The Slave Ship

by Marcus Rediker

  16 “Wage Book for the voyage of the ship Hawk from Liverpool to Africa, John Small Master,” 1780-1781, William Davenport Archives, Maritime Archives & Library, D/ DAV/3/4, MMM. See TSTD, #91793, #81753.

  17 “Wage Book for the Voyage of the Ship Essex from Liverpool to Africa and the West Indies, Captain Peter Potter,” 1783-1784, “Wage Book for the Voyage of the Ship Essex from Liverpool to Africa and Dominica, Captain Peter Potter,” 1785-1786, William Davenport Archives, Maritime Archives & Library, D/DAV/3/5, D/DAV/3/6, MMM.

  18 There has been no systematic study of wage rates for slave-trade sailors, so these remarks are impressionistic. For wage rates for sailors in all trades in the early eighteenth century, see Ralph Davis, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: Macmillan, 1962), 135-37; Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), Appendix C, 304-5. For a comment that appears to refer to lucrative private trading by seamen, see “Diary and Accounts, Commenda Fort, in Charge of William Brainie, 1714-1718,” in Donnan II, 190.

  19 “Answers from the Collector and the Comptroller,” 1788, HCSP, 69:161. For examples of arrangements made by sailors to have part of their pay given to their wives while they were at sea, see Receipts for wages paid to Ellen Hornby on account of her husband, 1785-1786, D/DAV/15/5/4, and Receipts for wages paid to Mary Loundes on behalf of Her husband, 1786, D/DAV/15/2/13, Miscellaneous Items from the William Davenport Archives, Maritime Archives & Library, MMM.

  20 An Account of the Life, 58; Testimony of Henry Ellison, 1790, HCSP 73:381-82.

  21 [John Wells], “Journal of a Voyage to the Coast of Guinea, 1802,” Add. Ms. 3,871, Cambridge University Library, f. 1; Samuel Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience aboard a Slave Ship in the Beginning of the Present Century (orig. publ. Hamilton, Scotland: William Naismith, 1867; rpt. Wigtown, Scotland: G.C. Book Publishers Ltd., 1996), 14; Case of the Tartar, 1808, Donnan IV, 585; Christopher, Slave Trade Sailors and their Captive Cargoes, ch. 2, “The Multiracial Crews of Slave Ships,” 52-89. See also three appendices, “Black Sailors on Liverpool Slave Ships, 1794-1805,” “Black Sailors on Bristol Slave Ships, 1748-1795,” and “Black Sailors on Rhode Island Slave Ships, 1803-1807,” 231-38.

  22 Wage Book of Hawk, 1780-1781, D/DAV/3/4; TSTD, #81753. It appears that Abey belonged to second mate Hugh Lancelot, perhaps as his privilege slave. On black sailors, see Christopher, Slave Trade Sailors, 57-58, 70-73; Julius Sherrard Scott III, “The Common Wind: Currents of Afro-American Communication in the Era of the Haitian Revolution,” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1986; W. Jeffrey Bolster, Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).

  23 This and the next four paragraphs draw upon Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 24, 32-33, and Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, ch. 2.

  24 Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 15; Three Years Adventures, 24.

  25 Daniel Macnamera and Nicholas Worsdale of the Snow William v. Thomas Barry, August 26, 1729, “Records of the South Carolina Court of Admiralty, 1716-1732,” f. 745, National Archives, Washington, D.C. See TSTD, #16546.

  26 “A Journal of an Intended Voyage to the Gold Coast in the Black Prince her 8th Commencing the 5th of Septem’r 1764,” BCL; Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 39; TSTD, #17573.

  27 Captain William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade (London, 1734; rpt. London: Frank Cass & Co., 1971), 165-67, 170.

  28 Testimony of John Knox, 1789, HCSP, 68:179.

  29 Testimony of William James, 1789, HCSP, 69:137; Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 54-55; “Memorandum of the Mortality of Slaves on Board the ‘Othello’ while on the Coast of Africa and On her Passage to the West Indies,” Accounts of the Othello, 1768-1769, in Donnan III, 235; TSTD, #36371.

  30 Interview of Mr. James, Substance, 14; Testimony of Ellison, Noble, Trotter, and Millar, all 1790, HCSP, 375, 119, 85, 394.

  31 Testimony of Ecroyde Claxton, 1791, HCSP, 82:33; Testimony of William Littleton, 1789, HCSP, 68:294, 309; Snelgrave, A New Account, 163-64; Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 55.

  32 Three Years Adventures, 113-26. Robert Norris noted that on each ship, belowdecks, “there are two White People to attend to the [men] Negroes, and Two Lights.” See also Testimony of Isaac Wilson, 1790, HCSP, 72:289. It was also observed that seamen were not allowed into the women’s apartment at night.

