-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- an excerpt from: Coolie Ships and Oil Sailors Basil Lubbock Brown, Son & Ferguson Glasgow 180 pages – 1955 reprint – out-of-print ----- COOLIE SHIPS AND OIL SAILERS PART I.-THE COOLIE SHIPS. CHAPTER I. Beware! Oh, beware! Of the Bight of Benin Few come out, though many go in. Kautch-per-wanee, good-ee time coming; Sing Britannia rulee waves. Jolly good-e-fellow, go home in the morning, Baboo how he can make slaves. --(The Bengalee Baboo.) A Glimpse of the Slave Trade. HERE is probably no greater proof of progress in the history of mankind than that which is shown by a comparison of the slave trade with the coolie trade. Yet this progress was not gradual but sudden, the longstanding horror of human slavery being replaced by a humane, strictly regulated, indenture system. Until recent years the weak have always been enslaved by the strong: indeed, it is only since the Great War that the strong man has bound his weak and ignorant brother upon his shoulder and attempted to carry him along with all his other burdens. Before describing the coolie trade, it is necessary to realise the horrors of the slave trade which it succeeded. These horrors were, as we shall see, still at their height as late as the middle of the nineteenth century. Slavery was not so bad in classical times, when it may be compared to the old feudal system of the middle ages; the master recognised his duties towards the man and in return for his service fed, clothed and protected him. The Elizabethan Slavers. The overseas slave trade began with the conquest of the New World, when the Spaniards compelled their Indian captives to work in the fabulously rich mines of Mexico and Peru. But under the ruthless spur of their cruel taskmasters, these wretched Indians soon began to die like flies, until at last it was seen that the treasure galleons would want for cargo unless labour could be imported. It was for this reason that the King of Spain granted licences to his favourites to import negro slaves as far back as 1516. A patent to supply 4000 negroes annually to the plantations of Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, and Porto Rico, granted to one of Charles's Flemish favourites, was sold to Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats. This was really the beginning of the slave trade between Africa and America, which flourished for the next 350 years. The first English slave traders were private adventurers. In 1553 Captain Thomas Windham made the first British voyage to the Guinea coast; he brought back white ivory and not black, but in 1554 Captain John Lok returned with "five Blackamoor slaves" in addition to the usual cargo of elephants' teeth and palm oil. Captain John Hawkins, a seaman of iron resolution with a keen business head and few scruples, went one better; by slicer force of arms he raised a cargo of black cattle, and by slim and delicate negotiation actually sold it in Hispaniola in spite of all the King of Spain's monopolies, licences and patents. On hearing of this adventure Queen Elizabeth was horrified, and declared that "if the negroes were carried off by force it would be detestable and call down the vengeance of heaven upon the undertakers." Hawkins, however, was a difficult man to handle, even for Queen Elizabeth. He at once promised to respect her scruples and straightway went off for another cargo of black ivory. In 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, Queen Elizabeth granted a patent to the African Company of Merchant Adventurers. This monopoly was for trade only and disallowed all traffic in slaves. Nevertheless, in a very short time the English were as deeply dyed in the blood of the West African negro as the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch; and in less than fifty years the London and Bristol merchants had got the lion's share of the abominable traffic. In 1662 the Royal Assiento Company with a patent to supply slaves to the whole of the West Indies, both Spanish, English, French and Dutch, received the blessing of Charles 11. In 1689 the South Sea House for the reception of slaves was. built at Jamaica. From 1680 to 1700, 140,000 slaves were landed in the West Indies by the company and 160,000 by private merchants. The London, Bristol and Liverpool Traders. In 1698 the monopoly was stopped by the Bill of Rights and the whole vile trade was thrown open. For the first ten years of free trade in slaves London and Bristol provided the slave ships; Bristol averaging about 57 ships per annum, and the London merchants gradually lessening their interest from 104 ships in 1701 to 30 ships in 1707. By 1730 Bristol merchants, who paid for their slaves with French, German and Scottish osnaburgs, considered that they had got the trade safely into their own hands and gave small attention to the swift snows which had began to run from the Mersey to the West Coast. In 1730 there were 15 of these snows, average 75 tons apiece, and they were the first of the Liverpool Guineamen. However, it was soon seen that the Liverpool trade was able to undercut both London and Bristol, and the cause was an economic one. The Liverpool merchants from the first gave their factors a fixed salary instead of a percentage, and only paid their captains £4 a month with no cabin privileges and no primage, thus they were able to sell "prime negroes" at as much as 12 per cent. under London and Bristol. The rise of the Liverpool slave trade is well shown in the following table: In 1709 Liverpool fitted out I ship of 30 tons which loaded 15 slaves. 