The story of the first American voyage to Africa to obtain slaves of
which there is any definite record, is that of a certain Captain Smith,
commanding the ship, Rainbowe, and sailing from Boston. Captain Smith
had sailed to Madeira with a cargo of salt fish and staves and, on the
way home, he touched on the coast of Guinea for slaves. There happened
to be very few slaves for sale at the moment and on this account,
Captain Smith, together with the masters of some London slave ships
already on the ground, conspired together to pick a quarrel with some of
the natives, so as to have an excuse to attack their village and carry
off the prisoners made as slaves. Captain Smith's share of the booty was
two slaves with whom he returned to Boston.
It happened, however, that when he reached home he got into a quarrel
with the ship's owners over the proceeds of the voyage, and, in the
lawsuits which resulted, the story of the manner in which the slaves
were obtained was told in court. Thereupon one of the magistrates
charged Captain Smith with a "threefold offence--murder, man-stealing
and Sabboth breaking." He was acquitted of all three charges on the
ground that these crimes were committed in Africa, but, as a result of
the trial, the slaves were returned to their homes.
This story is interesting, for one reason because it shows that, in the
early days of the slave trade, the barter and sale of Negro slaves, so
long as it was conducted in an honest and orderly way, according to the
accepted customs and manners of trade, was not considered a wrong or
wicked business.
At first the slave traders purchased slaves only from the native chiefs.
These slaves were generally prisoners who had been taken in the tribal
wars. In some cases they were men or women who had been sold for debt.
There were, also, other ways in which one black man in Africa might hold
another in slavery.
Very soon, however, the ordinary sources of supply of slaves was not
sufficient to meet the demand of the American trade. Then traders became
less scrupulous. They began buying from any one who had a man or woman
for sale. This encouraged kidnapping. Not infrequently the man who
brought a gang of slaves to the coast to be sold would himself be
kidnapped and sold by other men before he could return home. Sometimes
the traders, after they had purchased a gang or a "coffle" of slaves, as
they were called, would invite the traders on board ship in order to
entertain them. Then, after they were under the influence of liquor,
they would put chains upon them and carry them away with the very slaves
the traders themselves a few hours before had sold.
As time went on, and the demand for slave labor increased, the men
engaged in this cruel traffic became hardened to its cruelty and the
West Coast of Africa became one vast hunting ground. Men and women were
tracked and hunted as if they were wild beasts. It grew so bad at length
that the conscience of the civilized world was aroused. Then, one by
one, the nations of the world began to prohibit the traffic. England,
which had formerly been one of the nations most deeply involved in this
evil business, now became the leader in the attempt to put a stop to it.
The importation of slaves was prohibited in the United States in 1808,
but that did not put an end to the importation of slaves. For, after the
invention of the cotton gin at the close of the eighteenth century by
Eli Whitney, a Connecticut school master, slaves were needed more than
ever, to plant and till and pick the cotton which had now become much
more valuable than before.
Although it was no longer lawful to import slaves, they were smuggled
into the country. As late as 1860 the famous yacht, Wanderer, which had
at one time been owned by a member of the New York Yacht Club, brought
into the United States 450 slaves, and it has been estimated that as
many as 15,000 slaves were smuggled into the different Southern ports in
the year 1858.
At this time it had become the custom to gather great numbers of slaves
at different points along the coast of Africa, in what were called
barracoons. These were nothing more or less than strong stockades made
by planting trees close together in the ground so as to form a strong
enclosure from which there was no escape. In these barracoons slaves
captured in the interior were held until they were ready to be shipped.
Swift sailing vessels, which travelled so fast that, once they escaped
the vigilance of the war ships stationed along the coast, they could
never be overtaken, were used to carry the slaves from the coast of
Africa to that of America.
These vessels would hover about in the neighborhood of one of these
slave barracoons until the coast was clear; then swiftly the living
cargo would be hurried aboard, and the vessel would put on all sail and
make all possible haste to put itself and its human freight beyond the
reach of the police ships.
Usually these slave ships were provided with a lower, or what was called
a "slave deck," beneath the ordinary deck of the ship. In some
instances, in order to escape suspicion, the ship would have no
permanent slave deck but such a deck would be hastily arranged after the
vessel arrived in the neighborhood of one of the slave barracoons. In
such cases the ordinary cargo would be put in the bottom of the ship and
then, above this and from three to five feet beneath the ordinary deck,
a second deck would be hastily improvised. Here as many slaves would be
stowed away as could be possibly crowded into the narrow space.
It is only necessary to read the descriptions of the methods by which
this traffic was carried on to understand the horrible suffering to
which the slaves were subjected during this middle passage. In many
instances, when brought out on deck for a little air, the slaves had to
be chained to keep them from jumping overboard.
Sometimes a pestilence would break out on one of these ships and the
whole cargo, consisting of three or four hundred slaves, would be lost.
It is said that the yellow fever was brought to America by slaves. There
are instances, also, where the captain of a slave ship jettisoned, that
is to say, threw over-board, a whole ship-load of slaves to escape being
caught by the ships that were pursuing him.
When a slave ship reached the shore of America there were snug harbors
at various points along the coast into which one of these swift sailing
vessels could always hide until its cargo of slaves had been discharged.
The island upon which the present city of Galveston is built was once a
refuge for slave pirates and slave smugglers. The coast of Louisiana is
full of shallow bays, which reach far into the land, and they were a
favorite resort for slave smugglers. Here was the hiding place of the
Barataria pirates who were long famous as slave smugglers.
Mobile Bay was one of the points at which a slave cargo was
occasionally landed. It is said that the hull of the very last slave
ship, the Lawrence, which was captured and burned by the Federal troops
during the first year of the Civil War, may still be seen hidden away in
the swamps and marshes east of Mobile.
There is still living in the suburbs of Mobile a little colony of
Africans who were brought over on this last slave ship. When they were
released by the Federal officers they settled here. It is said that
there are old men living in this settlement who still speak an African
language, but their children have all grown up to be good Americans.
Once a ship load of slaves was landed on the American coast, they were
immediately divided and scattered in every direction. Some were taken to
one plantation, others to another, and so on until all were disposed of.
Soon they were so thoroughly intermingled with the great body of slaves
that all trace of them was lost. At least it was rare that anyone ever
did trace the cargo of slaves after it was once landed, although slave
ships were frequently captured on the high seas.
When slavers were captured red-handed on the high seas by the United
States or English navies, an effort was made to return the slaves to
their homes in Africa. As this was not practical the English government
established at Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa, a station to
which they sent all liberated slaves. It was in this manner, that what
is now one of the most thriving English colonies on the west coast of
Africa was started.
The story of the slave trade is one of the darkest chapters in the
history of the Western World, for though it began in the comparatively
harmless way already described, it grew steadily worse until in its last
stages even those familiar with slavery in its worst form came to look
upon it with shame.
And yet, in spite of all the suffering that it entailed, and in spite
of its degrading effect upon the people who engaged in it, we can see,
as we look back upon it now, that some good has come out of it. It
served, for one thing, to bring a large number of the savage people of
Africa into closer contact with the enlightenment and civilization of
the Western World. In the end, it aroused in the minds of some of the
best people in Europe and America a new interest in Africa and led
hundreds of good Christian people to give up the security of their
comfortable homes and give their lives to the task of uplifting and
educating the neglected races of the Dark Continent.
Among the first and greatest of those who gave their lives for this
purpose was the missionary, David Livingstone, who did more than anyone
else to arouse the world to the iniquities of the African slave trade.