DuBois, _The Suppression of the African Slave Trade_, Cambridge,
1896.
-----
In 1845, the U.S. brig _Truxton_, captured, in the Rio Pongo, the
schooner _Spitfire_ of New Orleans, that had already run several
cargoes. She only measured about one hundred tons but when captured
had stowed 346 negroes, and the previous year had landed 339 near
Matanzas, Cuba. “Between her decks, where the slaves were packed,
there was not room enough for a man to sit, unless inclining his
head forward; their food was half a pint of rice per day, with one
pint of water. No one can imagine the sufferings of slaves on their
passage across, unless the conveyances in which they are taken are
examined. A good hearty negro costs but twenty dollars, or
thereabouts, and brings from three to four hundred dollars in
Cuba.”[46]
-----
Footnote 46:
Foote, _Africa and the American Flag_, New York, 1854.
-----
From this time on, United States war vessels were kept on the
African coast and slaving vessels were taken at intervals. One of
the most important captures was the ship _Martha_ of New York, taken
by the U.S. brig _Perry_, in June, 1850. The _Martha_ was a large
ship with two tiers of painted ports and was standing in for the
land towards Ambriz when overhauled. When within range of the guns
of the _Perry_, she hoisted the American ensign, shortened sail and
backed her main topsail. An officer was sent to board her and as his
boat was rounding her stern, the people on board, recognized his
uniform, and for the first time became aware that the brig was an
American vessel. The American colors were at once hauled down and
Brazilian colors hoisted in place. When the officer reached the
deck, the captain of the _Martha_ denied having papers, log, or
anything else; but it had been noted on the _Perry_, that something
had been thrown overboard, and another boat was sent which picked up
the writing desk of the captain, containing papers identifying him
as an American citizen. When confronted with this evidence, he
admitted that his ship was equipped for the slave trade. A slave
deck was found already laid below, with ample supplies of farina and
beans, four hundred wooden spoons, and necessary iron bars and
woodwork for securing slaves. The captain had expected to ship
eighteen hundred slaves during the following night and before
daylight to have been clear of the coast. The _Martha_ was condemned
at New York and the captain was admitted to bail for $5,000, which
was afterwards reduced to $3,000, which he forfeited and eventually
escaped justice.
As the clipper ship trade with California and China became less
profitable in the late ’50’s, it is not strange that some of these
fast vessels should have been used in the slave trade. One of the
best known was the _Nightingale_, a beautiful ship built at
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1851. She was lavishly decorated and
her first voyage was to accommodate a trans-Atlantic excursion to
the World’s Fair in London; but her builder got into financial
difficulties and the intended voyage never was made. After making
several quick passages in the Australian and China trade she was
sold in New York, in 1860, to unknown parties, and her history
during the next eight months is veiled in mystery. It has been
stated that she at once sailed for Rio and went under the Brazilian
flag, but Commodore Perkins, while acting master of U.S.S. _Sumter_,
on the African coast, wrote home on April 15, 1860:
“The clipper ship _Nightingale_ of Salem, shipped a cargo of 2000
negroes and has gone clear with them.... She is a powerful clipper
and is the property of the captain, Bowen, who is called the ‘Prince
of Slavers.’”
The _Nightingale_ returned to New York in the late summer of 1860
and loaded with grain for Liverpool. On Nov. 24, 1860, she sailed
for St. Thomas, on the West Coast of Africa, and the _London Times_
remarked at the time, “It was well known in certain circles before
she sailed that she was a slaver.” She was reported at St. Thomas,
Jan. 14, 1861, and continued to dodge about the African coast until
April 21st, when she was seized by the U.S. sloop-of-war _Saratoga_,
Captain Taylor, who described her capture as follows:
“For some time the American ship _Nightingale_ of Boston, Francis
Bowen, master, has been watched on this coast under the suspicion of
being engaged in the slave trade. Several times we have fallen in
with her and although fully assured that she was about to engage in
this illicit trade she has had the benefit of the doubt. A few days
ago observing her at anchor at Kabenda, I came in and boarded her
and was induced to believe she was then preparing to receive slaves.