1730 " 15 ships of 1,111 tons. 1737 33 2,756 1753 72 7,547 1771 105 10,929 1792 132 22,402 1798 149 34,937 And from January, 1806, to May, 1807, 185 ships, totalling 43,755 tons, and with licences to carry 49,213 slaves, sailed from Liverpool for Africa.* [*Tro ughton's History of Liverpool.] In May, 1807, the English slave trade was abolished, and from that date the Union Jack became the flag of freedom. The Depravity of the Eighteenth Century. The psychology of the eighteenth century fills one with horror. The Englishman seemed to be without shame of any sort, without any bowels of compassion, without morals or ideals, without, in fact, a single redeeming feature if we except a certain bulldog tenacity when it came to a fight, and at times a reckless generosity in helping a friend. Every man was out to satisfy his own depraved lusts and cared not a curse whom he trampled in the dirt. The pens of Fielding and Smollett and the brush of Hogarth ably describe the brutishness of the times. The politician could be bought and sold as easily as the slave. The nobleman gambled away his inheritance or drank himself under the table most nights in the week. The parson was a hypocrite and a sycophant, whose stilted, shallow sermons were preached to empty pews. Religion was dead in the eighteenth century. The lawyer robbed the orphan. The doctor was a quack and a charlatan. The merchant drove the clerks in his counting house from early morn till dark, his whole being absorbed in money making. Only the squire, the farmer, and the agricultural labourer, living in the pure air of the open fields and wooded dales, possessed a modicum of honesty. In the cities sneak thieves and beggars blocked the narrow, muddy alleys, whilst highwaymen thrust their long pistols through the coach windows of the traveller within a stone's throw of Temple Bar. On the London River robbery and murder were rife. "Mud-larks," "scuffle-hunters," "ratcatchers," "heavy horsemen" and "light horsemen" preyed upon the shipping; compared with these gentry the smugglers were respectable folk. Yet the law of the land was ironhanded and merciless, and death was the penalty for stealing a loaf of bread. At every crossroad a sun-dried highwayman rattled in his chains. Pirates on cross-headed gibbets fed the gulls at Blackwall Point. And a public hanging was the greatest form of entertainment in the Metropolis. What wonder that slavery was rampant-that slaves were sold openly on the steps of the Liverpool Custom-house and changed hands freely on the London Exchange. In 1764 the Gentleman's Magazine estimated that there were 20,000 black slaves in London alone. These slaves were not only branded like thieves, but were padlocked in collars like dogs. The goldsmith, Matthew Dyer, of Duck Lane, Orchard Street, Westminster, advertised in 1756 that he made silver padlocks and collars "for Blacks or Dogs." These collars had the name of the owner, his address, and often his coat-of-arms engraved upon them. The following advertisements were common in the news sheets all through the eighteenth century: To be sold, a Negro Boy, about fourteen years old, warranted free from any distemper, and has had those fatal to that colour; has been used two years to all kinds of household work, and to wait at table; his price is £25, and would not be sold but the person he belongs to is leaving off business. Apply at the bar of the George Coffee-house, in Chancery Lane, over against the Gate. In the London Advertiser, 1756. And here is one of a girl slave: A healthy Negro Girl, age about fifteen years, speaks good English, works at her needle, washes well, does household work, and has had the smallpox. In the Public Ledger, 1761. in Liverpool the advertisements were naturally still more numerous. Williamson's Advertiser makes quaint reading, such as "the hull of the snow Molly to be sold by the candle at 1 o'clock noon at R. Williamson's shop. N.B.—Three young men slaves to be sold at the same time." >From the following we see that even a slaver had her "Musique, 'the wants advertised in December 1857 including:"A French Horn for a Letter of Marque"; "A Black Boy that can beat a drum for an officer in the Army"; and "A person that can play on the Bagpipes for a Guinea ship." Guinea Captains. But let us get back to the sea, where at least men risked their own lives in this business of blood. It must not be supposed that every Guinea captain answered to James Montgomery's description: Lives there a savage ruder than the slave? Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave, False as the winds that round his vessel blow Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below Is he who toils upon the wafting flood, A Christian broker in the trade of blood Boisterous in speech, in action prompt and bold He buys, he sells-he steals, he kills, for gold. Such slave captains as John Newton and "Mind your eye" Crow were humane men according to their lights and gained the devotion of their human freight. Newton, who from the depths of degradation rose to be a successful commander and finally took orders and became a champion in the fight for abolition, was undoubtedly a man of extraordinary character with the lights and shades very strongly marked. Crow, on the other band, was a bluff, cheery sailor. Though for many years he had an abhorrence for the slave trade, in the end he was won over and became one of the most successful of Guinea captains and had the doubtful honour of commanding the last slave ship which cleared from the port of Liverpool. Yet he was such a kind, humorous soul that even his black cargo loved him, and whenever his ship arrived at Kingston, Jamica[sic], he was greeted ashore with cries from his old "passengers" of "Long live massa Crow! God bless massa! How poor massa do?" and numbers of slaves would crowd round him, with tears of joy in their eyes. On one occasion a great number of blacks, both men and women, all togged out in their best, came aboard his ship to greet him, and the sight so affected the mate of Crow's ship that the man shed tears, as the slaves clung round their old captain, patting him and hugging him. The blacks of Jamaica even composed a song of honour beginning, "Captain Crow da come again." The Guineamen. It is now time to say something about these British slave ships, commonly called "Guineamen." The early type was a snow of about 140 tons, length of keel about 60 feet, beam 21 feet and depth 9 feet, the height between decks being 5 feet. The following advertisement of 1760 gives a good idea of the Guineamen of that date: For sale by the candle at R. Williamson's shop near the Exchange, in Liverpool. On Monday, March 10, 1760, the sale to begin at 1 o'clock at noon precisely; the ship Planter, burthen about 200 tons, square sterned, lyon-head, takes the ground well, mounts two six-pounders on slides in the cabin, three new four-pounders on deck, four swivels, and is pierced for 16 carriage-guns, being deep waisted with iron stanchions and double netting fore and aft, and suitable for the African or American trade; being 10 feet deep in the hold, 4 feet 9 inches between decks from the mainmast forward and from the mainmast aft 6 feet 2 inches, with all her materials, two new cables, .one now anchor, and all her stores as she arrived lately from London, and now lies at the upper end of the South Dock. Inventories to be had of Mr. David Kenyon, merchant, or Robert Williamson, broker. In 1786 Captain Parrey was sent to Liverpool by the Government to gain the particulars of a typical slaver. He measured the celebrated Guineaman Brooks ( Captain Noble). This ship was frigate-built, without fo'c'sle, and pierced for 20 guns. Her nominal tonnage was 297 tons; by builders' measurement 320 to ns. The length of the lower deck, with the thickness of the gratings and the bulkheads, was 100 feet; her breadth on the lower deck 25 feet 4 inches; depth of hold from ceiling to lower deck 10 feet; height between decks 5 feet 8 inches; length of the men's room on the lower deck 46 feet; length of the boys' room 13 feet 9 inches; length of the women's room 28 feet 6 inches. The breadth of these spaces was the beam of the ship. The Brooks had 14 air ports a side, which ventilation was far superior to that of most slavers. On her 1786 voyage she carried 609 slaves, though only licensed for 450; 351 m en were crowded info the space of 46 feet by 25 feet 4 inches; 90 boys were packed into the boys' room measuring 13 feet 9 inches by 25 feet; and 168 wome n and girls were stowed away in the confines of 28 feet 6 inches by 23 feet 6 inches. The provisions put on board for the slaves were as follows:20 tons of split beans, peas, rice, shelled barley and Indian corn; 2 tons of bread; 12 cwts. of flour; 2070 yams, averaging 7 lbs. each; 34,002 gallons of water; 330 gallo ns of brandy, rum, etc.; 70 gallons of wine; 60 gallons of vinegar; 60 gallons of molasses; 200 gallons of palm oil; 10 barrels of beef, 20 cwts. of stockfish, and 100 lbs of pepper. The Brooks took 49 days from the Gold Coast to Jamaica, and was lucky in only losing 10 men, 5 women, 3 boys and I girl. Her passage was about the average, the shortest passage that year being 42 days. One of the quickest slaving voyages of the eighteenth century was that of the Vine (Captain Simmons), in 1766. This vessel made the round-Liverpool to Bonny; Bonny, with 400 slaves, to Dominica; and Dominica to Liverpool-in 7 months 10 days. The Middle Passage. The horrors of the middle passage have often been alluded to yet rarely described. When the agitation for the abolition of the slave traffic was started in England by a few stout spirits, the opposition of those interested in the trade produced all sorts of arguments to justify themselves. They even declared that the negro's lot in his own country was worse than any middle passage, advancing such arguments as the deaths meted out by the cruel chiefs to those of their subjects who offended them. These, of course, were horrible enough. If a negro was so unlucky as to let his shadow fall on his chief he was thrown to the crocodiles. Worse offenders were staked down below the high water mark to be drowned by the incoming tide, or pegged against an ant heap to be eaten alive by