RENEWAL OF PIRACY AND THE SLAVE-TRADE AT THE CLOSE OF THE EUROPEAN
WAR--BRITISH SQUADRON--TREATIES WITH THE NATIVES--ORIGIN OF
BARRACOONS--USE OF THE AMERICAN FLAG IN THE SLAVE-TRADE--OFFICIAL
CORRESPONDENCE ON THE SUBJECT--CONDITION OF SLAVES ON BOARD OF THE
SLAVE-VESSELS--CASE OF THE VELOZ PASSAGEIRA--FRENCH SQUADRON.
It was the cessation of the last great European war, which assembled
the matured villany of the world on the African coast to re-establish
the slave-trade. This traffic had been suspended during the latter
years of the contest, as England and the United States had abolished
it, and the former was strong enough at sea to prevent other European
powers from engaging in it. In fact, she had swept almost the whole
European marine from the ocean. The treaties formed at the peace, left
Europe to the strife between anarchy and despotism; and gave up the
coast of Africa to the slave-trade and piracy.
Every evil and every fear which have harassed the world since that
time, seem to be the retributions of an indignant Providence. Let
it not be imagined that these dealings of justice with men are at an
end. What could atone for giving up the coasts of a whole continent
to be ravaged by the slave-ships of France, Spain, and Portugal?
What compensation for this vicious and deadly scourge has Africa yet
received? The cruising, suffering, sickness, deaths and expenses of
nearly half a century have not remedied the crime of signing these
treaties. The ambassador, minister, or whoever he was, that signed
them, bears a load of guilt, such as few mortal men have assumed.
England set about remedying this in a more commendable spirit, as soon
as the years of free and unrestricted crime, which she had really
granted to these nations, were run out. During about twenty years
subsequently, when treaties with these powers had granted mutual right
of search and capture, three hundred vessels were seized, having
slaves on board. But during the latter part of this period, more than
one hundred thousand half-dead negroes were annually landed from
slave-vessels in Cuba and Brazil.
In 1839 the corrective was more stringently applied. Permission had
then, or soon after, been wrung from different slave-trading powers,
to capture vessels outward-bound for Africa, when fitted for the
slave-trade, as well as after they had taken in their cargoes. The
treaties provided that vessels equipped for the traffic might be
captured, so as to prevent the crime. A slaver was thus to be taken,
because she was a slaver; just as it is better to shoot the wolf before
he has killed the sheep than afterwards. If a vessel, therefore, was
found on the African coast with slave-irons, water in sufficient
quantity for a slave-cargo, with a slave-deck laid for packing
slaves--somewhat as the carcases of sheep and pigs in a railway train,
with the exception of the fresh air--she was seized and condemned
before committing the overt act. Under this arrangement, with a
rigorous squadron, double the number of captures were made, during the
next ten years, as compared with the previous twenty.
Seeing, then, that, as before noticed, one thousand and seventy
slave-vessels were captured, and of the slaves who were not dead,
a great proportion were landed at Sierra Leone, and that the whole
population of that colony, although established for nearly sixty years,
does not amount to more than forty-five thousand souls, young and old,
it may be conceived what a fearful waste of life has arisen even from
deliverance.
The efforts of this squadron were conjoined with those of France and
the United States. The former had withdrawn from the treaty stipulating
the right of search, and sent a squadron of her own to prevent French
vessels from engaging in the slave-trade; and the United States, which
never has surrendered, and never will surrender, the inviolability
of her own flag to a foreign power, guaranteed, in 1842, to keep a
squadron on the coast. These, together with other subsidiary means, had
reduced the export of slaves in 1849 to about thirty-seven thousand,
from one hundred and five thousand. And since that period the trade
has lessened, until in Brazil, the greater slave-mart, it has become
almost extinct; although at times it has been earned on briskly with
the island of Cuba.
The subsidiary means alluded to arose out of the presence of the
squadrons, and would have had no effect without them. They consist in
arrangements, on the part of England, with some of the native powers,
to join in checking the evil, and substitute legal trade, and in
the conversion of the old slave-factories and forts into positions
defensive against their former purpose.