  33 Reverend John Riland, Memoirs of a West-India Planter, Published from an Original MS. With a Preface and Additional Details (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1827), 60-61.

  34 Norris, HCSP, 68:4-5; Interview of Mr. Bowen, Substance, 44. I have drawn here on the testimony of slave trader and Liverpool representative John Matthews, who presented to Parliament “the History of Journal of One Day” in the life of the slaves aboard the slave ship. See HCSP, 68:19.

  35 Testimony of Alexander Falconbridge, 1790, HCSP, 72:323; Testimony of James Arnold, 1789, HCSP, 69:125-26; Testimony of Henry Ellison, 1790, HCSP, 73:375; Testimony of James Towne, 1791, HCSP, 82:20.

  36 Christopher, Slave-Trade Sailors, ch. 5; Interview of Ellison, Substance, 36; Three Years Adventures, 133.

  37 “Dicky Sam,” Liverpool and Slavery: An Historical Account of the Liverpool-African Slave Trade (Liverpool: A. Bowker & Son, 1884), 36.

  38 Testimony of Ecroyde Claxton, 1791, HCSP, 82:33-34.

  39 “Documents Related to the Case of the Zong of 1783,” REC/19, Manuscripts Department, NMM. The court ruled that the insurance company was not liable for payment for the murdered slaves. See also Ian Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005).

  40 Thomas Boulton, The Sailor’s Farewell, or the Guinea Outfit (Liverpool 1768); TSTD, #36127; Herbert Klein, “African Women in the Atlantic Slave Trade,” in Claire Robinson and Martin A. Klein, eds., Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 29-38.

  41 Robert Norris, 1789, HCSP, 68:9,12 ; John Knox, 1789, HCSP, 68:171.

  42 For a wage dispute in which sexual predation emerged as an issue, see Desbrough v. Christian (1720), HCA 24/132, 24/133.

  43 Africanus, Remarks on the Slave Trade, and the Slavery of Negroes, in a Series of Letters (London, J. Phillips and Norwich: Chase and Co., 1788), 46; Alexander Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (London, 1788), 30.

  44 Snelgrave, A New Account, 162; Testimony of John Samuel Smith., 1791, HCSP, 82:140.

  45 Richard H. Steckel and Richard A. Jensen, “New Evidence on the Causes of Slave and Crew Mortality in the Atlantic Slave Trade,” Journal of Economic History 46 (1986), 57-77; Stephen D. Behrendt, “Crew Mortality in the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century,” Slavery and Abolition 18 (1997), 49-71. Steckel and Jensen estimate that 60 percent of sailors died of fevers, while Behrendt puts the figure higher, at 80 percent. Behrendt also notes that the crew mortality was falling in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

  46 William Snelgrave to Humphry Morice, October 23, 1727, “Trading Accounts and Personal Papers of Humphry Morice,” vol. 2, The Humphry Morice Papers, Bank of England Archives, London; Bruce Mouser, ed., A Slaving Voyage to Africa and Jamaica: The Log of the Sandown, 1793-1794 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 60; Providence Gazette; and Country Journal, December 8, 1770; Federal Gazette & Baltimore Daily Advertiser, March 12, 1796; Courier, March 25, 1801.

  47 Riland, Memoirs of a West-India Planter, 37; Three Years Adventures, 40.

  48 Petitions of Seamen, 1765-1774 and “Accounts of money for the relief of seamen and those disabled in the Merchant Service” (1747-1787), both in Society of Merchant Venturers Archive, Bristol Record Office. The Venturers traded to many parts of the world, and offered charity to their sailors rega
rdless of route. The examples are sailors who worked in the slave trade. Their health was apparently worse than that of seamen who worked in other trades. See also Jonathan Press, The Merchant Seamen of Bristol, 1747-1789 (Bristol, 1976).

  49 An Account of the Life, 26; Wells, “Journal of a Voyage,” f. 19; Interview of Ellison, Substance, 40.

  50 “Voyage to Guinea, Antego, Bay of Campeachy, Cuba, Barbadoes, &c.” (1714-1723), Add. Ms. 39946, BL, ff. 12-13; Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 97.

  51 For a description of a burial ceremony, see Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 92.

  52 “Inventory of the Cloths belonging to George Glover taken at his disease [decease] by Thos. Postlethwayt on board the Essex the 12 day of Novr 1783 viz and Sould,” in “Wage Book for the Voyage of the Ship Essex from Liverpool to Africa and the West Indies, Captain Peter Potter,” 1783-1784, William Davenport Archives, Maritime Archives & Library, D/DAV/3/5, MMM. See similar listings in the wage book for the Essex on its next voyage, 1785-86, in D/DAV/3/6. See TSTD, #81311, #81312.