ants. But these were isolated instances of torture and murder, those of the middle passage being wholesale horrors. There were instances of ships losing 50 per cent. of their slaves in the passage through the tropics. One Guinea captain d eclared that if the owners could only see the slave deck of a vessel during the middle passage the horrible traffic would be stopped at once. The men suffered the most, for they were chained leg to leg and hand to hand, so that it was impossible for them to shift their cramped position. The Rev. John Newton, the reformed Guinea captain, declared that he had often seen a living man chained to a dead man. The slave irons took up room, and sometimes, in a very crowded ship, all the men could not be ironed, so the weakly and sick were left free of shackles; this allowed them to be packed like sardines, in layers, one on top of the other, so that each living man had less room than a dead man in his coffin; an d if they did not crowd up close enough, they were lashed with the cat-o'-nine tails, the ever ready weapon of the slaver. As for the sanitary conditions, here is the evidence of a slaver's surgeon: Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the portholes to be shut and the gratings to be covered, fluxes and fevers among the negroes ensued. While they were in this situation, my profession requiring it, I frequently went down among them, till at length their apartments became so extremely hot as to be only sufferable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the only thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that is, the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is not in the power of the human imagination to picture to itself a situation more dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves fainted, they were carried on deck, where several of them died, and the rest were, with difficulty, restored. Another instance, such as the above, was that of a schoone with 140 slaves on board, which had to be battened down during a gale for 18 hours-in that time 50 of the slaves died for want of air. The slaves -were fed on deck, being brought up about a dozen at a time, each lot for a quarter of an hour, in which time they had to gobble down their repulsive food. When the weather was fine the slaves were also brought on deck-for exercise. Shackled in pairs by chains to ringbolts in the deck, they were made to dance and sing by means of the ever ready cat-o-nine tails. With swollen, galled and often diseased limbs, this hopping up and down in their heavy leg irons was a painful operation, and their songs were naturally the most heartrending dirges, telling of their wretched condition, and bewailing their native land, their lost homes and families. If you sailed close past a slaver at night you heard the most melancholy howling and shrieking coming over the water from the terrible vessel. Most of the slaves groaned and howled in their sleep, and many of the women awoke after terrible dreams in fits of weeping and hysterics. At the least opportunity the negroes tried to end their sufferings by leaping overboard; and sometimes a row of men, shackled to the deck chain, would succeed by a concerted effort in breaking the chain, then, in spite of their leg irons and handcuffs, they would tumble over the side with smiles on their faces, to sink like plummets and so bring an end to their sufferings. At last many slave ships were especially constructed to prevent the possibility of this escape from slavery by the simple means of drowning. Often the slaves refused their food with the intention of starving themselves to death. Then the cat was applied without mercy, and if this had no effect, thumbscrews* were used. Yet the men often bore the thumbscrews for hours, sitting in torture without a whimper, their bodies trembling as if with ague, and the sweat running down their faces. [*The following is a contemporary description of a thumbscrew:—"The thumbs are put into this instrument through the circular holes at the top of it. By turning a key, a bar rises up by means of a screw, and the pressure upon them (the thumbs) becomes painful. By turning it further, you may make the blood start from the ends of them. By taking the key away, you leave the tortured person in agony, without any means of extricating himself or of being extricated by others." Another instrument was used on slave ships for forcing open a slave's mouth. It was a surgeon's tool called a speculum oris. This was sometimes used on those slaves 'who refused their food.] Some of the instances of callous inhumanity on the part of a slaver's officers, whether English or foreign, are too awful to repeat. After the English slave trade had been abolished in 1807, the planters of Cuba and Brazil still cried out for slaves, and their demand was supplied throughout the first half of the nineteenth century by men, who not only were without scruple but were not hampered by any regulations such as those under which the English slavers held their licences, thus the slave trade in the nineteenth century was even more terrible than that of the eighteenth. The Bight of Benin. The recruiting of live cargoes for the slavers was mostly in the hands of the native chiefs, who were spurred on by white