These measures have also prepared the way for the establishment of
Christian missions, as well as permitted to legitimate traffic its
full development. Missions and the slave-trade have an inverse ratio
between them as to their progress. When the one dwindles, the other
grows. Although it was no ostensible purpose of the squadron to forward
missions, yet the presence of cruisers has been essential to their
establishment and success.
Trade of all kinds was originally an adjunct to the slave-trade.
Cargoes were to be sold where they could find a purchaser. Gold, ivory,
dye-stuffs and pepper were the articles procured on the coast. All of
these are from exhaustible sources. The great vegetable productions
of the country, constituting heavy cargoes, have but lately come into
the course of commerce. Hunting and roaming about supplied the former
articles of commerce. The heavier articles now in demand require
more industry with the hands, and a settled life. Trade thus becomes
inconsistent with slavery, and hostile to it; and the more so as it
becomes more dependent on the collection of oil, ground-nuts, and
other products of agriculture. Covering the coast now with trading
establishments, excludes the slaver. The efforts of the squadrons were
necessary to carry out this proceeding, for commerce needed to be
protected against the piracies of the slaver afloat and the ravages of
the slaver on shore.
Exposure to capture gave origin to the barracoons. A slaver could
no longer leisurely dispose of her cargo, at different points, in
return for slaves who happened to be there. The crime now required
concealment and rapidity. Wholesale dealers on shore had to collect
victims sufficient for a cargo to be taken on board at a moment’s
notice. This required that the slaver should arrive at the station,
with arrangements previously made with the slave-factor, ready to “take
in;” or that she should bring over a cargo of goods in payment for the
slaves.
In the case of falling in with British cruisers, an American slaver
was inviolate, on presenting her register, or sea-letter, as a proof
of nationality, and could not be searched or detained. But the risk
of falling in with American cruisers, especially if co-operating
with the British, led to the disguise of legal trading; with a cargo
corresponding to the manifest, and all the ship’s papers in form. An
instance of this occurred, as will be seen, in the capture of the
second slaver by the “Perry.”
The American flag, in these ways, became deeply involved in the slave
traffic. How far this acted injuriously to the interests of Africa, is
seen in the complaints of Buchanan and Roberts, and in the reports of
our ministers and consuls, and of those of the English, at Brazil. In
1849, the British consul at Rio, in his public correspondence, says:
“One of the most notorious slave-dealers in this capital, when speaking
of the employment of American vessels in the slave-trade, said, a few
days ago: ‘I am worried by the Americans, who insist upon my hiring
their vessels for slave-trade.’”
Of this there is also abundant and distressing evidence from our own
diplomatic officers. Besides a lengthy correspondence from a preceding
minister near the court of Brazil, the President of the United States
transmitted a report from the Secretary of State, in December, 1850, to
the Senate of the United States, with documents relating to the African
slave-trade. A resolution had previously passed the Senate, calling
upon the Executive for this information.
In these documents it is stated that “the number of American vessels
which, since the 1st of July, 1844, until the 1st of October
last (1849), sailed for the coast of Africa from this city, is
ninety-three.... Of these vessels, all, except five, have been sold and
delivered on the coast of Africa, and have been engaged in bringing
over slaves, and many of them have been captured with slaves on
board.... This pretended sale takes place at the moment when the slaves
are ready to be shipped; the American captain and his crew going on
shore, as the slaves are coming off, while the Portuguese or Italian
_passengers_, who came out from Rio in her, all at once became the
master and crew of the vessel. Those of the American crew who do not
die of coast-fever, get back as they can, many of them being compelled
to come over in slave-vessels, in order to get back at all. There is
evidence in the records of the consulate, of slaves having started
two or three times from the shore, and the master and crew from their
vessel in their boat, carrying with them the flag and ship’s papers;
when, the parties becoming frightened, both retroceded; the slaves were
returned to the shore, and the American master and crew again went
on board the vessel. The stars and stripes were again hoisted over
her, and kept flying until the cause of the alarm (an English cruiser)
departed from the coast, and the embarkation was safely effected.”