Under this impression the ship was got under way and went some
distance off but with the intention of returning under the cover of
the night; which was done and at 10 P. M. we anchored and sent two
boats under Lieutenant Guthrie to surprise her and it was found that
she had 961 slaves on board and was expecting more. Lieut. Guthrie
took possession of her as a prize and I have directed him to take
her to New York. She is a clipper of 1000 tons and has _Nightingale_
of Boston on her stern and flies American colors.”
The slaves were landed at Liberia, but not before one hundred and
sixty of them had died from African fever, which also attacked the
crew. On reaching Monrovia, little surplus food was found and the
mortality among the fever-stricken negroes must have been appalling.
The _Nightingale_ arrived at New York, June 13, 1861, where
Lieutenant Guthrie reported that Francis Bowen and a Spaniard named
Valentino Cortino, had made their escape while the ship lay at
anchor at St. Thomas. John J. Guthrie was a North Carolinian and
Bowen afterwards related that Guthrie had allowed him to get away.
The _Nightingale_ was condemned and purchased for the government and
afterwards used as a supply and store ship with the Gulf blockading
squadron. She was abandoned at sea April 17, 1893, in the North
Atlantic, at the time flying the Norwegian flag.[47]
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Footnote 47:
Howe and Matthews, _American Clipper Ships_, Salem, 1926.
-----
The _Sunny South_, another fast clipper ship, built at Williamsburg,
New York, in 1854, was sold in 1859, at Havana, for $18,000 and
renamed the _Emanuela_ and afterwards used in the slave trade. On
Oct. 10, 1860, she was captured in the doldrums of the Mozambique
Channel, with over eight hundred slaves aboard, by the _Brisk_,
British screw sloop-of-war. When first sighted in a haze, her
occupation was not suspected on account of her size and the
unusually large number of staysails and studding-sails set, and when
she hove to, she did so under full sail, without clewing anything
up. She was sent in to Mauritius, condemned as a prize and sold to
be used as a British cruiser.
[Illustration:
“NIGHTINGALE,” 1060 TONS, BUILT AT PORTSMOUTH, N. H., IN 1851
From a lithograph by N. Currier, after the drawing by C. Parsons
made in 1854.
]
One of the last of the slave-smuggling fleet was the yacht
_Wanderer_, built at Port Jefferson, Long Island, for a wealthy
member of the New York Yacht Club. She was launched in June, 1857,
and measured 260 tons burden. The next year she was sold to Capt. W.
C. Corrie. Her sailing master, Semmes, was a brother of the man who
afterwards commanded the Confederate cruiser _Alabama_. The
_Wanderer_ cleared from Charleston for Trinidad, as if on a pleasure
voyage, but made St. Helena and then went to the Congo. All the
while she was flying the flag of the New York Yacht Club and when
Captain Corrie fell in with the British warship _Medusa_, cruising
on the Congo coast in search of slaves, he ran alongside and
entertained the British officers with the best on board.
The supercargo afterwards told newspaper reporters that after a
sufficient number of bottles had been emptied, the British officers
were facetiously invited to inspect the _Wanderer_, to see if she
was not a slaver—a good joke that was appreciated by everybody.
After the _Medusa_ had proceeded up the coast, the _Wanderer_
quietly slipped into the Congo, to the crowded barracoons, where 750
young negroes from thirteen to eighteen years of age were taken
aboard. She got clear of the coast with her cargo, which she safely
landed on the Georgia coast about the 1st of December, 1858.
One of the owners of the _Wanderer_, Capt. A. C. McGhee of Columbus,
Georgia, was aboard and many years after he told the story of the
voyage.
“The most difficult part of the voyage was to get into port. The
only way to enter the mouth of the Savannah river was under the
black muzzles of the guns of the fort and it would have been madness
to attempt to enter with the contraband cargo, in open daylight.
Instead, Captain Semmes crept into the mouth of the Great Ogeechee,
by night, and ascended the river to the big swamp and there lay
concealed while he communicated with Charles L. A. Lamar, his
Savannah owner.