agents. Slaves were gathered all along the West African coast from the River Pongas, 120 miles north of Sierra Leone, down to as far south as St. Paolo do Loanda and Benguela. In the eighteenth century the Bight of Benin was sufficient for the needs of the English Guineamen, the largest slave factories being up the Bonny River, at Old Calabar and Lagos in Nigeria and at Whydah in Dahomey, but the advent of British cruisers in the Bight scattered the slave traders up and down the coast and gangs of slaves were taken great distances to carefully concealed depots. The stretch of coast between Lopez and Benguela was specially adapted to the needs of the slavers and was their chief working ground in the last days of the trade. Here a vast network of rivers and lagoons ran parallel with the sea. These inland waters have been called the railways of West Africa. By such means canoe loads of slaves were run from place to place, and time and again the traders slipped away with their human cattle as boats under the guns of cruisers dashed in to the attack, only to find empty barracoons. The gathering of the gruesome harvest was carried out by the native chiefs without regard for the laws of God or man. Towns and villages were fired in the middle of the night; their terrified inhabitants, men, women and children, were then rounded up, the men yoked to the slave chain and the howling distracted mob driven along tortuous bush trails or transported in canoes down to the waiting Guineamen. In the tribal wars the captives were invariably sold to the slave traders; and in the coastal areas the slightest crime or offence against a head-man was seized upon as an excuse to send a man or woman into slavery. Some slaves were recruited by what was called "panyaring." These were kidnapped and gagged, so that their cries should not be heard and give the alarm to the villages which were passed on the way to the barracoons. Drink also was freely used in order to make a chief sell his own family and relations; and under its influence it happened often that the kidnapper himself was taken by his treacherous employer and transported with those he had kidnapped. Often native slave traders were invited to carousals aboard the slave ships, then as soon as they were senseless through drink they were stripped, branded and ironed in the hold alongside those they had betrayed. Like the runners and crimps, a hundred years later, they had to be wideawake or they became the victims of their own trade. It was a case of diamond cut diamond; no man on the coast was safe, the son was not above selling his own father, nor the father his own children. But it must not be supposed that the white slave-trader paid for his human cargoes entirely in merchandise and cash. "Blood for blood" was the old piratical law. The dreaded coast, with its miasmic swamps, its deadly flies and open drains, took a terrible revenge for the rape of its miserable inhabitants. It is probable that for every slave that was thrown to the sharks on the middle passage a white man paid the footing on the Coast of Dead Ned. The European not only died of fever and dysentery, of sleeping sickness and typhoid, but of many strange and horrible diseases which were unknown to the medical man. Even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century it was no uncommon experience to discover a Spanish slaver rotting up some tropical river alongside empty barracoons with only a few white, hyena-picked bones and tooth-marked skulls to show for her once numerous crew. Even the honest palm oil traders paid dearly for their cargoes. Here is a typical entry in the log of an old West African trader:-, We were looking for the Opopo River to barter our cargo for palm oil. Our vessel was becalmed some three miles offshore with the kedge anchor down. As extensive palm groves were visible I took the gig and four hands for a boatload of coconuts-to see what we should see and get what we could get. We grounded on a dark sandy beach, nearly level, stretching East and West as far as the eye could see. Making across it we found the bush impenetrable; the branches grew down and up again from a swamp, into which the tide flowed and ebbed, washing the substance from among the roots and leaving innumerable small arches to catch the feet. Binding the whole together wattle-fashion were tough vine-like creepers, while beneath were other creepers of the crocodile family. We shoved the boat afloat and pulled about three miles to leeward which on this coast always means to the eastward, the Guinea current setting you that way. Then we came to a creek. We entered it and half a mile up saw a schooner alongside the bank. Her beautiful lines told us that she was a slaver, if the ruined barracoons had not done so. Her history was the old story-fever had carried off every member of her crew. We boarded the schooner. There was nothing to identify her-nothing where all honest craft bear their tonnage and official number—inside the after coaming of the main hatch. We got our coconuts and as we came out found the sands we had landed upon covered by natives going through evolutions. They were running after each other in a wide circle, the leader gradually reducing it until they coiled themselves into a compact mass. They did not trouble us, and we saw no signs of canoes or articles of trade among them. We hove up the kedge and with the sea breeze made for our destination. Here we had a forecast of what was to come. A vessel lay at anchor with only the mate of all her crew alive-and he mad. He died aboard us, and when we sailed with a full cargo and nearly empty forecastle, we left her there-another prize for the Coast of Dead Ned. The Slavers of the Nineteenth Century. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century the slave trade flourished—the numbers of slaves landed were far greater than in the previous century, and owing to the fact that it was in the hands of the dagos, Spaniards, Portuguese and Brazilians, the conditions under which the slaves were transported were even more terrible; whilst the only effect of the British cruisers up to about 1840 was to double and treble the profits. The international legislation for the outlawing of the trade was slow and for a long time quite ineffective, as the following laws show only too clearly: (1) No British vessel was allowed to clear from any port within the British Dominions with a slave cargo after May 1, 1807. (2) No slave could be landed in British Colonies after March 1, 1808. (3) In 1811 slave trading in British Dominions was made a capital offence. (4) In 1815 the Portuguese were prohibited from slave trading north of the Equator. The British cruisers, however, were hindered by every kind of trickery; slavers, unless they had their water casks filled or slaves on board, could seldom be condemned. (5) In 1818 France prohibited slave trading. (6) In 1820 Spanish slave trade abolished. From this date French and Spanish slave traders always procured Portuguese or American papers; Porto Proya, St. Jago, was the place for procuring false papers, and as much as 10,000 dollars was sometimes paid for a set. (7) In 1833 slavery was abolished throughout the British Dominions, freed slaves being compelled to work under indentures until August 1838.* Twenty millions compensation was paid to the planters. By this date Cuba, Brazil and the Southern United States were the last slave-holding nationalities. As far back as 1830 the Emperor of Brazil had declared the slave trade to be punishable as piracy, but the local authorities of Bahia, Pernambuco, etc., paid no, attention to his decree, and about 54,000 slaves were imported into Brazil annually until the fifties. (8) In 1836 the export of slaves from Portuguese dominions was forbidden, both north and south of the Equator. Portugal was the last country to hold out against the cry of humanity. Until this date In 1807 when the import of slaves ceased there were 800,000 slaves in the British West Indies. The British cruisers did more harm than good, as owing to their efforts the price of a landed slave had increased from £25 to £100, although the original cost of the negro was still no more than £5. Thus every slave captain who succeeded in running the gauntlet of the British squadron made a small fortune a trip and could well afford to lose two ships out of thr ee. Slavers and Cruisers. The slavers of the nineteenth century were renowned the world over for their beauty and speed. They were nearly all Baltimore-built to the order of Havana and Brazilian merchants. In rig they were mostly schooners, brigs and brigantines, the two-topsail schooner or hermaphrodite brig being, also, very common in the trade. Raking masts, which were very often polacca, that is to say, lower and topmast all in one stick, short gaffed boom mainsails and perfectly setting cotton canvas, with tremendous staysails and all kinds of flying kites, were sure signs of a slave vessel. The artist Leslie gives an interesting description of the Baltimore design, as seen in 1841, both on and off the stocks. He writes in that wonderful book, Old Sea Wings, Ways and Words: The first thing that struck one about these schooners was their great beam on deck, and the flare-out of the topsides and bulwark forward; the bow as seen from above being very broad and full in a line across the cat-heads, but with a stem or cutwater raking aft quickly below into lines of entrance, which ran straight back at once into the wedge-like underwater body of the hull. It was this form of hull that gave a slaver so little head-room between decks or above the platform below which all the water and provisions for her living cargo was stowed. These clippers were also remarkable for the small amount of what shipwrights call "dead wood" below water; that is, of solid timber about the cutwater forward, and run and stern post aft. These Baltimore-built slavers ranged from 100 to as much as 400 tons. They invariably mounted a long pivot gun amidships and the larger were pierced for a number of broadside guns, usually 12-pounders. Long sweeps were shipped through the gun-ports in calms, and by this means the cruisers were frequently eluded. Capt. Sir Richard Grant, writing in the Nautical Magazine in 1837, describes two of the larger slavers, the Venus and Socorro, as follows: They are each about 350 tons; much masted, in fact all legs and wings. I was surprised at their immense topsails. They are two beautiful corvettes pierced for 20 guns, fitted in most costly style and well found. The Venus is as