On the other hand, we have the following notice from Brazil: “As in
former years, the slave-dealers have derived the greatest assistance
and protection for their criminal purposes, from the use of the
American flag, I am happy to add that these lawless and unprincipled
traders are at present deprived of this valuable protection, by a late
determination of the American naval commander-in-chief on this station,
who has caused three vessels, illegally using the flag of the United
States, and which were destined for African voyages, to be seized on
their leaving this harbor. This proceeding has caused considerable
alarm and embarrassment to the slave-dealers; and, should it be
continued, will be a severe blow to all slave-trading interests.”
Mr. Tod, the American Minister at the court of Brazil, in a letter to
the Secretary of State, says: “As my predecessors had already done,
I have, from time to time, called the attention of our government to
the necessity of enacting a stringent law, having in view the entire
withdrawal of our vessels and citizens from this illegal commerce; and
after so much has been already written upon the subject, it may be
deemed a work of supererogation to discuss it further. The interests
at stake, however, are of so high a character, the integrity of
our flag and the cause of humanity being at once involved in their
consideration, I cannot refrain from bringing the topic afresh to the
notice of my government, in the hope that the President may esteem it
of such importance as to be laid before Congress, and that even at this
late day, legislative action may be secured.”
In this communication, a quotation is made from Mr. Proffit, one of
the preceding ministers, to the Secretary of State, February, 1844,
in which he says: “I regret to say this, but it is a fact not to be
disguised or denied, that the slave-trade is almost entirely carried
on under our flag, in American-built vessels, sold to slave-traders
here, chartered for the coast of Africa, and there sold, or sold
here--delivered on the coast. And, indeed, the scandalous traffic could
not be carried on to any great extent, were it not for the use made
of our flag, and the facilities given for the chartering of American
vessels, to carry to the coast of Africa the outfit for the trade, and
the material for purchasing slaves.”
Mr. Wise, the American Minister, in his dispatch of February 15th,
1845, said to Mr. Calhoun:
“It is not to be denied, and I boldly assert it, that the
administration of the imperial government of Brazil, is forcibly
constrained by its influences, and is deeply inculpated in its guilt.
With that it would, at first sight, seem the United States have nothing
to do; but an intimate and full knowledge of the subject informs
us, that the only mode of carrying on that trade between Africa and
Brazil, at present, involves our laws and our moral responsibilities,
as directly and fully as it does those of this country itself. Our
flag alone gives requisite protection against the right of visit,
search, and seizure; and our citizens, in all the characters of owners,
consignees, of agents, and of masters and crews of our vessels,
are concerned in the business, and partake of the profits of the
African slave-trade, to and from the ports of Brazil, as fully as the
Brazilians themselves, and others in conjunction with whom they carry
it on. In fact, without the aid of our own citizens and our flag, it
could not be carried on with success at all.”
To exhibit the state of the slave-trade prior to the equipment treaty
in 1840, we have the following instances from parliamentary papers, and
other British authority:
“La Jeune Estelle, being chased by a British vessel, inclosed twelve
negroes in casks, and threw them overboard.”
“M. Oiseau, commander of _Le Louis_, a French vessel, in completing
his cargo at Calaba, thrust the slaves into a narrow space _three feet
high_, and closed the hatches. Next morning fifty were found dead.
Oiseau coolly went ashore to purchase others to supply their place.”
The following extract is from a report by Captain Hayes to the
Admiralty, of a representation made to him respecting one of these
vessels in 1832:
“The master having a large cargo of these human beings _chained
together_, with more humanity than his fellows, permitted some of them
to come on deck, _but still chained together_, for the benefit of
the air, when they immediately commenced jumping overboard, hand in
hand, and drowning in couples; and (continued the person relating the
circumstance) without any cause whatever. Now these people were just
brought from a situation between decks, and to which they knew they
must return, where the scalding perspiration was running from one to
the other.... And men dying by their side, with full in their view,
living and dead bodies chained together; and the living, in addition
to all their other torments, laboring under the most famishing thirst
(being in very few instances allowed more than a pint of water a day);
and let it not be forgotten that these unfortunate people had just been
torn from their country, their families, their all! Men dragged from
their wives, women from their husbands and children, girls from their
mothers, and boys from their fathers; and yet in this man’s eye (for
heart and soul he could have none), there was no cause whatever for
jumping overboard and drowning. This, in truth, is a rough picture,
but it is not highly colored. The _men are chained in pairs_, and as a
proof they are intended so to remain to the end of the voyage, _their
fetters are not locked, but riveted by the blacksmith_; and as deaths
are frequently occurring, _living men are often for a length of time
confined to dead bodies_: the living man cannot be released till the
blacksmith has performed the operation of cutting the clinch of the
rivet with his chisel; and I have now an officer on board the Dryad,
who, on examining one of these slave-vessels, found _not only living
men chained to dead bodies, but the latter in a putrid state_.”[4]
In the notorious Spanish slaver, the _Veloz Passageira_, captured with
five hundred and fifty-six slaves, after a severe action, the captain
made the slaves assist to work the guns against their own deliverers.