  53 The Times, March 15, 1788. For examples of the dead list, one kept by a surgeon, the other by a captain, see James Hoskins, “List of Mortality of the Ship’s Company,” 1792-1793, “Certificates of Slaves Taken Aboard Ships,” 1794, HL/PO/JO/10/7/982, HLRO, Westminster; Peter Potter to William Davenport, February 21, 1784, Letters from Captain Peter Potter to William Davenport & Co., 1783-1784, D/DAV/13/1/3, MMM.

  54 This section draws upon the Information of Thomas Sanderson and William Steele (1750), HCA 1/58, ff. 1-10. The outcome of the case is unknown, but executions of the mutineers would not have been unlikely. See TSTD, #17198.

  55 Sanderson had been sued a few years earlier, while working as a mate in the slave trade, for beating a sailor with a two-inch rope. See Thomas Powell v. Eustace Hardwicke, 1739, HCA 24/139.

  56 Mutineers sometimes sent the captain and other officers ashore, as the men of the Antelope did. A few put them in the ship’s boat on the high seas (which meant almost-certain death), and a substantial minority killed one or more outright. The observations in this section are based on a sample of thirty-seven mutinies that took place between 1719 and 1802.

  57 American Weekly Mercury, December 7, 1721. See TSTD, #75419.

  58 Information of John Bicknor, Meeting of the Grand Court of Jamaica, January 19, 1720, HCA 137/14, f. 9. This voyage of the Abington is not listed in the TSTD but the following one is. See #16257.

  59 Examination of Thomas Williams (1734), HCA 1/56, f. 90; Powell v. Hardwicke (1738), HCA 24/139. The first report of the mutiny aboard the Buxton appeared in the American Weekly Mercury on September 26, 1734. See also Boston News-Letter, October 31, 1734. See also TSTD, #16758, and for the Pearl Galley, #16870. For an account of multiple ax killings aboard the William of Bristol in 1767, see Boston News-Letter and New-England Chronicle, April 10, 1767. See TSTD, #17634.

  60 On the Tewkesbury, see The Tryals of Seven Pyrates, viz. James Sweetland, John Kennelly, John Reardon, James Burdet, William Buckley, Joseph Noble, and Samuel Rhodes, for the Murder of Capt. Edw. Bryan of the Tewksbury of Bristol; and Running Away with the said Ship, November 2, 1737 (Bristol, 1738); Boston Gazette, March 13, 1738; “Proceedings of a Court of Admiralty held at Cape Coast in Africa the 19th November 1737 for the Trials of James Sweetland and other for Murder & Piracy,” HCA 1/99, ff. 1-4. On other occasions, a captain or mate was killed by a sailor in a more-or-less spontaneous act of revenge, without a supporting bid to capture the ship. On the Lovely Lass of Bristol in 1792, “A black man, called Joe or Cudjo, together with John Dickson and John Owens” killed mate Robert Millagan. See the Times, November 8, 1794.

  61 Maryland Gazette and News Letter, October 16, 1766, reprinted in Donnan II, 528- 29; Connecticut Journal, November 17, 1769; New London Gazette, December 15, 1769. See TSTD, #17691 (Black Prince). For a mutiny in which sailors killed their captain and tried to blame his death on a slave insurrection, see New-York Gazette, March 11, 1765.

  62 Christopher, Slave-Trade Sailors, 127-32; Interview of James Towne, Substance, 56; Information of Hector McNeal (November 1731), HCA 1/56, f. 44.

  63 Seamen sometimes deserted with a plan to recoup their wages, working “by the run” from a labor-scarce West Indian or American port back to England, at considerably higher wages. See Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 136-38.

  64 Testimony of Lord Rodney, 1790, HCSP, 72:182-83. For similar comments see Testimony of Sir George Young, HCSP, 69:155; Testimony of Sir George Young, 1790, HCSP, 73:211-12; Testimony of Thomas Clappeson, 1791, HCSP, 82:214.

  65 Lord Sheffield, Observations, 18; Captain Francis Pope to Abraham Redwood, Antigua, May 24, 1740, in Donnan III, 135; Miles Barber to James Penny, March 11, 1784, Baillie v. Hartley, exhibits regarding the Slave Ship Comte du Nord and Slave Trade, E 219/377, NA. See also Samuel and William Vernon to Captain John Duncan, Newport, April 8, 1771: “If you have more hands than is necessary and can discharge them upon good Terms its best to do it and avoid all expenses upon your Vessel that you can.” See Donnan III, 248. For lawsuits brought by sailors dumped by slavers in the West Indies, see Soudin v. Demmerez (1720), HCA 24/133, and Fernando v. Moore (1733), HCA 24/138.

  66 Interview of Ellison, Substance, 41; Interview of Towne, Substance, 60. See also William James, 1789, HCSP, 68:139; Testimony of John Ashley Hall, HCSP, 72:233; Testimony of James Morley, HCSP, 73:164, 168.