sharp as our river steamers and looks rather ticklish: her first voyage she made in 3 months 14 days, landing close to Havana 830 slaves. The Socorro arrived, having landed at Port Mariel 570 slaves, upwards of 200 having died during the passage. I went on board just as she anchored. She was very filthy; had thrown her guns overboard. The captain, a Frenchman, said that they had had very bad weather, he was chuckling at having eluded the Nimrod, w hich came in about an hour after him. She had two chronometers, excellent compasses; indeed, no expense is spared to ensure speed and safety. An exception to the usual type of slaver was the Prueba, captured by H.M.S. Br isk in 1831. This vessel was an old Spanish 38-gun frigate of 1080 tons, with the following measurements:—Length of gun deck 154 feet; length of keel 127 feet; beam 40 feet; depth 12 feet. Amongst the last slavers captured during the suppression of the horrible trade were the American clipper ships, Nightingale, 1066 tons, and Sunny South, 702 tons. The Nightingale was the well-known American tea clipper; the Sunny South, which was captured by H.M.S. Brisk in 1860, was built at New York in 1854 for the New York and Rio trade. Her dimensions were:—Length 154 feet 8 inches; breadth 34 feet 4 inches; depth 16 feet 6 inches with a slave deck 7 feet high. She was sold to Havana merchants in 1859. She cleared from Havana for Hongkong under the Chilian flag and name of Manuela on March 5, 1860. She was captured in the Mozambique Channel on August 10, when she had 840 slaves on board and a crew of 40 men including a doctor and a pilot. The usual Baltimore-built slaver had no 'tween decks laid, the slave deck and platforms being fitted on the coast. As the risks became greater and the price of slaves landed increased accordingly, the avaricious slave dealers stowed these little vessels to their very limit. The miserable blacks were packed as tight as sardines, in what was called "spoon fashion," one up against the other, so that they could not move. They even halved the head-room by fixing additional platforms, and occasionally five additional rows of slaves were got in on the men's deck, by packing each man with his head between the next man's thighs. Under such conditions it was not surprising that slavers frequently lost 50 per cent. of their slaves during the middle passage. Many were literally suffocated, and when an epidemic set in a slave deck soon emptied. Every precaution that was possible was of course taken. No clothes were allowed for fear that they would breed or spread disease. In 1826 the late Admiral Sir Harry Keppel was present at the capture of a slaver off Cuba, whose 267 slaves had their heads shaved and greased, looking like so many 32-lb. round shot. One of the most terrible cases of disease was that of the slavers Rodeur and L eon. Ophthalmia spread on the Rodeur until her whole ship's company and slaves were totally blind except one man; shortly after she fell in with the L eon, but found that this vessel had not a single man aboard who could see, having been attacked by the same disease. The Leon went missing, but Rodeur ev entually made her port, before her last man went blind, which he did shortly after her arrival. In such a terrible trade the rates of insurance were very heavy, but there was a fatal clause in the policies which tempted the captains to commit wholesale murder. This clause covered all losses from jettisoning the live cargo, but did not cover those caused by disease. Thus it paid the master of a slaver to throw a sick slave overboard before he was dead rather than let him die aboard the ship. It also became the custom before entering ports, where there was an import duty of so much per head, to throw overboard all slaves, male or female, who were considered unsaleable through disease or any other cause. This callous proceeding saved both duty *and insurance. Perhaps the most terrible case of wholesale murder was that recorded in the Af rican Repository, vol. xxiii. The slaver Brilliante (Captain Homans) lay becalmed within sight of British cruisers, which promptly sent their boats to capture her. The Brilliante had 600 slaves on board, and, as soon as he saw that the boats would overhaul him, Homans calmly made preparations to get rid of his contraband cargo of human beings. The anchor was got over the bow of the Brilliante, all ready for letting go. Then the cable was stopped along the rail outside of everything, so that as soon as the anchor was dropped the stops would break. The monster's next act was to fasten every one of his 600 blacks to the links of the cable by their leg irons, or by short lengths of -chain or rope. It was a dark night, and the boats could not see what was going on aboard the slaver. Whilst they were still too far away to notice anything, the slave captain gave the order to let go. The anchor fell with a splash, the stops broke or were cut, and down went the cable after it, with a freight of 600 terrified blacks, men, women and children. The stopper pin was knocked out, so that the whole chain strung with human beings went straight to the bottom of the sea, and when the boats arrived there was not a slave to be found on board and so the murderer saved his vessel from confiscation. This, of