Five were killed and one desperately wounded.
“This _Veloz Passageira_ had acquired so atrocious a reputation, that
it became an object with our commanders to make a special search for
her. Captain Arabin, of the _North Star_, having information on his
homeward voyage that she would cross his course near the equator,
made preparations to attack her, though the _North Star_ was of much
inferior strength. Dr. Walsh, who was coming home in the British
vessel, relates, that at breakfast, while the conversation was turning
on the chances of meeting with the slaver, a midshipman entered the
cabin, and said, in a hurried manner, that a sail was visible to the
northwest. All rushed on deck, and setting their glasses, distinctly
saw a large ship of three masts, apparently crossing their way. In
about an hour she tacked, as if not liking their appearance, and
stood away before the wind. The English captain gave chase. Escape
seemed impracticable. The breeze freshened, her hull became distinctly
visible, and she was now ascertained to be a slaver. She doubled,
however, in all directions, and seemed to change her course each moment
to avoid her pursuers. Five guns were successively fired, and the
English union-flag hoisted, but without effect; and the wind now dying
away, the _North Star_ began to drop astern. We kept a sharp look-out,
with intense interest, leaning over the netting, and silently handing
the glass to one another, as if a word spoken would impede our way.
Thus closed the night. When morning dawned we saw her, like a speck
on the horizon, standing due north. The breeze increased, and again
the British captain gained on the slaver. Again long shots were sent
after her, but she only crowded more sail to escape. At twelve we were
entirely within gunshot, and one of our long bow guns was again fired
at her. It struck the water along side, and then for the first time she
showed a disposition to stop. While we were preparing a second, she
hove to, and in a short time we were alongside of her, after a most
interesting chase of thirty hours; during which we ran three hundred
miles.”
After all she was not the ship for which Captain Arabin had been
looking out, but she was full of slaves. “Behind her foremast was an
enormous gun, turning on a broad circle of iron, and _enabling her
to act as a pirate if her slaving speculation had failed_. She had
taken in on the coast of Africa five hundred and sixty-two slaves, and
had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard
fifty-five.
“The slaves were all inclosed under grated hatchways between decks. The
space was so low that they sat between each other’s legs, and stowed
so close together that there was no possibility of their lying down or
at all changing their position, by night or day. As they belonged to,
or were shipped on account of, different individuals, they were all
branded like sheep, with the owners’ marks, of different forms. These
were impressed under their hearts, or on their arms, and as the mate
informed me, with perfect indifference, “burnt with the red-hot iron.”
Over the hatchways stood a ferocious-looking fellow, with a scourge
of many-twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave-driver of the
ship; and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over
them, and seemed eager to exercise it. I was quite pleased to take
this hateful badge out of his hand; and I have kept it ever since as a
horrid memorial of the reality, should I ever be disposed to forget the
scene I witnessed.
“As soon as the poor creatures saw us looking down at them, their
dark and melancholy visages brightened up. They perceived something
of sympathy and kindness in our looks, which they had not been
accustomed to; and feeling instinctively that we were friends, they
immediately began to shout and clap their hands. One or two had picked
up a few Portuguese words, and cried out, Viva! viva! The women were
particularly excited. They all held up their arms, and when we bent
down and shook hands with them, they could not contain their delight:
they endeavored to scramble up on their knees, stretching up to kiss
our hands, and we understood they knew we were coming to liberate them.