“Lamar thereupon announced that he was going to give a grand ball in
honor of the officers and garrison of the fort, and insisted that
the soldiers, as well as their superiors, should partake of the good
cheer. When the gayety was at its height, the _Wanderer_ stole into
the river and passed the guns of the fort unchallenged in the
darkness and made her way to Lamar’s plantations, some distance up
the river. The human cargo was soon disembarked and placed in charge
of the old rice-field negroes, who were nearly as savage as the new
importations.”[48]
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Footnote 48:
John R. Spears, _The American Slave Trade_, New York, 1900.
-----
This venture was conducted on such a scale and so many were
concerned in it, that it was impossible to keep the story a secret
for long and before the month was over the United States District
Attorney was on the trail and Lamar wrote to an associate that “hell
is to pay.” Arrests followed, there were hearings and Congress heard
of it; but the smugglers eventually escaped. The _Wanderer_ was
condemned and sold at auction, when she was bid in by her former
owners at a fourth of her value. It was afterwards said by one of
the owners that the “slaves that had been purchased for a few beads
and bandanna handkerchiefs [of course an exaggeration] were sold in
the market for from $600 to $700 apiece. The owners of the vessel
paid Captain Semmes $3500 for his services and cleared upward of
$10,000 apiece on the venture for themselves.”
Not long after this the case of the _Wanderer_ was brought to the
attention of the New York Yacht Club and on Feb. 2, 1859, Captain
Corrie was expelled from membership and the _Wanderer_ no longer had
the right to fly the flag of the club.
As slave trading at that time must be done “under cover,” it is not
strange that exact information of the succeeding movements of the
vessel is now difficult to obtain. One story relates that she sailed
for the West Coast of Africa in the spring of 1859, under Captain
Semmes, and again brought to the Georgia coast a cargo of slaves,
many of whom were sent to New Orleans and there sold. In October,
1859, she went to sea, without papers, under command of a “Captain
Martin,” and on Nov. 22d, when off the Canaries, the captain hailed
a French vessel and went aboard to obtain a supply of provisions.
The rest of the crew, having shipped without knowing the nature of
the proposed voyage, seized the _Wanderer_ and setting all sail
steered for Boston, where they arrived Dec. 24th and at once
surrendered to the United States authorities. On board were two
Portuguese women whom “Captain Martin” had carried off from one of
the Azores with the intention of trading them on the African coast
for negroes.
On learning of the arrival of the _Wanderer_, Lamar came to Boston,
and entered a formal demand for the vessel, claiming that Martin had
piratically seized her, and after a long hearing and appeal she was
restored to him.[49] Early in March, 1860, she cleared from Boston
and after reaching Savannah is said to have again made a voyage to
the West Coast. After the war broke out she was seized by the
Federal authorities and used as a revenue cutter. Later, she was in
the Central American trade and eventually was driven ashore on Cape
Henry, where her bones found a last resting place.
It was the fate of a New England sea captain, a native of Portland,
Maine, to pay the extreme penalty for slave trading, as late as Feb.
21, 1862. In the summer of 1860, Capt. Nathaniel Gordon, master of
the ship _Erie_, of 500 tons burden, and an experienced slaver,
sailed from New York, via Havana, for the Congo River, where he took
aboard 890 negroes, 600 of whom were boys and girls, and “thrust
them, densely crowded, between the decks and immediately set sail
for Cuba.” So reads the indictment. When only fifty miles from the
African coast, the _Erie_ was taken by the U.S. warship _Mohican_,
the negroes were carried to Liberia and released and Gordon and his
ship were sent to New York. Gordon was brought to trial as a pirate,
under the May 15, 1820, law, which made slave trading an act of
piracy, and the outcome was a mistrial. The following November, he
was again brought to trial and in two days a verdict of “guilty” was
returned. He was hanged on Feb. 21, 1862, after attempting to commit
suicide by poison,—a fate richly deserved but not attained by
thousands of others who had traded in human flesh.
-----
Footnote 49:
Bradlee, “The Last of the American Slavers,” in the _Marine
Journal_, May 22, 1926.
-----