course, was a very extreme case, but it was a common practice to throw slaves overboard when being chased so as to delay the pursuer, whose humanity compelled him to back his mainyard in order to pick up the drowning negroes. Too often, however, it happened that the cruiser did not arrive in time and the sharks got the jettisoned cargo. Famous British Cruisers. There is no space here to give an account of the gallant brigs, schooners and brigantines of the Royal Navy, which for something like fifty years fought so hard to put down the dreadful traffic. However, I will just give a list of the best known and most successful of the British cruisers. I shall hope to give a more detailed account of these vessels in a future book. The first ships sent out by the Admiralty to put down the slave trade were what was known as coffin brigs, owing to the ease with which they capsized in anything of a squall. They were much too slow to capture the shallow-draught polacca brigs and brigantines of the, slavers, which were mostly Baltimore models. At last, in 1827, a British commodore, Sir F. A. Collier, C.B., was lucky enough to capture the brig Henriquetta, which was noted as the fastest and most successful slaver out of Bahia. This vessel he fitted as a tender to his flagship, H.M.S. Sybille, renaming her the Black Joke. Between 1827 and 1832, when the Black Joke was condemned as worn out, being very lightly built, this brig captured no less than fourteen slavers, several of which put up a hot resistance. Another well-known captured slaver that was converted into a cruiser was the schooner Fair Rosamond, which in 1831 sailed boldly up one of the slave rivers, having outsailed her consort Black Joke, and captured two slave brigs by surprise. In the West Indies at this time there were two famous little schooners named the Monkey and the Pickle, which were very successful under Lieutenants McHardy and Sherer respectively, and thought nothing of capturing heavily armed, heavily manned slavers of three times their tonnage. Following these came the famous Symondite brigs, such as the Acorn, (Commander Adams), Fantome (Commander Butterfield), Persian (Commander Quin), and Grecian (Commander Smyth). Sir William Symonds also designed two brigantines specially for the work in the Bight of Benin. These were the Dolphin and Bonetta, which proved themselves a match in sailing for the swiftest slaver out of Cuba, and were said to have made the fortunes of their lucky commanders. Of the slave catchers which were not designed by Sir William Symonds the best known was the beautiful little Waterwitch, the famous brig which was designed and built by White of Cowes for Lord Belfast in 1832, and after defeating all the best sailers in the Royal Navy was purchased into the Service as a 12-gun brig in 1834. The Waterwitch had probably the longest career as a slave catcher of any of the British cruisers, and under Lieutenant Commanders Adams, 1834-1838, and Matson, 1839-1843, was extraordinarily successful. It was after his commission in the Waterwitch that Adams went to the 16-gun brig Acorn. On the South American station the 16-gun brig Frolic was specially successful between 1842 and 1846. This beautiful little brig of 509 tons was built at Portsmouth to the designs of Captain Hendry, R.N., and was considered a match for any of the Symondite brigs. Other slave catchers which certainly deserve to be mentioned were the Curlew, which, under Commander Trotter, captured the notorious pirate Panda; Nimble, w hich, under the command of Lieutenant Bolton in 1833, captured no less than six slavers and freed 1902 slaves; Buzzard, which, under Lieutenant Commander Milward, made her name by capturing the slaver Formidable after a sharp fight; Rolla, another twotopsail schooner which captured many slavers; and Col umbine, the first of the Symondites. This famous brig was only a short time in the Bight of Benin, though she was successful in capturing a number of slavers. She made her name in the first Chinese War, and afterwards when she received the thanks of the Hongkong merchants for her successful suppression of the Chinese pirates. Then there was the Lily, a Symondite brig, which under Commander Reeve founded the Lily Colony at Mauritius. The 16-gun brig Wolverine should also be mentioned. She was a Symondite. In the West Indies besides the Monkey, Pickle, and Nimble, the schooners Skipj ack, Speedwell and Minx cruised with success against both slavers and pirates. I am nearly forgetting the famous Pantaloon, which in her early years was generally an admiral's pet ship, either in the Channel or in the Mediterranean, but in her old age was sent to the Bight of Benin. This was the Symondite brig which the Waterwitch used to wait outside Portsmouth to catch and sail round, whilst the latter was Lord Belfast's yacht. Amongst the last of the slave catchers, before the sailing ships were entirely replaced by paddle wheel and screw gunboats, were the Symondite brigs Harlequin, Flying Fish, and Arab, and the brigantine Spy. The last sailing ships employed by the Royal Navy in the suppression of the slave trade were the schooners Undine and Harrier in the Mozambique Channel in 1883. These were ex-yachts. pps. 1-25 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