Some, however, hung their heads in apparently hopeless dejection;
some were greatly emaciated, and some, particularly children, seemed
dying. But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly was, how it
was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and
wedged together as tight as they could cram, in low cells, three feet
high, the greater part of which, except that immediately under the
grated hatchways, were shut out from light and air; and this, when the
thermometer, exposed to open sky, was standing in the shade on our deck
at 89°. The space between decks, divided into two compartments, was
three feet three inches high; the size of one was 16 feet by 18, and
of the other 40 by 21; into the first were crammed the women and the
girls, into the second the men and boys. Two hundred and twenty-six
fellow-creatures were thus thrust into one space of 288 square feet,
and three hundred and thirty into another space of 800 square feet,
giving the _whole an average of 23 inches; and to each of the women not
more than 13 inches_. We also found manacles and fetters of different
kinds; but it appeared that they all had been taken off before we
boarded. The heat of these horrid places was so great, and the odor so
offensive, that it was quite impossible to enter them, even had there
been room. They were measured as above when the slaves had left them.
The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be
admitted on deck, to get air and water.... On looking into the places
where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the
sides of the ship, in the places most remote from air and light; they
were lying nearly in a torpid state, after the rest had turned out. The
little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death; and when they
were carried on deck, many of them could not stand. After enjoying, for
a short time, the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it
was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful
manner. They all rushed like maniacs towards it. No entreaties, or
threats, or blows could restrain them; they shrieked, and struggled
and fought with one another, for a drop of this precious liquid, as if
they grew rabid at the sight of it. There is nothing which slaves, in
the mid-passage, suffer from so much as want of water. It is sometimes
usual to take out casks filled with sea-water as ballast, and when
the slaves are received on board, to start the casks and refill them
with fresh. On one occasion, a ship from Bahia neglected to change the
contents of the casks, and on the mid-passage found, to their horror,
that they were filled with nothing but salt-water. _All the slaves on
board perished._”
At the time of this seizure, Brazil was precluded from the slave-trade
north of the equator; but the period had not arrived when, by treaty,
the southern trade was to be extinguished. “The captain of this slaver
was provided with papers, which exhibited an apparent conformity to
the law, and which, false as they may have been, yet could in no way
be absolutely disproved. The accounts of the slaves themselves, who
stated they had _originally_ come from parts of Africa _north_ of the
line--the course which the slaver was steering--her flight from the
English cruiser--were circumstances raising suspicion the most violent;
but the reader will be not a little disappointed to learn, that, with
all this, the case was deemed too doubtful, in point of legal proof,
to bear out a legal detention; and the slaver therefore, after nine
hours of close investigation, was finally set at liberty, and suffered
to proceed.... It was dark when we separated, and the last parting
sounds we heard from the unhallowed ship, were the cries and shrieks of
slaves, suffering under some bodily infliction.”--_Walsh_, vol. ii. pp.
474-484.
The question arises, ought not humanity to have overcome all these
considerations, and led to the deliverance of the victims? If one death
in such circumstances had occurred, ought not a sense of justice to
have led to the detention of the slaver, and the conveyance of the
captain to his own government, to be tried for murder?
The traders of France were nearly in the same position with those
of the United States, and there was the same necessity for guarding
against the abuse of their flag. Before proceeding to the proper
history of the American squadron in its efforts for the great purposes
it had in view, it may be advisable briefly to notice that France, in
1845, had formed with England a treaty under which both parties engaged
to keep a squadron of not less than twenty-six cruisers on the coast.
The number was afterwards, by a separate agreement, reduced on the
part of France to twelve vessels.
The reasons for this, and the few captures made by French vessels,
apply as well to the American cruisers, and account for the nature of
the stipulation in the treaty of Washington, that the United States
should only employ on the African coast a squadron of eighty guns.
These two nations have not, as England has, the right by treaty with
other powers, to interfere with any vessels except their own. Hence the
captures made by English cruisers necessarily outnumbered greatly the
captures made by both the other powers.
The duty of the American and French squadron was in fact restrictive
in respect to their own citizens alone; and while indispensable for
the general success of these operations, they could not exhibit any
thing like the same amount of result in captures, whatever might be
the zeal and activity of the cruisers. Several slavers, however, have
been captured by this squadron; and its presence has restrained the
employment of the French flag in that traffic.
[4] Parliamentary papers, presented 1832, B., pp. 170, 171.