  67 Testimony of John Simpson, HCSP, 82:44 (Barbados); Testimony of Robert Forster, 1791, HCSP, 82:134 (Dominica, Grenada); Connecticut Journal, December 22, 1784 (Charleston); Hercules Ross, 1791, HCSP, 82:260; and Testimony of Mark Cook, 1791, HCSP, 82:199 (Jamaica).

  68 Three Years Adventures, 137; Testimony of James Towne, HCSP, 82:30.

  69 The first study of the event was Brooke, Liverpool as it was, which usefully includes the London newspaper articles. The best study of the strike remains, after almost half a century, Rose, “A Liverpool Sailors’ Strike in the Eighteenth Century,” 85-92. The other owners of the Derby were John Yates, Sam Parker, and Thomas Dunn. See TSTD, #92523.

  70 This paragraph and the previous one draw upon two articles in London newspapers: Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, September 4, 1775, and Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, September 4, 1775. Both Brooke and Rose (cited above) repeat the mistake that appeared in a couple of the newspaper articles that Yates was the captain of the Derby rather than one of its owners. Rose also says a sailors’ protest march took place on Saturday morning, August 26, but the preponderance of the evidence suggests that it took place on Monday.

  71 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, September 4, 1775.

  72 Information of James Waring, September 4, 1775, Records of the County Palantine of Lancaster, PL 27/5, NA; Morning Chronicle, September 4, 1775. The information about Thomas Staniforth was collected as oral history from his son Samuel by Brooke; see Liverpool as it was, 339.

  73 The estimates of the number of cannon used by the sailors ranged from two to six.

  74 Information of Richard Downward the Younger, September 2, 1775, PL27/5; Gazetteer, September 4 and 6, 1775. Whether these were sailors or people trying to defend the exchange, source does not say.

  75 Information of William Sefton, September 3, 1775, PL 27/5; Morning Chronicle, September 8, 1775; Gazetteer, September 8, 1775.

  76 Morning Chronicle, September 8, 1775, and September 11, 1775; Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, September 6, 1775. Many years later Richard Brooke talked with someone who “had taken part in the attack on Mr. Radcliffe’s house.” This person told him of the discovery of the chaff, “which the lower classes used as a by-word against Mr. Radcliffe for a long period of time afterwards.” Mr. Radcliffe’s son later confirmed the story. See Brooke, Liverpool as it was, 341.

  77 Morning Chronicle, September 4, 1775, September 8, 1775; Gazetteer, September 6, 1775; Information of John Huddleston, September 1, 1775, and Information of John Adams, September 2, 1775, PL 27/5; Brooke, Liverpool a
s it was, 341. Gomer Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque: With An Account Of The Liverpool Slave Trade, 1744-1812 (London, 1897; rpt. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), 557.

  78 Morning Chronicle, September 4, 1775; Daily Advertiser, September 5, 1775; Information of Thomas Middleton, September 28, 1775, PL 27/5; Chester Chronicle, September 4, 1775.

  79 Information of Thomas Blundell, September 2, 1775; Information of Anthony Taylor, September 2, 1775; Information of Henry Billinge, September 27, 1775, all in PL 27/5; the Morning Chronicle, September 8, 1775.

  80 Information of Cuthbert Bisbronney, September 2, 1775; Information of William Stanistreet, September 2, 1775.

  81 Morning Chronicle, September 11, 1775; Council Book of the Corporation, 1775, vol. 2, 717-18, cited by Brooke, Liverpool as it was, 345.

  82 Snelgrave, A New Acccount, 162-63. See Christopher, Slave-Trade Sailors, ch. 6.

  83 Testimony of John Simpson, 1791, HCSP, 82:42; Interview of George Millar, Substance, 3; Testimony of Sir George Young, HCSP, 73:136; Three Years Adventures, 41; Robinson, A Sailor Boy’s Experience, 56; Testimony of Richard Story, 1791, HCSP, 82:13; Interview of Thompson, Substance, 24. It was alleged in court in 1701 that John Babb allowed fellow sailors to take food from the slaves, after which many died. See John Babb v. Bernard Chalkley (1701), HCA 24/127.

  84 The wage reduction in Liverpool in August 1775 was the second one in a short period of time. As recently as mid-June 1775, slave-trade sailors shipping out of Liverpool were still getting the customary rate of forty shillings per month. See “Wage Book for the voyage of the ship Dalrymple from Dominica to Liverpool, Patrick Fairweather, Master,” 1776, William Davenport Archives, Maritime Archives & Library, D/DAV/3/3, MMM. See also TSTD, #91988.

  85 Newport Mercury, July 18, 1763.

  Chapter 9: From Captives to Shipmates